Be Your Biggest Fan

You may not realize it, but all of us perform in our lives. We do our work, we do our art, we show up in our families, neighborhoods, and churches. And the whole time, our brain is heckling us and booing our performance. 

Our brain says, “You're such a hack. You don't belong. Nobody likes you.”

If we’re constantly criticizing ourselves, so much of our own brilliance, our own genius, is never going to be expressed – because we've just shut down. Then we play small and we try so little and we give up before we even get started.

So let’s reframe the way we see ourselves and our lives. Imagine that you’re living life in front of your all-time biggest fans. They’re cheering and rooting for you, they love and approve of everything you do.

Now – what if you could be your biggest fan?

When you tried new things, created things, and put yourself out in the world, what if you were all in on yourself and your performance? It may not come easily or naturally, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to.

If you want to be your own biggest fan, it’s a practice. Here are the three most important components for getting started.

Courage

To be your biggest fan goes against every instinct our brain has. We're afraid that if we really like who we are and what we create, then we’re going to become arrogant or complacent. Brene Brown said, “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we'll ever do.” 

It takes so much bravery to believe that what you create and share can dare to exist in the world.

Choose

We have to choose to approve of ourselves and like who we are and what we do. Most of us think that when we create something great, then it’s inherently, unequivocally good, and it’ll be easy for our brain to approve. But in reality, it only becomes good in the moment we choose to see it as good. Because it’s a choice, and it's all happening in our minds. And if we decide it's brilliant and we’re good, it changes our experience of ourselves. It changes our experience of what we create, and opens the door to creating so much more.

Creation 

Being your biggest fan is essential to creation. If you want to create more in your life, you have to approve of what you’ve already created. Each day as God created the earth, he didn't say, “Well, it's not good enough yet. I guess I’m never going to be able to create what I want.”

At the end of every day, God said, “It is good.” As creators ourselves, we too have this ability.

We have to have pride and approval and cheer for what we’re creating just like God was cheering for his creation. We think criticism is important for creation, (see: complacent) but it’s the opposite. When bands release albums their fans love, they don’t stop - they create more. And when we love what we’re doing, we want to do more.

You get to be your own biggest fan, and that’s always a choice available to you.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello Podcast Universe! Welcome to Episode 176 of the 100% Awesome Podcast I'm April Price, I am so happy to be with you today. Thank you for being there. Thank you for being out there listening and sharing the podcast It means so much to me. I wanted to give you a little update on things in my life. First of all, several of you have reached out to ask about Ethan and to ask how he's doing, and I'm happy to report that he's doing really well after that first initial shock, right. Entering the country and like just being exposed to like how little Spanish he really didn't know. I think that he is adjusting really, really well. And for him, I think the biggest struggle now is just like being a beginner. He's always been really good at the things that he's chosen to do in his life, and he's always been really successful and it's hard for him to be a beginner. And he especially feels like, Oh, I don't want other people to like not get what they need or to suffer because I'm not good at my job, right?

Because I'm not doing this job, right? And listen, I can relate to that, right? Like, I think all of us can. And we're going to talk a little bit about that later in the episode. But he is learning to not judge himself and to let that go and to just be satisfied with his very best, even when his very best isn't as good as he wants it to be. And so, he is doing really well. Thank you to all of you who have thought about him, have asked about him.

For me personally, I am just one week away from 29029, which is the big Everest event that I've been training for. And basically I'm going to be hiking the equivalent height of Mount Everest, 29,000, 29 feet in 36 hours, just on a on a smaller mountain than Everest. So, I had to take oxygen tanks with me. But I'm going to be doing a couple of upcoming episodes about the things that I've learned through this training and also kind of like even take you to the event itself and the things that I learn as I learn to dig deep on that mountain. And I was going to invite all of you that want to follow along.

You can find me on Instagram at April Price, and if you follow along at the actual event, I'm going to be posting on my stories and kind of give updates throughout the day. And so, if you're interested in that, you can find me on Instagram. And then finally last week we had the Inner Critic Workshop, and it was so good. I'm going to be talking about some of the things that I mentioned in there in this episode today. But if you want the full experience and you want to learn how to really silence and quiet your inner critic, I can't recommend it enough. I really think that you would benefit so much from the things that I teach you, the tools that I give you, so you can get that for free at my website Aprilpricecoaching.com and you just click the button and it will you'll be able to download that workshop and get all the goodness from that so that is available to you if you are interested.

