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In this episode of The Business Owner's Journey, Nick Berry sits down with Vivien Hudson, an entrepreneur, former pharmacist and pharmacy owner, turned Stress & Performance Coach for leaders, to explore practical approaches entrepreneurs can take to manage stress. Having sold two successful pharmacies and navigating her way through human behavior studies, Vivien shares actionable insights for reducing burnout and cultivating resilience. She discusses how to manage self-talk, reshape habits for healthier lifestyles, and maintain meaningful relationships while building a business.
Vivien’s “3 Cs” are foundational pillars for change: Clarity—understanding your goals; Conviction—truly believing in their importance; and Consistency—building habits to support those goals. This simple framework helps individuals commit to sustainable changes that reduce stress and build resilience.
Vivien shared methods to ease late-night stress and improve sleep quality. One technique is writing down worries at night, then scheduling a specific time to address them, allowing the mind to settle. Vivien also recommends simple breathwork exercises to quiet the mind, making it easier to manage nighttime anxiety and return to restful sleep.
Vivien references The Regrets of the Dying as a wake-up call for entrepreneurs who may over-prioritize work at the expense of life’s meaningful moments. By reflecting on these regrets, she helps listeners refocus on living a fulfilling, balanced life.
After years as a pharmacist, Vivien realized that preventive, lifestyle-based approaches were often more effective than prescriptions alone. By redefining herself as the “anti-pharmacist,” she works to help entrepreneurs minimize the health impacts of stress, avoid burnout, and take control of their well-being.
Vivien shared tips on mindfulness techniques to help reduce stress throughout the day. Simple practices like controlled breathing and body awareness can have a significant impact on managing daily challenges. She explains how these practices help leaders be more present, calm, and effective in business and life.
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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG
Nick Berry (00:00)
I just enjoy hard work.
I enjoy attacking, getting into something and going. I enjoy other things too. But I want to work hard because I enjoy being proud of doing things like that. where does it become unhealthy?
Vivien Hudson (00:15)
Well, that's a great question. when there's a cost, right?
Nick Berry (00:20)
The Business Owner's Journey. I'm Nick Berry and I've got real business owners telling their real stories, sharing their real lessons and strategies so you don't have to figure it all out on your
Nick Berry (00:32)
Vivian Hudson helps entrepreneurs handle stress better. She's a former pharmacist having owned two pharmacies in Australia, growing and selling those. She then moved to the United States and began studying human behavior. Now she's coach and considers herself an anti-pharmacist, which I love. And she's teaching business owners how to protect their health, sleep, energy, and focus, which we all need. Enjoy this episode with Vivian Hudson.
Vivien Hudson (00:56)
So one of the things that being a pharmacist also allowed me to do was to own my own business. And that was something that I'd always thought would be really great. So I...
straight out of college. I heard about this opportunity fresh out of college and I went for this job interview and it was like, well, can you manage your business? And I'd like probably manage my lunchbox at that point. And I said, sure, how can it? So I said, yes, said.
Nick Berry (01:27)
you said yes you better believe I can
Vivien Hudson (01:31)
So yeah, so I was just like, you know, of course I can. So like, just thought, how hard can it be? Like I can work stuff out, right? So anyway, after a few years working there, I had an opportunity
same friend actually who told me that there was this business that was going up for sale. this is back in Australia obviously and a pharmacist at that time could only own two pharmacies. So this particular guy, had an opportunity to buy another business. So he'd just opened this pharmacy was like three months old and I bought it for $340,000.
that's Aussie dollars and didn't have any security. So the bank had a lot of confidence in loaning money to pharmacies because they were pretty much a sure thing.
So I owned that business for about seven years. And I think I ended up putting on about seven staff in that time and, you know, grew it and sold it for.
over a million dollars when I did sell it. So, you know, great success story. Should have stopped there, should have stayed with that because behind that there's always another story that isn't so great. I started meeting up with friends that had gone to college with and we were like, he had a pharmacy as well. And we're like, well, you know, maybe we should buy a second one. So
Nick Berry (02:40)
Yeah.
Vivien Hudson (03:01)
bit of a man's world and like if you weren't in the boys club it was kind of hard to get the good businesses. So we looked and looked for a while and then we bought a second business and it was like you know when you say never say never well don't say that because it means it's probably gonna happen and I should have listened to my gut but anyway it was a pharmacy it was in like a Westfield shopping center.
killer rents, like it had been a long established business, so it didn't have the growth potential of my first business. But you know, if we were young, we thought, you know, how bad can it be? Like, we'll be, we'll be fine. We'll make it work. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So anyway, basically, the day we got the keys to the business, I felt pregnant with our first child. And I was like, well, I said to my partner, I said, like, I'm
Nick Berry (03:40)
You've got the magic touch. You've already shown that.
Vivien Hudson (03:56)
like we're trying to have kids, but it's probably not gonna happen. So, you know, we'll work it out, right? That's my motto, we'll work it out. So anyway, he was like, well, that's fine. We had another pharmacist working there as well. So went on to have three kids. My husband agreed to be the stay at home dad because, you know, I had the business, but it was, and we had a bit, like by the time I actually sold her, I think we had a team of about 22.
And like you just pour your heart and soul into a business when you own a business. Like it's one of those things that is never, never out of your mind. Like when you wake up, it's just something you're thinking about. What can I do to make it better? How can I make it grow? How can I make my staff happy? All of the things. So anyway, idiot.
