Ask Yourself a Better Question: How to Cope When Life Throws You a Curveball

A positive attitude won’t cure everything — but it certainly helps with a lot.

Welcome back to the NLP UK Training podcast! Hosted by NLP Trainers Steve Kay and Kali Fraser from NLPUKTraining.com – a leading provider of NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner certification in the UK.

In this episode, Steve and Kali tackle something every one of us deals with… setbacks. From rising bills and stormy commutes to lost clients and the end of relationships, life has a habit of sideswiping us when we least expect it. So what separates the people who spiral from those who bounce? According to Steve and Kali, it often comes down to one deceptively simple habit – asking yourself a better question.

Steve shares a real example from the business: a telemarketer called during a training day to say a council client was about to cancel three leadership programmes due to redundancies. The old Steve would have panicked. Instead, he asked himself “How can I improve the situation?”, fired off a quick email during his coffee break, and turned a potential loss into an ongoing conversation. That one question – asked in the right state – changed everything. They also dig into why negativity is the path of least resistance (thanks to our built-in negativity bias), why personal responsibility is the antidote to feeling at the mercy of external events, and how setbacks often become the launchpad for the next chapter – whether that’s a new course, a new job, or a fresh start.

This isn’t about slapping on a smile and pretending problems don’t exist. It’s about recognising what’s in your control, changing your state before you take action, and being honest enough to ask for help when you need it. If you’ve been sitting with a setback and waiting for things to improve on their own, this episode might be the nudge to pick a better question – and start moving.

In this episode, Steve and Kali discuss:

• The one question that can shift your state in the middle of a setback
• Why negativity takes zero effort – and positivity takes just a little more
• A real-world example of turning a client cancellation into an opportunity
• Why personal responsibility is empowering, not exhausting