Ep. 5 From Corporate Law to Holistic Leadership with Briony McKenzie
In this episode of the Legacy Branding Podcast, Laura Beauparlant sits down with Briony McKenzie, a former lawyer and the founder of Untapped. She shares her powerful story of leaving the corporate world to follow her true calling and build a seven-figure coaching business that inspires entrepreneurs worldwide.
Explore the concept of holistic entrepreneurship as Briony explains why inner work, joy, and community are essential to sustainable business success. Discover how to align your energy with your business goals, redefine wealth, and build a brand that supports both your personal and professional growth. Briony also explains the importance of creating from a positive emotional state and building a legacy that goes beyond profit—one that impacts people’s lives for years to come.
Tune in to learn practical tips on creating a values-driven business, embracing joy in entrepreneurship, and using guided visualizations to expand your vision for the future.
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Briony McKenzie is an impact entrepreneur, thought leader and Founder of Untapped, a coaching company that is guiding the next generation of 'evolutionary experts' scale with ease.
Briony was a top-tier corporate lawyer until she finally followed her true calling in coaching.
Since then she has built a 7-figure coaching company, impacted thousands of lives through her programmes, workshops and training events and she was recently featured in Forbes for her insights on holistic entrepreneurship.
Untapped Website: www.untapped.nz
Abundance Flood: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zxEo6Gw6tM89n50P5Kl4C?si=f8d9fdacc1bf4a98
Financial Vision: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5pH5pUlmTPl9sdYi33Bt5l?si=b6f1db216f52443b
Speaking Your Truth and Being Visible: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6p90dcqCogx0RQt08pNZZS?si=91c684ea854e44ad
Instagram:
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00:00 The Breaking Point
00:25 Introduction to the Legacy Branding Podcast
01:04 Meet Briony McKenzie
01:50 Briony's Journey from Law to Coaching
07:23 The Concept of Holistic Entrepreneurship
09:26 The Importance of Rest and Inner Work
12:44 Building a Business with Joy and Community
14:51 Building from Joy and Fun
15:46 Transforming Money Narratives
17:45 Creating a Clear Money Vision
19:34 Understanding Legacy and Impact
22:41 Working with Untapped
25:27 Final Thoughts and Resources
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Briony McKenzie: And so I was grinding and pushing, but not only that, I was also expanding, terrified, learning new skills. It was all of these things combining. And I started to burn out, my health just really deteriorated, my relationship at the time, we started arguing, we were growing apart. I vividly remember I was in this server room, at our old coworking space in New Zealand. And I just broke down crying and I was I can't keep going this way. Like this is not sustainable.
Laura Beauparlant: Welcome to the Legacy Branding Podcast. I'm your host, Laura Beauparlant, here to guide you through the journey of selling your business and creating value. And building a personal brand that leaves a lasting impact on the show, we'll explore real life founder stories, expert insights, and actionable strategies to help you navigate the transition, avoid post sale crisis, and create your impact driven legacy brand. Whether you're thinking of selling, building to sell, or already on the other side, this podcast is your go to resource for making your next evolution, your best one yet. Let's dive in. Today, I am super excited to welcome Briony McKenzie to the legacy branding podcast. She is a thought leader and founder of untapped, a coaching company guiding the next generation of evolutionary experts to scale with ease. A former corporate lawyer, Briony left her high powered career to pursue her passion for coaching. And since then she's built a seven figure business impacting thousands through her programs and was recently featured in Forbes for her insights on holistic entrepreneurship. Welcome to the show.
Briony McKenzie: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
Laura Beauparlant: We met a couple of years ago and we connected at an event on an island in Croatia, which is always so fascinating where we meet people. And, I loved just your energy and the business that you have built. And I wanted to start by asking, you left behind this high powered corporate career as a lawyer. And you started this coaching business and I would love for you to share what inspired you to leave that behind and to make that decision to follow your true calling.
