Reaction Gap - Why awareness - not confidence, is the first step to communicating under pressure.

We like to think we're making conscious decisions throughout a conversation or when we are speaking in public, but I suspect many of us are simply watching well-rehearsed patterns unfold. Patterns we've been reinforcing for years without ever questioning whether they're still serving us.

That isn't necessarily a problem. In fact, many of those patterns are incredibly useful and make life easy.

The problem arises when an old pattern takes over before you've had the chance to decide whether it's still appropriate.