Big Questions, Short Answers with Sian Jaquet
(Feat, Andy's unsolicited advice.)
What are the things that make life, relationships, business and the big picture work?
Andy asks Sian, his wife, these big questions. And with a humorous, light-hearted touch, in 10-15 minutes they will discuss the things that really matter and find short answers to bring us all success and happiness.
Sian is a much sought-after international executive coach, board member and keynote speaker who promotes living and working a values-based life to gain happiness and success. Andy is her husband of 35 years, and the ying to her yang, So the conversation is honest, real and funny.
“I hope you'll be entertained. I hope you have a little smile. And I hope every now and again there will be a thought that you refilter in your head and think: Okay, that resonated.” - Sian Jaquet
For more content, check out Sian's website sianjaquet.com, and her online course: Create The Life You Truly Love
Big Questions, Short Answers with Sian Jaquet
Big Question | What makes a man attractive? Ep22
What really turns women on? Is it a well-toned forearm or the ability to reverse park like a pro? In this episode of Big Questions, Short Answers, we crack open an article listing 50 random things that women find attractive and dive headfirst into a lighthearted yet insightful exploration of these traits. Andy rolls up his sleeves—literally—and humorously evaluates his own appeal while Sian doesn't hold back on her honest commentary, especially when it comes to Andy's driving skills. Ever wondered whether manual competence can outshine a striking set of salt and pepper hair strands? We've got some hilarious takes on that.
Confidence, competence, and quirky traits—what's the real magic formula for attraction? Join us as we dissect the intriguing nuances that make someone alluring. From the charm of broad shoulders to the mysterious allure of a deep voice, we debate how personal preferences shape our perception of attractiveness. With a dash of humor, we tackle the influence of social media and its often unrealistic standards. Who knew that having a big nose could make the list? Tune in for a candid chat on how deeply personal attraction truly is.
But it’s not all fun and games; we touch upon the deeper dynamics of finding meaningful connections. Reflecting on personal experiences, we highlight how values like kindness, generosity, and empathy often take the front seat over superficial traits. In an era where social media dictates much of our self-worth, we emphasize the importance of critical thinking and self-validation. Why do we seek approval for our looks from unverified sources? What role do core values play in sustaining relationships? Join us for an engaging conversation that balances humor with heartfelt insights, offering a thoughtful look at the complex landscape of attraction and self-worth.
For more content, check out Sian's website sianjaquet.com, and her online course: Create The Life You Truly Love.
www.sianjaquet.com
I'm rolling up my sleeves. I'll explain this later.
Speaker 2:It's a bit of a worry. Why are you rolling up your sleeves? Welcome to Big Questions, Short Answers. I'm Sian.
Speaker 1:Hello, I'm Andy Sian's husband asking the big life questions.
Speaker 2:And possibly adding a little bit of unsolicited advice.
Speaker 1:Maybe this podcast is brought to you by Sian's value-based online course. Visit sianjackeycom to find out more. I'm going to kick it off today with something a bit different, because I came across this article which was entitled 50 random things in men that turn women on. Oh, really Okay, and I reckon I cover a lot of them. So a few of them anyway. Like, one of the things rolling up your sleeves is forearms, apparently, like forearms are meant to be sexy. Rolled up sleeves. There we go. I've done that. You can't see that, but Charlotte's looking at me thinking they're sexy forearms.
Speaker 2:Which bit of that sexy. You've got psoriasis at the top.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the other thing is salt and pepper hair, which is oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's quite sexy. I quite like good with kids. Yeah, manual competence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good dancer oh, you think you hit that category.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really do, I really do. I don't think so you need to do a bit of market validation on that, but anyway, Dead dancing and one of the things that is quite weird is reversing a car and like with your over the back seat and you're reversing and it's like the forearms shut that's apparently. Look, I'm just reading this stuff.
Speaker 2:Before I pass a comment on this right, Give me the detail who wrote this article? Where's it come?
Speaker 1:from oh, it's from a, it's an american thing, it's like a men's magazine, okay stuff, and I just it's just an interesting in terms of the big questions is what makes men sexy, or, or, you know, to women, or the attraction process being sexy and being attractive are two very different things.
Speaker 2:How did you get to be as old as you are without realizing that right?
Speaker 1:okay, turn women on.
Speaker 2:That's the random things the ability to clean and shower. I realized that I'd come back to that. I'll hold it. We'll come back to that on the instructions. Okay, I will actually.
Speaker 1:Because what it's about? It's about attraction.
