When people find out what I do, most picture the same thing: I'm the one you go to when you're in a bad mood. Who listens, reassures, and sends you out feeling better. That I'm here to make people feel good. Often that's true. But just as often, that's where the real work starts.

I work in a place where the pace is a given, the bar is high, and smart, curious people are trying to do hard things well. Somewhere like that, wellbeing isn't the absence of difficulty — it's being able to learn from the hard parts. The person learns, and so does the organization. That's a question of structure, not feeling.

So my job is to watch the conditions people actually work well under — and to notice when something starts to wear thin, often long before anyone would think to complain. I look at the terrain they're moving across.

Because behavior always follows structure. When something keeps grinding, it's usually about the system people have to work in — and that's good news, because a system can be reshaped. Seeing that system, and helping shape it: that's my work.