Magic Leap into Presence
My 10-year-old daughter is a ballet dancer and is so excited to be cast in the party scene of the Nutcracker this year. She would love to meet a ballerina at bedtime instead of reading a book about one. The future of storytelling will allow us to immersive ourselves in storyworlds that engage and entrance us.
Mixed reality takes place in the real, natural world we live in. This little girl does not have to leave her bedroom or put on blackout goggles that block out sunlight. She is immersed in her natural environment. In mixed reality, virtual objects are integrated into our day-to-day life in a responsive way. If the ballerina went under the bed, she would be blocked from view unless the little girl looked under the bed to see her. Even though the ballerina is fake, the little girl experiences the dancing as genuine and real. She joins the virtual world and becomes part of it.
Magic Leap, a secretive startup in Fort Lauderdale, Florida leads the way in immersive storytelling.
Wired’s founding executive editor, Kevin Kelly, landed an extensive interview and product test at the Magic Leap’s headquarters. In his article, “The Untold Story of Magic Leap: The Most Secretive Startup,” he provides some insight into the mixed reality experience. “It generates an intense and convincing sense of what is generally called presence. Virtual landscapes, virtual objects, and virtual characters seem to be there — a perception that is not so much a visual illusion as a gut feeling. That’s magical,” he wrote.
Graeme Devine, Magic Leap’s chief game wizard, discussed the long-term prospects of the industry at the “Innovation in Immersive Storytelling” conference. He reiterated that the mixed reality world demands your presence, and his mission over the next five years is to get people to stop looking down at their phones to be present in their world. “I want the future to be mostly reality with a little bit of everyday adventure added to my life,” he said. Your walk to school or Starbucks will be a lot more interesting if you can immerse yourself in a story world of your choosing. At the same time, he doesn’t want to overload people with entertainment content and information. If done right, people’s lives can be enhanced in subtle ways.
Imagine the future of waking up in a “Magic Leap” world:
As Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz puts it, “Ours is a journey of inner space. We are building the internet of presence and experience.”
Our ability to craft extensive idiosyncratic storyworlds that tell your story will be possible some day in the future. Imagine telling your hero’s journey in mixed reality with objects and sounds created by you? The ability to capture the presence of your audience in the Magic Leap way is exponentially more impactful than the tools we use today: the written essay, visual storytelling through video, cinema or theater. Mixed reality’s gravitational pull is stronger and more impactful. It’s more meaningful because it can be customized to you, by you and ultimately used to storytell for college admissions, job seeking, career climbing or to gain an investor or new customer for your startup.
Being present, showing up is the first requirement of good storytelling.
Amy Cuddy, a Harvard Business School professor and social psychologist, wrote a whole book about it in 2015 — Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges. She believes that in order to demonstrate a strong presence, we need to believe in our own stories. When we don’t, we’re not credible and come across through our verbal and nonverbal behavior in an inauthentic way.
Her research identified power positions linked to our physiology that make us more confident, willing to take risks, approach new people and situations.
Listen to Amy Cuddy on the Wonder Woman pose:
Observe what your “normal” body language is like. Are you slouching, touching your face, folding your arms or making yourself small? These are low power positions that you want to stop doing.
- Practice expansive power posing, holding the pose for at least a minute, and see how you feel.
- Practice listening to others and talking less. Observe what it’s like to be in different people’s presence. What do you like about being in their presence? What don’t you like?
Storytelling requires showing up and being present. So why not adopt the “Wonder Woman” pose if it’s going to make you more confident and calmer when telling your story? The presence of power posing creates physiologically proven confident behaviors that allow you to be your best self and not worry so much about pleasing others or worrying about if your audience likes you or not.
You are already taking the risk to put yourself out there by telling your unique, authentic story, so why not stack the deck in your favor and tell it Wonder Women style.
I hope you enjoyed this post — if you want to connect, you can reach me here via email Kimberlya.norton@gmail.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Also, you can find my book, STORY: the art of standing out on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H94D3L1