Speaker 2:I will step into this one. Right, I'm sitting here thinking really, but when you mentioned being able to reverse a car, I'm not sure I can go into the space of sexy or attractive, but maybe if I were to reframe it, I mean, I don't have a problem sharing with the world that you are a pretty shit driver. You are, yeah, one most of the time, but one thing you do incredibly well is reverse car. Okay, you know, there aren't many times in life when, then, you know me well, when I will literally just put my hands up and say no, I'm not even going to try, yeah, and parking a car in a city.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When there's a real finite amount of space Reverse park but not just to get the car in, but to actually reverse it, because there's cars on the other side of the road that are parked very narrow. My theory is it's because you love to drive in the centre of london, and if you didn't know how to do that, well, there's a stop anywhere so, apart from my amazing driving skills, the question no no, nobody said you had amazing driving skills.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's the point. You can park a car incredibly well. It is an attractive thing for me to see you park the car nicely. Okay, my point is that I can't say it's a generic thing. I don't sit in the car and see a man in the car in front of me reversing and they go he's a sexy creature. I don't think that's true. It's your competence, right, and your skill that I am attracted to. Okay, and it's the confidence in truth. Yes, you are, because who would a sense of confidence when you're reversing a car? That it's, I'm not saying it's not used to other parts of your life, but it never stops being immediately switched on. You stop, I see your brain working. There's a competence, there's a confidence. So I suppose what I'm really saying is there's a confidence and competence is attractive. If I could reframe it in that way, I'm not sure I can get into the word sexy, but go on. What else is on then? Oh, out of interest.
Speaker 1:Well, hold on one second. Let me pull this up Deep voice. There you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I quite like one of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So this is a deep voice. What else have we got?
Speaker 2:My mum when I first met you. That was the first thing she said oh, he's got a lovely voice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come Skateboarding. Well, we won't go there. Nothing remotely attractive about skateboarding. White T-shirts no, got to wash it. No, got to wash it. Buttoned-down shirts with the top button undone that's what I'm wearing at the moment. For goodness, wearing a tool belt? No, no, not into that. No, but broad shoulders.
Speaker 2:well, yeah, we got that got a bit of that going on. You find broad shoulders attractive.
Speaker 1:No, no, I mean, you know I, I'm asking you this. The big question is in terms of you hardly make five foot five.
Speaker 2:You are not a man with broad shoulders.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you kind of but when you put it all together, because I'm sure maybe my shoulders look broad.
Speaker 2:Put together kind of in a general normal human sense. But, darling, I don't know where you get these ideas that you've got broad shoulders, but anyway, lovely shoulders.
Speaker 1:I like them. Big nose I've got big nose. You do have a big nose, but it's an interesting thing, isn't it? In terms of what creates that? What's this?
Speaker 2:person on when they wrote this list.
Speaker 1:I have no idea, but it's an interesting thing, isn't it? In terms of that sense of what makes attraction and what can you do to make yourself more attractive? As we come into a more serious part of the conversation, yeah, I'm not on your same page.
Speaker 2:Where are you going with this? Is it just to blow my mind with a list of these are the things I'm supposed to find sexy.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I found it interesting.
Speaker 2:Only because you read it and thought oh, this is me, which it isn't.
Speaker 1:There's a few of them. I can count on a few of them. Now you roll your sleeves up, yeah, and sort them in.
Speaker 2:That's the thing you've got psoriasis.
Speaker 1:Sort a big nose. You can reverse a car. I'm the full package.
Speaker 2:I make coffees of you out of the venue.
Speaker 1:So, as I come back to the interesting thing in terms of attraction, yeah, it's absolutely individual.
Speaker 2:What somebody else, what somebody, finds attractive, somebody else won't. Yeah, come on now, why am I even having to say this? We all know that. Well, you know, it's so individual. Yeah, the things that irritate me are that we've got a social media-led construct. What's the construct? Construct of what somebody, what's attractive when you look at magazines and all the rest of it's a crock of shit. I think, from my perspective and I'm not speaking for every woman, but you know my wisdom that I've gathered from listening to women it's actually kind of scientific genetics, whatever. That gets the hormones and the whatever go in, because that's the man I want. Man it is, you know, is it values, is it quality? I don't know, but a bit you know. You see, I can remember when we were younger, right, and we house sat for a family in Australia and they had three small boys and we moved in and we looked after these three boys when the parents went away. And how old were you? You were in your middle 20s.
Speaker 1:Mid-20s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do remember sitting there watching you play and look after these boys, and I can't use the word sexy, that's not what was in my head. But did I look and think, wow, that's impressive. Yeah, or it stirred something in me, that was for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody's look after your future children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which was a bit weird at the time because I didn't think I was ever going to marry them, I didn't think I was ever going to have kids, but there was an admiration and a respect and an acknowledgement that I was looking at a man that was incredibly comfortable around young kids. I think, possibly, that that was to do with the fact that I had a father that was like that. Yeah, that you know we were ticking boxes here, I didn't know it was. But yeah, not only was I acknowledging that you were comfortable around kids and genuinely comfortable, but that I was able to relate it to having a father and my dad in the 60s who was a real hands-on parent in every sense of the word was really unique and unusual.
Speaker 2:So I think that possibly me I found attractive. Yeah, maybe that's a good word, I don't know.
Speaker 1:This is a bizarre conversation it is a bizarre conversation, it's slightly left field for our normal podcast, but I just think it was quite interesting in terms of some that whole process of attraction which you know these days, unfortunately, kids are in, or young people and people indeed in middle age are In a situation where attraction is so, I don't know, swiping left, swiping right, kind of stuff. It's.
Speaker 2:Can I be a real novel and say really and truly what I find attractive?