Okay, so on to the episode, this episode happened because recently we went on a quick trip to Utah and we got to go to the Killers concert. I can't remember if I told you about this or not, but we have been waiting to go to this concert since, I think December of 2019. We bought the tickets to this concert and it got delayed for a couple of years. And finally, just last week, we went up to Utah, to Salt Lake City, and we saw the Killers perform live in concert. It was amazing just so that, you know, the Killers are really our family band. And David loves the Killers more than just about anything. I always tease him that he for sure has three loves. He loves God, he loves me, and he loves Brandon Flowers, who's the lead singer of The Killers. And sometimes it's hard to tell which he loves more, but he's it's just kind of like this cute obsession that he has. He'd, like, listens to every like, YouTube interview or podcast interview with Brandon Flowers, and he just, like, loves the killers.

So anyway, in fact, as we were going to the concert, like at one point, he just like ditched us and like practically ran to get in line at the concert. We felt like we were walking way too slow. So anyway, we give him a hard time about that but the concert was amazing. And from the very opening number, as soon as those chords were played, like it was just the most incredible experience. And like in the first number, like these confetti cannons went off the drums, the guitars, like it was just a feeling of total euphoria. I told my kids later, like, I don't know if I've ever felt that happy, like all at once, right? It was just the most amazing experience. And I really thought a lot about it afterwards, right? And I thought about, like, how much we loved every song. We were down on the floor, we were cheering, we were screaming, we were like, we knew every line of every song. As soon as like the first chords were played, we knew what was coming and we screamed our heads off and we just, like, loved every moment of it. Like, he could do no wrong. And he's such an incredible performer. But even even besides that, like, we just were in love with him. We were in love with the band. We were in love with every song and every note and every decision they made on the playlist. And it was just one of those experiences where as I watched this, I was just like, Oh, like, look at us, we are in love with everything that he is creating, right? We're out there in the audience approving of it.

And our excitement was matched by, like all the people around us, like the whole place was just like on their feet, like screaming and cheering and yelling and expressing their approval and and admiration, right? And I started to think about, like, what it would be like if it was the opposite. Like you could tell as we were cheering and as we were screaming, like the band was responding to it, like they could feel our excitement and they could feel our approval. And it just made them so much more engaged and like excited to deliver it, right? And I started thinking about, like, what if it was the opposite? Like, what if we weren't in love with every bit? And what if, in fact, we were just critical of every bit of it? And when they came out on stage, we were just like, oh, you started with this song. Why this song, right?

You know, I've never liked this song. Or what if, like every decision they made, we were like, clearly that was the wrong, wrong decision. Why did you start with that? And then why did that then why did you play the next song, right? And you know, why did you sing it like that? And like that guitar solo kind of sucked. And like, what if it was the opposite? What if we booed the band? And what if we heckled the band? And what if, like, when they came out, like, we were just like, you know, you're the worst. Why are you even out there? Like, you don't belong on that stage, right? And like, just think about that.

Like, think about if that happened every time they performed, how long would they perform? Like it would be the shortest tour in history, right? And in fact, there would be so many albums that were totally unwritten, right? Like they maybe put out the first album, it gets booed and they give up, right? There would be so many songs unsung. There would be so many thoughts unexpressed. And it just made me think how in our own lives, when we go to do things for the most part. Our brain watches that show and just boo's us, right? Like we perform in our lives. We do our work. We show up in our families. We show up in our lives. We show up in our neighborhoods, and our churches and our brain. The whole time is like heckling us and booing us and saying, like, you're such a hack, like you don't belong. Nobody likes you. Why? Who do you think you are? Why are you even talking? Why are you even up there, right? And I just want you to notice that, like, if we are constantly criticizing ourselves, like how much of our own brilliance, our own genius, our own songs are never going to be written, are never going to be expressed.

Because we've just shut down. Like our brilliance with our with this criticism, right. The criticism of our own brain. And I think that that's one of the reasons that we play so small and we try so little and we give up before we even get started. Because, like on the inside, we're just booing and criticizing ourselves every time with every effort we make. And like, can I admit something like, David is not going to like this next part, right? But like, the truth was, not every song was my favorite. Not every song they picked that night was my favorite. But because I was viewing the concert with love and with admiration, even the songs that I didn't like didn't love. I respected them and I listened to them and I wanted to understand the artist better. As I listened, I wanted to understand the message. I wanted to understand like what was on his heart as he wrote that song and like, they revealed him to me.

