Imagine, for the first time ever, you are going to give a presentation or speech on a really big stage. Hundreds of eyes, focussed on you. This is your moment and you feel the tension rise. Your heart starts beating faster, your hands are getting sweaty and your armpits, well let’s not even talk about those. You ask yourself: ‘Can I do this?’.

Most people will recognize this tension. When you walk onto a stage, you put yourself in a vulnerable position and your body responds with a fight or flight reaction. The only way to eliminate this inconvenient reaction is to practice. The more time you spend on stage, the sooner your brain start to see this as a non-threatening situation. Therefore it will produce less emergency signals.

Do it right from the first time

You probably think now: ‘Yes, nice, practise more on stage, but I want to be able to do it right the very first time!’ We completely understand. Up until now, we mostly use visualisation in our coaching to help people achieve the same result as with practising on stage. We ask our speakers to visualise their presentation on stage because the brain does not know the difference between what’s real and what’s not. However, sometimes this is not the easiest thing to do for people. That’s why we were drawn to Virtual Reality when we heard about it. We contacted this really innovative startup from Utrecht; CoVince. They produce Virtual Reality environments that are specific for practising a presentation. From the theatre to the boardroom.

Virtual Reality: testing and improving

In the past months, we have been testing the different options in VR. It is really impressive to see how easy you step into this completely different virtual world. Margreet experienced what it was like to stand in a large theatre and she took a lot of space on that big stage. She felt she was in another world and therefore forgot that she was actually in a small office. Without intention, she knocked over a vase and hit a few people in the room. Oops. That is what VR does to a person. It takes you into a world of unlimited possibilities, and the quality keeps getting better and better.

Totally in love with the newest goggles

We tested a new headset from China. And it was love at first sight when we tested it. We’ve seen butterflies fly, conquered worlds and of course we tested the different presentation rooms. Virtual Reality is a perfect solution for people that wish to practise their presentation in front of large or small audiences without having to visualise. We believe that VR is an excellent contribution to what we already offer. Are you curious to know what VR can do for you and your team(s)? Let us know and we will keep you posted on all the developments.