Sian Jaquet
Sian Jaquet (57) lives in Auckland, on the little peninsula of Beachhaven. She's a board director, executive coach and a public speaker. She's also a personal friend of mine, so this interview is a transcript of our conversation. We start the chat by introducing her household.
"Who do I live with? Too many human beings. There's my husband, Andy (58), and we've been married for 30+ years. That's always been kept in a weekly contract. [Editor's note: Sian says this with a smile]. Then we have my eldest daughter who came back from the UK about a year and a half ago. She's moving out this weekend. Then my little son (28) he's at home. He has plans to go live on Waiheke, and then the youngest youngest son is Oh, finishing mammoth efforts to get educated, get a degree, do all the rest of it, you know, As keep teasing him: He's got all the gear, all the training, and obviously no idea. And he's finding it quite challenging to get jobs. So, yeah, it's very interesting. There are three of them out at the moment, which, for obvious reasons on a practical basis is incredibly challenging. Years ago when Andy and I would sit back and say, right, values-based parenting and we want these children to be independent, and we want them to have the confidence to have an opinion. Now, 20-odd years later, I'm thinking that's maybe not such a wise move! Be careful what you wish for. So there are five adults living in under one roof right now. We also have a dog, Bilbo, a 2.5 year old cavoodle, who is a fundamental part of the family.
Other than that, you know, we have an open-door policy. So, you know, you're asking me today, and there are five people who live in my house. If you'd have asked me yesterday, there was another person there who was with us for 48 hours. By the end of the week, I happen to know somebody else will be coming to stay.
Sundays start in the same way that every other day the week starts in that Andy is always the first person to get up. He has a routine in that certainly by 6:30 am he's awake and ready to get out of bed. I'm not a morning person in any way, shape or form.
So, Sundays would usually start with me getting out of bed, and he'll go and make us both a coffee and then it's a time to sit down and chat. There'll be at least a good half an hour to 45 minutes to chat about the timeline or whatever.
Sundays for me are about being full of coffee, leaving the house, and going to do something and/or engage in something that you wouldn't normally do for any other reason. Although it isn't set in stone I would say that for three out of four Sundays in the last month we've been to the farmers' market, and when I do go, I'm there at 9 am. We spend an hour to an hour and a half wandering around, looking at human beings. I don't religiously go there to buy my avocados and to buy my vegetables. Well, yes I do, but that's not actually what my motivation is. I find it quite grounding to wander around and see the cacophony of ethnicities, of age groups, of backgrounds.
I get a real warm and fuzzy when I see youngsters running a stall because they're doing a project that's to do with their school, or you know, maybe there are two or three people in their twenties who clearly brought their belongings and their clothes, and they're selling them all. I love that. It's human beings. It's people. There's a collective energy of 'we choose to be around each other.' I love the noise in a market; the smells.
Sunday is connection day. It's also music day. Music weaves a very real passion, culturally, within my family because we're Welsh, and there's a core belief and value of having music in our lives. On a Sunday morning there will be music. It's there all the time, but I notice it more on a Sunday morning. The music is often streamed [from someone's phone], but on Sundays we're much more likely to stop what we're doing and listen.
I will buy flowers. It's more to do caring for the place where we live and for the people who live with you. That's just how I think of it coming in the house: spending three to ten minutes rather than ten seconds of putting them in a vase because I think I want to try and make them look true. It means something.
My mom died 20 years ago, and when she was dying of cancer she used to joke if you can smell fresh flowers, you know I'm watching That may well have been a throwaway comment in the moment. So again, it's not at the forefront of my mind. It just happens. I don't think oh I'm going to buy flowers to make the house smell nice because that will remind me of my mother. Yeah, it makes us feel cared for. You brought a bit of nature inside. It's fresh. It's something very clean slate to bring sunshine into your room. And it's like a positive affirmation for me. It's like sunflowers and the way they turn their head towards the sun. God knows what's going on in the world. You choose to turn your head towards the positive.
