What are you excited about?
Over the years I’ve had a bunch of opportunities to moderate focus groups. At first I was reluctant, preferring to sit behind the mirrored glass and eat M&Ms (pretzel, if you’re taking requests) while scribbling down quotes. But once I got into it I came to really dig being in the room, getting to converse directly with the kinds of people we too-often talk about in abstract and analyze through cross-tabs.
Most moderators have some kind of get-to-know-you question and I chose my own: “What’s something you’re excited about right now?” I liked that it put respondents in a good mood by making them think about the good things in their life vs. the awkwardness of being in a downtown office building with a bunch of strangers. The responses ranged from the impending birth of a child to evening plans. They were all exciting to them at the time.
There was a bit of science (small-”s”) that went into choosing that question. I came across a study from 2010 that indicated that the highest point of happiness around a vacation is in the planning stage. I asked a friend, a neuroscientist, why she thought that was, and she told me anticipation of something good causes our brains to release dopamine.
This might also partly explain some seemingly irrational digital behaviors. About 70% of desktop users and 86% of mobile users abandon their carts. Zillow (a former client for which I did some focus group moderating) is in the top 30 most trafficked websites in the country, appropriately sandwiched between FoxNews and TiKTok because it’s primarily a source of entertainment.
What was is gone, what is is nice, what could be is divinely enticing.
I went to a therapist years ago who liked to say, “If you’re anxious, make plans.” It put plainly what planning does for us, regardless of what exactly comes of it.
I wrote a few weeks ago about how strategy is how we create the future. It’s how we turn anxiety into plans. It’s how we plot out what could be. It’s corporate speak for what we’re excited about.
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I write these posts, 3-MINUTE MONDAYS, every other week. My goal with them is to share a snippet of insight into how to do strategy, build teams, and grow. Comment here or message me on LinkedIn if you want to chat. — Ben
