136: The Future Of The Internet: Exploring The Metaverse

Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to the Grow youw Life podcast. My name is Jeremiah Krakowski, and on this podcast we talk about ways for you to grow in your life, in your business, to make more money online, and to live a bigger life. If you can make more money in a business, you can do more and accomplish more. And that's what I love to help people with, is how to grow and do more with the time that they've been given so they can make more money in their businesses. If you're not in the GrowYourLife Facebook group, be sure to join that group. There's over 1500 people just like yourself that are in there that are growing in their life and in their business. Now, today I want to talk about the Metaverse. Some of you might have noticed that Facebook changed the name of their company to Meta this week. And a lot of people might have questions. What is the Metaverse? What is the future of the Internet? That's really what the question is. And I want you to think about this as a business owner, as somebody that is building something online. We need to be aware of how things are happening around us, what's coming down the pipeline, and how we can best be positioned to take advantage of it in the future. And so, really, quite plainly, the Metaverse is a virtual world. It's very much related to video games like Fortnite or Call of Duty or Guitar Hero or these different things that are normally have been reserved for entertainment. The technology behind them allows you to create a virtual world that you can be in. And what's happening is the Internet is turning into virtual worlds. They're turning into these virtual environments. No longer will you have a website. You'll have a virtual store that people can walk into virtually to buy from you. And that's going to be your E commerce stores. It's going to change the game. It's going to change everything. And you're going to want to be on the most popular platform and you're going to want to be in the place where you can reach the most amount of people. This is literally changing the game of how we develop products, how we reach customers. It's going to change education. It's definitely going to change everything related to gaming. It's going to change how we connect and communicate with people and talk. And so it's very much related to what social media is now. It's the next iteration of social media, social interaction, communication and connection. And that's what the Metaverse is. And so why, why does Facebook changing their Name matter. Well, the Metaverse isn't owned by one person. It's not owned by one entity. It is sort of like the Internet. Nobody owns the Internet. And if you thought back in the 90s, a lot of people looked at all the Internet like it's this thing that we connect with people and we call up on our phone and know you can chat with people and buy products and they get shipped to your house. This is what we talked about the Internet as back in the early 90s. I was very young then, but I remember that was the start of, for my family. If you guys know our story, my mom had an E commerce store, one of the first websites online in the 90s, and made millions of dollars in the 90s selling in that. And so now you have an opportunity. If you missed the 90s, if you missed the 2000s with social media, you literally have another chance. Don't miss it, don't miss what's coming up. You're going to be able to establish yourself as an influencer in these spaces, whether it be for artwork or products or services or ways of even just helping people get set up in their businesses in these platforms. Now what is it? And that's really the question that a lot of people ask because it's like it's not cut and dry. Clear as to what a lot of this stuff is, quote, unquote. And this is one of the best examples of it for you. If you're watching on the video version, I'm going to show you here, there's this video game, it's called Fortnite. And essentially in Fortnite you have a character who's an avatar. You have these little avatars and you can buy different, different skins and outfits. And then you go out there and you're in this virtual world. Now it's, it's definitely more of a, more of a combat driven world. Let's hear, let's find another video. See, it's more of a combat driven world in there. But there'd be more than just like fighting and, and, and doing stuff like that in the Metaverse. It'll involve everything from the products that we buy to how we interact with businesses to how we engage. See, this is like a, like a house and stuff like that. It's a video game that a lot of people play. And what they've done is they've actually done concerts in here. So I'm going to show you this here real quick is they actually did a, did a concert right here in the game. So this is the game. But then the game had a digital concert with an actual musician, with an actual rapper, Travis Scott, right here. And so this is a sort of an image of what the metaverse kind of is, is these types of experiences. You'll be able to go around in an experience and, and buy products, sell products, experience different things through that. Now another example is, is a movie called Ready Player One. Ready Player One shows one of the best examples in, in film format as to kind of what the metaverse is. It's a virtual world where you know, you can, you can jump into, be anybody, become anybody, do anything. And there's a whole economy. There's, there's ways to make money, there's ways to monetize inside of these experiences. Okay. And so this is very real, this is very much what's happening right now online on the Internet. And that's the focus that Facebook is taking. That's the focus that as we look at things, especially when it comes to communication, connection, education, how we connect with people, this is very much where the world's