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In this special '12 Days of Business' edition of The Business Owner's Journey, host Nick Berry welcomes back Vivien Hudson, a Stress and Performance Coach and the Founder of Brain, Body, and Business. Known as the 'Anti-Pharmacist,' Vivien provides actionable strategies for business owners to prioritize their health and manage stress effectively in 2025. This episode focuses on practical ways to break free from sedentary office habits, develop a proactive health mindset, and prevent chronic diseases - all while thriving as an entrepreneur.
Vivien discusses the unique pressures entrepreneurs face, from long hours to financial stress. These factors, combined with sedentary habits, contribute to burnout and health risks. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing these patterns and taking steps to mitigate their effects.
Vivien highlights the health risks associated with sitting for extended periods and shares tips to stay active during the workday. Using tools like standing desks, walking pads, and incorporating short, consistent breaks for movement can significantly improve physical well-being.
Business owners often neglect their health due to demanding schedules. Vivien stresses the importance of agency - actively taking control of your health by making time for self-care and addressing stress through intentional practices like mindfulness and exercise.
Shifting your mindset is key to sustaining healthy habits. Vivien suggests focusing on how good you feel after exercising or making a healthy choice to overcome initial resistance. This mindset shift helps business owners integrate wellness into their daily routines.
From eating adequate protein to support muscle mass and metabolism to managing cortisol levels to prevent chronic diseases, Vivien shares straightforward strategies for entrepreneurs to safeguard their health. Small changes, like reducing unnecessary notifications and scheduling regular movement, can have a significant impact.
This episode is part of the 12 Days of Business mini-series.
Vivien appeared in another episode of The Business Owner's Journey previously: The Anti-Pharmacist Helping Entrepreneurs Handle Stress Better
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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG
Nick Berry (00:00)
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 (00:12)
I am wrapping up season one of the business owners journey with this special mini series, the 12 days of business, 12 days, 12 episodes with 12 of my previous guests. And today's episode, I have Vivian Hudson, who's coming back and sharing some extra tips for business owners to manage their stress and get healthier in 2025.
Vivian is a stress and performance coach and she's the founder of Brain, Body and Business. She's also a former pharmacist and a pharmacy owner. She owned multiple pharmacies actually, and who now has branded herself as the anti-pharmacist, which I love, because that reflects her approach to prevention and staying healthy and not just treating being unhealthy. And so the message that she brought to this episode is really about just having some agency over your health and
figuring out what you can do and not relying on healthcare to address it when you become unhealthy. She brought a great list of like really simple things that give just about anybody options. And the idea is just to keep moving. Aside from us talking about my bad habits, we talked about some of the things that I'm also doing well. I use a standup desk and I've also got voice to text that has really gotten me untethered from my office chair.
I'm a big believer in her philosophy about taking responsibility for your health, regardless of your situation. Don't let what you can't do get in the way of focusing on what you can do. And when that little voice pops up in the back of your head and it starts reminding you about the obstacles and the roadblocks and the things that you can't do, just remember that that voice is distracting you from what you could do.
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now enjoy the show and have a healthier
Vivien Hudson (02:53)
I think it's this proactive approach to health. Like I feel like in light of recent events and with the changing government, that healthcare is ready for a shake up. And I think it's time for people to really take health into their own hands and not rely on a pill or the medical system to really help them to help themselves. It's time to say, hey, what can I do to help myself?
to question some of the things that the current medical system says that they should do. And I just started reading Casey Means book, Good Energy. And she talked about the story about her mom who died of cancer and they wanted her to, I don't remember if it was a surgery or give her drugs and something, but they wanted to hospitalise her. And Casey Means is the doctor and she's like, well,
No, we want to keep her at home and have her as comfortable as possible because her cancer was so advanced it wasn't going to cure her. It was just going to distance her from her family so that she wouldn't be able to have those last days at home. So sometimes, you know, are we feeding the medical system or are we feeding what, you know, what feeds our heart and souls? And sometimes, you know, it means saying no to the care that's being offered.