Nick Berry (04:46)
It's like a child in that way, except it's just a whole different set of problems that you're trying to like be, to anticipate and prepare for.
Vivien Hudson (04:56)
Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, reinvented the business a couple of different times in different ways. Ultimately, I bought my partner at one point. I'd sold my first pharmacy because I had three kids. We didn't live close to either business. So it was just like, well, I'll sell that one and pull my attention into the partnership one.
And anyway, my partner, ended up saying, look, you know, I've had enough of this. And so I said, well, I didn't have a plan B. So I was like, well, I guess I'll just buy it and see what I can do. anyway, kept to, it might've been six or seven years, I guess, at that point. Yeah. So I think.
Nick Berry (05:37)
How long had you been in business with him?
Vivien Hudson (05:47)
I think I'd have ended up owning it for about 12 years by the time I sold it.
Nick Berry (05:51)
And you, and you owned two for a little while there was overlap.
Vivien Hudson (05:54)
Yeah, yeah, there was, there was. So anyway, was, I mean, my claim to fame with this business, like, it was a highly competitive area. So it had a lot of pharmacies nearby, which is kind of unusual in Australia, because there's kind of like a licensing protection. But because of the unique commercial environment of that area, was like, I don't know, probably about six or seven pharmacies within like a
one mile, probably not even a one mile radius. So anyway, I like we looked at the business and it's like, well, what can we do that's different? Because it's always about finding a point of differentiation, right? Well, we sold, are you sitting down? Comfort footwear.
So when we bought the business, feel like that portion of the business was maybe turning over about a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year on a 3.3 million turnover, something like that. Anyway, so not to be sneezed at, but still, we thought, well, what can we do? So I actually sourced another brand that would kind
be a different price point to attract a new clientele who was looking for comfort footwear. And we grew that a section of the business to $1.2 million, something like that a year. And we had this leading brand called Homyped that's still in existence today. And I got like the Homyped queen kind of award like we had the biggest Homyped business in all of Australia.
So that was really, really exciting to have that. And honestly, when I sold the business, that was why the person that wanted to buy it bought it because they wanted the crown themselves because they were always second.
Nick Berry (07:56)
Yeah. So so the, line of products was already in, then the pharmacy and you just took it and repositioned and blew it up. Very nice.
Vivien Hudson (08:02)
It was it.
Yep. Yep. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's still a strong part of the business today. Like when I go back to Australia, let's go past and just check it out. But yeah, it's still a very strong part of the business today. So, yeah.
Nick Berry (08:22)
So what was the key to the first pharmacy growing?
Vivien Hudson (08:27)
Just location, so it was in a new area. So just imagine like a new suburb going in, needed the infrastructure and like there were days I was like, holy cow, know, did I make the right decision here? Cause it might be two or three hours and I wouldn't see a customer. And I'd be like, you know what statistics say that it has to work. So I had to believe for myself, had to.
I was too far in, so there was no backing out, right? So you've got a single swim. So anyway, it was just over time, the doctor's surgery next to us, it got more business, more people moved in and yeah, it grew over time. you know, I love that business. was just like people used to say, it's Viv's Pharmacy. wasn't like the name of the pharmacy. Like I was just like the person.
So was kind of nice. We'll go see Viv. And pharmacy in Australia is like a lot more human, let's call it then, pharmacy here in the US. So you've got a scraper, a rash on your hand. You can go to your pharmacist and say, hey, I've got this thing going on. What do you recommend? And the pharmacist will talk to you and make a recommendation. So yeah. So anyway.
Nick Berry (09:44)
And you made that for drew you to it.
Vivien Hudson (09:47)
So yeah, I guess I was interested in medical but didn't want to get my hands dirty. So I didn't want to be a nurse or I wasn't smart enough to be a doctor. But yeah, I didn't have to deal with body fluids and stuff like that as a pharmacist. But anyway, as over time, so I think when I bought the second business, was like, that's what really got me interested in human behavior and human motivation.
Nick Berry (10:01)
Ha ha ha.
I mean.
Vivien Hudson (10:14)
So at one point, like we had weight loss, part of the business that was introduced as part of our brand, because I was part of a franchise. And like you'd see people that were overweight and they desperately wanted to lose weight. So there was that piece and it'd be like, we'd give them the tools to be able to be successful, they might have some success and then they'd fall off the wagon.
But equally so, I was like, well, what is it that differentiates the people that want to come to work and put their whole heart and soul into their job? And that was one of the driving successes of our shoe business was the lady that ran it. She would like, you come in for a pair of shoes and she'd pull out a couple of other pairs as well and say, if you like these, you might like these as well. So people would end up buying two pairs of shoes instead of one.
So, you know, like what drove her compared to somebody that's like, yeah, sorry, I'm late again, or calling in sick or just like standing around looking at emails and stuff while there's things to do. So I got super interested in leadership, human behavior, motivation for all of those previous reasons. And I married an American, so back in Australia, had our kids been together for a hundred years now at this point.