During the rest of the week, I could probably walk through our markets on a Thursday afternoon trying to get from A to B. And it wouldn't dawn on me to stop and buy flowers. I think that there's somehow this was the day we do these things, whether we realise it or not. On the next day, I've got other things that take priority for me. But on Sunday, these things matter.
Having the courage to stand still. For some reason, I find it much easier Sunday to give myself permission to do that. As I said earlier, the next significant call of every Sunday is the delights of cooking. It's often a roast: the classic Sunday dinner. There will be dinner on the table at seven o'clock. [The number of people at the table] varies, and even though I may spend a couple of hours in the kitchen, it is very loving, very positive, and time well spent. I'm trying to say it what it is about family. Now whether that's blood family or the people that you love who are around you, I will try and ensure that I spend time with them first because during the rest of the week we don't see each other as much.
After dinner [where we've chatted at length] everybody will disperse to do their own things for the evening. Bedtime will be 10 pm or so, which for me is probably a bit earlier than I would normally during the week. On some level I'd try to get to bed reasonably early on a Sunday. Again, it's not written in stone; we don't have our routine.
And then, interestingly, over the last year or so, the end of the day has changed in a lot of ways because Andy has taken up reading every night. Reading doesn't work for me. If I read before I go to sleep, I'm actually switching my brain on. So he's there with his Kindle, reading his book, and I use that 20 - 30 minutes, where he's reading, to download what's happened last week and what's coming up next week.
It's not, 'what do I want to achieve? 'It's more 'what do I need to prepare myself for? What do I need to practically prepare? How do I emotionally prepare for what is happening, and how am I going to be doing this?' I wouldn't say that that happens every single night. Just sometimes.
What we're talking about is interesting because since you asked the question, I thought 'what the hell am I gonna say about Sunday, but the more you think about it, we human beings are creatures of habit. We have patterns and we have routines.' And there's just a baseline. It's gonna look different for everyone, but there will be a baseline of consistency. And then the rest can be crazy. And Sundays are really fascinating because it is traditionally time to reconnect or it's time for community. Time and family is different on a Sunday. It's an appreciation now and again, that we'll not always be here. We'll go for real. I just seem to look at the world in a different way on a Sunday."
"Who do I live with? Too many human beings. There's my husband, Andy (58), and we've been married for 30+ years. That's always been kept in a weekly contract. [Editor's note: Sian says this with a smile]. Then we have my eldest daughter who came back from the UK about a year and a half ago. She's moving out this weekend. Then my little son (28) he's at home. He has plans to go live on Waiheke, and then the youngest youngest son is Oh, finishing mammoth efforts to get educated, get a degree, do all the rest of it, you know, As keep teasing him: He's got all the gear, all the training, and obviously no idea. And he's finding it quite challenging to get jobs. So, yeah, it's very interesting. There are three of them out at the moment, which, for obvious reasons on a practical basis is incredibly challenging. Years ago when Andy and I would sit back and say, right, values-based parenting and we want these children to be independent, and we want them to have the confidence to have an opinion. Now, 20-odd years later, I'm thinking that's maybe not such a wise move! Be careful what you wish for. So there are five adults living in under one roof right now. We also have a dog, Bilbo, a 2.5 year old cavoodle, who is a fundamental part of the family.
Other than that, you know, we have an open-door policy. So, you know, you're asking me today, and there are five people who live in my house. If you'd have asked me yesterday, there was another person there who was with us for 48 hours. By the end of the week, I happen to know somebody else will be coming to stay.
Sundays start in the same way that every other day the week starts in that Andy is always the first person to get up. He has a routine in that certainly by 6:30 am he's awake and ready to get out of bed. I'm not a morning person in any way, shape or form.
So, Sundays would usually start with me getting out of bed, and he'll go and make us both a coffee and then it's a time to sit down and chat. There'll be at least a good half an hour to 45 minutes to chat about the timeline or whatever.