But notice that that was possible because I was like, I had decided already to approve of everything that happened that night. So, I would love today to have you kind of reframe the way that you see yourself, reframe the way that you are living your life. And I want you to imagine that you are living your life in front of your biggest fans as they are cheering and rooting for you, that they are listening, respecting and approving of everything you do and even the parts that you don't love. You still treat with respect and interest and curiosity and you want to understand yourself better instead of just like hating on yourself. Okay, so I just love this idea of being our biggest fans and really like as we perform and as we try new things and create new things and put things out into the world, like to look at all of it as, as if we were our biggest fans and really think about how would this be different if I was cheering for myself instead of like booing for myself, right?

And I think that idea sounds really amazing, but in practice, it's really difficult to do. It isn't easy, right? It isn't easy to be our biggest fan. And I think, of course, what prevents us from being our biggest fan is our brain. Our brain is always scanning the world for what's gone wrong. And we are the thing that it sees the most of right and that it experiences the most. The way we show up in the world is always right in front of our brain for critique and evaluation. And we are constantly under scrutiny with a lens that is looking for what's wrong, that isn't looking for what's right. Like when I went to that concert, I was not using the lens of looking for what had gone wrong. It would be a completely different experience if I had right. But I wanted to love it and I went prepared to love it. Now, we don't have that luxury when it comes to our brain. Our brain is looking for what's gone wrong, right? And we are the primary subject that's always being interpreted.

And because our brain is worried about survival and doesn't want us to do it wrong, doesn't want us to fail, doesn't want us to get excluded by the tribe, cares what other people think, like wants to get ahead of any criticism. Our brain is going to, like, not automatically offer like the biggest fan, right? It's not going to offer cheering, it's not going to offer support. It's not going to offer approval. So, just this morning, I went to the gym to do my climb. And I'll be honest with you, it did not go well from the very beginning, right? When I woke up, I just thought like, there is no part of me that wants to go do this right? And there was just like dread coursing through my veins. I dragged myself to that gym and like 5 minutes in my I was just like my brain was protesting so hard. My legs were so heavy. I was already stopping to rest after 5 minutes. And I was so frustrated by this, right? Because I sat there and watched myself instead of managing my brain and continuing to climb.

I was just letting my brain, like run the show and manage my body. And I was just like so frustrated with myself in those moments. And my brain just persisted in like, telling me, first of all, that I should stop and then, like, criticizing me for wanting to and telling me that, like, I was doing a terrible job and there's no way that I'm going to be able to, like, hike 29,000 feet next week, right? And I struggled through every step. And at one point, I finally just said, okay, like April, you just got to take it in five minute segments. But after every five minute segment today, like instead of cheering for myself and like screaming up and down and being like, yeah, good job, right? Like, I instead, I was just like criticizing myself, denigrating the job I had done, telling myself I had gone too slow, shaming myself for the work that I had done. And about halfway through my brain was like, listen, this is so bad, you might as well not even have come today. You might as well not even have shown up in the gym today. This is a pathetic like this is a pathetic effort and we are getting so little out of it, it is just pointless.

Like our performance is worse than, like, not even showing up, right? And just like, went like that for the whole hour. But eventually I did finish that hour. I think I made it to the end, right? And then all the way home, I berated myself for my effort and told myself I wasn't tough enough, I wasn't strong enough. I like if I can't workout at the gym for an hour, there's no way that I'm ever going to make it on the mountain next week, right? Like, do you see, like, I come out on that stage and my brain is just, like, pathetic like, I had shown up, like, okay, this is what I've got today. And my brain is like, no, right? Who do you think you are? You do not deserve to be here. This is awful, right? You're terrible at this. And I just want to, like, show you, like, do see, like, it's so hard, right? To be our number one fan. Even though there was plenty to celebrate this morning. The fact that I just showed up at all. Should have got a standing ovation from my brain, right? And like the fact that I, like, clawed my way through 5 minutes at a time, I should have had like, I should have been screaming at the end of every one of those 5 minutes, like cheering myself on, because against all odds, I was still moving.

