Green Screen Dog

You are the reaction. Whatever is happening, your face has already published a first draft of what you think about it, usually before the sentence has finished. People find this useful and slightly alarming at the same time: they can read the room by reading you, and they do it constantly.

Two things go wrong with that. The first is that you are reacting to version one of a story, and version one is often wrong, so you have been visibly appalled by things that turned out to be nothing. The second is worse: people learn to manage you around your face. They soften the news, they leave a part out, they wait for a better moment. You end up with less information than anyone else in the room, precisely because you are the most honest person in it.

You cannot install a poker face and you should not try. What you can install is one sentence: give me the rest of it first. Say it before responding to anything that arrived as a headline. It buys you the four seconds you have never had, and it tells people your face is a first impression, not a verdict.