First Impressions and Presence
You've already said something — and you haven't spoken yet.
Research puts the formation of a first impression at somewhere between seven seconds and two minutes. Either way, it happens before you've had a chance to say anything meaningful. Before your credentials, your resume, your accomplishments, your intentions — the person across from you has already started forming a picture. The question is not whether that happens. It does. The question is whether you're being intentional about what that picture looks like.
What presence actually is
Presence isn't about looking a certain way or having a certain personality. It's about being fully there — engaged, attentive, and comfortable enough in your own skin that the person you're with feels it. People with strong presence make others feel seen. That's what people remember.
The good news: presence is not a gift some people are born with. It's a set of habits, and habits can be built.
The five nonverbal signals that matter most
- Eye contact. Not a stare — a steady, natural gaze that says "you have my attention." Looking at your phone while someone talks says the opposite.
- Posture. Slouched signals checked-out. Upright but relaxed signals engaged and confident. You don't have to stand at attention — just be present in your body.
- The handshake. Firm, brief, and dry. Not crushing, not limp. Still matters — especially in rural professional and civic settings where it carries real cultural weight.
- Your face at rest. Most people have no idea what their face looks like when they're not actively expressing something. If you've ever been told you "look angry" or "look bored" — it may be your resting expression, not your actual feelings. Worth knowing.
- The phone. Face-down on the table is better than face-up. Out of sight is better than face-down. The presence of a phone on a table, even untouched, reduces how much people share and how connected they feel. Put it away.
Most people reading this will think of someone else who needs it. The ones who benefit most are the ones who apply it to themselves. Spend five minutes this week watching how you show up — not judging, just noticing. That noticing is the beginning of change.
Making an introduction
The basics still matter and they're still missed constantly: name, a brief context, and genuine interest in the other person. Not a monologue about yourself.
"Hi, I'm Tammi Fladager — I'm a county commissioner up in Daniels County. I heard you're working on rural healthcare access and I'd love to hear what you're seeing out there."
"Hi, I'm [name] and I've been commissioner for two years now and before that I worked in medical transcription for 26 years and I also write children's books and I'm almost done with my bachelor's degree..." — thirty seconds in, the other person is already looking for an exit.
Have two volunteers step outside, then re-enter one at a time. Ask the group to silently form a first impression — just notice, don't speak. Then debrief: What did you notice? What signals did they send? This exercise is more instructive than any lecture because the group provides the feedback, not the teacher.
1. Research suggests first impressions form in...
2. Placing your phone face-down on the table during a conversation...
3. The most important thing about a strong introduction is...
The Art of Conversation
The rarest skill in the room — and the most valued.
There's usually one person in every small community who everyone describes the same way: "She really listens." People seek them out. They trust them. They feel better after talking to them — not because that person solved anything, but because they felt genuinely heard. That person is not necessarily the smartest in the room or the most educated. They have simply mastered one thing: making people feel like what they say matters. That is the art of conversation. It is mostly the art of listening.
The difference between waiting to talk and actually listening
Most people in a conversation are half-listening and half-preparing what they'll say next. That's not listening — that's taking turns. Real listening means the other person's words are actually landing. You're tracking what they mean, not just what they say. You're noticing what they didn't say. You're interested in where they're going, not just waiting for your turn.
People can tell the difference. They always can.
Five habits of a good listener
- Don't interrupt. Let them finish. Even if you know where they're going. Especially if you know where they're going.
- Ask follow-up questions. Not to redirect — to go deeper. "What did you do next?" "How did that land for you?" These signal you were actually paying attention.
- Reflect back. "So what I'm hearing is..." gives the speaker a chance to confirm or correct. It also proves you were listening.
- Don't fix everything. Sometimes people want to be heard, not advised. Ask: "Are you looking for ideas, or do you need to talk it through?" That question alone is a gift.
- Be comfortable with silence. Silence after someone says something important is respect — it means you're thinking about what they said. Filling every pause with noise is about your discomfort, not their need.
Conversational narcissism — and how to avoid it
Conversational narcissism is the habit of steering every conversation back to yourself. It doesn't always come from selfishness — often it comes from wanting to connect by sharing similar experiences. But it lands as "my experience is more important than yours."
- "That sounds really hard. How long has that been going on?"
- "What's the hardest part of it for you?"
- "I haven't been through that — tell me more."
- "Oh, that reminds me of when I..."
- "I know exactly what you mean, the same thing happened to me..."
- "Actually, what I always do is..."
The question toolkit
| Type | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Open question | Invites a real answer, opens conversation | "What's been the hardest part of this year for your operation?" |
| Closed question | Gets a yes/no — useful for facts, not connection | "Did the sale go well?" |
| Follow-up question | Proves you were listening, goes deeper | "You mentioned the water situation — what's happening there?" |
| Clarifying question | Makes sure you understood correctly | "When you say the board didn't support it — do you mean they voted no, or just didn't engage?" |
Pair participants. Person A speaks for two minutes on something that genuinely matters to them. Person B's only job: listen, no interrupting, no phone, and ask one follow-up question when A finishes. Then debrief: How did it feel to be that listened to? What made it different? This exercise lands every time.