Nick Berry (04:20)
Yeah. Yeah.
Like being willing and able to advocate for yourself. And something that I was thinking about at the beginning of this conversation, when you were talking about like the healthcare system and the options for health insurance, and I was just thinking like, you you can't, you just can't afford to be reliant on those things anymore. And I mean, afford like probably literally financially for some people, but also like you just can't afford to entrust.
Vivien Hudson (04:25)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (04:48)
your well-being and give that up to somebody else to make decisions and look out for you. You know what I mean?
Vivien Hudson (04:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And, and I know doctors will tell you like, you've got to lose weight and exercise, you know, but they don't give you the tools. And that's where you need a lot of that mindset reprogramming to help to disconnect the emotional connection and the associations that we have with food and exercise that stop us from doing things because.
like who wants to exercise like unless you're an exercise junkie like well I'll do it later you know or all I have to and like you you go through that okay I've got my shoes on I'm going and then when you come back you feel good but that that first part is always like well I'd rather sit here and drink my coffee or stay in bed for another 10 minutes like that's what people
Nick Berry (05:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Well, think, weren't you telling me that, I think it was you
that was saying like, you have your routine, right? Where you, you want to get up and get started and there's kind of like a peaceful entrance to the day where you have your time and your coffee and you do your routine and like, and that works for you. And then like mine's almost the exact opposite. Like I have to go do it, do the work without thinking about it. Because if I think about it, I can find a way.
Vivien Hudson (06:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Nick Berry (06:16)
to do something different, but it's like
figuring out what, which way works for you.
Vivien Hudson (06:22)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the key is always like tapping into that emotion. How do you feel at the end of it? How do you feel when you've done it? Because that's what you need to tap in tomorrow morning when you wake up. How did I feel when I got home yesterday? I did it. And then it shortens that conversation that have for yourself. Yeah.
Nick Berry (06:33)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's right. Yeah. mean,
to apply that in my situation, if I pause and think about it and almost give myself an opportunity to like weigh out the decision, I have to tell myself like, it doesn't matter the way that you feel right now. What matters is the way that you're going to feel afterwards. That's how I have to resell it to myself.
Vivien Hudson (07:06)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
you got to look after your own health.
And that means managing your stress as an entrepreneur. The biggest thing that causes disease is stress and coupled with inactive lifestyles. I think we talked about this before, how much time do you spend at your computer each day,
Nick Berry (07:31)
Yeah,
Vivien Hudson (07:34)
If you sit for more than six hours each day, then that's kind of putting you at risk. And that's how we do our marketing. That's how we build our content. That's how we have our meetings. Like there's so much stuff that we're doing in front of our computers. and then we add stress to the ad and
Nick Berry (07:54)
so talking about the being in front of the computer, because in my mid thirties, I was, I mean, 12 hour days in a seat the entire, most of the time, I would get up and go work out in middle of the day. But that was.
Vivien Hudson (08:04)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (08:12)
rearranging the chairs, the deck chairs on the Titanic, right? Like it was not gonna do anything. Now I use a stand up desk all the time. I probably do, I'm in front of my computer most of the day, but I stand and I move a lot. Like sitting for this 30 minute conversation is about my limit for how long I'm gonna sit in a place. And I think making that a habit has been a really good thing for me. I'll kind of get.
Vivien Hudson (08:24)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (08:41)
itchy or like start fidgeting around more if I'm sitting for very long. and so that that's been a good habit for me to build. took a little bit of time, but that's my kind of been my way of not getting into that trap of just sitting and then sitting in front of the computer. So everything's pulling me forward and I am not in my thirties anymore. And so I had leaned forward to see clear more clearly what's on the screen. Like,
Vivien Hudson (08:52)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nick Berry (09:11)
So
yeah, and it did take its toll and I am trying to fight it, but those are some of the things that I do to try to fight it. Can you give me some other ideas?