And anyway, I was like, we'd always talked about coming to the US to live for a period of time, however long that is, I'm not sure yet, but we're 11 years in at this point. And I thought, well, I'm probably not gonna be a pharmacist forever. So what do I wanna be when I grow up? So I trained and became a life coach. I thought I was, because I was so interested in human behavior,
And I didn't want to be a psychologist because I didn't think I could deal with all that trauma and dealing with that. But what I love about coaching is it's very future-focused. So it helps to compel you forward and helping to inspire people and help them to put a lid on its limiting beliefs and really help them to understand, look, guess what? You are in the driver's seat of your own life.
whatever happens, it's your choice how you respond to it. anyway, so that was kind of part of my journey was then when we were thinking about like, well, at some point when we go into the US, what am I going to do? So that's kind of why it went down that coaching path there. So.
Nick Berry (12:57)
And so then you decided that you were going to move to the US, then is that when you sold the second?
Vivien Hudson (12:59)
Mm-mm.
Yeah, yeah. So then we sold the second business and so when we sold that, like I'd spent a lot of money revamping the pharmacy and it was pretty highly geared. So the money that I made from my first pharmacy ended up just getting poured into the second pharmacy.
And the rate of the rent going up each year was just like, what do I do? Fire someone every year to maintain that same level of profitability. was just like, I just got tired. I just got tired of that. So anyway, my husband sat up one day and said he wanted to study some course that was only available here in the US. So, right, that's it. Let's just sell everything. That was like the,
the domino that made the rest fall. So we sold the business, we sold our house. And when we put our house on the market, we got an offer and we thought, okay, we're going to end up with a nice nest egg to start our life here in the US. And anyway, that offer fell through the housing market was starting to collapse and
In the meantime, my husband come over here with the kids because I was just gonna finish selling the house and come over. So anyway, it ended up being quite fractured and we ended up having a separated family for 12 months. So she came back to the US, got the kids, went back to Australia because there was just all these little things that were happening. And I was just like, you know what? I feel like it's universe telling me it's not my time yet.
So I was probably the worst mother of my life, like super stressed. I obviously didn't have my husband with me. I said, like, honey, just, do you just go finish your course? Because like, it's just like, what are we going to do? Put everything on hold. So like, I'm always about keeping the ball in motion. So anyway, so we finally came to the US like 12 months, pretty much, after he had left. And my confidence, I think, had
taken a major hit at that time as well. Just because, you as an entrepreneur, like you have these dreams, you have these aspirations, you imagine what your life's gonna be like. And then when it's not, it's like, it's a real gut punch. And it's like, I'm ready for a goal.
Nick Berry (15:32)
You need to win at some point. You can only take so many losses in a row. You need to win.
Vivien Hudson (15:38)
Right, right. So anyway, when we came to the US, then I'm thinking, well, I didn't have the network. like, I mean, this is 11 years ago. So there was the internet, but it's not in the same shape and format is now right, like the social networks, the connections, like how you and I met, just wasn't the same level of momentum as what we have now.
Nick Berry (16:00)
This is the
Vivien Hudson (16:02)
So, and because my confidence had taken such a hit as well, I was just like, well, who's going to employ like a self-employed ex-pharmacist? Because I would have had to study to be a pharmacist here, like, you know, to spruce up my credentials. And I didn't want to get locked up in the back corner for a CVS pharmacy, head down talking to insurance companies all day, selling drugs for like, don't even get me started on the cost of drugs here.
So I just couldn't, I couldn't look somebody in the eye and say, that's going to be $552 when I know it's like $40 in Australia. Like I just couldn't do it. So anyway, I went and started doing, doing some medical sales, road, road wrapping and all the rest of it. Anyway, it's always about connections, right? Like your opportunities always come from people that you're connected with. And I think that that's like, that's something that
It's just happened actually for my kids as well. They've just got two amazing job opportunities and it's just come from like just if people know that you're looking for a job, right, or that you might be a good fit, then opportunities are going to come to you. So you just got you got to put it out there. Like you can't beat the world's best kept secret.
Nick Berry (17:22)
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (17:23)
So anyway, I didn't have a network, so I'm good at telling other people that, but maybe not myself. anyway, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So anyway, I did road-wrapping for the first 12 months selling medical equipment, which I loved because I got to drive around and see all the beautiful trees in South Carolina, go to all these quaint little small towns. it was a...
Nick Berry (17:29)
it's always easier to tell someone else. That's what we're doing here.
Vivien Hudson (17:50)
listen to podcasts and stuff as I was driving around and all that. you know, it was really, and I was learning, I think that was the other thing I was learning. And one of the pieces of equipment that I've worked with was autonomic system testing equipment. So I've kind of always waiting for my life to come full circle. And I feel like it's almost there. Because what we talk about with stress, because this is the path that I've gone down now is
really helping people to understand stress. And when I worked in pharmacy, I would see all these people, like people in their 40s, like I think 40 is pretty young, especially now in my 50s. So 40 is pretty young. And seeing them sentenced to these drugs for the rest of their life. And it's just like, like you're too young.
And what the CDC came out with, I think, I don't know, it was last year or so, but they said like 75 % of health conditions are associated with lifestyle and 90 % are attributed to stress. So I've been on this like,
journey on just helping people to understand stress, how to manage stress and like, especially through the, let's call it my own personal trauma related to all the transition that I had in my life. Had navigate that and still come up smiling. you know, is, is something like that, that you have to like, you can't look at everything that happens to you. I'm like, poor me. I have to get up and be able to find another day.
