Alt title: Mmmm... Doughnuts...

You want to know how to impress someone in a job interview, conversation, or presentation?

Bring the conversation full circle.

If we’re present in the moment, we’ll notice unusual words of phrases that other people use.

For example, when I was interviewed for my college scholarship, I was asked whether I had had any failures in my life. I didn’t have a prepared answer for that, so instead of bluffing, I just said “I’ll have to think about that and get back to you.”

They peppered me with many other questions after that one, and at that point, I felt like I might have cost myself the scholarship with my non-answer. But towards the end, someone asked a loosely related question. I had the presence of mind to say: “If I can take things back to Bob’s question earlier—Bob, you asked me about failure: I think the reason that question was so hard for me to answer in the moment was because I don’t look at the negative experiences of my life as failures, but rather as lessons to be learned and stories to be told. I’ve made it a point to incorporate those lessons as I go, and to turn failures into becoming a better person.”

And in that moment, I knew I had aced the interview and gotten the scholarship. If you file away key words, phrases, ideas, or questions, and then come back to them later, you'll impress everyone, all the time. Remember this.