Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Welcome to the Life Refresh podcast. My name is Ryan Robinson, and if you are looking for a podcast that is designed to uplift, encourage and revive your heart, mind, and spirit. You're in the right place. Welcome to the Journey of Becoming the version of You God designed from the foundations of here. Now, let's begin. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to Life Refresh Podcast. You know who it is. It's Ryan. I'm so excited, delighted to be back again. Um, we talked last time, I'm just gonna jump right into it, around evolve or repeat. And we talked about David and Goliath and the story by which David was, uh, proclaimed that he had killed the lion. He had killed the bear, therefore, he was qualified to be able to defeat Goliath. And we went through this, through this level of analysis and breaking down that at every level, David evolved.
Speaker 1 00:01:09 The tool might have evolved, the skill evolved, but also the enemy evolved as well. So it is so important for us to really understand and seek and comprehend after we've gone through many circumstances and challenges that we are getting stronger too. And by nature we evolve. Some of the problems that you have, you've gone through in your previous season of your life may not be bothersome to you. You have built resilience, you have built understanding, you have gained wisdom by experience or by divine download. You have also gone through opportunities for you to be transparent and have failed in relationships at times or aspects of those. So those experiences that we go through evolve us to become a better version, an upgraded version of ourselves and evolving sound. Again, it sounds really fun. Everyone says we need to evolve, but what does it mean to repeat?
Speaker 1 00:02:20 What does it mean to repeat? And many of us we love repeat. I, my w well, I can speak for myself. I'm not gonna speak for my wife, but I love watching repeat episodes of The Big Bang Theory with Sheldon and Leonard and Penny and Ra Poll and <laugh>, all the people, all the folks on that show. I have seen them all 12 seasons repetitively over and over and over again that I know the lines, I know the zingers, I know the punchlines that come through this show. It is pitiful. I, and again, I put it on as background noise for my life, <laugh>, especially when I'm bored. So I, I love this show. Uh, I hope there are some Big Bang Theory fans out there as well. Maybe we could put some <laugh>, maybe put a link in the show notes to the Big Bang Theory if you have Hulu or wherever you stream.
Speaker 1 00:03:30 But what makes it so numbing <laugh> for me is that it's repeatable and repetitive, but also predictable. Repeating makes you predictable. I don't have to be engaged to watch the show anymore. The show has ended. I know how it finished up. I know how each season finale ended. I know how the series finale ended. I know all the things that needed to be tied up that got tied up in the last two episodes of season 12. And I really at this point, am not as engaged as I was when I first watched the show. It is, again, background noise. And because it's on repeat, I have the benefit of not giving it my full attention. If we look at our lives many times what happens is we have put our lives on repeat, and we know what this means. It means to say something again that has already been said to do what has already been done, an action or event or something that occurs or is done again on repeat.
Speaker 1 00:04:44 And many times it's because we lack information that we blow past the episode because of our lack of engagement in our, not just in the show, but in our lives. I love, again, watching those television shows and things that I've already engaged with at one point or another because there's sometimes there's things that I've missed in movies, things that I have missed in television shows that due to my lack of attention, I blew right past them and missed fine details that are important to the storyline. I watch, if you've watched any of the Knives Out who done it kind of films, I am so engaged the first time I see the film because I don't know what's coming. So I am looking for everyth little detail. I'm looking for everything that is said that doesn't quite make sense. I'm looking for details. I'm looking for clues.
Speaker 1 00:05:52 I am looking for any indication that so-and-so has done it, done the murder, did what they needed to do, et cetera. The, the challenge again, and maybe the danger of repeating is I would say maybe I'll list up maybe three things. When you have to repeat you one half to understand where you lost attention, utilizing the Who Done and Knives Out example. Uh, if you're not paying attention, a character might actually get impacted or killed or whatever the case is. And you don't even know if you're not engaged. You won't know what happened when it happened. So you have to spend, here. It is your time to find where did I fumble my attention? Where did I lose interest? Where did I disconnect from the storyline? And then I find myself back in the show, back in the film, back in my life, and then I'm like, oh, shoot, what happened?
