You’re Not Unmotivated. You’re Dysregulated

How understanding your nervous system — and the simple act of breathing — can help business leaders break through burnout and reconnect with clarity – By Sam Adams

A few years ago, my life completely fell apart. My marriage ended, my dad died, and my dog died — all within the space of a few months.

I was really struggling. I tried to keep going, showing up for work and pushing through with clients, but underneath it all, I was falling apart. Everything I’d relied on in the past to cope just stopped working. Life suffered — and so did my business. After all, business is personal, and I was basically broken.

What finally shifted things for me wasn’t another strategy or productivity hack. It was something I’d been deeply sceptical of: Breathwork.

I didn’t go searching for it. Someone happened to mention it, and at the time I thought it sounded a bit too woo-woo. But a few weeks later, desperate for something — anything — I gave it a try. And something unexpected happened.

I breathed in a specific, guided way for about 60 minutes. I cried. I raged. And I cried some more.

I was someone brought up to believe that crying wasn’t something men did, so this was all new territory for me. But you know what? It actually helped. It softened something in me. It landed somewhere deep inside — somewhere I don’t think I’d ever accessed before. A part of me that felt alive and truthful, underneath all the chaos.

That breathwork session — and the many that followed — changed everything.

From Rock Bottom to Rebuild

It didn’t erase the grief or pain, but it gave me a way to be with it. It gave me space to breathe again — literally and metaphorically — and that’s where the rebuild began.

Breathwork was the most profound thing I’ve ever done in my life.

And I say that as someone who has been in personal development for 20 years — as a life coach, a mentor, someone who’s taught all the tools. But this was completely different.