I know you need to hear this

This is your sign to take rest seriously

Something that really chimed with me last week on Substack was: Brands Prepare for 'The Great Exhaustion' of 2026, by Amy Odell’s Back Row.

At first glance, this makes for depressing reading. Amy reports on trend forecasting firm WGSN’s prediction that, in 2026, we will be dealing with global exhaustion.

Even reading that sentence makes me feel exhausted. The collective overwhelm experienced in the modern world is clearly going to reach a tipping point, and it ain’t going to be pretty.

Along similar lines, I was interested to read The picture that prompted a life change by Sam Baker. In it, Sam revisits her first Substack post about how an unflattering photo of her frowning at her phone was the impetus to confront her burnout.

Sam was my editor during this period, when I was entertainment director of Red.

(My job of dealing with celebrity publicists involved endless fire-fighting, managing expectations, massaging egos, not taking no for an answer and having the patience of a parent whose…