Speaker 1:OK, people's values, yeah.
Speaker 2:Kindness, generosity, empathy, ability those are the things that make me find a human being attractive and wanting to be around, let down my guard and let them inside to know who I really am.
Speaker 2:Nothing to do with sex, yes.
Speaker 2:It's not a sexy thing, yeah, but I can honestly say that that's probably the most significant decisions and sense of the filters that I go through as a human being. Somebody's values and the more that incongruence to kind of have a match with mine, yeah the more likely I am to spend more time and to lean in. Interestingly, when I meet people for the first time, when I'm working with them I mean, my job is not to judge anybody in any way, shape or form and I work very, very hard at being able to do that but every now and again I'll meet somebody for the first time and the coaching session we have will be on a level that is you couldn't have predicted. There will be a profound something that's happened in that time that we've spent together, spent together, and if there is a common denominator, it's probably because some of that person's core values are in alignment with mine and therefore the discussion and the depth of the way in which we communicate exponentially moves much faster because it's based on a trust, because values are aligned.
Speaker 1:that's got nothing to do with you picking up an article but I thought it was an interesting, slightly left field part of the conversation so the question I want to ask you is why were you attracted to it?
Speaker 2:because I actually think that social media, these why was I attracted to the article? Yeah, I think we all do it. We look at articles and we think, oh, where's me in that?
Speaker 2:yeah I want to be affirmed. I want to be able to take whatever this person has written and it was very interesting that you completely body swerved whether or not it was any value, whether it's been researched, whether it was written by somebody on drugs, you know, I mean, that's fine. Whatever you know, write your vote as you want, but there was no validation behind it and it's just oh ooh. If I can see myself in that and I'm not picking on you because I do it too yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I found myself a couple of weeks ago clicking onto a website about women over the age of 60, what hairstyles you should have or you shouldn't have. Right, and halfway through it, after scrolling for about 10 minutes, I actually caught myself and just stopped and thought what am I doing? What? Caught myself and just stopped and thought what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing here? Yeah, why do I need somebody else to tell me what I need to look like and whether I have permission to have my hair here, here? It doesn't mean it was, but it's the same kind of thing, isn't it? You're looking for affirmation. Where do I fit into this? What's going to tell me which?
Speaker 1:again, we know, we flim open the doors to a whole set of 20 podcasts about the pros and cons, the good, the bad, the right, the wrong with social media and the information and how we gather information and how we filter it well, I think the important thing from this I suppose this lesson for today, as we have to wind up because it's we, we try and do things in a short amount of time is, you know that validation from unvalidated sources exactly, and having, I suppose, a sense of self that's strong enough to reject that and just be who you are, is that right well, yeah, I suppose so, but equally, and don't personalize this, all right, don't give me that face when I say it, but I don't.
Speaker 2:It's not a big stretch, is it to say that, you know, when you're in your 60s? I mean that could have been related to women.
Speaker 1:I don't think the hairy arms go.
Speaker 2:Well. No, what I mean is that now you've lost my train of thought. Now this could relate to men or women, you know, is it? I don't know if we're brave enough to even have a conversation about it, but when you're in your 60s, you do start questioning. You know, what is my relationship to my sexuality and my body and my physical need for sex and all the rest of it? I mean, I don't want to blow this out of the water, but I think on some level you were looking at that. Or people, let's do a generic, let's not make it about you, although you were the one that did it, but people would look at that at your age. Yes, because it's looking for affirmation or what. What things are still making me a sexy male? Yeah, because when you're an adolescent in your 20s be under no illusion. You and I know that that's probably one of the top three things that every male thinks about am I attractive? Am I you know?
Speaker 1:what do you mean adolescent?
Speaker 2:well, that's my point, isn't it? That you are thinking about it, and that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing at all in any way, shape or form. I'm just. You know, on the surface it's reasonably humorous, but I suppose what I would be saying to you is the question of okay, well, you stopped and you used so many minutes of your life to read that and it clearly lodged itself somewhere in your brain. Well, rather than delving deeper into an article that it is about as thin as what's the smallest measure millimeter or smaller than a millimeter but, why you needed to do it.
Speaker 2:yeah, so that's really I don't know. There's a lot of things you can get out of it, but what I want to frame it as I think is to say when you read something or you see something on social media, it's probably a good job to stop after a few minutes or seconds and just check. I'm doing this way. Yeah, what need am I meeting here? And if I'm going to meet a need, should we just filter through that through some critical thinking of is the person giving me this advice?
Speaker 1:True. Well, unfortunately we've run out of time. Bloody fascinating subject what your big nest, my sexy forearms, and we'll leave it there. Join us next time on Big Questions. Short Answers with Sian Jacquet and me, andy.
Speaker 2:If you have any questions you want to ask, please send them via the website sianjacquetcom.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and share it with everyone you know.
Speaker 2:We really do appreciate you sharing 15 minutes with us.
Speaker 1:And if you want to do a bit more learning, go on to Sian's website, sian'sjacketcom. There's a course on values to create the life you truly love. I did it and it really does do what it says on the can See you next time.