But notice how my brain couldn't find anything that was worth cheering for. So, being our number one fan is not going to come easily or naturally to any one of us, but that is okay. Like, it doesn't have to be easy to continue to try to practice this in your life, to continue to try to make this a part of your life. I am actively working on it and I want to share some of the things that have been useful to me today as I kind of like regrouped and decided, know like there is a lot to cheer for here and really help you see.

Like, okay, it feels really useful to be critical of ourselves. It feels really necessary. It feels like like this is going to be really useful if I beat myself up. Like, there's a chance that's going to make me better on the mountain next week, but it never works, right? Instead, I just, like, got in the spiral of despair, right? And so, our brain thinks that, like, revealing our weaknesses, booing us, heckling us, showing us how deficient we are. Your brain thinks that that is going to protect you, that in in some way that is going to save you some energy in the future, some pain in the future, some humiliation or failure in the future.

But in reality, it does not do this. It doesn't protect us. It keeps us small. Like I even had a moment where I was like, maybe I shouldn't even get on that plane. Maybe I shouldn't even be, like, attempting this. Right? Your brain's discouragement and disparagement and, like, booing it is never going to make you better. Which is why I really want to recommend the practice of becoming your biggest fan. Okay, so how do we do this? How do we become our biggest, most loyal fans? So, I have three things that I think will be really helpful to you as you go to create this practice in your life. And it is a practice like like this is not something that is just like we figure out and then it's done forever. Like we constantly have to practice choosing to be our biggest fan.

Okay, so here are three things that I think will help and they all happen to start with, see? So, the first C is courage. It is going to take some serious courage to approve of yourself. Like most of us are truly scared to do it. We're afraid that if we approve of ourselves, if we cheer for ourselves, if we if we like who we are and what we create, that that is going to make us arrogant or unaware, or that like, worse yet, will become really satisfied with where we are or who we are or what we've already created. And I'm going to talk about this more when we get to the third C, but for right now, I just really want you to know that approving of yourself is really going against every instinct your brain has. And so it is, of course, going to take some courage to be able to do that. Bernie Brown said that owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we will ever do. Like really loving us, really approving of us as we are, is the bravest thing we will ever do.

Okay, so I want you to like just think about Brandon Flowers for a minute. Like, okay, like, this is fast becoming my husband's favorite podcast ever, so I'm sure. But I want you to think about him or any artist for that matter. Like when he created that first song, when he first wrote it down and he he like first wrote those words on paper when he first performed it. I want you to think about how much bravery it really takes, how much bravery it takes to, like, dare to believe that this is worth sharing, that it's good enough to exist in the world, that that it matters, right? And especially when your brain is not going to be an automatic fan, it takes so much bravery and courage to approve of who we are and what we create. And just notice that if if Brandon Flowers is not willing to be brave first, if he is unwilling to approve of it enough to share it, then it never gets shared. It never gets created. It it lives unfulfilled and uncreated and unrealized in his own mind forever.

And so, many of our gifts and talents and personal genius is just living unrealized inside of us and all we really need. There is the courage to approve of it. To approve of us. To approve of our first drafts. To approve of like. Trying in order to put things out in the world. And that is scary. Okay, and you don't have to change that. You don't have to like have it not be scary. You just have to be courageous. You just have to be brave enough to be your own fan, right? The truth is, the Killers cannot share their genius with the world unless they first dare to believe that it is genius, that it is good, that it is worthy to exist. Okay, all right. So, it's going to take courage. That brings us to the second key, which is to choose to choose to approve of yourself. Most of us think that when we create something great, then our approval is going to be automatic.

If it is inherently, unequivocally good, then it will be easy for our brain to approve of it, right? I personally make this mistake all the time. Like when I create this podcast, I find myself hoping that the end product will just be good, right? And then I can approve of it. And then I find myself just like recording and just like hoping this is going to turn out good so that then I can feel good about it and approve of it. But it doesn't work that way, right? It only becomes good. As soon as I say it is good, it becomes good as soon as we choose to approve of it, right? It's all happening in our minds. The approval is independent of the product itself is a choice. It is a choice happening in your own mind. So, I was recently listening to a discussion on the Armchair Expert Podcast between Ben Stiller and DAX Shepard. And they were just talking about how like sometimes when they go to create a movie or they go to create, you know, a film that like they really like approval, but the rest of the world doesn't receive it.

