We are strange, and that’s why the ladies love us!

Seriously though, the reason that I grow my hair and beard out when I want to push myself towards something is that it is a really good motivator.  I can tie a string to my finger, but those fall off and get lost.  I could write myself a note, but I lose my todo lists and I keep those in our Project Management software.  The main reason is that it is always there, it is right up front, “in my face” (haha).

Recently I grew my beard out until we “launched” something at work. It was a fun way for myself and friends to continually be reminded that I haven’t launched anything yet. My beard was awesome.  Some (like my wife) would say gross, but I am sticking with awesome. I actually grew all of my “above the neck” hair out longer than it has ever been during the part of my life where I was paying attention to such silliness.

I have grown my facial hair out for another reason in the past, Movember. This is an awesome organization that raises money for research to fight Prostate Cancer. I have done this in the past two years, and this is where I got my idea for growing hair/beard for our product launch.

The product that we launched was 1TrackFind, a site for keeping track of music and artists that you want to remember to listen to later.  We have been working on it for a couple months, deciding what feature to put in and what features to leave out for now.  All this work grew me a mighty beard, and today I got to shave it all off – well most of it.

I included pictures of my beard shedding, just for fun.

This is a weird “feature” in the iPhone, but a cool one and it is simple to do!

1. Start a call with someone
2. Navigate to your iPod app and start it up
3. Choose a song or podcast
4. Enjoy!

The other person will not be able to hear it, and you should still be able to hear them over the music!