Four Lies That Stopped Me Being Happy
Pauline Nguyen is a morning person. “It is the most potent healing time of day. Where I coach one-on-one, it’s always at sunrise. We watch the sun rise, activating the pineal gland, boosting mitochondrial function and healing from the inside out.”
Few restaurateurs are up to see the sun rise, but Pauline – who co-founded Sydney’s acclaimed Red Lantern restaurant along with her brother, Luke Nguyen, and her partner, Mark Jensen – is not just a restaurateur. She is also an entrepreneur, a speaker, a coach and the author of the new book, The Way of the Spiritual Entrepreneur.
The book, which focuses on becoming “fearless, stress free and unshakeable in business and in life”, also tells the story of Pauline’s life, from her arrival in Australia as a refugee at the age of four. “I can only ever speak from my own experience,” she says. The story of how she left behind an abusive childhood is inspiring, not least because of her dedication to forging her own path rather than accepting conventional wisdom. “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write,” she notes, “but those who cannot unlearn the many lies that they have been conditioned to believe.”
We asked Pauline to share some of the lies that she rejected on her journey to fulfilment.
Lie #1: You can’t recover from an unhappy childhood
Pauline writes that, “My father had three instruments of torture. The first was a stiff and shiny billiard stick, the second was a flexible cane whip, and the third (and most effective weapon) was fear.”
Yet Pauline has refused to be defined by her childhood and works with clients to help them move on from their own traumas. “I had to go through a reframe of what happened to me and realise, it was an event that happened. What you do with that is up to you. You can decide to be a victim of the experience, or the beneficiary. I choose to see my childhood as my training,” she says.
The hardest part of leaving trauma behind, Pauline says, is deciding to do it. “Saying, I don’t want to live that victim story anymore – that’s the first part,” she says. “Everything flows from that. My parents and I are friends now. I’ve put a different lens on that experience.
“I talk about my childhood in my keynote address, and an audience member once came to me afterwards with tears in his eyes, saying, ‘I don’t know how you can tell that story with such majesty.’ It’s because I don’t connect with that story anymore. I tell it in service of others.”
Lie #2: You need a detailed road map
It comes as a surprise to learn that someone as goal-oriented as Pauline doesn’t believe in mapping out her steps to success. It’s not that she doesn’t know where she’s going, she explains; she is just open to how she is going to get there.
“People who need to have everything mapped out are people who need certainty, but I’m a strong believer that your quality of life is determined by how much uncertainty you can handle,” she says. “What is certain in this world? Zero! If you have a sense of adventure, of joy, of playfulness, you will have a much better quality of life.”
“The Universe always has something even better for you in mind,” she writes in her book. To access it, you have to surrender – and no, she doesn’t mean waving a white flag. “That’s not surrender, that’s giving up – and we don’t give up!” she laughs. “Strive for a goal. Tell people what you’re aiming for, ask if they know someone who can help because that sends signals. But if you let the universe do its thing, it will be bigger and better than you can possibly imagine. I don’t call it goal-setting, I call it soul-setting.”
“Polyamory has worked for us. I don’t believe in this ‘You complete me’ nonsense. You can’t expect one person to be your partner, your best friend, your soul mate – it’s too much pressure on one person.”
Lie #3: Success is about the hours you work
“When we first opened Red Lantern, we were working 80-, 90-, 100-hour weeks,” Pauline recalls. “We knew how to work hard – we literally had it beaten into us – but we didn’t know how to work hard and work smart.”
The secret to managing your workload is not time management, she says, but energy management. “It’s not about how many hours you work, it’s about how much energy you can conserve and focus for the things that matter,” she says. “As leaders, we have to set the example, and we are at our most creative when we have been able to rest our brain and rest our body. Rest is a weapon.
“I don’t jump out of bed in the morning – I spend a significant amount of time in bed, just expressing gratitude for the things in my life, meditating, rehearsing my behaviours for the day ahead,” she says. She also makes time to be in nature each day. “We are connected to the sun, hardwired for the earth – nature to me is medicine,” she says.
Pauline stresses that every person has to find which techniques work for them. “I’ve discovered I learn best when I’m moving, so if I have a webinar or a podcast I want to learn from, I’ll do some stretching while I listen. And I hold all my important business meetings in nature – science has shown that doing so increases trust, collaboration and creation by 50 per cent.”
Lie #4: monogamy is a must
Few ideas get Pauline as riled as the subject of marriage, or, more specifically, the concept of ‘till death do us part’. “Marriage is the only thing you’ve succeeded at when someone dies!” she laughs. Not that she is afraid of commitment: she and her partner Mark have been together for more than 20 years. But they refuse to play by traditional rules, including the idea that fidelity is essential. “Polyamory has worked for us, and for many many others,” she says simply.
“I don’t believe in this ‘You complete me’ nonsense,” she continues. “You travel along side by side – your happiness is your happiness, his happiness is his happiness. You can’t expect one person to be your partner, your best friend, your soul mate – it’s too much pressure on one person.
“I believe in commitment, but commitment is not synonymous with exclusivity,” she says. “I’m more interested in sustainability and respecting the reality of where the relationship is at. Our relationship may end or it may last. Who knows? What is more important to us is autonomy, and that we evolve into the truest versions of ourselves – to be able to be ourselves in one another’s presence versus having to let go of parts of ourselves to be together. What is important to us is that we do not live by what society expects us to be. For us, this is true sustainability.”
Words_ Ute Junker
Photo_ Chase Moyer/UnSplash