I looked in the mirror this morning and thought, damn, I look pretty good. Four pounds down in the week since I got back from Santa Fe. Fresh haircut. Beard tuned up, a little black put back in it. I felt like a person.
Chefs ask me for advice all the time. Young cooks, line guys, sous chefs grinding toward a title. They want to know about technique, about menus, about how to get the next job. Here's what I actually wish someone had told me at twenty-five.
When you're young and working all the time, you don't feel tired. That's the trap. Your body keeps going. Nervous energy and cortisol carry you through doubles like you're invincible. But your mind is getting worn down and you can't see it, because tired is supposed to feel like tired and this feels like normal. When you age, your body tells you the truth. When you're young, it lies to you.
I had burnout in my twenties and thirties that I didn't know was burnout. In my forties I finally recognized the pattern: a stretch of fourteen-hour days, seven days straight, and suddenly my problem solving gets shoddy and a kind of paranoia creeps in. Everybody's against me. Nothing works. Then I'd get a day or two to crash and wake up a different man. Same job, same people, same problems. Different brain.
So here's the advice. Yes, work out. But a lot of you aren't going to listen to that, so start smaller. Three things, every week:
Get a haircut. Get some sleep. Drink lots of water.
Groom yourself. Rest when you can rest. Hydrate. Go for a walk. Take the extra day. Use the PTO you've been hoarding like it's going to pay you interest. Cooks are broke, I know. You don't need a vacation. You need one Friday where you stay home, drink some water, get a haircut, and sleep.
My favorite podcast made fun of one of their guys for taking a mental health day, like men don't do that. I'm telling you, as a man who's been doing this for three decades: that's the whole game. Something that simple could have saved me years of heartache.
Take care of yourself. It is deeply underrated.
And there's a bigger conversation here about why our industry worships suffering, and why we keep building abusive kitchens by accepting them. That's a different post. I'll get there.