Sundays for me are about being full of coffee, leaving the house, and going to do something and/or engage in something that you wouldn't normally do for any other reason. Although it isn't set in stone I would say that for three out of four Sundays in the last month we've been to the farmers' market, and when I do go, I'm there at 9 am. We spend an hour to an hour and a half wandering around, looking at human beings. I don't religiously go there to buy my avocados and to buy my vegetables. Well, yes I do, but that's not actually what my motivation is. I find it quite grounding to wander around and see the cacophony of ethnicities, of age groups, of backgrounds.
I get a real warm and fuzzy when I see youngsters running a stall because they're doing a project that's to do with their school, or you know, maybe there are two or three people in their twenties who clearly brought their belongings and their clothes, and they're selling them all. I love that. It's human beings. It's people. There's a collective energy of 'we choose to be around each other.' I love the noise in a market; the smells.
Sunday is connection day. It's also music day. Music weaves a very real passion, culturally, within my family because we're Welsh, and there's a core belief and value of having music in our lives. On a Sunday morning there will be music. It's there all the time, but I notice it more on a Sunday morning. The music is often streamed [from someone's phone], but on Sundays we're much more likely to stop what we're doing and listen.
I will buy flowers. It's more to do caring for the place where we live and for the people who live with you. That's just how I think of it coming in the house: spending three to ten minutes rather than ten seconds of putting them in a vase because I think I want to try and make them look true. It means something.
My mom died 20 years ago, and when she was dying of cancer she used to joke if you can smell fresh flowers, you know I'm watching That may well have been a throwaway comment in the moment. So again, it's not at the forefront of my mind. It just happens. I don't think oh I'm going to buy flowers to make the house smell nice because that will remind me of my mother. Yeah, it makes us feel cared for. You brought a bit of nature inside. It's fresh. It's something very clean slate to bring sunshine into your room. And it's like a positive affirmation for me. It's like sunflowers and the way they turn their head towards the sun. God knows what's going on in the world. You choose to turn your head towards the positive.
During the rest of the week, I could probably walk through our markets on a Thursday afternoon trying to get from A to B. And it wouldn't dawn on me to stop and buy flowers. I think that there's somehow this was the day we do these things, whether we realise it or not. On the next day, I've got other things that take priority for me. But on Sunday, these things matter.
Having the courage to stand still. For some reason, I find it much easier Sunday to give myself permission to do that. As I said earlier, the next significant call of every Sunday is the delights of cooking. It's often a roast: the classic Sunday dinner. There will be dinner on the table at seven o'clock. [The number of people at the table] varies, and even though I may spend a couple of hours in the kitchen, it is very loving, very positive, and time well spent. I'm trying to say it what it is about family. Now whether that's blood family or the people that you love who are around you, I will try and ensure that I spend time with them first because during the rest of the week we don't see each other as much.
After dinner [where we've chatted at length] everybody will disperse to do their own things for the evening. Bedtime will be 10 pm or so, which for me is probably a bit earlier than I would normally during the week. On some level I'd try to get to bed reasonably early on a Sunday. Again, it's not written in stone; we don't have our routine.
And then, interestingly, over the last year or so, the end of the day has changed in a lot of ways because Andy has taken up reading every night. Reading doesn't work for me. If I read before I go to sleep, I'm actually switching my brain on. So he's there with his Kindle, reading his book, and I use that 20 - 30 minutes, where he's reading, to download what's happened last week and what's coming up next week.
It's not, 'what do I want to achieve? 'It's more 'what do I need to prepare myself for? What do I need to practically prepare? How do I emotionally prepare for what is happening, and how am I going to be doing this?' I wouldn't say that that happens every single night. Just sometimes.
What we're talking about is interesting because since you asked the question, I thought 'what the hell am I gonna say about Sunday, but the more you think about it, we human beings are creatures of habit. We have patterns and we have routines.' And there's just a baseline. It's gonna look different for everyone, but there will be a baseline of consistency. And then the rest can be crazy. And Sundays are really fascinating because it is traditionally time to reconnect or it's time for community. Time and family is different on a Sunday. It's an appreciation now and again, that we'll not always be here. We'll go for real. I just seem to look at the world in a different way on a Sunday."