Quick Win: The simple question that stops catastrophising and opens real possibility

When you’re on the edge of a big leap, do you spiral into everything that could go wrong? What if you asked a different question instead - one that opens the door to possibility rather than fear? 

In this Quick Win, I speak with educator and author Lael Stone about the powerful mindset shift from “How bad could it be?” to “How good could it get?” 

 It’s a simple reframe that changes how we approach risk, success, and self-sabotage - and helps us recognise when fear is keeping us small. 

Lael and I discuss: 

• Why our brains are wired to fixate on danger and protection 

• The one question that flips fear into curiosity: “How good could it get?” 

• How family patterns can quietly shape how we define success 

• The hidden guilt that makes some of us sabotage our achievements 
• A practical exercise to break free from old stories and step into growth 

KEY QUOTE 

“When you ask, ‘How good could it get?’, you open yourself up to possibilities you didn’t even know existed.” 

Connect with Lael Stone on Instagram, LinkedIn and her website, and check out her latest book Own Your Story. 

Listen to the full conversation with Lael here. 

 

My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/  

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Credits:  

Host: Amantha Imber  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's your first instinct When you're about to take a
big risk. A lot of us start catastrophizing. We run
through every possible thing that could go wrong. People might
judge me, I could lose money, I could fail. But
my guest, Layel's Stone, educator and author of Own Your Story,
suggests flipping the script. Instead of asking how bad could

(00:25):
it be? Ask how good could it get. By the
end of this quick win, you'll understand how to use
this simple but powerful reframe the next time you're hesitating
about a bold move. Welcome to How I Work, a

(00:49):
show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day.
I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imber. I want to talk
about imprints around success and happiness, which I found really
interesting and that as humans, a lot of us have
the tendency to ask how bad could it be? And

(01:11):
you invite people to ask a different question. Can you
tell me more about that?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So I think again. Our default is to always troubleshoot,
to go what could go wrong? Right, especially when we're
going to do something new, We're often like this could happen?
That could happen. People might judge me, I might lose
whole lot of money, like all the things right, and
we are hardwired to look for all the problems because
we're coming from protection. We're always coming from protection, we're
always trying to keep ourselves safe. But the other question

(01:36):
that the flip of that is well how good could
it get? Right? And I think when we flip that
thinking a little bit to being like, well what could
go right? What could be possible?

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Here?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Again we open ourselves up to the potential of the possibility.
So I have found that again just purely through safety
rights in trying to keep ourselves safe. When we're thinking
about doing something new, when we're taking a leap forward,
we have this really limited way of thinking this might happen,
and we go into all the logistics. But when you
ask something like well how good could it get what

(02:06):
you're doing is you're opening yourself up to possibilities you
didn't even know that exists. And so when we are
looking or whenever I'm looking at doing something new, taking
a leap all that kind of stuff, I go, yeah,
I usually have the wobbles of like, oh, that's a
great idea, and these things may go wrong, and there's
nothing wrong with thinking about that. We have to be smart,
we need to troubleshoot, right, But I think the overriding feeling,

(02:27):
which can be really powerful, is well, how good could
this be if I didn't care what people thought, if
it wasn't about money, what could be possible here? And
success is one of those tricky things where I think
can be very layered for a lot of people. And again,
depending on the imprints that you have. Right, if you
grew up in a family where your worth was really

(02:47):
only about how successful you were, then you are probably
going to work really, really hard because your fundamental need
is I need to be seen by my family of origin.
So I'll create this business, I'll ard this much money.
And then often what happens is we're still looking to go, yeah,
do you see how successful I am? Do you see me?
Do you love me? It often doesn't give us the
feeling that we're looking for, because that longing to be seen,

(03:10):
or that needing to be recognized is something can only
come from within. It's not about everybody else's recognition. And
there's enough evidence there. We know that people who are
top athletes or musicians or billionaires, whatever it is you know,
they can be some of the loneliest people on earth.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
I also see with success is that if we grew
up in a family of origin where people weren't what
we would consider really successful, we can often sabotage our
own success because we can often feel like we're being
disloyal to our family if we were to be successful.
So I've seen this a bit with families where perhaps
it's been a struggle either financially or I've had to

(03:46):
work really hard. And part of what becomes that narrative
in our families is we work really really hard, you know,
or we struggle and that's what we do. And then
if someone steps out of that and there's a lot
of flow in their life or perhaps there's a lot
of success, what can sometimes happen over here is that
family of origin can be quite judgmental of what you're doing.
They can make fun of what it is, you know,

(04:07):
and then we can be having this feeling of like, well,
they don't see me, and you know, maybe I don't
belong anymore. So we actually can sabotage ourselves just to
belong in that family of origin, And the work is
often realizing, hey, it's safe for me to be success,
you know, I belong in my family just because I'm
part of that family, right, I don't need to behave
in a certain way. I will always belong. But part

(04:27):
of that movement towards growth is actually just changing those
belief systems and stories. It says it is safe for
me to be successful, because I've seen a lot of
people sabotage themselves in their greatness, usually because they feel
disloyal to their family that they've come from. And it's
often a deep, unconscious story. They don't even realize it
until we get to the kind of deeper levels and
then they're like, oh, oh, there's a story I write

(04:49):
in the book about a man I worked with, had
amazing possibilities happening in his business, but he kept sabotaging
or playing small and when we got to the bottom
of it, really what it was about is he'd grown
up with an older sister who was really often very
jealous of him, and whenever he had any form of
his success, you know, she tried to up one on him,

(05:10):
and just there was a lot of tension that often
happened because she had a lot of insecurities and needed
to be the best. And that was from when they
were kids, and he was still playing it out now, right.
He was still in a place where I asked him
to imagine how good could it be? How good could
it get? Tell me the dream, imagine what it looks like.
And he's dreaming about all the beautiful things. And I
literally then ask him, okay, and who's here? And he goes, oh,

(05:32):
my sister's just walked in. And I go and what
she doing? And she's like, she's mad because I have
all this success. And I was like, ah, and this
is the complexities and the intricacies of families, right, Like
my god, they can be so messy, but it actually
filters into work like it does often it filters into
many things. You know, when you think about the people

(05:53):
you work with, often people who you know we sometimes
butt heads against or have challenges within work, how often
have got similar traits to family members. I Mean, I'll
often say if I'm working with someone who've got this
colleague of mine, I'm like, who do they remind you of? Yeah,
my younger brother, all right, or my mom or my dad,
you know, And I'm like, we have an opportunity to

(06:14):
work through some of the stories and patterns that we've
got because relationships is where we do the work.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
What stayed with me from this little excerpt is how
quickly we default to fear and how different things feel
when we pause and ask how good could this be?
The Next time you're about to try something new and
your mind starts spinning through worst case scenarios, just stop.
Take Layelle's advice, ask the opposite question and let yourself

(06:41):
imagine the best case. If you want to go deeper
into this conversation with Layelle, you can find a link
to both parts one and parts two of my bigger
conversation in the show notes. If you like today's show,
make sure you get follow on your podcast app to
be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was

(07:03):
recorded on the traditional land of the Warringery people, part
of the Coulan nation.