It Was Never About the Beard
How 200 days of facial hair killed "LEGO Business Man" and brought my creativity back to life.
Welcome to the Midlife Field Guide.
One year.
Two Gen X friends.
Countless personal life experiments.
Can they figure out the meaning of midlife?
Subscribe for free!
Hello Midlifers!
Many of you might be relieved to know that this is the final instalment of the Beard Experiment, where I have been growing my first-ever beard at age 53. I am going to tell you whether I’ve decided to keep it or shave it, and why.
A while ago, I was told that someone commented (behind my back), “How much can someone possibly talk about a beard???” It turns out, the answer is that I can talk about a beard a lot because it has been a shockingly impactful experiment. And as it turns out, the Beard Experiment is not really about the beard itself at all.
In part one, Confessions of a Beardless Man, I explored the midlife identity issues that led me to finally ‘let it grow.’ In part two, The Summer I Turned Hairy, I detailed the highly entertaining reactions to various stages of facial hair growth, including my own family roasting my beard at length.
The Data
The beard is officially 200 days old TODAY. 200 days!
I’ve purchased one beard brush and one beard trimmer.
The beard has been trimmed three times by Mike and Marvin at Main Barbers and approximately 12 times by my new beard trimmer.
I’ve gone through one small bottle of beard oil.
I have been called Santa seven times. Papa Smurf twice. Dumbledore once.
I’ve been told I look like famous tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou once. Mandy Patinkin twice.
I have been told it makes me look old more times than I can count or remember.
More Data: The Tribe Has Spoken
I included a poll at the end of Part Two asking for your input on the future of my face.
As of this writing, the results are clear: the beard wins in a landslide. (Also, I’m pretty sure that the 15% of people voting for a return to a clean shave included multiple votes from both my parents…)
Observations: It’s Not About The Beard. It’s About Identity.
I’m still figuring out who Midlife Steve is. However, I do know this. Midlife Steve is going to be a departure from my previous incarnation as Striving Type A Steve. I really was a clean-cut, LEGO Business Man clone. Proof? This has been my profile photo for over a decade:
I showed up, tried to offend no one, had a short haircut and friendly demeanour, and busted my butt to try and prove my worth and achieve security of one sort or another. I have been a people pleaser my whole life. I have been a rule-follower my whole life. Nothing filled me with more hot shame than failing at something or getting in trouble.
And now? It’s not like I’m suddenly a goth anarchist, that I have lost empathy for others, or have decided to live in the woods.
I will admit, though, that I find myself questioning a lot of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.
I recently wrote about the Three Midlife Questions I’ve been asking myself, and it’s been an incredibly powerful exercise. It’s made me realize that there are parts of myself that I have buried or hidden for fear of judgment or not being ‘normal.’ It may be obvious to a lot of you who only know me from this newsletter, but I really enjoy expressing my creativity.
My childhood memories are filled with drawing, writing, storytelling, and making stupid home movies. I have a degree in Literature. I spent most of my career in the media.
A funny thing happened, though. I traded creative work for managing creative teams. Then I co-founded a podcasting company that helped other organizations and brands learn to make shows filled with Creative Bravery. I became the business development and strategy guy, selling and teaching creativity instead of practising it.
As I left the ‘doing’ of creativity and pursued ‘leading’ creative teams, my media consumption changed enormously. I stopped reading fiction for years and instead went on deep dives into productivity, entrepreneurship, leadership, culture, change management, and all sorts of other non-fiction. I basically created my own version of an MBA so I could get better at leading teams and, eventually, a company.
A while ago, I wrote about a moment of career revelation:
At lunch, a friend complimented me on my entrepreneurial instincts and without thinking about it, I said, “I’m not really an entrepreneur. I am honestly an accidental entrepreneur. I’m really a Creative who needed to find a new business model to be able to do the work I really love doing and that I’m good at.”
Wow.
