Most high performers learn to borrow their energy. Caffeine in the morning, adrenaline through the hard matters, and the quiet fear of falling behind to carry the rest. It works for a while. It also tends to leave a particular kind of person depleted by mid-afternoon, wired at midnight, and running on empty underneath a day that looked, from the outside, like a win.
For nearly two decades I have worked inside that pattern with people who carry real pressure and reach for more: NHL players and Stanley Cup champions, Hockey Canada athletes, Cirque du Soleil artists, and others committed to their own growth and transformation. The arena changes. The physiology does not. A closing argument asks for the same body a championship overtime asks for. The deposition is a faceoff. And the nervous system does not register the difference between a courtroom and a rink. It registers pressure, and it registers how you are breathing through it.
That last part is the opening, because the breath is the one part of this system you can reach on purpose.
The reframe that tends to land first is this. Energy is not generated by force. It is regulated. The body already holds an engine, and the breath rate is the dial on it. Most of us were taught to manage energy from the outside, with stimulants, willpower, and pressure. The more durable path runs the other way, through the one rhythm you can change in any moment, in any room, with no one noticing.
This is also a quieter proposition. Peace can be the foundation of performance rather than its reward. Not the thing you earn once the matter closes, but the platform you perform from while it is still open.
A nervous system that is braced from the first email to the last filing tends to burn its fuel early. The breath shortens, the jaw sets, the chest takes over from the diaphragm, and the body holds a low alarm all day without being asked to. By three o’clock the tank reads low, and the tools left are another coffee and more pressure.
None of this is a character flaw. It is a breathing pattern, and a breathing pattern can change. When the exhale lengthens and the breath drops back into the body, the same nervous system that was bracing begins to recover capacity between matters rather than spending it. The aim is simple to name. The energy you have at six in the evening starts to resemble the energy you had at nine that morning.
Here is the part most people have never been taught. The rate of the breath sets the state of the system, and it moves in both directions.
Slow the breath down and the body lands. Heart rate settles, the vagus nerve engages, and the mind clears. Speed the breath up, gently, and the body lifts. Alertness rises, focus sharpens, and energy arrives without a stimulant. One dial, two directions, available on demand. In the work I teach, this graduated series is called IamGeared, and you can run the two ends of it starting today.
Both are done through the nose, sitting or standing, with the shoulders soft. Neither needs a separate hour. They live in the windows the day already holds.
Five in, five out, to land. Inhale through the nose for about five seconds. Exhale through the nose for about five seconds. Continue for a few minutes. This is IamGeared-5. Use it in the car before you walk in, between rounds of a negotiation, or in the last hour before sleep. The state it tends to produce: I am calm. I am connected. I am clear.
Two in, two out, to lift. Inhale through the nose for about two seconds. Exhale through the nose for about two seconds. Keep it light and easy for thirty to sixty seconds. This is IamGeared-2. Use it mid-afternoon in place of the third coffee, or before a deposition when you want to be sharp on arrival. The state it tends to produce: I am awake. I am precise. I am here.
The felt experience comes first, and the science is quietly on your side. Breathing at around six cycles a minute, which five in and five out produces, is close to the rate at which heart rate variability tends to peak and recovery deepens (Lehrer and Gevirtz 2014; Russo et al. 2017). The faster cycle does the opposite, lifting alertness at a far gentler cost than caffeine. You are not adding anything to the body. You are working the dial it already has.
There is a truth underneath the practice that high achievers tend to recognize quickly. You can be winning and still feel empty. Achievement does not replace peace, and the next result rarely delivers the steadiness the last one promised.
This work is not about repair. The attorney drawn to it is not broken. They are excellent, accomplished, and quietly sensing there is more available. It is about reclamation, remembering the person underneath the practitioner, the one who can be steady at the deposition and present at the dinner table on the same day. Sustainable energy, emotional clarity, and presence are not a reward for excellence. They can be the ground excellence stands on.
The two tools above are a beginning you can hold in your hand today. They are the opening of a larger system, The Engine, which I taught in Energy Optimization, the first session of The Elemental Lawyer: Freedom Quest with the Beverly Hills Bar Association Wellness Section. Two doorways follow, Emotional Mastery and The Art of Influence, each meeting a different layer of the billable life.
For now, choose your direction. When you need to land, breathe five in and five out. When you need to lift, breathe two in and two out. The engine was always yours. This is simply how you reach the dial.
Brandy Osborne is a Holistic Human Performance Coach and Registered Massage Therapist who has spent nearly two decades working one-to-one with elite performers and others committed to their own growth, from NHL players and Stanley Cup champions, Hockey Canada athletes, and Cirque du Soleil artists, to people in every walk of life ready to grow, transform, and expand. Through The Elemental Lawyer, she brings the same practices to the legal profession in partnership with the Beverly Hills Bar Association Wellness Section.
Disclaimer: Writers’ positions do not necessarily reflect those of the Beverly Hills Bar Association. The information contained on this page is not legal advice and may not be relevant in various territories and/or jurisdictions. As the laws change often, the information on this page may not be relevant at some point in time. No attorney-client relationship is formed by use of this post. The information on this page is for general purposes only.