Briony McKenzie: I always love reflecting on this journey and, even now it's been seven years since I made that transition and it's still phenomenal to think back to where I really was. And the courage it took to make that jump, but for me. Moving into law, I was in corporate law for a number of years, and I knew actually pretty much most of the time that I was in that career, that it wasn't my forever and my sole thing I wanted to do with my life. And I just didn't actually know what it was I really wanted to do. So I took a lot of time, a lot of space, and a lot of my salary to actually go on this kind of personal growth and spiritual development journey to get more connected to who I am and what I want to create. And it took years actually of an unfolding. And I think at its most powerful point, I had to let go of who I thought I had to be, or what was expected of me which is one of my greatest life lessons to figure out what I authentically wanted, my dad's a lawyer, my stepmom's a lawyer. Most everyone in my family are in professions, let's say, teaching things like this. So I was really raised in that environment and that was what was modeled to me. So entrepreneurship and starting my own thing was not really my first thought, that wasn't what I thought I was gonna go into. I thought maybe I'll be a consultant or an in-house lawyer or something, radically different. But when I looked up these options every single time. It just didn't feel right. And even some of these jobs I was reflecting the other day, and I was sharing this in a podcast as well. Like I went for a bunch of jobs that I technically should have definitely got, I was overqualified for. And every time I got rejected and
Laura Beauparlant: Oh, interesting.
Briony McKenzie: What is happening? Like I am so qualified. And I now know we say that every rejection is just a redirection. I was getting redirected. Like the universe, whatever was like, Nope. Nope, not right, not looking deep enough. And it really took me to this path and I worked with a lot of incredible coaches. And one specifically gave me, sometimes we just need that permission slip. And she said, look, Briony, we've done this whole career mapping journey. We've got connected to who you are, what your skills are. And here's basically three options. What, what's speaking to you? And I said the coaching path is really the thing that feels most exciting, but also most terrifying because it's less secure. I'd spent my whole life in formal training and education kind of roadmaps. And and I said that, she said go for it. And that sometimes we do need those people who just give us that tiny permission slip. And she was that person for me that I went back to the office. I really sat with it that night. I walked home really late. We worked really late and I was just standing in the traffic lights. I was like, Yeah, I'm just gonna do this now. Okay, like I'm just gonna go and that wasn't an easy decision There's a lot of fear, I remember handing my resignation. My hand was just shaking and I was just sweating
Laura Beauparlant: Yeah, I
Briony McKenzie: And my boss was like, are you sure you want to resign? And yeah, for me, it was about if not now, then when, like, when am I really even going to feel ready to make a leap like this? And I had this deep knowing I had absolutely no control, no real backing of why I thought this would work. Just a few things I'd been building on the side. But it was giving myself permission. Hey, what if I give myself six or nine months? And if I fall totally flat on my face, I can always go back to law. Laura Beauparlant: Something I tell my clients all the time is that if something feels really exciting, but also quite terrifying at the same time, you're on the right track because if it just feels really exciting, but it doesn't scare you at least a little bit, then we're not actually stretching far enough. And if it's just terrifying and not exciting at all, then also probably on the wrong track. But if you've got both of those elements, Then keep pursuing that line. So it sounds like you listened. And I think your awareness that the universe was telling you, this is not the career for you and to go this other direction and knowing, okay, I'm just going to take that leap.
Briony McKenzie: Yeah it's definitely a constant process of tuning into, you said it beautifully there. It's like that fine line and the combination of both. And I really found that sometimes I think people think, oh, no, if I'm scared or there's resistance, then it's not for me, but it's usually, if you're really going to expand or what we would say, following your soul's path, like your really true path, there's, it's absolutely going to bring up parts of you that are afraid or want to look good or concerned about what other people think. And that's part of the healing process, like in that journey of following that, I got stronger and stronger in my sense of self. And that's one of the greatest gifts from the path of doing it as well.
Laura Beauparlant: Yeah. And I think this idea of everything needing to be comfortable. Is a fallacy. We actually need the discomfort of pushing ourselves and trying new things. That's where we grow. And that's where we learn. And we don't get that in the comfort of maybe the security of a job or a career doesn't maybe bring you joy, but there's a comfort in that. And a lot of people end up staying there because of that comfort. But really, it is stepping into the fear of the unknown. That is what will help you grow the most.
Briony McKenzie: Absolutely.
