Day 2 - NYC Trip: The NYC Tour with World Trade Center

Click To View Day 2  of my trip to New York City!! 

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With Love,

Dedrick 3.1

DREAMWORLD: ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5th GRADER? (Feedback Welcomed)

Funny story.. I usually don't remember my dreams but there was something different about the one I had last night.  When I got up, I realized that I felt a little let down. So I thought back to my dream while it was still fresh in my mind.

Picture it, Nashville 2011! (For my Sophia Patrillo fans):

I was appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show for some reason with a bunch of 5th graders.  It seemed really strange that I was the only adult on the stage.  As I looked around the set, the set was setup like Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader.  The only difference was Oprah Winfrey was the host and not Jeff Foxworthy. Talk about weird!

One of the challenges on the game was where all of the contestants would have to play the Telephone Game. This game requires you to start a conversation with one person and that person passes it on to the next and so on until it gets to the last person.  The last person is supposed to be able to repeat what the first person said.  This game is supposed to test several different skills such as memory and communication.

I was the last person in the challenge and I was not able to communicate back to Oprah what the first person said.  I felt defeated.  Oprah's response to me was, you did not get the conversation right because you were too busy trying to over analyze how it was being communicated and the process in which it was being communicated that you missed the actual conversation.  She said you will no longer be a guest on the show.  (Sad Face)

There are times when I find myself trying come up with all of the possible results without having all of the facts. Don't get me wrong.. Analyzing the situation is not a bad thing.. It's when you spend so much time analyzing that you miss out on listening for information that can critical to the end result.

MORAL: Simply put, don't over think a situation so much that you miss LISTENING to the critical details.  

FEEDBACK: What do you do when faced with situations like this? 

You Can Win!!

I pondered awhile on what I would write about next and it wasn't until the other evening while the classic 1978 film, The Wiz, was on that it hit me.  This scene with Michael Jackson singing, You Can't Win, was profound! It spoke to me on so many different levels.  I won't bore you with all of the levels. :) 

I have seen The Wiz a number of times since I was a kid.  But not until I watched it this last time, did I realize something. While  the crows on the ground were telling Michael he couldn't win and speaking all kinds of negativity things to him, he only had one hand that was bound in the ring.  He was so close to his freedom and wasn't aware.  

There are a lot of people that are in the same position as Michael was.  They are so close to being free from the opinions and the negativity of others but they just don't realize it.  Some may say, but he had paper for brains and wasn't smart enough to figure out what to do to get off the stick.  Guess what, we as human beings don't have paper for brains.  God granted us the ability to be able to think without it being dictated to us what to think.  

Furthermore, Michael didn't realize that the purpose a scarecrow in a field is to scare off crows!  He didn't realize the power that he possessed.  If he would have tapped into that power, he would have been able to tell those crows off and would not have accepted the negative energy they were speaking over him. We have power to determine what we accept in our lives.  Will you go another day accepting the negative opinions of others regarding you? Or will you start believing in yourself and start accepting what the Creator has designed you to be.  

The choice is yours.  You don't have to stay hung up on a stick and take the abuse of others.  Start thinking and then get down from the stick and live the life you are meant to live.  

A wise woman by the name of Katherine Mansfield said this, "Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."  The truth is, YOU CAN WIN!

With Love,

Dedrick 3.0

Happy New Year 2011 from D's World

Happy New Year 2011 from D's World

Check out the most recent video podcast!!

Much Love and Peace in 2011!!

~Dedrick 3.0

DEDRICK 3.01: MEMORY FULL

MEMORY FULL

You know it's amazing what a little time away from your normal surroundings can do for you. This week I had some serious time to myself to reflect and here is what was at the forefront of those thoughts. By the way, this post will be really short :)

As I was on the beach this week in Florida, I was taking pictures and trying to save the pictures of this awesome experience of nature. I wanted to capture how the waves moved and covered the sand like a silk blanket. I didn't want to miss any of the smallest details because to me those intimate details made the experience even richer.