So yeah, so this ANS equipment really speaks to how our body manages stress and it's really insight into, it's like a crystal ball into our overall wellbeing. So anyway, as part of what I talk about now is helping people to understand stress. Like I'm a big heart rate variability person,
it gives me a scientific measure that if I work with clients that are stressed, what can we do? What are some of the tools that we can do to be able to help them to calm a nervous system? like, it's like being in business, you measure your business through the dollars that you take and the profitability. So if you don't have something you can measure, how do you know that it's changing? So you get on the scales to measure if you've lost weight or not. Yeah. So when it tells you what you want.
Nick Berry (20:16)
And that's, know, business owners like, I've spent a ton of time around a lot of them and 95 % of them will say, I know I need to get a better share. know I need to manage my stress. know I need to lose weight. I know I need to probably drink less and they'll worry some about the scale, but then they don't know how to make a change. And
you know, in that same conversation, they'll probably tell you like, I'm probably not going to work out. But that's their understanding, right? That's their view of the whole, the approach would be like. And so, but those are the conversations that you're having and trying to change, right?
Vivien Hudson (20:56)
Right, so I mean, so much like we believe like we are that some of the stories that we tell ourselves. So what's the story that you're telling yourself? I have a program, we have like three pillars to it. And the first pillar is clarity. So what is it that you want? But what I've learned, what I've learned is that when you have clarity,
Like it might be like, I think I want to be like, I think I want to have like a million dollar turnover business. Or I think I want to have like a nice house that's on the lake or whatever. Whatever it might be, but do you really believe it? And this is the thing. I think this is the mismatch with a lot of the vision boarding and all that stuff that's going on is you can put out all that stuff up and sure it's great, but if you don't.
If you don't have conviction, and that's the second pillar of my model is conviction, then it's hard to believe. It's hard to put the effort and find the how to to make it happen if you don't really intrinsically believe that. So that's what I do is really work with people to break down those limiting beliefs, those stories that we've told ourselves, so probably decades at this point.
to really help them understand what is getting in the way and the stories that we have around like our relationship with food, our relationship with exercise, our relationship with money, our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with the people around us. that's, mean, they're the conversations like when I get to a client's heart, like I can tell, right? So you could tell me stuff and I'll be...
like I'm going to keep on digging until I feel that little point in your chest that you can almost go like this and it's like that's it and when you get that that's when you can make those shifts happen and that's what like that's giving me goosebumps now just talking about that because
Nick Berry (22:57)
Yeah. Yeah. what I hear you say in there, is it's like, that's the difference in, the hope versus, having agency over situation. Like that's the difference in you, your, your vision board being something that you're kind of wishing for versus something that you're actually taking action and working toward. And they're pretty different.
Vivien Hudson (23:18)
Yeah. So then, yeah. And then my final pillar is consistency. So once you get that, what are the habits? So what are the habits that we need to create? So the habits are the small consistent actions that you take every day. Right. So I've heard multiple times that you listen to multiple podcasts or people. We are the sum of what we thought and said yesterday.
and a psycho for 90 % of what we do is basically what we did yesterday. So it's when we make the changes to those little things that we did yesterday that now we do today that we can make change happen. And I'm a big proponent, like, I'm gonna confess, like, I just started jogging, I just started running. It's been like my nemesis my whole life. It's like, I can't run, like I just can't, it's too hard. I've had this story going on.
And I've got this friend and she is an amazing runner, like the same age as me. She like, she's just like beautiful. Like she can just run and, not get out of breath, can have a conversation or the rest of it. So anyway, I started doing this thing called jalking So it's jogging and walking, jogging and walking. Cause I didn't want it to be miserable. So what I did.
was like, I'm just going to jog for 30 paces or whatever it is, then walk for a bit, jog. And it wasn't like just that consistency of doing that. And then I started jogging continuously. So I did like my first 5K, well, actually was my second 5K a month or so ago. And it's like, I'm keeping on going. So it's just like so much of what we do is such a head game, but if we make it miserable.
We don't enjoy it. So what I do is work with people to find things. Let's do it so you do enjoy it. So now, like now I've gotten to that point, it's like I get up in the mornings, I'll do some journaling before I head out. I'll make my morning cup of coffee and I have that little piece of quiet enjoyment. Cause if I have to get straight out of bed and put my sneakers on and go for a run, I might talk myself out of it. But I can have that little beautiful space.
and then go out for a run. it's like my morning is complete when I do that. Like it just feels so much better. it's finding, yeah, so it's being able to find the things that work for your clients too. And to push them at a level that's comfortable for them. And I mean, you can be a David Goggins and if you know David Goggins, you know, follow it. It's like, if it doesn't hurt, if it doesn't kill you then, or almost kill you.
Nick Berry (25:46)
You've found what works for you.
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (26:06)
I mean, most of us aren't made of out of that kind of material nor want to be. And I admire his mental fortitude to go through that. But I don't think that we all need to be cut from that same bit of mustard or whatever the saying is.
Nick Berry (26:25)
Right. Yeah. As long as you find what works for you, that's what's important. for you, like you said, you need your time in the morning. get your mind right. Mine is do not think I need to feet forward, get to whatever that thing is that I don't want to do. Because if I start thinking, I'm going to find a way around it.
Vivien Hudson (26:42)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yep, absolutely.
Nick Berry (26:46)
That's what works for me.
one of, well, there are two things that you said to me before this that got my attention during our exchange. And I was like, this is somebody I need to talk to. One was the, said, I consider myself now more of an anti-pharmacist, which like that story, now it makes sense. And it's about more than just the, like the cost of drugs, which that aligns with it. But it's like you lived in.