Speaker 1 00:07:04 So what I have to do is I have to use my time to diagnose, to look at what took place before to understand where I'm going. Again, that's dangerous. Y'all. Sometimes we never get back to that space of looking and finding where we left off. It's, it is incredible how much time we spend repeating, repeating steps. And those are things because we didn't learn what we needed to learn at that initial point in time that we have to go back, revisit, uncover, reconnect, and then make conclusions is a dangerous amount of time that you spend, right? You, you, you have to do that when you repeat. There's also number two, not just the time to, once you realize you missed something to go back and recover it, but you have the capability when you repeat to completely and utterly, make sure that you are ill-equipped for the next level in your life.
Speaker 1 00:08:11 If you go to, and I'm gonna use a video game for example. I used to play a lot of video games when I had no responsibilities. Uh, I played a lot of games and, uh, particularly games like espionage or games that had keys and puzzles and stuff. For those that do the game, if you're listening, like Resident Evil, that movie, that game has zombies in it. So <laugh> for all the super holy spiritual people, I played zombie games and I also played espionage games that can be violent. But either way, there are parts in these games that require you to find specific keys to move on to the next level. And what I found myself doing in many cases, because I was in a rush to get to the next boss and get to the next level, or unlock the next part of the mansion or get this new weapon, I missed out on the incremental small details that actually unlocked what I needed on the other side of the door.
Speaker 1 00:09:14 So instead of being able to go to the next level, I would go to the next level and find that I actually missed something important. And I was ill-equipped to handle the, the giant or the boss on that level because I missed out. So instead of realizing that I missed something and going back as I I described in the first example, I just blew past the fact that I just needed to get to the end. And I found myself completely and utterly ill-equipped to handle the boss on the next level of this video game. I'm utilizing <laugh>, a little handgun or whatever for a boss that requires a rocket launcher. I didn't have enough power. Come on, somebody. I didn't have enough power to handle the things that were coming my way. Just like in a video game in your life, you can find yourself clearly ill-equipped because you did not take the time to learn the skill, develop the gifting that you needed to get to the next level.
Speaker 1 00:10:25 Now, if we use the example of David and Goliath where he says, I killed the lion and the bear, if he said that he just killed the lion, would he still be equipped to handle Goliath? So I, I handled the lion, okay? And a lion is much different than Goliath. You've skipped a couple levels, yo. And you need to be a aware that there are levels to this thing called life. You can't just skip level one and get to level 10. And unfortunately in our culture, we completely forget. And it's said often that an overnight success sometimes takes 10 years to reveal it. When people show up to the scene, no one knows how long they've been at it. When they make it into stardom or if they get the record deal and they have the number one single on billboard, no one know except the individual and people around them, they didn't realize how much effort, how much time, how many times they got told that they couldn't do it.
Speaker 1 00:11:30 But they still kept believing that they kept knocking on the door of the agent or the door of the a and r person or whoever, <laugh> to listen to them because they clearly believed in themselves, but no one believed in them. I'm gonna use the name for some people, it might be a bad one, but Kanye West's Netflix documentary called Genius is an amazing, amazing and also sad documentary to watch sometimes. But in this documentary, when Kanye West was trying to figure out what he had been gifted with and trying to tell people, yo, I'm that guy. He was the only person that believed in himself, at least to the degree that we know Kanye loves Kanye. But it took gradual steps. It took producing for some local talent in Chicago. It went to producing a track for camera. It took to being a part of the Rockefeller label.
Speaker 1 00:12:37 It then turned to this and it then turned to that. And then it was this progression. And then he had the accident. And then all the things, I'm not gonna give it away, but if you wanna watch it, I highly suggest you listen or wa excuse me, you watch it. Because the progression of faith that is required to not repeat, but to evolve is dynamic. It is necessary. It is, it is something that we have to honor that process of becoming, which as I've talked about earlier in several podcasts to go. But if we don't take the time to make sure that we are equipped and not to be obsessive over it, but to observe, to be able to understand, to be able to be willing to make sure that we are thorough in our gifting and the growth of it and the cultivating of it.
