Lustberg's experience coaching people for high-stakes conversations, including political interviews, job interviews, and media appearances, surfaces several consistent patterns in what works and what does not. The most common mistake is treating the interview as a test of information retrieval: the candidate's job is to know the answers and deliver them correctly. This misunderstands what is actually being evaluated. The interviewer is primarily forming a judgment about the person, not the information. The question 'Tell me about yourself' is not a request for a resume recitation. It is an invitation to reveal who you are as a person and how you communicate under mild social pressure. Lustberg recommends preparing for interviews by thinking about the three to five things you most want the interviewer to know about you. Not your full history, but the essence of who you are and what you bring. Every answer, regardless of the specific question, should be an opportunity to communicate one of those three to five things. On difficult questions, Lustberg recommends a technique he calls 'bridging': acknowledging the question directly and briefly, then connecting it to something you do want to say. This is not evasion, it is prioritisation. The best interviewees are not the ones who answer every question most completely. They are the ones who use every question as an opportunity to communicate what matters most about them.