Vivien Hudson (09:22)
Yeah, so absolutely. We wear these watches, right? They remind us to move, but it becomes a blur of notifications. So I think minimizing as many notifications that you do get on your wearables so that you can, when you do get a notification, it's something that you pay attention to. So...
Nick Berry (09:33)
He
Yeah.
Vivien Hudson (09:47)
As you said, a standing desk works well. I mean, as a pharmacist, had a standing desk for 25 years or whatever. And that in itself is not great if you're not moving. And I do like those walking pads that they've got now that you can kind of do like a slow walk while you're actually working.
interspersing a few squats or like I could stand at my computer here and do a few squats while I'm typing still.
And even just taking like, I've got a treadmill at home or obviously there's outside as well, just taking a short five or 10 minute break to have that little bit of downtime. Cause I think often as entrepreneurs, people or business owners, you you get stuck, there's always something to do. There's always something else that's got to be handled, invoice that's got to be paid or.
Nick Berry (10:36)
Yeah. Yeah.
Vivien Hudson (10:42)
an email that's got to be answered and it's having enough discipline to say, hey, you know what, my health is important and let's just break away from this for five minutes, 10 minutes. And just tell yourself, I'll go for a five minute walk and that five minutes might turn to 20. And you'll feel better at the end of the day because you haven't gone, gosh, I've just sat all day, look, it's five o'clock and I've done a thousand steps all day.
I'm not going to say hasn't happened to me. So I'm, you know, human like everybody else. But so it just requires that consistent effort. Yeah.
Nick Berry (11:18)
One of the things that.
Sorry. One of the things
about, that I've kind of seen with getting out and taking the walk, right? So five minutes, is good, is good. If that's what you need to do to start and it can turn into 20 and most of the time with the entrepreneur, the business owner, all the things that they feel like they can't get away. Right. It's the story that you're telling yourself, but really we can. Number one, it's probably not the end of the world. It actually probably is a good thing if you step away and do disconnect and just be.
Vivien Hudson (11:40)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (11:51)
where you're at. But if you actually couldn't do that, if you needed to still like produce while you're taking your walk, if we would put almost as much effort into figuring out how to make that possible as we have figuring out how to like accommodate work from home or any of the other challenges, like it's doable. This year I've started doing a lot more voice to text. So like I don't have to be in front of my computer. don't
Vivien Hudson (11:52)
Mm-hmm.
Mm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (12:20)
have to do everything in my little box here. And so just doing voice to text, that alone has nearly untethered me from my desktop. So I can go out and I can go for a walk. I can go somewhere and I can sit and I can do, there are still things that I can do or things that I can do differently and still produce if that's what I needed to do.
Vivien Hudson (12:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nick Berry (12:49)
and get
and still be out and move. you know, sometimes I might be a little bit out of breath, short of breath while I'm doing something, but you know what? It's probably going to be all right. It's better than the alternative if we're thinking like big picture, right?
Vivien Hudson (13:04)
Yeah, yeah, it's just crazy. Like, if you have a look at metabolism and how metabolism, let's say, evolves, a lot of it comes from muscle mass, which we're not growing muscle mass if we're standing or sitting at our computer. And then we've also got to have enough protein in our diet to create the muscle mass. Well, once you have good muscle mass, that's what fuels your metabolism.
And when you have good metabolism, that's what safeguards you against a lot of chronic diseases. And if we throw cortisol into the mix with that inactivity, then that's just a storm waiting to happen. yeah, there's a lot of nuances that I think that we can fit into our day that we can use to safeguard our health. And also, as you say, just untethering ourselves,
the end result. That's really what we want to aim
Nick Berry (14:02)
Awesome. Well, thank you. That's great. I appreciate you coming on to share in some
Vivien Hudson (14:06)
Yes, yes, thanks
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'.