1. "Conversational narcissism" means...
2. When someone is venting about a problem, the best first move is to...
3. Silence after someone says something important is...
Conflict and Hard Conversations
Disagreeing without destroying. Saying hard things with grace.
In a small town, you don't get to walk away from conflict the way you might in a city. The person you disagree with at a county meeting tonight is the person you'll stand next to at the grain elevator tomorrow morning. That reality doesn't make hard conversations optional — it makes doing them well non-negotiable. Avoidance has a cost in small communities. So does doing it badly. The skill is learning to do it right.
Why most hard conversations go wrong
- We attack the person instead of the problem. Once someone feels personally criticized, they stop listening and start defending.
- We wait too long. Small frustrations compound. By the time we say something, there's months of unspoken resentment behind it.
- We say it at the wrong time. Emotional, tired, hungry, or in front of an audience — none of these are the right time for a hard conversation.
- We lead with "you always" or "you never." These absolute statements are almost never accurate and always put people on the defensive.
The structure that actually works
| Step | What it sounds like |
|---|---|
| 1. Ask first | "Is now a good time? I'd like to talk about something that's been on my mind." |
| 2. Describe the behavior, not the person | "When the meeting ran over by an hour without warning..." not "You're so disorganized." |
| 3. Name the impact | "...I had to cancel another commitment, which put me in a difficult spot." |
| 4. Ask what they see | "I wanted to understand what happened from your side." |
| 5. Work toward something | "What could we do differently going forward?" |
Step four — asking what they see — is the one most people skip. And it's the most important. You may not have the full picture. Going into a hard conversation already certain you're right and they're wrong is almost always a mistake. Curiosity about their perspective is not weakness. It's wisdom.
When to use it and when to let it go
Not every frustration deserves a hard conversation. Ask yourself: Is this a pattern or a one-time thing? Does it affect my work, my relationships, or my wellbeing in a real way? Will this matter in six months?
If the answer is yes — have the conversation. If it's a one-time thing that you can genuinely release — let it go. The key word is "genuinely." Stuffed resentment is not the same as letting go.
Receiving hard feedback
The other side of hard conversations is getting them. When someone comes to you with a concern, your first job is to listen — not defend, not explain, not immediately counter. Take it in. Thank them for saying it. Then, if needed, respond. Someone who tells you hard things cares enough to risk the discomfort. That is a gift, even when it doesn't feel like one.
Role-play scenarios work well here — give pairs a low-stakes scenario and have them walk through the five-step structure. Debrief: What felt awkward? What made it easier? The "ask what they see" step almost always generates the most discussion.
1. Hard conversations go wrong most often because...
2. In the five-step structure, why is "ask what they see" the most important step?
3. When someone brings you hard feedback, your first job is to...
Digital Etiquette
The rules changed and nobody sent a memo.
We invented these tools faster than we invented the norms for using them. Email is now thirty years old and people still send messages that would never fly in a face-to-face conversation. Social media is barely twenty and has already reshaped how people fight, grieve, celebrate, and humiliate each other. Nobody handed us a rulebook. We're all figuring it out — some people better than others. This lesson is the memo nobody sent.
Text and messaging
- Respond in kind. If someone sent a paragraph, a one-word reply is dismissive. If they sent "👍" they don't want an essay back.
- Don't send multiple one-line texts when one message will do. Three pings in a row for one thought is noise.
- Tone doesn't travel well in text. Sarcasm, irony, and frustration land differently in writing. When in doubt, add more warmth — not less.
- Read receipts create pressure. If you use them, reply in a reasonable time. If you can't reply, don't leave someone on read for 24 hours without a "got it, will get back to you."
- Some conversations don't belong in text. Anything with emotional stakes — conflict, sensitive news, important decisions — deserves a real conversation.
- Subject lines are the courtesy of the professional world. "Quick question" tells the recipient nothing. "Question about Thursday's agenda — 2 mins" is actually useful.
- Reply-all is almost always wrong. Before you hit it, ask: does everyone on this chain actually need your reply?
- Don't send emails you'd regret seeing screenshotted. Email is not private. Especially in organizations, government, and anything involving public trust.
- The 24-hour rule for angry emails. Draft it. Don't send it. Read it again tomorrow. Delete the whole thing or send a much shorter version.
Social media
- The internet has a long memory. In small communities especially, what you post follows you. Employers look. School boards look. Voters look.
- Public figures and private people are not the same. Criticizing a public official's decisions is fair. Publishing personal attacks on private individuals is not — and can be harmful.
- Don't post in anger. The post that feels satisfying in the moment often costs you something you'll care about later.
- Engagement isn't endorsement — but it looks like it. Liking, sharing, and commenting on content attaches you to it in the public mind. Act accordingly.
Would you say this to their face, in public, with your name on it? If the answer is no — that's your answer about whether to post it, send it, or say it digitally. The screen creates a false sense of distance. The impact is real.
Ask: Has anyone regretted something they sent or posted? (You don't need specifics — just the raising of hands.) What was the cost? This tends to open a powerful conversation about the gap between what felt justified in the moment and what it cost them later. No judgment — just reflection.
