00:00 / -00:00

381

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

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.

Liked Episode 381: 5 Science-Backed Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System as a Business Owner (The Inner Game of Business) — with Pauline Nguyen

Check out these recent episodes of the HerBusiness Podcast:

Subscribe to the HerBusiness podcast:

For more stories of remarkable women entrepreneurs, subscribe to the HerBusiness Podcast.

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.  

view full profile

On social:

About the guest(s)

Pauline Nguyen

Pauline Nguyen

“Pauline Nguyen – Award Winning Author, highly sought after International Speaker and one of the most grounded Spiritual Entrepreneurs around the globe.” – The Huffington Post Pauline is one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs – but with a difference. She is inspiration with substance. She teaches with warmth and humour, telling her own story of what can be achieved through key alignment of thoughts and intentions. She has a high-performing Western business background combined with an Eastern slant of spirituality. Pauline is a best-selling author and award-winning businesswoman – in 2026 she was named Global Transformational Leader of the Year. Pauline’s achievements are all the more impressive for her having escaped Vietnam on a boat and survived a Thai refugee camp. She has overcome these adverse beginnings to transform her approach to success by re-engineering her beliefs, questioning the status quo and hacking cultural norms. To become one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs takes hard work, determination, inspiration and substance. It also takes the courage to defy conventional wisdom and the tenacity to get back up again, no matter how many times life knocks you down. Pauline has learned to reframe the events of her tumultuous childhood, and often describes her upbringing as her ‘training’. Pauline became a master of her thoughts, behaviours and emotions and approached everything with an unshakable spirit. Her day-to-day professional life was in orbit around her life principles, and not the other way around. This self-actualisation has carried her to prosperity while running the awarded restaurant Red Lantern (the most awarded Vietnamese restaurant in the world) and authoring bestseller, Secrets of the Red Lantern. Her unique philosophy also inspired her release, The Way of the Spiritual Entrepreneur – The 7 Secrets to Becoming Fearless, Stress Free and Unshakable in Business and in Life. In 2012, Pauline and Red Lantern won the Australian Telstra Business Award for Medium Business. But that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Pauline’s achievements; her memoir, Secrets of the Red Lantern, has been critically acclaimed around the world and appeared in numerous bestseller lists. She holds a BA in Communications from the University of Technology, Sydney, and in 2008 won Newcomer Writer of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. Pauline has achieved outstanding success as an entrepreneur, author, businesswoman and acclaimed speaker, and also has the skills to connect with her audience and her clients in a profound way – she helps awaken and focus people to change their own story for a better future. Pauline is proud to be represented by ODE Management, who look after only 20 of the top ‘non-celebrity’ speakers in the world. Pauline is an original ‘Rare Bird’ – one of Australia’s top 50 influential female entrepreneurs – and is included in Blackwell and Hobday’s global recognition of 200 Women Who Will Change the Way You See the World. Through direct experience, she knows that ‘happiness’ alone won’t solve our business problems. To be Fearless, Stress Free and Unshakable are more powerful traits. Pauline describes The Way of the Spiritual Entrepreneur as a no-bones, honest and forthright methodology of business, life and spiritual practice designed to disrupt standard ways of thinking, bringing the unconscious into the conscious and catapulting the reader into an optimistic mindset of abundance and possibility. The Way of the Spiritual Entrepreneur is the winner of ‘Best Entrepreneurship and Small Business Book of the Year’ – 2019 Business Book of the Year Awards. She believes that any person or organisation who follows The Way of The Spiritual Entrepreneur is destined to have a competitive advantage in business and in life. Pauline’s unique life experiences have given her a distinctive insight into the minds of individuals and businesses alike, allowing her to pass on the invaluable skills of self-mastery, courage, resilience and grit. As Pauline says, ‘If we can learn the tools of self-mastery, we can better practice the art of influence with others.’ When Pauline talks of commitment driving outcomes, people listen.

VIEW FULL PROFILE