Vivien Hudson (27:04)
yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (27:16)
the shoes of the entrepreneur who's doing too much, spread too thin, grinding yourself down. You kind of reach your tipping point burnt out and then get out of it. And that's, that's the path that a lot of people don't get out of. And then their stress has done whatever to their bodies. And then they are a regular at the pharmacist. So I thought that was really cool.
Vivien Hudson (27:38)
Yeah.
Nick Berry (27:39)
positioning there, the anti-pharmacist. Is that something that you use?
Vivien Hudson (27:43)
Yeah, I do say that. I'll do some public speaking and that can be part of the story that I share.
So yeah, yeah.
Nick Berry (27:53)
I think a lot of the business owners that kind of like the mentality that I was talking about earlier, just kind of see the health issues as it's a milestone that they're going to reach along the way. They don't know exactly which milestones, but they expect them to be there. So like, let's talk about what the, maybe some symptoms, how do we get their attention? What are the things they could be looking for now
that will help them make a change.
Vivien Hudson (28:20)
Okay, so a few things. I would say, first of all, like, if you're really honest with yourself, are you doing things to safeguard your health? Because it's a bit like, and if I can reference like the hurricane that we just had, like it can be a perfect storm, right? It's that like, there's a lot of things that can happen. We can get a lot of rain, a lot of wind to no rest of it, and that's fine. But then one day it's not.
And it's the same thing with our health that like you have like too much sugar, you have too much stress. And I'm gonna, can I dig into the stress here for a minute? Because stress to me, like I've got this slide I share when I do these presentations. If you look at all the biochemical cascades that happen when you're stressed, increased cholesterol, how many people take statins, high blood sugar.
from stress because the body's getting ready to fight or flight, so puts extra stress, extra sugar into the bloodstream. People have indigestion, excess acid into the stomach. I had indigestion when I had my pharmacy, as soon as I solved my pharmacy, went away. So what are some of those biochemical markers that might be happening? Is your cholesterol going up?
Are you getting some of those blood tests coming back that are not quite normal? A good test is just like, feel your shoulders. So Nick, give yourself a little massage, you know? Does it feel like cement back there or is it pliable? If you drop your shoulders down, like are they up here or are they down here? Like.
Nick Berry (30:06)
you see how bad mine was before you said that?
Vivien Hudson (30:10)
So a little tip for listeners, like a little thing that you can do in the moment. So I'll just get a little bit science-y with this. But when we breathe in, it activates our sympathetic nervous system. So that's our vital flight. When we breathe out, it activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which is how we rest and digest. So something that we can do to help to ease stress is by having a longer exhale to an inhale.
So breathe in for four seconds, for example, but then you can just breathe out like you're breathing out through a straw. So just going, which will create a naturally longer exhale. So if you're busy and you don't want to do all the counting and stuff, you can just, I find myself doing it too. Like I'll just go start going.
when I start to feel like, I've got a lot of stuff going on in my head right now and I just need to calm it. So I think what listeners also need to think about is just being more in the moment and noticing what's going on in my body. Because I think for too long, we've used our body as a mode of transportation for our head and we've not really recognized it for the full functionality that it has. And I called my
business, brain, body and business, because we forget about like the wiring runs two ways. So if you look at the work from Amy Cuddy from 2013, I think she talked about like the power pose, how we can use the power pose and that expansive gesture. So our body doesn't know the difference or brain doesn't know the difference, right? So if you just power pose, like it's going to increase those assertive
chemicals that will help you to feel naturally more confident. So we can do little bio hacks that help us in the moment, even though like our brain might feel overwhelmed, such as the breathing to help us to feel calmer or to give us more confidence or just the act of dropping your shoulders down is going to create a different response than if you walk around like that. So, yeah.
Nick Berry (32:24)
Yeah.
I mean, just learning to become more aware. So I know I've for sure been guilty of this, but whenever I would talk about being stressed, usually we would default to think, well, I'm stressed when I can't sleep at night and I'm thinking about this problem at work or whatever in the business. And that's true, but that's not the only time that we're experiencing stress. And I think like what you're talking about are the things that
Vivien Hudson (32:30)
Eh.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (32:57)
go on all day long and we just have to recognize them to become aware. Then there are simple things that we can do. It's not hard to take a breath.
Vivien Hudson (33:08)
No, and that's what I say, like often when people are going through some difficult things, you can always take that next breath. You can always take that next step. So I go one breath, one step, one day at a time. Because sometimes when we're feeling overwhelmed, particularly like as entrepreneurs, like I heard yesterday, let me see if I was listening to a podcast and it was like, fear is thinking that you have some control
over a future from an experience you've never had. It was something like that. And I always like the false expectations appearing real. And we do become such a subset of those stories. that's what I said before, talking about stories that we tell ourselves. So when we have a concern or a worry in our business, and I know as an entrepreneur, it's feast or famine, right? It's like a roller coaster. It's like when things are good, they're great.
Nick Berry (33:43)
me.