1. Before hitting Reply-All on an email, you should ask...
2. "The 24-hour rule" for angry emails means...
3. The best test for whether to post something on social media is...
Community and Civic Etiquette
Small towns, public life, and the long memory of community.
Small-town civic life has rules that nobody writes down. Everyone knows them — or is supposed to. Show up when you say you will. Don't grandstand in public meetings. Don't make it personal. Disagree at the meeting, shake hands in the parking lot. Volunteer when there aren't enough people. Step back when it's someone else's turn. These rules hold a community together more than any ordinance does. And when people stop following them — even a few people — everyone feels it.
How to show up in public meetings
- Come prepared. Read the agenda. Know the issue. Your time and everyone else's is more valuable when you've done the homework.
- Speak to the issue, not the person. "I disagree with this proposal because..." is appropriate. "I can't believe he would even suggest..." is not.
- Three minutes is usually enough. If you can't make your point in three minutes, you haven't found it yet. Respect the room's time.
- Don't repeat what's already been said. Adding "and I agree with everything she just said" is not a contribution. If someone made your point better than you would have, let it stand.
- Public comment is not a conversation. You present your view. You don't get to cross-examine the board or demand immediate answers. That's not the format.
The long memory of small communities
In cities, you can have a bad moment and mostly recover — most people won't remember, and you can disappear into the crowd. In a town of 1,000 people, that calculation is different. Your reputation is built slowly and lost fast. The way you behave at the county meeting, the school board meeting, the co-op annual meeting — it accumulates.
This isn't a reason to be invisible or to never take a stand. It's a reason to be intentional. The people who have the most influence in small communities over time are the ones who show up consistently, treat people well regardless of whether they agree with them, and don't burn bridges they'll need to cross again.
Civic participation as etiquette
- Vote. Complaining about government while not voting is a form of free-riding on everyone who does.
- Show up to more than just the things that affect you directly. Presence at a school board meeting when you have no children signals investment in the community, not just self-interest.
- Give credit generously. In small communities, the people doing the work are often invisible. Naming them publicly — at a meeting, in a letter to the paper — costs you nothing and matters enormously to them.
- Disagree with decisions, not with people's humanity. You can think a commissioner made the wrong call without concluding that they're a bad person. Holding that distinction is civic maturity.
Ask: Who is someone in your community who does civic life really well? What do they do? This question almost always produces the same answers — they show up, they're consistent, they treat people well even in disagreement. The discussion teaches the lesson better than any list.
1. In a public meeting, "speak to the issue, not the person" means...
2. In small communities, reputation is built...
3. "Disagree with decisions, not with people's humanity" is an example of...
When AI Is in the Room
The new social frontier nobody has fully figured out yet. Here's a start.
Every generation gets a new set of social questions that didn't exist before. Phones at the dinner table. Social media at funerals. Video calls with the camera off. Each time, the norms take years to catch up to the technology. AI is the newest version of that gap — and it's a big one. Using AI at work, in school, in civic life, in personal relationships raises questions we're still working out. This lesson doesn't pretend to have all the answers. It gives you a framework for thinking through them yourself.
Where the new questions are showing up
- In school and education. When is using AI for help appropriate? When does it become doing the work for you? These lines are being drawn differently by different institutions right now.
- At work. If you use AI to draft something faster, are you obligated to say so? What if your organization hasn't set a policy yet?
- In public and civic life. If a public comment was drafted with AI help, does that need to be disclosed? What about a letter to the editor?
- In personal relationships. Is it appropriate to use AI to draft a heartfelt message to a friend? What about a condolence note? A wedding toast?
A framework for the gray areas
| Question to ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Does the recipient expect this to be fully yours? | If yes, and AI did significant work — that's a disclosure question |
| Does using AI here change the meaning of the interaction? | A condolence note's value is in the human care behind it. AI changes that. |
| Am I using AI as a tool or as a replacement for my own thinking? | Tool: fine. Replacement: you're losing something — and often it shows. |
| Would I be comfortable if people knew I used AI for this? | If not — that discomfort is worth listening to. |
Don't let AI replace the part of you that the other person is actually there for. In education, that's your thinking. In relationships, that's your care. In civic life, that's your voice. AI can help you express those things more clearly. It cannot generate them for you.
AI in meetings and group settings
- Announce it when it's relevant. If you used AI to prepare a presentation, brief report, or analysis that others will rely on — say so. It helps people calibrate how to engage with the material.
- Don't use AI in real time without saying so. If you're looking something up or running a question through AI during a meeting, naming it ("let me ask AI quickly") keeps the room informed.
- AI note-taking and summarization tools are increasingly common. If a meeting is being recorded and summarized by AI, participants should know — both as a courtesy and, in some contexts, a legal matter.
This lesson works best as a discussion rather than instruction. Pose the scenarios from the gray-areas table and let the group debate. There are no settled right answers here. The goal is that participants leave with a personal framework — not a list of rules — for navigating situations as they arise.
1. Using AI to draft a condolence note to a grieving friend raises a social question because...
2. If you used AI to help draft a public comment or presentation others will rely on, you should...
3. The one rule that covers most AI social situations is...