An employee breaks down in a manager's office, and the manager's instinct is to reach for HR. It feels responsible. It's often the worst thing you can do in that moment. This is about the difference between routing someone and staying with them, why "that's HR's job" produces the crises it's meant to prevent, and why noticing your people early is a management skill, not a clinical one.

I run a mental health company, and some days I think we talk about mental health too much. Not for the reason you'd expect. The phrase itself has gone abstract. "We all have mental health" is as useful as "we're all animals," true and inert. This is about why awareness stopped working, why vague conversation feels like too much conversation, and what changes when you get specific.