Speaker 1 00:13:37 Boy, you, you could miss out on a lot and actually hurt yourself by going to levels that your body, your mind, your emotions, your relationships can't handle. You may think you want that, but you may not be built to handle that. Thanks be the God that he gives us grace and gives us the things that we can handle. Cuz if we got what we asked for and received the things that we prayed for, those things might have destroyed us if we don't have what we need to keep it. This is the key effort and hard work get you to position, but its character and integrity that keep you there. You might wanna pause and repeat that <laugh> on the podcast if you need to. I I want to just let that sit for a minute. So, uh, we talked about you, you may forget when you have to repeat and you go back and you get it, you have to lose and spend time fixing it.
Speaker 1 00:14:40 And then, or you just blow past trying to speed up to get to an end goal and find yourself ill-equipped to handle what you need to handle at the other end of whatever you're going through in your life. You become a victim of your own self doing, of your own self-sabotage. I wanna talk about that a little bit. And there's another book that I wanna reference that previously referenced called The Hero Within by Donald Miller. Again, we'll have that in the show notes. He talks about four characters that are important to story, the four being the hero, the villain, the sage and the victim. The hero and the villain start off both the same, but one takes ownership for their growth and the other punishes the individual of the group because of what has been done to them. The sage or the seer is one who guides the hero based on his or her experience, and gives the hero the things that he or she needs in order to conquer what they're facing.
Speaker 1 00:15:54 So they've gone through it in their passing back wisdom. But the victim, the person who needs to be saved in every story, never grows. They always repeat their victimhood and they always need saving. Many of us find ourselves in one of these four characters, but all of these, at least the the hero, the villain, and the SR all evolve. The villain evolves in a different way, but he never, or she never stays the same. At least they are progressing towards something. It may not be positive, but they are progressing based on their worldview and their experience. But the person that needs saving the victim never gets better. They're always in need of a hero to pull them out of the mess that they're in. So if you're looking in the game of life, if you're looking in your video game, your show, you're always looking for someone to who's going to save Lois Lane, who is always going to be saving Robin when he gets captured by the joker, who is going to be saving someone.
Speaker 1 00:17:10 And we love the hero because they always want to help the victim out because the victim by any circumstance or some kind of circumstance has found themselves back in a trap again. And someone needs to save them instead of them saving themselves. Come on somebody. So when does the victim decide to be the hero? When they get tired, sick and tired of repeating? So I'm gonna conclude here, but when you repeat, you play small. You self-sabotage your life. You rely on your daily routines to give you purpose and meaning. What? Nothing wrong with that. But when you anchor yourself on them, you put more weight than what they need to have on them. You find yourself relearning the same life lessons again and again. And you look back and you look at the same relationship that you left, but the person's name is different. And you're like, how in the hell did I get back to where I am? I have a same, I have the same kind of relationship, but with a different woman's name. You're destined to repeat it. You live like you're the victim of your circumstances and continue to attract the same negative circumstances, issues, and people back into your life again and again
Speaker 1 00:18:44 In that
Speaker 1 00:18:47 Is exhausting. But when you choose to evolve, you take a risk and find it necessary to be a different version of you for the next areas of your life. You're doing something great for you. You become and are upgraded based on your experiences and where you see yourself going. You become unrecognizable as you release unhealthy patterns for new ones. You become magnetic and other people are uplifted by your presence. You see that you can act courageously again and again. And as much and as often as you see fit, you can take life's challenges, the vicissitudes of life and the circumstances that honestly having to all of us and find the courage to push through, reinvent, reimagine, and execute. You know, you have the power to transcend your self-limiting beliefs and you can start focusing on freedom. And then you attract people, places, and things to your life that feel aligned with who you are as an individual. And all in all, we'll be much happier. So ladies and gentlemen, choose the question is yours. Choose today whether you are going to evolve or repeat. The outcomes have been laid before you. The information has been shared. Now it's your responsibility to decide we'll catch you in the next pod.
