In Reflection
The Final Three Tips That Will Make You Not Just a Better Host, but a Brilliant One.
Hey, I’m Penny Terry and I love writing about ‘soft skills’ while simultaneously hating the phrase ‘soft skills.’ At the moment I’m writing a 10-part series about hosting everything from meetings to podcasts, to events. This is the LAST in that series! I’ll take a short break and then return to regular programming of simple strategies for question asking, storytelling, and conversation having.
Today, I want to talk about Jim Carrey. Weird.
I don’t mean he’s weird, but the idea of talking about him in a series about hosting podcasts, meetings and events, is kinda weird.
I recently realised that I hardly knew anything about Jim Carrey—and anything I thought I knew was completely wrong. For some reason, I had this idea that Jim Carrey just got lucky, caught a break, and rode the wave of success. I don’t even know where that idea came from—maybe from how easy it seems, from here.
But then I came across an Instagram clip from an interview about his life, and it sent me down a rabbit hole of more interviews and documentaries about his career. It turns out he’s incredibly interesting—and just as complex as his facial expressions. There was no lucky break, and there was little that was easy about his rise to stardom.
Carrey’s story is full of setbacks, reflection, and persistence. Before he became the comedic icon we know today, his family faced significant financial difficulties, especially during his teenage years. After his father lost his job, the family went through a period of homelessness, living in a van and sometimes in a tent. Carrey dropped out of school at 16 to get a job as a cleaner, before trying comedy.
He bombed completely in his first comedy set as a teenager and he’s described his early career as a mix of soaring highs and crushing lows. In one of his interviews, he shared that on some nights, he’d feel like a king—absolutely owning the stage, and the audience would revere his performance. But on other nights, he would bomb so badly that he’d literally hide under the piano for the rest of the show.
Somewhere along the line, Carrey took on a new approach to failure. After he’d bomb, instead of walking away in defeat, he’d pause. He’d reflect. He’d try and work out what went wrong and what he could tweak. He didn’t overhaul his whole act. He simply learned from it and made adjustments. He worked on his timing and his delivery—bit by bit. As we’re so often told, (but just as often choose to ignore), it worked. He began improving.
Famously he used visualisation techniques, writing himself a $10 million check for “acting services rendered” and dated it for 1995, and somehow managed to land the contract for Dumb and Dumber just days before! Was it blind ambition—or was it thanks to intentional reflection?
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
And maybe it’s not so weird that I’m writing about Jim Carrey in the wrap-up of this series on How to Be a Better Host. Because maybe he can teach us all the value of pausing, taking time to reflect, and being ok with improvements that come bit by bit.
Whether you’re leading a team meeting, running an event, or recording a podcast, it’s always in the reflection that growth happens. It’s in that pause, that quiet space after the event is over, where we can learn the most.
Here are three things we can do in reflection:
Review: Get Curious Like Carrey did after a tough night on stage, take a moment to pause and consider What worked? What didn’t? What felt off? What felt…on? Go beyond the surface and get curious about what felt right and where you lost connection with your audience. Did the energy drop? Were people disengaged during certain parts? Asking the right questions helps pinpoint the moments that matter most. It’s not about being critical but about being curious.
Improve: Make Small, Intentional Adjustments Reflection is only useful if we turn it into action. Once you’ve reviewed your performance, think about small, practical changes you can make. Carrey didn’t overhaul his entire comedy routine after bad nights—he made small, focused improvements. Apply the same principle. Whether you’re hosting a podcast, meeting, or event, focus on tweaking one thing at a time. Maybe it’s the way you ask questions, the timing of your transitions, or how you engage quieter participants. Incremental adjustments build confidence and refinement over time.
Embed: Build It Into Your Hosting Rituals Here’s where the real magic happens. It’s not enough to make improvements once—you’ve got to embed them into your routines. This idea links back to something I wrote earlier in the series about creating hosting rituals. Once you’ve identified areas for improvement and practised those tweaks, the next step is to make them second nature. And the way to do that is by creating rituals—intentional practices that you repeat every time you host something. These rituals act as your anchors, helping you stay consistent, feel ready and ensure that the improvements stick.
By reviewing, improving, and embedding those lessons into your routine, you set yourself up to become not just a better host, but a brilliant one.
So here we are, at the end of the How to Be a Better Host series. We’ve talked about nine things to do before hosting, nine things to do during, and now we’ve ticked off nine things to do after. And if there’s one thing that ties it all together, it’s this: hosting isn’t about performing, it’s about learning. From your audience, your guests and yourself.
There’s no surprise it’s the most interesting gig there is.
No matter what you’re hosting—a podcast, a meeting, an event, or a conversation—the best hosts are the ones who never stop learning. They don’t just talk, they grow. And that’s the difference between hosting something well and hosting something exceptionally well.
Thanks for learning with me.
Chat Soon?
I’m going to take a mini-break from the weekly posts while I turn this thing into a book!
That said, I’m not really sure I believe it. Becuase I’ve already got big plans for the next series. We’re dropping the mic (ahem) and picking up the skills we need to influence and engage—whether we’re behind a microphone or not.
We’ll look at how we can ask better questions, build better connections, craft better messages, tell better stories and have better conversations.
It’s about getting better. Bit by bit.