Vivien Hudson (34:04)
tax time, you're gonna send all your money to that tax department or business has a lull or something like that. It's like, holy cow, what am I gonna eat next week? it can be kind of crazy and it's very stressful. So if you don't learn to self-regulate, like you can let those thoughts get out of control. And once you start down that vortex, that hole can get very, very deep. So what I love to do is just to help people
work at it and I mean I've had to work on it myself and still do because we can have those negative stories and they never go away. You just have to be able to catch them and the sooner you can catch them the sooner you can turn them around. So for example like I sleep like a baby nearly all the time, nearly all the time. I still do have the occasional you know wake up at three in the morning with scariest kind of thing but a great thing to do one learn stillness like if you can learn to quiet your breath
quiet your mind, which when you wake up at three in the morning, you know it's not quiet. It's pretty noisy up there. Have a notepad next to your bed, turn the light on for a minute, dump out all the stuff that's going on. It's like, well, and then set aside some worry time. So four o'clock tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to worry about all this stuff. Right. So then you can go, all right, I've scheduled some time so can sort this problem out. And sometimes those semantics
are enough to be able to trick your brain, okay, it's being sorted out, we've got the time scheduled for it, we've dumped out all the things that we're worried about, you can quiet yourself mind down and help it go back to sleep.
Nick Berry (35:44)
Yeah, it's no longer. It doesn't have to be an open file at the moment.
Vivien Hudson (35:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's something like when you have a problem and it loops like that, it's because the brain can't find a satisfactory solution that it likes. So you have to get yourself, you have to take yourself out of that thinking. So it can process in the subconscious to come up with the right thing. But I know like people worry about money and all sorts of things. And like when I was
selling out of my pharmacy and doing all the financial gymnastics, let's call it, they came with that. I had to work out, what can I control? And this is, think, something that entrepreneurs need to do is what can you control and work on those things first,
if I need to save some money, what's subscription I can cancel or who could I ask for help? Just being able to ask for help even is a huge thing. that actually wants to take me on a different tangent. So I think for entrepreneurs and as a woman owning a small business,
Nick Berry (36:52)
Go for it.
Vivien Hudson (37:03)
Like, and back, as I said, when I have my pharmacies, like you think everybody's got their act together, everybody's like super successful. And when you feel like you're not, you don't feel like you can go out there, especially in a field of professionals. And it's like in Australia, it's like fairly small community. So everybody is going to be like, you know, if somebody is having problem, it just becomes gossip for everyone. So you kind of just internalize so much and.
You can't talk to your partner because you don't want to stress them out. You can't talk to your friends because they don't own businesses with staff and all that. So you don't feel like you can really have anybody that you can just bleh and vomit out what you.
Nick Berry (37:44)
There are very few people who can relate to what you're going through trying to figure out.
Vivien Hudson (37:50)
Yeah, and that's another piece that I love about being a coach is like just being able to have someone who can go, I hear you and just let you talk it out, ask you a few good questions and help you to just feel validated is huge. So I think that that is a thing that.
It might be bit better now because we have communities. It's easy to reach out through social networks and maybe find some support. But I still believe that there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there who are doing this on their own. They're not asking for help. And even if that help is just to be heard, just for them to unload. So I had another client that I was working with recently and
A different issue, but she had been hanging on to this resentment in her life and she shared it with me and she didn't really share it in that way with anyone before. She's got high blood pressure. Her blood pressure went down 20 points after that conversation. So she'd been carrying that around. So if your blood pressure is high, what are you hanging on to? What is it that you need to say that you need to literally get off your chest?
just Bing.
Nick Berry (39:10)
it may not be a cure all, but it certainly helps. And if it happens to help that much for somebody, that's fantastic. I think you need that you have to curate your support system for reasons like that, because you do have a lot of different needs that not a lot of people can relate to that you have to find an outlet for them. Otherwise you're trying to do all of this on your own and that like,
Vivien Hudson (39:32)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (39:33)
That's the hardest way. Can I come over?
Vivien Hudson (39:35)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Another thing that I like to talk about is the regrets of the dying. And I think that this is also important for entrepreneurs and even people climbing corporate ladders and all the rest of it. And I shared a post on LinkedIn just a few weeks ago that somebody else had posted that I thought was really pertinent. like when a few years from now, there are any people that will remember how late you worked at night.
We'll be your kids.
And that was like, so I look at the regrets of the dying. So this is actually ironically an Australian hospice nurse that wrote this book a number of years ago. And I think it's always important for us to remember what is important and the disaster that's just unfolded. Like for me with Hurricane Helene, that's just come through. Like it does make you grateful to just be able to turn on that light switch, to have fresh running water, things like that.
we so easily take for granted. But the regrets of the dying is like, I wish I'd let myself be happier. And so many people go through life like when I get the new car, when we move into the house, when we have kids, when the kids move out of home, then I'll be happy. No, you can choose to be happy today. You can choose. It's a choice. It's an active choice anybody can make. And that's what I love, helping people to have that realisation.
Nick Berry (40:58)
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (41:03)
So that's one of them. Another regret is they wish they hadn't worked so hard. And that's still when I'm working on myself because I think, I mean, that's probably a whole other podcast on talking about that. Like the overachievers club, overachiever doesn't equate to high achiever. Like we just like get some sense of self-worth from our work that perhaps we don't feel like we get that validation from other places or
Nick Berry (41:15)
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (41:32)
We're so hard on ourselves that we don't let ourselves off just to take a break and put your feet up and to laugh and be around people and all that. And it can be a screen as well to, well, then people don't get too close to me, then they won't see how faulty I am on the inside. know, it's any number of those things. So.