Laura Beauparlant: You talk about holistic entrepreneurship. I would love to hear. What that is like, how do you define it? How does that show up for you? How do you help other entrepreneurs with holistic entrepreneurship?
Briony McKenzie: Entrepreneurship is what I would say is doing business in a new way. And what does that actually mean? It means about the foundations of you as a leader and a creator. Because it's so easy in entrepreneurship to look at the offerings, the revenue model, the sales system, the marketing plan, and all these elements. And those are fantastic. And those are important. But what is also important is the founder and the creator who is the source of all of that. And. Where this whole kind of concept came from is I basically took the way that I used to work as a lawyer into how I worked as an entrepreneur and very quickly learned within two years that was not going to work and that was not sustainable. Because maybe in the pressure and context of law, whilst it was stressful, We also weren't running our own businesses. We weren't doing financials at the end of the month. We weren't creating and bringing things into the world and stretching beyond what we thought we were just working hard. And I took that way of working like those hours across to look to being an entrepreneur. And so I was grinding and pushing, but not only that, I was also expanding, terrified, learning new skills. It was all of these things combining. And I started to burn out, my health just really deteriorated, my relationship at the time, we started arguing, we were growing apart. And I vividly remember I was in this server room, it was like a computer room where all the servers were at our old coworking space in New Zealand. And I just broke down crying and I was I can't keep going this way. Like this is not sustainable. And that's when those deeper questions came for me. Okay, how do we actually do this in a more sustainable way? That is long term success where everyone wins, including the founder and creator. Like, how am I going to do this? And that was starting to then learn the fundamentals of what does that actually take? And I think at its core, when I'm talking about holistic entrepreneurship, it's learning to rest, it's healing those parts of you that want validation and approval, because then you can obviously gift yourself time off, like a lot of entrepreneurs feel guilty for not working. And so it's about reframing all these internal patterns that we have, so you can lead better. So you can have a better life. You can actually have great health. You can live, you can enjoy the process. Like I work with a lot of founders and entrepreneurs now who they are, let's say crushing it from the outside. They're hitting amazing revenue targets. Their businesses are incredible and yet they're sitting there saying they don't feel like they're good enough. They're still not winning. And they can't stop. And so that is building a business from a wounded place. That's not holistic. Something getting created from patterns that aren't going to support you longterm. So holistic entrepreneurship is about doing the inner work on the founder to then create those outer transformations. And what we see in our programs and the results is like people transform from the inside out, how they lead, they have more time, they have more, a lot more money because, money flows with those things. Abundance energetics, it's all interlinked. And then their business drastically transforms in a few years time, they build teams, they let go of control. So yeah, it really is this paradigm flipping of can we look inwards first, can we understand how we operate as founders build a great context. And then put the business strategy over top.
Laura Beauparlant: Love it. That is powerful and so important. The work that you are doing. And I know, as a founder myself, that struggle to feel like I need to be at my desk and doing the things, while my team is working and, It can sound fancy if I'm off doing these different things. But the reality is when I take that time to recharge, that's when I do my best work. I actually joked recently on social media. I said, my clients pay me to go for bike rides because that's actually where I come up with my best ideas for my clients. And But that is the reality. It's not sitting here at my desk trying to be creative. It's when I'm out on my bicycle or out on a walk in nature that my best ideas will come to me. So that's not actually something I should feel guilty about at all. I should be going for more bike rides.
Briony McKenzie: Absolutely. Yeah. It's discovering that zone of genius. And then exactly. As you've done landing in that self worth of Oh, it doesn't have to look a certain way or maybe how I grew up or how I was modeled. Or if you were in corporate, you saw that demonstrated. It's I get to enjoy every part of this and be supported. And that support I think is another huge breakthrough people have. It's wow, I don't have to do this on my own because a lot of the independent stuff, a lot of entrepreneurs and founders, we're really independent. That's why we built something on our own. And. Also, who wants to create something totally on your own forever? Like it's not fun because you can never stop. You never have people to ideate with. And so a huge transformation is when, again, you let go of that hyper independence and you start to rely on people. Like you said, your team and managing things, you're out riding bikes, speaking on stages. It really is such a beautiful way to start to build. And it's a process. Cause you have to let go of control. You have to feel worthy of having support. Like you have to step into your leadership. There's a lot of layers that go with those transformations.
