NLP UK Training Podcast

It wasn’t about the promotion, it wasn’t about the job title – it was about the work itself.
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 turn their attention to a quietly common career predicament: the grey zone. You don’t hate your job. You’re not in crisis. The salary’s decent, you can afford a holiday a year, you’ve got Netflix, you might even have your own parking space. But something’s missing — and you can’t quite put your finger on what. It’s not bad enough to leave, but it’s not good enough to feel alive either.
They also dig into the trap of “destination thinking” (“when I get this title / hit this salary / reach this level, I’ll feel better”), why finding the 99% of work you love matters more than escaping the 1% you don’t (Kali’s solution to her hated accounting work: hire an accountant), and a wonderful Jim Bowen “Bullseye” analogy about the 55-year-old delegate who said she wanted to be a coach — and what she’d be looking back at in ten years’ time if she didn’t take the small first steps. If you’ve been telling yourself “I should be grateful — it’s a good job” while quietly wondering if there’s something more, this is a permission slip to take that seriously.
In this episode, Steve and Kali discuss:
What the career “grey zone” actually feels like — and why it’s harder to escape than outright misery
“Destination thinking” — why “when I get there, I’ll feel better” rarely delivers
The Bullseye principle: what you could have won, and why small steps now matter
How to double down on the work you love (and offload the bits you don’t)

The diagnosis is the diagnosis – but how you experience it is up to you.
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 introduce what Steve openly calls the single most important thing he’d teach if he only had one model to share: above the line, below the line. It’s a simple framework with a huge ripple effect. Above the line lives Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility (OAR — you’re rowing your own boat). Below the line lives Blame, Excuses and Denial (BED – you’ve pulled the duvet over your head and hidden from the world). The premise is uncompromising: you’re either in one place or the other. You don’t get to fluctuate in between.
What gives this episode its weight is Kali’s story. She shares openly about being diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis around the time she met Steve — a diagnosis that forced her to give up the dance company she’d been running five nights a week. For a long time, she sat below the line, blaming the condition for how she felt. The shift came when she realised that while the diagnosis itself wasn’t going to change, how she experienced it absolutely was within her control. Once she started taking small responsible actions for her own health, something quietly shifted – and kept shifting.
They also bring in lighter examples: Kali’s wet-weather drive that morning (left earlier, cup of coffee, music on, no panic), the manager who taught his whole team the model not by lecturing but by saying “I’m a bit below the line about this” until people got curious enough to ask, and the litter-pickers Steve spotted in Ashby on a Sunday morning – a small act of personal responsibility that quietly changes a community. If there’s one episode of the podcast worth sending to a friend, Steve thinks it’s this one. Listen, draw the line on a piece of paper, and ask yourself the question that genuinely changes everything: am I above the line about this.
In this episode, Steve and Kali discuss:
The above-the-line / below-the-line model in full (OAR vs BED)
Why you can’t sit in the middle — and how to spot which side you’re on
Kali’s personal story: a life-changing diagnosis and the shift from blame to ownership
How to introduce the model to a team without lecturing them
The “cause vs effect” concept from NLP and why it’s a powerful place to live
Steve’s pick for the one thing he’d teach above anything else

You don’t need to turn the wheel ninety degrees – one degree, held over time, will get you somewhere completely new.
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 one of the biggest reasons people give up on the lives they say they want: the gap between where they are and where they want to be feels too vast to bridge. The fix isn’t a dramatic overhaul. It’s a one-degree shift – a small, sustainable change that compounds quietly over weeks and months until you look up and find yourself somewhere new.
Steve uses the analogy of a boat: turn the wheel just one degree and in fifty miles you’ll arrive at a completely different destination. They bring it to life with real examples – the learning and development manager who wanted to go freelance and was advised to start with one evening class a week rather than handing in her notice, the coaching delegates running their first small Sunday events with five attendees (two of them friends), and Steve’s own visit to see his daughter in Nassau, where the Instagram-perfect poolside photo masked the tropical storm, the flooded roads, and the nine-hour economy flight that came before it. The point lands hard: what you see on socials is one frame of someone else’s reality – not the journey that got them there.
They also unpack why instant gratification is the enemy of progress (the January gym crowd makes a cameo), how compound interest works just as powerfully on actions as on money, and why comparing yourself to someone’s curated highlight reel is a fast track to giving up on something you’d otherwise be brilliant at. If you’re feeling stuck or stretched thin, the takeaway is liberating: you don’t need to do everything right now. Move the dial one degree, set your sail, and let the compounding do the rest.
In this episode, Steve and Kali discuss:
The boat-and-wheel analogy: why one degree changes everything over time
Why January gym memberships rarely make it to February
Compound interest – and how it applies to action, not just money
The hidden work behind every “perfect” social media post
A real client story of building a coaching business one Sunday at a time

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

You can’t always change the people around you – but you can change who you choose to be around.
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 explore a question most of us never stop to ask: who are you spending your time with, and how is it shaping your energy? Steve shares a vivid story from returning to the UK after five weeks of NLP trainers’ training in Las Vegas – stepping onto an airport transfer bus and, for the first time, really noticing the low-level hum of grumbling he’d been deaf to his whole life. That contrast – five weeks of positivity followed by a wall of mumbling Brummies – became a turning point.
From there, they dig into how personal growth can sharpen your radar for the “mood hoovers” around you, why trying to change other people is a dead end, and how deliberately surrounding yourself with positive, solution-focused people quietly raises your own game. They also explore Paul McKenna’s advice about celebrating the success of others rather than knocking them – and how that simple shift lifts you just as much as them.
But this isn’t about toxic positivity. Steve and Kali draw a careful line: being around upbeat people isn’t about dependency or needing a support network to prop you up. It’s about putting your own mask on first, taking responsibility for your own energy, and then choosing to spend time with people who face problems with a “what can we do about it?” attitude rather than a sigh. If you’ve been tolerating energy-drainers at work or at home – or if you’ve never stopped to ask whether you’re the one lifting people up or pulling them down – this is ten minutes well spent.
In this episode, Steve and Kali discuss:
Why personal development makes negativity harder to ignore
The difference between needing a support network and choosing your circle
How to respond to other people’s success (and why it matters for your energy)
A simple question to ask yourself: am I the energiser or the drain?