Nick Berry (41:55)
Yeah, so can we, if it's all right, let's talk about the wish I hadn't worked as hard. That's one that I can relate to that, really well. I mean, I am slash have been probably a workaholic at some point. And I think where I'm at now is it's I just enjoy hard work.
I enjoy attacking, getting into something and going. I enjoy other things too. But I want to work hard because I enjoy being proud of doing things like that. But how do where does it become unhealthy?
Vivien Hudson (42:30)
Yeah.
Well, that's a great question. that, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think like when there's a cost, right?
Nick Berry (42:38)
Or is that even healthy? Am I just like, is that how I'm painting the picture?
Vivien Hudson (42:48)
So if you've got kids, what would they say? So is it like daddy, you work too much or daddy, you're always busy? That's the cost, right? So if.
And for me, like what I had to learn because to me there was a lot of guilt that was attached. when, particularly when my kids were younger, when I was at work, I felt guilty I should be at home. When I was home, I felt guilty I should be at work, right? There was never the right place. didn't matter where you were. So it's coming to terms with what does that look like? And it's about quality and not quantity. So for me, what I've recognized
is that if I'm talking to my family, like it means we have our devices down or away that I'm focused eye to eye. Better to have a 10 minute heart to heart conversation than an hour of like sitting there with your phone and going, know, yeah, and just being in each other's company. So it's about quality over quantity.
So being very intentional about how and where you spend your time and giving yourself the permission to be fully present in that time too. And not having that, my gosh, I've got to finish writing that blog post or I've got to email that client or there's a lead, I've got to follow up or whatever, know, whatever thing that is going on. look at like,
Nick Berry (44:09)
Mhm.
Vivien Hudson (44:13)
What are the relationships that are important to you? And what is the legacy that you want to leave? So what do you want people at the end of your life to say about you? Do you want them to say, Nick stayed up till 11 o'clock every night working tirelessly on his podcast. And he made a massive difference to thousands and thousands of people around the globe because of that.
or what does that look like? So being able to know what is worth that. Or maybe have limits on, well, I'll allow myself to work till 11, three nights a week, but the rest of the other nights I'm going to be fully present with my family. And also communicating those expectations clearly with your family and asking them what is it that they expect or want. So sometimes we have a lot of unspoken
Nick Berry (44:49)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (45:12)
expectations. And that's, yeah, and that's where some of those challenges come in. And yeah, I mean, there's so much great information out on a lot of this stuff. But I think you've got to work out the balance that you feel comfortable with. And I think we can get so much self-worth from our work, from our business, that helps to validate us. So what is it in your relationships that you could get from that and also that would equally
Nick Berry (45:14)
sometime.
Vivien Hudson (45:42)
nourish you, because I think sometimes we get caught in the trappings of success. Like, you've got to make a million, once you make one, you've got to make two. It's like that, how much is enough, right? How much is enough? So where do you stop and where do you safeguard that? And being able to be clear and explicit and say, well, how much is enough?
Nick Berry (45:43)
hehe
something that hit me while you were talking about that, because you said you have to assess the quality of the relationships, what what relationships are meaningful to you. And when you talked mostly about like immediate family, like my wife and my daughter, but I don't think what you're saying, you and you don't mean it exclusively to them either. Right? Like, I don't short my time with them. What I do what I'll do without is like,
Vivien Hudson (46:21)
Well, no, because I...
Nick Berry (46:26)
I would rather work on something I'm excited about than go play golf with some other people on the weekend. Right. Like that's a much easier choice for me to make. It's not it's not really choice between my wife and daughter. Like they win.
Vivien Hudson (46:39)
Yeah, so what I will say, another regret of the dying is they wish that they kept their friends near and dear to them. Because you think about when you stop working, and I think that this is more of a thing for men, and I'll be stereotypical here, is like men will put a lot of their identity on their careers. So when they stop working, it's like, who am I? You know, they don't feel like they have that worth. So.
Nick Berry (46:46)
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (47:07)
If you think back over the last 12 months, how many moments can you remember that was super enriching when you working? And maybe podcasts are a little bit different because you probably have some amazing conversations. how many are you going to remember? there was that blog post I was writing and I was just super pumped compared to being on the golf course and your buddy hit his golf ball.
It hit the tree and it landed back at his feet and it was just hysterical, right? So like, so we can miss out on moments because we think like, I love my work and I love what I do, but it's when you interact with people, that's when you laugh, right? And laughter is so like, is such a great thing.
Nick Berry (47:37)
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (47:51)
So make sure next time you're doing something, just give yourself a chuckle and have a mindful moment because I think about my life, particularly since the pandemic and I've spent so much time just working at my desk and I could go back the last six months, for example, and what are the things that you remember? The times when you left the house, the times when I went hiking or
I might've gone out for coffee with my daughter or something like that. I don't remember like all don't know, hundreds of hours that I spent at my desk is just a blur. So life is moments. Life is made of moments. So I think finding, finding those things that create the moments that add the impact, create the richness to your life. And as entrepreneurs, we can be super hard on ourselves.
Nick Berry (48:35)
Mm-hmm.
Vivien Hudson (48:43)
Another regret of the dying is that they wish that they'd been more true to themselves. So I think that other thing for you to ask is like, what is this path of success? Like, is it for you? And in what way is it for you? Because I think sometimes, if you look at parents that expect their kids to go to school and be a doctor or whatever, and then they resent that, because kids weren't
in a powerful enough position to say no, or we might end up in a relationship. that I've got to be the provider for the family. And therefore I have to have this career that provides for my family. And they're so stressed, they're climbing up this corporate ladder and they're so stressed, but they've got to do it because they feel that that's what's expected of them.