As soon as it left my mouth, something shifted. “Accidental entrepreneur” instantly resonated. It doesn’t mean that I’m not an entrepreneur or that I’m not good at it, but it did hit home that being an entrepreneur is not the thing that drives me intrinsically. I didn’t dream of “being an entrepreneur” when I was kid. I dreamed of being on SCTV or Saturday Night Live. Or writing books like Kurt Vonnegut or John Irving.
Since then, I’ve thought a lot about that lunch conversation.
And since hitting a bunch of midlife transitions, I’ve thought a lot about how to reconnect with that creative person at a deeper level.
This Midlife Field Guide project is a massive attempt to do just that. The writing, the multimedia storytelling formats I’m playing around with on Instagram, the videos I’m starting to make, the talks I’ve been starting to give about midlife… it all feels like I have re-entered a major groove of creativity that is deeply aligned with how I’m wired.
It feels really, really good.
Congrats, Creative Guy! (WTF Does This Have To Do With Your Stupid Beard?)
I promise this is still all about the beard… and about more than the beard. In reconnecting with my creative identity, I quickly realized something else that is very important.
I’m kinda done with fitting in for the sake of fitting in. My clean-shaven, short-haired look is such a powerful visual symbol of that identity.
And I’m done with it.
Which brings us back to the beard.
The beard is not a beard.
It’s a symbol that I’m not the same guy I was before the beard. It’s a symbol (and constant reminder) that I’m embracing a new version of myself. I’m giving myself permission to be uncomfortable. I’m giving myself permission to be different than who I’ve been in the past. I’m giving myself permission to be okay with negative feedback or people who prefer the previous version of myself.
The beard is my way of telling everyone that this is Creative Midlife Steve, and I’m no longer good ol’ Type A LEGO Business Man Steve.
I still don’t recognize the guy in the mirror with a beard. And I like that! I’m enjoying getting to know him. Every time I see myself, it’s a visual reminder that I’m inhabiting a new version of myself, and it’s kinda exciting.
I’m not the only one not recognizing the new guy. My step-daughter, Charlotte, has been bang-on in her roasting of the beard and her observations about how my internal wiring manifested itself in my consistently tight personal grooming.
She told me it was highly confusing for her to see me with a beard because I never have a hair out of place. I have always gotten my hair cut very regularly. I’ve always had the exact same short haircut. And… I’ve always been clean-shaven.
And suddenly, she is discombobulated because all that has changed. She said it’s like I’m suddenly a different person and she doesn’t know what to make of it.
YES, Charlotte! This is exactly why I’m doing it!
Embracing Aging Instead of Avoiding It
Charlotte also castigated me for making myself look older. She said that I have smooth, unwrinkled skin and that it makes no logical sense to cover it up with white beard hair that makes me look ancient.
Over the last 200 days, there has been so much feedback about how much older the beard makes me look. I waffled back and forth about whether I should shave it so that I wouldn’t feel old, but I recently had an epiphany.
So what if being clean-shaven makes me look young? I’m fifty-three! As someone who has looked a bit like an overgrown schoolboy for most of my adult life, maybe it’s time to embrace looking older instead of attempting to stave it off as long as possible.
These days, it doesn’t even feel bad to hear that I look older. It almost feels like… I’ve grown up. (Which is ridiculous at 53.)
The Beard Is A Metaphor For Midlife
This whole experiment, which sounded initially like a stupid stunt, has turned out to be quite meaningful and transformational.
I’m now going to reach even farther into the layers of deep beard meaning…
The beard has become a symbol of this whole Midlife Field Guide project for me.
As you will soon find out, most of the material I developed in a stand-up comedy course was about the beard. The beard featured prominently in my talk at Peter Reek’s Shift Sessions event. It’s because the beard is, in many ways, a metaphor for the midlife journey.
Midlife is a transition, full of change. To use Chip Conley’s metaphor, I feel like I am emerging from my Midlife Chrysalis, changed. Instead of transforming from a worm into a beautiful butterfly, though, I am emerging from my chrysalis looking older and, according to my father, “less attractive!” 😜
It takes courage to change how you appear to others and how you appear to yourself. It’s not an instant change either. It takes time, and there are different stages of growth.
