You're listening to that, that's Life podcast by Richard Butler. Where I talk about everything to do with life and how to make it better. 

Hey, he's going, it's Richard and I'm here on easter monday because if you're listening to this when I released it, I recorded on easter monday at 20 to 11 at night, but I've had a great weekend of relaxing and I've just finished climbing in the alps and actually after that I climbed the outside of a building. Now you may be thinking what the heck, Richard, what are you talking about? Well, I'm talking about virtual reality and it's a topic I meant to talk about a while ago because I did ask whether people had experienced virtual reality now for those of you who aren't aware, facebook or meta as I called many years ago, brought out a headset called the Oculus headset. 

Well, they actually brought out the rift, I think it was and then it became Oculus and I remember many years ago trying this out in new york and being blown away by it. I mean you put on a headset and you enter into an immersive experience in that everywhere you look, you see this virtual world and I didn't think much of it until well I did let me let me be truthful the first time I was in new york, I think back in 2015 I actually experienced it in, I think it was the best buy in Manhattan and I was blown away by it. And so much so that I mean they have to tell me to um just be careful because I was I think I was doing a climbing program And I was just going crazy on it. 

But then for Christmas my wife said to me look if you want one I'll buy you one for christmas and I said okay, So it's the only I guess gaming platform that I've ever used so much and I've spent probably, on. I wouldn't call them games, I call them experiences, but things like meditation tai chi I've also um bought a zombie game, a Walking Dead game and the realism of these games is quite shocking to be honest because there have been times where I have jumped especially with this zombie game, the Walking Dead when I've heard behind me and you turn around and there's a zombie and your knife isn't working. And the other day I purchased a game called the climb to and it is a climbing game and it's really interesting because I mean you look down and you see the river below you and you know if you don't climb properly, you're actually going to fall and I mean you know it's not real but it's so immersive and it is something that I have to say which is really, really intense and really interesting, I was thinking how could you use this in your business or your life. Well I remember hearing something a documentary and they said that the hospital clinic here in Barcelona, we're using it to help recovering addicts to fight off the temptation of going back to their addiction, whether that was drink or drugs. I mean they could put them into a safe environment where they might be in a bar and then put different situations in front of them to see how they would react and then to help them with their therapy. So I think that's a really interesting use of it. 

But I I also download a program that was an immersive experience to learn different languages and what happened was you were put into a house and you would walk around the house and you would touch different items and it would give you those words and then there'll be an exercise and will be for example, put the plate on the table, put the banana on the plate, take the banana off the plate, put it in the fridge. And it was very immersive, it was very practical because I mean if you've never used the virtual reality, you can pick things up, You have these controllers and they convert into your hands and you see your hands in the virtual world and you can pick things up. And I thought wow, I mean for learning a language that could be really useful because you can get people to interact in real situations, for example in a cafe, go into the cafe and you know which one of these questions would you ask to ask for a coffee? 

But I think we have to be careful of virtual reality because I mean it could be dangerous in the sense that we may prefer the virtual reality to our reality and then what happens. And you know you're seeing a lot of companies now getting into these virtual worlds. I mean I haven't explored the metaverse is such this virtual landscape that you can build out houses and you can buy property et cetera. But this is the thing that I worry about that what happens if people and I'm not going to say younger people or older people, if people just decide the virtual world is so much better. For example meta or facebook have work rooms and workrooms is where you put it on the headset and you can work in a virtual office by yourself and you can actually have your computer and your keyboard and you can do everything that you would do. 

