OK I’ll admit it — I became a Winter Oympics junkie, sitting in my living room totally into watching the amazing feats of these athletes. One athlete in particular captured my imagination, Lindsey Vonn the women’s downhill skier.

As I listened to her story and watched her compete, I couldn’t help but get a few life lessons from Lindsey and her gold medal victory.

No matter how much you prepare. No matter how good your self-knowledge is, no matter how compelling your value propsition is, you will most like bump into some tough interviewers.

So let’s take a look at the most common and annoying styles and how to handle them.

I am currently volunteering in an after school program and mentoring two eleventh graders who are getting ready to take SATs as well as preparing for college decisions and interviews. Needless to say, it’s a time of uncertainty and pressure for they have to make some big decisions and compete with thousands of others.

Recently, as part of a job search discussion group, an interesting resume question was posed. Should you downplay your resume in these hard times?

So, no job. Or you are scared to death as a new retiree because you don’t know where next to move. If you are an introvert, the pressure may be more intensified, since the fear of networking can be as frightening as job loss. Well, maybe not quite as scary as having no job, no but scary enough to render some of you ineffective and, perhaps immobile.

Attitude affects behaviors and if you are thinking that you can never be young again and are too old for the job market, take solace from the research that indicates that young people can never be you! Whatever the job market, and the hard times we are going through, your age can work for you.

Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball avoided ethnic jokes. Arnaz recalled that the only exception consisted of making fun of Ricky Ricardo’s accent, and noted that even these jokes worked only when Lucy, as his wife, did the mimicking. That, of course, implies a sense of connection and compassion not often found in congressional committee hearings. It is, moreover, amazing that Senators like Sessions and Coburn – both of whom are notable for their ethnically questionanle comments and for being “caught” in hypocritical statements and positions, saw fit to criticize Sonia Sotomayor using what could be considered an ethnic slur.

It is a rule of media training that despite the questions a reporter asks, you return or “bridge” back to your original point. Like a broken record, you repeat your message over and over again as a fact that can’t be disputed. If you stay “on message,” as they say in politics, eventually your point of view becomes embedded in the minds of your target audiences, moving them to your side of the argument (hopefully). Judge Sonia Sotomayor has learned this lesson well.

Because I’ve been taking a blogging course, my peers have come to view me with awe. I have become their go-to person when I barely have mastered the rudiments myself. I am both flattered and embarrassed because I am no tech expert – trust me on that one.

But you don’t need to be a techie to enter the new world of social media. And if you are working fulltime or part-time or are what I term “working retired,” then you need to be in the game.

How many times have we heard the old axiom, “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” Well, that may be true sometimes. But I think you make your own luck when it comes to presenting yourself.