Laura Beauparlant: Yeah, absolutely. You and I met on an island in Croatia at an entrepreneur event. And there was a time where I would feel this immense guilt because you'd hear those comments like, must be nice. You Must be nice that you get to go to these exotic places and do these things. And, is amazing. And it's also what I'm choosing and it's how I'm choosing to run my business. And meeting people in person, deeply connecting is the thing that grows my business the most by just being in community with people. And I've decided if I'm not having fun, I'm not doing it. And we've all chosen this path of entrepreneurship and it doesn't have to be a grind. It doesn't have to be a hustle. It will be if we let it be. But what if we actually had a lot of fun doing it and gave ourselves permission to do that? And I no longer feel the guilt of going off in these far flung places and going on the adventure trips or events with other entrepreneurs or traveling for speaking, because I know that is what brings me the most joy when it comes to my business and fills my cup, but also helps me grow and expand and reach more people, grow my business, build my platform and help more people around the world. So it's just flipping the narrative of this actually gives me more opportunity to expand and do bigger
Briony McKenzie: Absolutely. Yeah. And something you touched on there that I think is a really, a beautiful distinction as well is a lot of the work we do as well. It's not just about the thing that you're doing and the strategy or the actions. It's about the context of where you're creating from, because the context of where you create from determines the whole experience. And when we talk about context, we look at levels of consciousness and levels of energy and shame, guilt, fear, and anxiety. These are all really low vibrating frequencies. So you can build from them. You can build something, the experience, what it's going to do to your body. And even what you start to put out in the world is going to have that energetic imprint. Shame and guilt and fear. And so it's not going to be fun for you. Maybe it's going to achieve some things. And so it is changing exactly what you just said so beautifully. It's changing the context of how you're building. So we're not just, what are you doing every day with your time? What context are you creating from joy, creativity, like fun. Can you imagine really, if you're listening to this, really letting that land Can you imagine just creating from fun in every moment, like it's not, some things are going to be hard and difficult but that changes everything. And there's a lot of thought leaders and creators that say like, when they started having more fun, they made so much more money and just enjoyed the process so much more. And I think that's really huge is we get to determine. Where we're creating from and a natural default is going to be a lot of shame, guilt. We have to transcend those emotions to elevate into the context we really want to build from. Because yeah, it is a choice and it's going to make the biggest difference in your journey.
Laura Beauparlant: Yeah. And you just said it, we get to decide, right? All of these things we get to decide we have the ability to do that and I think that's such an important part of this idea of energetics in business and wealth expansion. I know that's a huge part of what you do. For me this idea of wealth always felt like. There was greed attached to it and there was this, that money story around wealth building. And a few years ago I flipped the script on that. And so for me, you I determined the more money I make, the more impact I can have and that it's not taking away from anybody else. But it actually allows me to create bigger impact. And so it's flipping that around to being this negative, energetic word to something that is really positive. And it's not greedy because it's actually greedy for me to not want to have a greater impact.
Briony McKenzie: Absolutely. Yeah. Money. We attribute so many narratives to money, right? Like we all have, I heard this great term the other day, like this new distinction or not a coach, but like a financial therapist. And I was like, yes, I think the Americans have come up with it first, but I was like, yes, like money can be. There's a lot of trauma for people with money. It's huge. And the process of falling in love with it and healing your relationship with it is actually quite like a spiritual journey. There's like a lot of layers to it around being worthy and receiving. And I think the closer you get to it, the more you realize like money is actually neutral. It doesn't have a preference either way, but what it is an amplifier for who you already are. So if you're sitting here knowing that in your soul, as you described, you want to make more of an impact and contribute more and lead with generosity and give more, then money is simply because it's neutral. Once it's in your hands, in your field, you can circulate it in a way that's in alignment with your values. So it's only going to amplify Who you are and a lot of people fear it's going to make me greedy. It's going to make me this, it's going to make me losing my friends. No, it's going to amplify who you already are. And it's we do a lot