headed. The next five years, 10 years, there's going to be products created. You know, you guys never had the iPhone. Eleven years ago, you didn't have a phone like we have now all these apps. Now you're going to have different devices. You might have certain, you know, Facebook's portal devices, one of them of how they're trying to implement this or, or create devices that might be built into your telev that then you can explore these different worlds and access these different experiences. A lot of how we interact with apps and websites is going to operate through these different systems, through these different augmented reality and virtual reality systems. And so by being aware of this, by being aware of where technology is headed, we're able to stay ahead of the game. One really cool thing is, especially in education, you know what, if you wanted to go back and explore ancient Greece or ancient Egypt, if you wanted to explore ancient Greece, there's actually right now video games that are out there that, that lets you sort of do this in a quasi type metaverse experience. And I've played these games, basically you can explore inside of, here's the ancient Greece when you have a character and you can go around and talk to other historic characters in ancient Greece. Now this one, again, this is more combat driven right here, but they have a, an educational aspect of it where it's a discovery mode. So in the discovery mode, let's see where it is. The discovery mode right here, Discovery tour, you can actually go through and there's no combat in it. It's just exploring more experientially what it might have been like back then to see how people would have lived and to have these experiences to learn from. You know, I always thought it'd be really cool to have something like that that would help explore the Bible. Be really cool. So there's these different experiences that you'll be able to experience in the digital world that are not normal and present in a lot of, like what we see when you watch a movie or read a book that you'll be. A lot of our entertainment is going to change in this way. A lot of how we, again, zoom calls will probably be more in these virtual type settings. So keep an eye on a lot of this stuff. Keep an eye on a lot of this up and coming technology. The whole goal is to create more of a connected experience to where we might be across the world, but we might be able to communicate and talk with a hologram of one of our friends or family members that are with us. Okay. And so by being aware and up to date as to where technology is going, we're able to set ourselves up for success. I see a lot of people, you know, you can either get afraid of the way technology is headed and you could say, you know, well, man, as soon as I learned one thing, it all changed again. And, and, and now it's changing again and I don't know what, you know, what's happening next and I, I can't keep up with the way that technology changes. Or you could be somebody that says, you know what, I'm gonna learn this and I'm gonna learn how to utilize this and how to become a part of these new worlds and become a part of these new experiences and jump headfirst. A lot of people that did that with the Internet, a lot of people that did that with social media, they didn't wait to become late adopters. They were the ones that became influencers. And we're even seeing, you know, TikTok came around. I actually had one of the earlier, earliest TikTok accounts, but I never used it. And I now I'm looking back, I wish I did. I could have grown my following while nobody else was on there. And now it's as big of a platform as Instagram for most interaction. Okay. And so keep an eye on what up and coming technology is coming up. We can either be fearful and worried of how it's going to be used against us and all this type of stuff, or we can say okay, yes, there's some of that, but how can we learn from it? How can we utilize it? How can we set ourselves up for success instead of just buying into conspiracy theories and fear? Okay, so that's what I wanted to just encourage you with on this. I know this is a shorter episode. I broke a lot of this down on my social media as well today. Different experiences. This is something that I've been dreaming up and, and really thinking about for the last couple of years, because I can see this is where technology is headed. As phones get faster, as computers get faster, as all of our devices become more connected, we're needing new ways to connect with each other and new experiences, and this is the next iteration of that. And, and video game based technology is one of the best ways to connect with people. I've developed relationships with people online that I knew through video games that I didn't know through other different places. And so, and then in these virtual worlds that we can all join into now. These are separate games that we're playing. But what's going, what's happening with the Metaverse is it's all going to be one combined world. And you can step into these different portals and they, they, they're as much like our real world as the world that we exist in right now. You know, you might become part of different clubs or organizations or experiences or, or like a different, a church or a workout group, different businesses, different companies, but we're all in the same world, quote, unquote. And that's what it is becoming with this metaverse type technology. And so by being aware of that, we can, we can look at it from a lens of, okay, how do we translate what we do now in the digital, in the physical world into the digital world? How would we like to connect with people better and start dreaming about stuff like that? Because there's always going to be problems that come in, and then you can be somebody that can bring solutions into those environments or use these environments to help serve other