Research
Dossiers and prep
Know the room before you enter it: who they are, what they will ask, and where your gaps are.
Walking into a room unprepared is a choice once you have a machine that can build the dossier: who will be there, what they've published or shipped, what they care about, what they will probably ask. The preparation that matters most is adversarial, in the tenth law's sense: not rehearsing your pitch but locating your gaps, before the person across the table does it for you.
Roleplay is the sharpest tool in the kit. Have the machine play the expert, the counterparty, the skeptical audience, and press where it hurts; every hole it finds in private is one that cannot embarrass you in public. Feed the preparation with real context, the plan, the papers, the history, so the pressure is specific to your situation and not generic interview theater.
How to practice it
Dossier the room.
People, backgrounds, positions, likely questions, before any meeting that matters. Entering blind is now optional.
Rehearse the attack, not the pitch.
Ask what they will push on and where you are weakest. Your strengths don't need the practice.
Roleplay the counterparty.
Make the machine be them, with their expertise, and press. Losing the rehearsal is the point of having one.
Load real context first.
Generic prep produces generic readiness. The dossier and drills should be built from your actual plan and their actual work.