Like there's this moment, right? There's this choice where you have to decide, like, wait, is everybody else right? And I wrong, right. And Ben Stiller was saying, like, there just comes this moment when you have to think like, okay, that's what they think, but what do I think? And he said, like, the challenge for him is to have faith in himself and his talent and really detaching from what other people think. And he said the biggest challenge is always the faith in myself, the faith in my own sense of what is worthwhile that I do.

At the end of the day, the decisions that you make about what you do have to come down to, whether or not you feel good about it. Like, notice what he said there. He said The decision the decision that you make about what you do right, like you have to decide, it's good, you have to decide it's worth while. Like it can never be that unless you decide it is. So, I once heard Erin say that like she just decided one day that everything she does is brilliant. And I thought about that for a long time, right? Like, how can you just, like, dare to believe that that everything you do is brilliant? But she talked about how, like, deciding it's brilliant doesn't change the thing itself. It changes her experience of it and it changes what she continues to create in the future. That is so true for all of us. Like if we decide it's brilliant, if we decide it's it's good. If we decide we are good, it changes our experience of ourselves. It changes our experience of what we create.

And then it opens the door to be able to create so much more. And when I heard her talking about this, it was during the pandemic. And at that time I was making these little videos on Friday and sending them out to everybody that was on my email list and just like a video of encouragement or whatever. And like when I first started doing that, like I was so critical of myself and I would end up recording that video like 20 times until I felt like it was good enough to send to people. And I heard her say this and I decided after that, like, okay, I just have to decide that the first take is brilliant. And so, I made this little pact with myself where I decided like what I was going to do is I was going to film the video and then I would watch it back. And when I watched it back, I had this rule that I had to smile at myself the entire time. Like basically I had to cheer for myself the whole time that I was watching that video, I had to just smile at myself, smile at the video all the way through. And then if I got to the end after I had smiled my way through it and I didn't like it, then I would rerecord it.

Okay, but only after I had like watched it smiling. And do you know, I never rerecorded another video. I always just like by the time I did that exercise, by the time I smiled at myself all the way through the video, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing, right? Like, I was like, I it's charming, it's cute, it's perfect. Let's go. And I would just send it out to my list, and I just want to. Offer that to you? I did that. Like, how would I like look at this moment in my life? How would I look at this thing that I created if I was smiling at myself, if I was cheering for myself? And just want to remind you that you get to choose. You get to smile at yourself. You get to approve. You get to love yourself. Don't forget that. And of course, it's hard. Like we all have to practice it. As you saw this morning, I'm still practicing it, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. And I think it's worth practicing, okay?

So, that brings us to the last C and the last C is creation. I want you to know that approving of yourself is essential to creation. If you want to create more in your life, you have to approve of what you have already created. I was thinking about how you know when God was creating the Earth, like every day as he finished that day, he didn't say, Well, it's not good enough yet. Well, I have so far to go. Well, I guess I'm, you know, I'm just never going to be able to, like, create what I want, right? Like, he never said that. What did he say at the end of every day? He said it is good. It is well. Every point along the creative process. He was cheering for it. He was saying it is good. He never said it's not good enough yet. He never said, well, like I expected it to, like, go faster or be better or like, you know, like all along the way, he was cheering for it. He was approving of it. And I think that is such a model for each one of us. We have to have pride and approval and cheer for what we are creating in order to be able to create more.

Like really noticed that along every step of that path, like God was cheering for His creation. He was approving of his work. And that approval allowed him to create even more. So many times we're scared to approve of ourselves because we think like, Well, then I'll just stop there. But that isn't what happens. We don't stay there. We don't stop. I think if we go back to the example at the beginning, right, the killers, like they had fans that approved and they didn't stop at one album. And so it feels really necessary and important to criticize ourselves like we think that's so important for creation. But like the greatest creator of all doesn't create like that, right? In fact, he's, like, cheering for it. He's approving of it. He's seeing what is good in it. And so, like, the truth is that approving of yourself is the only way to create more of what you want in your life. You get to be your biggest fan and you don't need anyone else to do it first.

But it's going to take courage and you are going to have to choose it. It is a choice that is always available to you, no matter what your brain says, no matter what anyone else says. It is always a choice that you can make if you want to, and when you do, it will just open the door for even more creation. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening, and I'll see you next week. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today.

If you want to take the things I've talked about and apply them in your life so that you can love your Earth life experience. Sign up for a free coaching session at Aprilpricecoaching.com. This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever. As your coach, I'll show you that believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay. And that, my friends 100% awesome.