You can I mean you see on the screen you see all of your programs etcetera and you might say why would you want to do that? What I've experimented a little a little bit with it and I found that it was very good because it was distraction free. I mean here I am recording this podcast but I can look over to my right and since I'm at home I can see the kitchen, I can look over to my left and I can see the window and I can look outside. Well I could, if the shutters were up, I can look around and see the tv and I can get distracted very easily but in the virtual work room I mean you can set it up any way that you want but it's distraction free. So sometimes I've actually used this when I want to do a little bit of writing because it really focuses me and time goes really quickly because another thing that I've done is virtual meditation. Well it's not virtual, it's real meditation but in the virtual reality and it's really good because again it's distraction free. I mean you're in an immersive experience, you're sitting in a studio and there's nothing to distract you because I mean even if you open your eyes you still see that studio without the distractions, you don't see everything else that's in your house. And the the virtual meditation that I've done. I mean some of the longer meditations that I tried, The 30 minutes went so quickly. So I think there's a lot of application, There are a lot of great applications that you can use our programs that you can use to help you with. Virtual reality. Now recently I saw a recruitment company saying that they were the first recruitment company in the metaverse and I have my doubts about this because I think something like recruitment is a very personal experience. I mean if I'm recruiting somebody I'd like to see them on a zoom call to see what they're like because all you're going to see is this avatar of the person, I would like to see how they react. I think it's more personal, something like interviewing is more personal and it's definitely something that is a 1 to 1 experience and even we lose it on zoom, I mean it's much better if we see the person in person, so to speak. 

So I don't think virtual reality is for all businesses, but for example when I was doing the climbing game um I could see that there were, I mean I climbed the apps sounds great, doesn't it? And I then climbed a skyscraper and that's where a company could advertise on the billboards within the virtual world to keep their brand out there. So the recruitment company rather than actually recruiting the metaverse, could actually run ads in the metaverse. That's what I think now another great thing that I did with ah the Oculus headset was I started to watch netflix on it and this again was very immersive because sometimes when I'm sitting at home I will pick up the phone and I'll be browsing facebook while I'm actually watching netflix, but since I had the Oculus headset and my wife was away, so I was alone, so it wasn't that I was sitting there and she was watching something else. But I was watching the actually, I watched the whole second series, I think it was our third series of Afterlife. Excellent program if you haven't seen it but it was distraction free because we do live in a very distraction a distracted world in the sense that we have our beeps from facebook are beeps from what's up our beeps from I message from all these telegrams et cetera and that can really affect us in the sense that we don't focus on what we should be doing which is watching the tv are working. So again I think there's practical applications for virtual reality now you can get all types of games. I mean the games that I have at the moment are I have the Walking Dead. I have this climbing game. I have a game that allows you to browse google maps but in three days so you can look around and that's fantastic as well. I have one that allows you to wander around some of the Grand Canyon and other natural areas that you can do. So that could be an application where people who are sick and can't move from home. He could put the head set up and they could actually go and they could visit far off places. No my nephew started to use the Oculus and all he wants to use is the tutorial because it's really fun. 

You can pick up objects, you can throw objects etcetera. And I mean I think it's quite good for your skills because from the game that I played the climb, you learn different things, you learn not to trust certain holes that you may do are things that you grab etcetera. And it makes you really, I mean it makes you quite tense, but it also makes you very aware of what's going on. And I mean for example when I was climbing up this building, you know, you have to take it slowly because when you start to try and grab things too quickly you can lose your hold and you fall. But the other thing I think is that for example Les Mills very famous exercise routines this guy does um I bought his Les Mills boxing and I tell you it's really good boxing because I can work out at home and I can see how well I'm doing, I can see how many calories I'm burning And 10 minutes with les mills and I'm absolutely shattered. But I don't have to worry about going to a gym with other people who are boxing and feel self conscious. 


So I can just box in the comfort of my own home and I could take the device and if I went away I would have all of those virtual environments basically in my pocket. So the same with the virtual office with the virtual boxing, it's always the same environment. So I don't have to worry about well where am I going to go boxing etcetera. So I'm interested to know what your thoughts are after hearing this. And if you've used virtual reality, what you think of it? Do you think it's something that is useful? Do you think it's something that we can use in business? You can reach out to me, Richard and Richard Butler dot Coach. Or if you saw a link to this on facebook or linkedin, just leave a comment in the comments below because I'd be really interested to see what your thoughts are. Especially if you have not used this virtual reality. What you think after, I've just told you about it. This is something that excites you. Is it something that you say, Oh my God, that's horrible. Let me know and I'll talk to you next week and make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Mhm If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure that you subscribe and check out my website. Richard Blanco dot coach. I'll see you next time.