But as I was snapping away, a little message appeared on my camera's screen that read, "CARD FULL". And I thought to myself, there is no way that I could have used up all of the space on my 8GB memory card. Then it dawned on me, I forgot to delete the images from past events from the camera. Due to this unfortunate oversight, I was not able to finish taking pictures until I cleared my memory card of past events.

I am glad that cameras have progressed because back in the day, cameras would allow you to unknowingly take pictures and add them on top of other pictures if you didn't know they were already pictures on the roll. This occurence was called, Double Exposure. You didn't know that your film was double exposed until you went to get them developed and saw that you had multiple pictures in one print. What a big mess that was! It was actually a bunch of confusion splattered on paper.

Lesson Learned: In order for one to appreciate today's memories, one has to let go of the stuff that one thought they needed to hold on to.

The pictures were pertinent for that time frame in which they were taken, but I needed room for new stuff and it prohibited the process from moving forward. If there are things that you are holding on to that will mess up the moving forward process, it's time to release them. Past hurts, disappointments, failures, relationships, failed business ventures, etc., let it go. Erase that memory card and get some new and fresh memories.

PS. For all of my smart techy people, be sure you are not uploading and saving pictures that need to be trashed. :)

With Love,

Dedrick 3.0


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DEDRICK 3.0: EPISODE 1- UTOPIA

So I contemplated for a long time which topic to start off with and this one kept playing back in my mind.  Over the last several months I have had many conversation around reality and "UTOPIA".  According to Websters, Utopia is defined as any real or imaginary society, place, state, etc, considered to be perfect or ideal.  

Often times in our relationships, we build them based off of this perfect world that we see painted above or on the television screen.  When in "reality", this place only exist in the mind. If I were to blow the picture above up, what would stand out to you most? We are so busy focusing on the scenery, that we miss what's right in front of our face.  You would probably not focus on the fact that this is a PAINTING.  A creation based on one's perception of what perfection looks like. Couples do have disagreements, friends do fight, family members do disagree and colleagues don't always come to a compromise.  I compare this mindset to the hour or less quick fix that happens on television.  Subconsciously, we see TV show characters work out some of the greatest feats in an hour or less and we try to apply that to our lives. And when it doesn't work out the way that we see it advertised, then the first thing out of our mouth is "I don't have time for this!" 

Relationships are things that take time to make them what they should be.  I often see people giving up on some of the best things because they have no patience to work through the complexities of a relationship to get to the rewards.  Due to our microwave society, we want everything to fall in place and be perfect in the time that it takes to pop a bag of popcorn. But the thing that miss in the analogy of the popcorn is that in order for the kernels to pop, there has to be some degree of heat for the kernels to turn into the tasty morsels that we have grown to love.  But you have to make sure that you pay attention to the process to make sure that your bag pops to it's full potential. If you stop the process to soon, you never get the full benefit that was intended for that bag.  If you don't pay attention and let it sit under the heat too long, then the there is smoke and a funky smell that is not pleasing to anyone.  

Lastly, be real with each other.  In the past, we all have made the mistake of trying to make something work that was never meant to work.  We put on masks and perform Oscar worthy shows! Stop it.  Until we realize that nothing is perfect we will never be able to move to having healthier relationships.  In my opinion, perfection can't be achieved on this earth. The moment you think you have reached perfection, you will find something else wrong with it that you didn't see at first. Live in reality and not utopia.  Utopia, in the end, will always leave you desiring for more.  
  

"To know oneself is to disbelieve utopia" - Michael Novak     

With Love,
Dedrick 3.0

DEDRICK 3.0 LAUNCH (10/10/10)

DEDRICK 3.0 LAUNCH (10/10/10)

DEDRICK 3.0 LAUNCH (10/10/10)

October 6th, 2010

The much awaited Dedrick 3.0 will launch on 10/10/10. You don’t want to miss it! Make sure to sign up to follow the blog at http://virgoexperience.blogspot.com. If you are have an iPHONE, iPAD, iPOD or iPOD Touch, you can visit the iTunes store and search for Dedrick 3.0. Once you are there, you can subscribe to the podcast to get up to date video and audio versions of the blog.
With Love,
Dedrick
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