"Good morning!" I said to the team during our weekly kick-off daily standup. What happened just a few minutes later, with an uncontrollable intensity, was something I absolutely did not anticipate.
Two months into my role at Forter, my calendar was packed to the brim, and my to-do list was never-ending. Even though I was giving 300%, I still felt like I was constantly chasing something. My eye had started twitching occasionally, but just a little. Probably nothing to worry about. I kept running.
During that weekly daily standup, we all gathered as usual. As each person shared something good, something bad, and what they were working on today, my eye started twitching incessantly, in a way that was impossible to ignore. A thought flashed through my mind: Does the team notice this? Is this weird? What should I do? I tried to listen, but mostly I just managed to hear. Then, a muscle in my arm started twitching involuntarily... Shit, here it comes.
I walked out of that standup, barely registering what had been said, but holding it all together, acting as if everything was normal and nothing required stopping. But once I was out, I realized I couldn't keep going like this. My body was signaling that something was wrong, and I knew it because I had overcome similar things in the past. But here it was again... What to do? I definitely couldn't continue this way... but... how could I change?
My Group Manager, Asaf, was a genuinely pleasant and interesting person to talk to, and I had a strong connection and trust with him. We had a weekly 1:1 scheduled, so the timing was perfect to discuss this issue. I felt vulnerable. I was afraid to say that even though it looked like I was running and getting into things at 300%, I was actually getting burned out and risked crashing. At least, that's what my body was signaling.
Nevertheless, I decided to put it on the table with him. It wasn't an easy conversation, but we went deep. He also shared a personal story from a different context that deepened my empathy and trust. I saw how much he wanted me to succeed. We moved from a difficult conversation to a practical plan—a new way of working to overcome the cause of the overload and figure out where the most important areas of focus were. I had a very active part in that solution, and the most crucial element was feeling supported. I felt like I was working with a manager who knew how to say, "You know what? We went in the wrong direction. Let's change it and adjust."
Feeling so comfortable, I had similar conversations with our Group Director (Mishori). I felt another layer of support. How great it is to have managers you can talk to. How great that I dared to be so authentically direct.
What happened to the eye twitches? They vanished within a few days, as if they were never there. The body understood after a while what the head and heart grasped in that moment.
This was a level of honesty I hadn't reached before, and I felt I had made another leap in my ability to express difficult things that weren't working, instead of just projecting business as usual. The relationship with my managers deepened, and suddenly we could talk about other "elephants in the room" throughout the nearly year and a half we worked together, where challenges inevitably arose.
Since then, I have continued to delve into this topic, looking inward, daring to stay in the discomfort or difficulty (long before the body starts speaking and the eye twitches), asking questions, understanding how I feel, and taking command of what I do. Beyond enabling me to become a manager who knows how to spot similar things in others and feels comfortable discussing them, it allowed me to work on things objectively, without having to set emotions aside.