people, help meet people, help create connections. You know, a huge thing that's going to be happening with the Metaverse is definitely, I could see therapy being a big one. Both physical therapy, we're already seeing that with a lot of different virtual reality apps, but also mental health therapy and having people, you know, that can set up these, these experiences to help people that have different issues, whether it be EMDR or normal talk therapy. So these are all solutions that are going to be brought to the forefront in that. And listen, everybody's gonna have to learn how to market their products in these environments, they have to learn how to sell. You're gonna have to. All the same basic people and communication skills you're gonna need. You might as well grow in those now. And that's what I teach people how to do it in my podcast and in my courses is you're going to have to get past your fear of connecting and communicating with other people, because we're only becoming more connected as technology grows. You might say, okay, we're physically more apart, but we're actually becoming more connected through technology. And so we're going to have to learn how to connect better with people. One thing that might increase your confidence is maybe you have an avatar so you're not so worried about how you look to other people. And then that increases your level of confidence. And then you might have a podcast that's your avatar talking. There's some people that are doing that. There's a guy that actually has a podcast and he. He does a virtual avatar on his. On his stream. So he has like a virtual avatar. He's a streamer, but he streams through his avatar, not himself personally. It's a very interesting type experience that I. That I saw, that I found online is like, how do I explain this? He. He's him. But what you see on the screen is a virtual representation. It's not really him. It's kind of like the little Bitmojis or things like that. It's a virtual version of him. And it's kind of like an alien. It's a little robot, an alien with blue spiky hair. But when he moves hands around, the alien moves his hands around. And that's how he creates his content, is he shows up that way. I believe that there's going to be a growth in a lot of creators where people were maybe afraid of how they looked or how they sounded, and they're going to have these virtual avatars and boom. Now new schools of thought. I think a flourishing of knowledge and information is going to come out because people are going to be less afraid to talk and communicate on camera because they're not technically on camera in these environments. And so, again, I would encourage you, if you are a business owner, you're gonna have to grow in the area of if you're afraid to talk on camera, if you're somebody that's afraid to connect with people, if you're afraid of having human connection and you're wanting to build a business, that's an area to grow through, to work through those fears because you're going to have to put yourself out there even more in these growing experiences for you to have an impact, for you to, to connect with people, for you to connect. And social media is evolving in these ways, in these new experiences. And so everything else that I teach on my podcast and all that and on my post about growing in confidence to connect and communicate with people, even more so applies today and with what's going on in the future. Because we're still humans, we're still connecting. We just might connect differently in the future, but there's still connection. And that's really the truth of it is as technology grows, as things change, new jobs get created, some of them get lost, sure, but new experiences happen, but human to human connection still remains the same. There's a spark that happens, there's a connection that happens when we connect with people that are like minded and we get into these communities. And even more so, that's going to be happening with the Metaverse. It's going to help us go from possibly being more disconnected to the experience of what you get inside of a Facebook group of like minded people, maybe your Facebook group, you'll be able to see the people in your group and interact with them on a more regular basis. So that's where the Internet's headed and that's where the future of this stuff and what Facebook's doing with the Metaverse, and I hope other companies get involved with it too, are doing. In fact, you can get involved with it as well just by staying aware of this stuff. There'll be new tools that are going to be popping up, new hardware technology that you can get involved with, new ways of doing things. So just keep an eye on that. One of the, one of the coolest ways you can kind of get involved is the way that I understand a lot of this works is because I play video games. So if you never even played a video game before, it might be time to take a look at some of these different games and how they work and their experiences. That's how we're going to be interacting. I think in business settings in the future, we're going to be interacting with controllers and computers. You're going to have a controller and a computer. Okay, so if this has been sort of a different podcast episode for you, I get it. We'll return back to kind of our normal type podcast. But I wanted to kind of be pointing to the future for you so that you can grab onto some of these ideas so that you can stay aware of where things are headed. Listen, if you're somebody that wants to grow your business, you want to make more money online, you want to learn how to do that, I got courses on my website, Jeremiah Krakowski.com, as well as you can schedule a free 15 minute call with me, talk about your business, where you're stuck, and what it's going to take to get you to the next level to make more money on the Internet. All right, so we'll talk soon, everybody.