How do you create intimacy in a virtual environment, enabling you to form a meaningful relationship with another person, or persons, on the other side of the screen? How can you engineer your presentation to feel like a one-to-one conversation, fostering a personal connection?

Yes, I’m talking to you. I’m here because you are here, my valued friend.

Whether it’s a personal or professional interaction, my ability to connect virtually, not despite the limitations but by using those limitations as a launchpad, is key to forging a successful connection.

You’re Projecting…

This is the ultimate, most effective use of projection: energetically transporting yourself through your willingness to connect and the power of intention to someone who cannot connect with you physically.

Think of it like a movie projector: it projects an image onto a screen that is both an illusion and a reality (you are watching in real time, and the gear that projects it is very real). We must suspend our disbelief to engage fully in this virtual experience while simultaneously feeling its impact in a visceral, tangible way. Have you ever cried during a movie? Did you feel triumph when the main character overcame something freakishly hard? That’s why movies impact millions and can, virtually and actually, change lives—both those who make them and those who experience them.

This reciprocity can be replicated. like the classic movies that have become cultural legends, it has a ripple effect, a virtual stone tossed into a gazing pool, and anyone impacted by that activity is never the same.

Like a movie that is yet to be made, our dreams, visions, and aspirations may not yet exist materially, but they are projected into the future. Think of the future as a movie screen where our thoughts and desires are cast. This process energetically creates momentum, shaping our experiences. In the virtual world, this projection becomes our lived reality in real time.

Is Your Heart In It?

Information devoid of emotion is barely acknowledged or retained, but if you share it with strong emotions, the information will be retained. It’s pragmatic to consider the impact of your words when presenting virtually. Speak from…and through…your heart. Anticipate those emotions landing on receptive ears.

The challenge for those of us who work primarily in the virtual world is to be aware of our own resistance to it. On what level are you reluctant to fully engage? When you prefer one-to-one interaction and feel forced to perform virtually, the challenge is not how they connect with you but how well you can disengage your resistance and connect with them, projecting your intention onto the screen before you.

Powerful people project power, whether in the physical or virtual world.

Are you sitting alone in an empty room speaking into an array of electronic components, or are you entering a magnificent virtual world where your avatar has as much potency and impact as does your physical presence? Where, in fact, your reach is exponentially greater than you could ever achieve in real-time?

A compilation of plastics, electronics, and pixels only becomes everything it can be if you believe it has that potential—if you believe you can be all you can be because of this virtual environment.

Even the greatest among us are subject to gravity.

Take Tony Robbins as an example. During COVID, his work impacting thousands was literally shut down. A real-time pioneer and visionary, Tony recognized a need and addressed it with gusto. He quickly adapted, creating a new vision aligned with his new global reality, a reality no different from yours or mine.

Now Robbins hosts virtual events that not only impact thousands but reach millions.

There’s a reason why Tony Robbins is one of the most impactful speakers on the planet. His indomitable will, coupled with his willingness to adapt, pivot, and take leaps of faith, makes him successful and worthy of emulation.

Changing Lanes

If you’ve ever driven down a freeway and felt the deep ruts in the road made by heavy transport trucks, you know they can be dangerous, especially during wet or snowy weather. Even on well-maintained highways, these ruts pose a hazard. If your tires have ever been caught in these ruts while you were attempting to change lanes, you know they don’t have to be deep to derail you or to cause you to crash and burn.

You must be willing to leave your rut, to take a chance, to find your personal groove.

What we find frustrating and limiting may stem from our limited beliefs in our own resourcefulness. This is particularly true in the virtual realm, where our belief in the potential for genuine connection often holds us back.

Is knowing that something you’ve said has the potential to impact millions electrifying or terrifying to you? Perhaps a bit of both?

Consider that its effect remains in the virtual environment indefinitely, impacting others perpetually, much like in real life, but now with a digital imprint.

You may think the game has changed overnight—and it has and will continue to evolve. The playing field has leveled up, and now you can compete on the same field as Tony Robbins.

If we are reluctant to fully engage, to go all in, we must admit we are not as prepared as Tony Robbins was to do what it takes to make an impact. It doesn’t matter if your ability to influence is scaled down—whether you impact 10, 50, or 100 people in your virtual world is relative to the platform you’ve built. However, it’s beneficial (and totally badass) to ask yourself: Was I prepared to make an impact before the game changed?

Will you adapt, gear up, engage? Or remain on the sidelines, content to be on the DL?

In the virtual world, our complaints fall on deaf ears—muted audio, lack of clicks or engagement. No matter how frustrating, it’s time to gear up and play the game.

Whether physical or virtual, it’s the same world. This is your time.

Energy is energy, no matter its form. Your intention and enthusiasm impact your audience. If you are reluctant to engage fully, to speak from your heart, if you don’t truly care whether they get it or not because it’s all about your experience, you will lose them.

This is what I’ve learned while presenting in the virtual world – complaining is a huge waste of time.

Nobody cares if you’re frustrated—they never did. Whether they walk away, keep scrolling, or turn off their video and audio to play with their cat while you present, they’ve moved on.

Originally Published on https://akasha111blog.wordpress.com/

Paula Tozer Author

Paula D. Tozer is the author of three books - Saving Your Own Life: Learning to Live Like You Are Dying; An Elegant Mind's Handbook, and Enchanting Treve, a Novel. She is also an actor, singer/songwriter, Creativity Coach, competitive speaker, and leader with Toastmasters, as well as an avid cyclist, hiker, gym rat, and critter lover. The vast majority of her accomplishments have been achieved after the age of 50, demonstrating that It is never too late to be what you truly could have been...

Paula believes that living fiercely at any age is the way to optimize our time on this side of the grass. She has taken up the mission to inspire and motivate her contemporaries with what she has found that has allowed her to age with elegance, vitality, and most of all, good humor!