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 - 5 Science-Backed Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System as a Business Owner (The Inner Game of Business) — with Pauline Nguyen

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Hosted by HerBusiness

On air:

1 October 2026

5 Science-Backed Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System as a Business Owner (The Inner Game of Business) — with Pauline Nguyen

Have you ever chased after a target or goal in your business, only to hit it and… feel nothing? That’s where this week’s conversation with Pauline Nguyen starts.

For twenty-five years, Pauline ran Red Lantern, the most awarded Vietnamese restaurant in the world, collecting accolade after accolade. But, despite all the success, she felt nothing. She was contantly in the doing, in reaching for what’s next. She had mastered the outer game of business to perfection…

…but the inner game of business was a different story entirely.

Today, Pauline Nguyen coaches leaders who are in this exact position, and learn to regulate their nervous system to lead from calm instead of fear. She reclaims the word “spiritual” for it — the actual physics involved in your nervous system. The biochemistry of fear and the intelligence your body has been running on since before you even had words for it.

Today we’re talking about why so many high-achieving women reach outer success, but feel a sense of emptiness underneath, and the 5 science-backed ways to regulate your nervous system as a business owner.

What You’ll Discover in Episode 381: 5 Science-Backed Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System as a Business Owner (The Inner Game of Business) — with Pauline Nguyen

  • The question that changes how you view success in your business and your life
  • How to run an honest audit of the way you’re really operating, and the signs you’ve slipped from healthy ambition to running on fumes
  • Why rest is a necessity for high performance, and the seven kinds of rest most of us never give ourselves
  • How to hold your boundaries as a way of keeping faith with yourself
  • Why wanting real wealth and living by your values were never in competition
  • Five science-backed ways to regulate your nervous system in just a few minutes so make clearer decisions
  • The difference between rewiring and relaxing, and why “freedom is an inside job”

Five Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System as a Business Owner and Leader

When fear or doubt start to take over, Pauline’s approach is refreshingly simple. No hour meditation by a river or going on a 5 mile run. An emotion, she says, takes only about ninety seconds to move through — it’s the stories we attach that keep it alive for weeks. Here are her 5 science-backed ways to regulate your nervous system as a business owner:

  1. Change your body temperature. Cold water on the face or a cold shower.
  2. Sound medicine. Humming, which releases nitric oxide and calms the vagus nerve.
  3. Movement medicine. Moving the large muscle groups to release endorphins and serotonin.
  4. Nature’s medicine. Just 15 minutes of stepping outside and resetting your environment.
  5. Breath medicine. Controlling your breath lets you control your emotion.

About Pauline Nguyen

Pauline Nguyen is one of Australia’s most decorated entrepreneurs. As owner of Red Lantern — the most awarded Vietnamese restaurant in the world — she earned the Telstra Business Award, and in 2026 was named Global Transformational Leader of the Year. She has also been named one of “200 Women Who Will Change the Way You See the World.”

At three years old, Pauline escaped Vietnam by boat — nine days at sea, a year in a Thai refugee camp, and a beginning that would have broken most. She chose, instead, to become the beneficiary of everything that happened to her.

Her memoir, Secrets of the Red Lantern, won international acclaim, and her latest, The Way of the Spiritual Entrepreneur, continues to move readers worldwide.

Combining the latest neuroscience with spirituality, traveling the world as an international Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach, she guides CEOs and founders into Conscious Leadership, rewiring their story from victim consciousness to creator consciousness, and learning to live life by design, not by default.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Grab Pauline’s Free Gift: The Sovereign Leader Reset

If you’re a founder of leader who’s mastered the outer game and knows the inner one is next, this is for you. Visit HERBUSINESS.pauline-nguyen.com to grab it now, or go to Pauline’s Instagram @PaulinenSpeaks and DM the work HERBUSINESS.

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About the host

Suzi Dafnis

Hi there. I’m Suzi Dafnis, CEO at HerBusiness. My BIG passion is helping women business owners to grow and scale their business, so that they can create their ideal lifestyle and make a difference in the world. Every day I am inspired by the more than 30,000 amazing women (and men!) in our community and I love finding the best education, mentors, and resources from around the globe, to help them get the skills, knowledge, and support they need to succeed. It’s been my privilege to lead HerBusiness (formerly The Australian Businesswomen’s Network) for the past 23 years (two+ decades – WOW!) because, whilst I’ve enjoyed success in business, I’ve also experienced the highs and the lows – sometimes you can feel on top of the world and in control and other times you can feel isolated, exhausted and stuck. What has made the biggest difference for me has always been having great people around me and having a lifelong commitment to learning. That’s why I am so passionate about the work we do here at HerBusiness – providing a Connection Network for women in business to get the mentors, contacts, referrals, knowledge, and skills they need to grow their confidence, make more money, build their businesses, expand their network and create the lives they love. My entrepreneurial journey started in the spare room of my Sydney apartment in 1994 when my business partner and I started a boutique events company that represented speakers and authors from the USA, here in Australia. Over the years I’ve grown multiple multi-million dollar businesses in the events, publishing and education niches – with teams in Australia, New Zealand, and the USA. Not everything has worked and there has been a degree of trial and error, and a lot of bumps in the road. But I have always had a strong commitment to always surrounding myself with great mentors and like-minded peers – a Connection Network that I can depend on and who can depend on me to be there for them too. I truly do what I love, every day.  

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About the guest(s)

Pauline Nguyen

Pauline Nguyen

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