It was Justin Timberlake who released the song Sexy Back in 2006. He was talking about bringing sexy back in a very obvious and literal way. Reading the lyrics for this song, did nothing for me, in any way shape or form. Justin, I believe, has missed the point of sexy. So, why don’t we explore what it really means to be bringing sexy back.
When I searched the definition of ‘sexy’, there were two options:
- Arousing or tending to arouse sexual desire or interest.
- Highly appealing or interesting; attractive.
Let’s go with option two, shall we? I think we all get the idea of ‘appealing’ and ‘interesting’, which the definition seems to suggest leads to an ‘attractive’ proposition. If we look at a definition of ‘attractive’ I found three perspectives, the one I want to focus on is:
- Having the power to attract
So, if we boil it all the way down to the basics, ‘sexy’ simply means, the power to attract. Can you see how this opens the door to many different applications of the word ‘sexy’. I definitely think it is time to start bringing sexy back. Don’t you?
This whole thought and idea came from the podcast I released this week with Martin Silva, coincidentally also called Bringing sexy back. Martin, with a very successful health, fitness, and mindset background, suggested that many of the things people need to do to be lean, healthy, and energized, are not sexy. I said to him, why aren’t they sexy? We need to bring sexy back.
What Martin was referring to were things like getting up in the morning to exercise when you don’t feel like it, eating breakfast when you’re not hungry, choosing the nuts over the donut, drinking water instead of sweet drinks, having tough conversations when you don’t want to, looking for the lessons in adversity, and the many other things we know we should be doing each day but often don’t. We may not think these things are sexy, however, based on our revised definition of ‘sexy’, I would like to argue that they are sexier than you may currently believe.
Remember that our definition of ‘sexy’ is, the power to attract. If you get up to exercise, when you don’t feel like it each day, guess what you will be attracting? A fitter, leaner, and healthier body. That sounds sexy to me. If you eat breakfast each day, you will attract energy, metabolism, fat-loss, and better wellbeing. Again, sounds mighty sexy to me. The same sexiness applies to eating nuts instead of donuts, and drinking water instead of sweet drinks. Having tough conversations will attract increased communication, more trust, and stronger connections. That my friend, is sexy. Finding lessons in adversity and being more in control, is an incredibly sexy way to be.
For me, the thing that has surprised me the most, and attracted more amazingness into my life, is something that I never would consider as sexy. Exposing the real me, warts and all. I have hidden my flaws, insecurities, mistakes, and poor choices, fully believing they were not sexy at all. In fact, I believed that it would create the opposite effect of attracting, and actually be repelling. At that stage in my life, wearing a mask and pretending to be something I was not, was creating misery and emptiness in my life, so I decided to drop the mask and share.
I was terrified, but thought, what is the worst that can happen? As soon as I started sharing the real and imperfect me, I built stronger connections, I empowered other people to do the same, I felt a much greater level of freedom, I started to love myself, and I started attracting great things and people into my life. Wow, talk about sexy. So, it seems to be that the things we avoid the most are the things that are most sexy. The things we may not enjoy doing that we know we need to do will attract the most joy and meaning into our lives. I would love to encourage you right now to work out what that is for you, and get started on bringing sexy back.