How do you perform when the spotlight's on you? Do you rise to the occasion or shrink into the shadows? Does it, perhaps, depend on the situation? (Hint: Of course it does.)
We do a lot things by rote, rather than based on conscious decisions. Charles Duhigg, in his outstanding book The Power of Habit,1 suggested that more than 40% of our daily activities are just that—habits. They're things we repeat day after day without thinking about them.
What about our other activities? Sure, they require conscious decision-making, but in most cases they're easy calls. There's little internal debate or external pressure. We apply simple logic and/or logistics, and then we proceed.
