Day 8: Survey

I was curious as to how much this "yes man" project could effect someone else's life. So I walked around campus and took a survey. I asked four questions.

1. What is the riskiest or most adventurous thing you have ever done?

2. Would you ever become a "yes man"?

3. How often do you find yourself turning down opportunities?

4. Any opportunities you regret not taking?

In order to have some attempt at organization I am going to address each survey question individually.

Number one: What is the riskiest or most adventurous thing you have ever done?

Answers given:

Overseas Trip- 45%

Shared my Faith with a Stranger- 11%

Skydiving- 11%

Talked to a Stranger- 22%

Spent a lot of $- 11%

As you can see the most frequent answer was taking an overseas trip. I kind of expected an answer like this since Lee University requires each student to take a cross-cultural trip in order to graduate. So I decided to look up some statistics. Of course when researching I found many different results. Some said 3 million people traveled overseas, and to other states, and some said thousands travel overseas every year. So needless to say, a lot of people travel overseas every year. 

So then I looked up how many people skydive within a year in the U.S.. The answer, about 350,000. According to the U.S. census 314,570,630 people live in the U.S. So about less than one percent of americans skydive each year. 

So overall the riskiest thing americans do is travel overseas. 

Number Two: Would you ever become a "yes man"?

Answers Given:

Yes - 37%

No - 63%

It's safe to say that not many people want to give up their free will in order to become more adventurous. 

Number Three: How often do you find yourself turning down opportunities?

Answers Given:

Often - 37%

Occasionally - 25% 

Not Very Often - 25%

All the time - 12%

Never - 0%

The good news is that if you feel like you turn down too many opportunities there is not one person I talked to who said the never turned something down. In fact not many people saw themselves as very adventurous.

Number Four: Any opportunities you regret not taking?

Answers Given:

Yes - 75%

No - 25%

What do you regret?

A trip - 50%

Buying something - 12%

Nothing specific - 38%

No one specified whether they regretted taking a trip or not taking a trip, but if I had to guess I would guess they meant not taking a trip. Almost everyone I talk to wants to see the world before they die. It's also not a shocker that people regret buying something. With the way our economy is its easy to regret things involving money. You could buy a big money item one day and lose your job the next.

I also looked at the results and tried to conclude what makes you adventurous, and what makes you want to take on the "yes man" project.

I randomly selected a few specific people to look at. For their privacy I changed their names. 

Here's a reminder of the questions...

1. What is the riskiest or most adventurous thing you have ever done?
2. Would you ever become a "yes man"?
3. How often do you find yourself turning down opportunities?
4. Any opportunities you regret not taking?

Let's start with Maura. This is what Maura Answered.

1. overseas trip

2. yes

3. often

4. Yes, a trip

Maura is like many Americans and has taken an overseas trip. She considers this to be the most adventurous things she has done. She also admits that she turns down a lot of opportunities. I would assume that she wants to be a yes man in order to make herself more adventurous, like me.

Adam

1. Skydiving

2. no

3. often

4. Buying Something

Adam shocked me at first. He said that he often turns down opportunities but chose to not become a yes man. I was confused I thought that I would see a pattern. Those who turned down opportunities would chose to be yes men and women because they wanted to be more adventurous. He did not fit this pattern. Why? And then I say his first answering. He is one of the less than 1% that has gone skydiving. If I went skydiving I would consider myself pretty adventurous too. 

Kylie

1. Spent lots of money

2. no

3. often

4. a trip

Kylie really confuses me. She answers that she doesn't want to be a yes women, but she turns things down often and regrets trips she hasn't taken. I'm confused. In her situation I believe I would want to be a yes women so that I could say yes to more trips, and regret less. 

Sharlett

1. Shared their faith with a stranger

2. No

3. occasionally

4. no

Sharlett fits my prediction a little better. I predict that the less you regret and the less opportunities you turn down, the less you would want to become a yes man or woman. The more you turn down, and the more you regret, the more likely you would want to become a yes man or woman. With all the results I had gotten, however, I am surprised that there aren't more yes men and women out there. Most people have many regrets and find themselves turning things down. Most people say at the end of their lives it's not all the things that they had done that they remember most, but rather the things they have not done. 

Today I met a lot of great people, and found out a lot of information. My advice to those of you struggling with not being as adventurous as you would like is to try the yes man project. If you're scared of it, give yourself guidelines, just as I have done. Just say yes more often! Talk to you soon!