TED Talks Daily
The habit that could improve your career (and your life) | Paul Catchlove (re-release)
05 Jul 2025
Paul Catchlove believes strongly in the power of reflection. Through every career he's held -- from priest to opera singer to senior management consultant -- he's benefitted from a habit of considering and analyzing his goals, needs and performance. Learn more about how a regular practice of reflection can improve your decision-making, career and relationships.This episode originally aired January 5, 2023.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Learning from my own mistakes and reflecting on how I handle things in life has always been a huge part of my own growth. For business leader Paul Ketchlove, the power of reflection is key to, well, just about everything.
In his archive talk, he shares that through every career he's held, from priest to opera singer to senior management consultant, he's benefited from the habit of reflecting on what worked and what could be better next time. Coming up, how retrospectives can transform our careers and relationships.
I wrote this journal entry in 2013. I've been sleeping restlessly for months. There's a constant feeling of tension in my body. I love ministry as a Catholic priest, the opportunity to share my faith with people and support them as we journey through life together. But I have a desire to share my life with another person.
I knew in discerning ministry that celibacy, not getting married, was part of the package. but I don't know if I can do this any longer. I'm rarely alone, but I feel bitterly lonely. I wrote this when I was on the cusp of making one of the biggest and most significant decisions of my life, whether to leave ministry as a Catholic priest.
I think my life has been a reasonably unique and unusual one. Now, in my early 40s, I've had careers as an opera singer, a Catholic priest, a corporate lawyer and now a management consultant. And when people hear the careers that I've had, the most common question I get asked, maybe the one that's on your mind, is what on earth is the connection amongst it all?
Through all of these changes, through all of these careers, one constant has been present, the practice of reflection. Now, people may think that reflection is something that happens in a dark private room by candlelight or flashlight to purge one's deepest, darkest secrets. But I want to bring this practice out of the dark and into the light.
I want to share how this practice can help our everyday lives and especially our work lives. I want to share how this practice helps to improve performance, to make better decisions, both big and small, and to build better relationships. Interestingly, in a 2020 survey of some 4,000 respondents conducted by BCG and BVA, the question was asked, what makes a good leader?
What are their main qualities and skills? Notably, possessing a good capacity for reflection was listed as one of the top five skills, the others being empathy, listening, consideration and team development. Reflection is about learning. It's about looking at the events of our lives without judgment, but with a critical lens.
I really like the way leadership professors James Bailey and Scheherazade Remen describe it. It requires taking an honest moment to look at what transpired, what worked, what didn't, what can be done and what can't. Reflection requires courage. It's thoughtful and it's deliberate. So how do we do this, then? Let's take a look at sports.
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