When you first start growing a beard, the transition begins. It’s subtle stubble at first, but quickly people begin to notice that you’re different than who you were before.
This attention paid to your changing appearance is uncomfortable. The beard growth itself is uncomfortable and itchy. Skin gets irritated and red.
Soon, though, the beard starts to come in and take shape, much like the new midlife “you” starts to get increasingly comfortable the more you explore it and live in it day-to-day.
Some people get it and like the new beard. Some people don’t get it and want the old version of you back. So it is with midlife.
The beard is a journey. It’s trying on a new identity. It’s dressing up as a new version of yourself. And while the beard journey shifts your exterior appearance, the midlife journey transforms you internally.
At the end of the day, you get to decide what you think. You get to decide which version of you lives on to see another day.
Revisiting The Hypothesis
Here’s what I predicted back when I started this experiment in May, along with the actual results:
I think I will have a meaty goatee, complemented by hideously patchy hair bits on the side of my face. ❌ Shockingly, I can grow a full beard.
I think it will be embarrassing and uncomfortable, especially when it’s growing in ✅ 100% accurate.
I think I will not feel professional ✅ Very accurate. I felt so weird popping on Zoom calls or running into clients or colleagues for the first few months.
There is no possible way that I will look like the cool, Robert Redford-like Chill Mountain Man in A.I. Option 4, but that’s what I want my first beard to look like. ❌ I look way more like Chill Mountain Man than I ever expected. Nice work, Chat GPT!
I predict that most of my family, but especially my mother, will HATE the beard with a passion ✅ 100% accurate. My mother, father, and step-daughter, Charlotte, all disapprove of the beard (especially my mother, as predicted!)
I predict I will not like it and won’t keep it. ❌ After reading this far, you will likely not be shocked to learn that I have enjoyed the beard more than I ever thought.
Conclusion
I’m choosing Beard Steve.
I’m choosing the creative guy who was buried under layers of productivity, management, and entrepreneurship thinking. I’m choosing the guy that you’re reading right now, because this feels like the real me without filters.
Does Beard Steve look older? According to Charlotte, and many, many others… absolutely. Do I look like I just wandered out of the woods? Maybe. But for the first time in my life, I’m not trying to look like the person I think I should be. I’m just looking like who I am right now.
And if that guy gets mistaken for a mall Santa a lot in the next month? I can live with that.
Beard Badge unlocked!
I’m off to get a new profile photo.
See you in the comments,
Beard Steve
What Is Your ‘Beard’?
What is the change you’ve been secretly wanting to make, but you’re afraid it’s too ‘weird,’ too ‘old,’ or too different from who you’ve always been? Whatever it is—dyeing your hair, changing up your wardrobe, or digging into a dream you’ve been putting off—what would happen if you let it grow?
It might itch at first. You might get some weird looks from people who know you best. But after a while, you just might like who you see in the mirror.
Final Pitch for Movember!
If you’ve enjoyed #beardmania this month, please consider donating to the Midlife Field Guide’s Movember page. It’s a terrific cause, and we’d love to reach our fundraising goal with your help.
As if writing and making videos about facial hair for a month isn’t enough, I also got my prostate checked for Movember, which is very important for those of us over fifty. (For a future experiment, I’m doing a bunch of preventative medical testing with the amazing team at Georgia Healthcare in Vancouver, and they graciously included the prostate exam.)
Please donate here. Thanks for your support!
Hi Steve, I have really enjoyed the beard series. Shawn
Steve, excellent and entertaining post. The tougher or more intriguing question you raise is actually about the depth and sustainability of "change" and "transformation" that are tropes hauled around by too many management consultants who really dont understand what they are talking about but bill nicely for it. Maybe the beard is both and enabler and symbol of change but the real Steve I know comes with through in this blog piece