And instead of saying, hang on a minute, this is impacting my health. I'm just starting to feel fatigued and putting out like it's time to say no. And this is one of the things that I work with, like women, women entrepreneurs is helping them to say yes to themselves. Because I think the cost for women as entrepreneurs, like I did, I said, like, I'll be the breadwinner, you know, husband, you stay home with the kids. So we try to do it all.
and we try to have all, and there's a cost to that. There's a cost to that because we get on that treadmill that we feel like we can't hit the pause button because if I hit the pause button, the bacon's gonna stop coming in, the world's gonna fall apart. I started hiking a few years ago before the pandemic, so I was on this treadmill myself.
I thought like I've been living here in the US and I haven't really made many friends yet and this is like kind of kind of sad and because I was working from home a lot and I I thought well I'll dig around and and find some things to do so I found Meetup and I found a hiking group so I went I went with this hiking group and we hiked up to Table Rock in South Carolina here and
Like it was mind blowing. I had this great day. was with a bunch of women. We were doing physical exercise. Like it was just like, I was in heaven. I got home. said, that was so awesome. I'll probably do it once a month. Anyway, the woman that would write the meetup things, she had this gift for making every hike sound magical. So as the week progressed, I'm like, I've got to go again next week. But what blew my mind was it's kind of like men go out and play a game.
golf. So they're gone from half the day or most of the day. It's kind of like that with hiking because it takes you an hour to drive there, you hike for three or four hours and an hour to get home. So it's like six. But when I get home, my family was still alive. Like they didn't need me to run the household. And like it was just like, my God, like I, I, was just this liberation for me because one, I came home so much happier and
and reset myself, even though I loved my work and maybe you should try that golfing weekend with your buddies because one of the things when you walk away, when you break yourself away from the work that you do, you come back and you do better work.
Nick Berry (52:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I've known that to be true with me. Like that's what's made it easy for me to get away from working on weekends or, you know, I can take day or days and, and just be doing something else and know that like, I'm not, I won't fall behind.
and then another thing that came to mind while you were telling that story was about when, whenever I hear the words like gotta or should, when I'm, saying those things to myself, that's my signal. Like, wait a second, that, that means there's a story being told here. That's may not be true because I really gotta do anything. And the should is just, asking for like,
Vivien Hudson (52:23)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Nick Berry (52:48)
guilt.
Vivien Hudson (52:49)
Yes, 100%. Should is a great one, because that's an expectation. that's a lot of, like, if you notice a lot of shoulds going on in your vocabulary, whose expectations are they? Because should is related to an expectation. So are they expectations you put on yourself? Are they realistic? Or are they unspoken expectations of others? Is that real? Like, how do we have that conversation?
This is something that I learned from my NLP training was instead of saying I've got to, I get to. And just that shift in itself is, I get to, I get to wake up each day, right? I get to, I get to go to a job each day or whatever it is that you might be doing. I get to serve different clients. I get to run a podcast. It's not like, you know, I've got to, I've got to take the kids to school. I get to take the
Nick Berry (53:30)
It works. Yeah.
Vivien Hudson (53:47)
the kids to school. it's just like a simple shift like that just creates a whole different language. And I'll say it again, we are a product of the stories that we tell ourselves. So change your stories, change your life. that's, yeah.
Nick Berry (54:02)
Yeah, totally true. think, I don't know if you listened to the episode that I did with Scott Faye. I know you listened to Haley Perlis and I'm sure you loved her. but Scott Faye talks about that a lot. And he, and he talks about the, you said that like 90 % of people will just kind of repeat the same set of actions every day. And the way that Scott was, was using that statistic was saying that basically that they don't want to think they're just, it's just like routine eyes.
Vivien Hudson (54:10)
Keh.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (54:29)
And such a small, the point was that such a small percentage of people want to like use their minds and, be aware and intentional with what they're doing and how they're treating themselves, being purposeful.
Vivien Hudson (54:29)
Mm-hmm.
I think just something that you were saying, like, I feel like as an entrepreneur, especially that like your business comes first, it's like it is your child. That's what you were saying. And I think that one of the things is just to find that balance and balance is never about 50-50. It's more harmony. So how do you get it to work for you? So being able to create that, if I go back to my pillars,
if you can work out what that balance is for you to create the clarity and then weave in your goals or dreams from that. So you can build that conviction, what are the beliefs that we have to have or to get rid of to be able to make that come true. And then how do we build those habits that make that come to life? So whether it's becoming healthier, whether it's working towards that multiple
like that seven figure business or whatever it might be.
Nick Berry (55:41)
Viv, this was fantastic. This is exactly what I was looking for. I really appreciate the time and the work that you're doing.
Vivien Hudson (55:49)
Thank you. Thank you. And I'm going to encourage you to maybe take a golf weekend.
Nick Berry is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO, whose track record includes founding and leading numerous companies since 2002.
He is also a mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues, staff, and clients, Nick has been referred to as both 'The Business Guy' as well as 'The Anti-Guru', due to his pragmatic approach and principled leadership.
He shares his insights and lessons learned, along with those of his expert guests,
on his podcast, 'The Business Owner's Journey'.
