WHO DOESN’T LOVE MOHAWKS?
Written by: Sonny
June 19, 2014
As I walked into the office on Monday morning, I caught a glance of myself in the reflection of our front door and smiled. I was still sporting my mohawk from this past weekend. Probably not the most professional fashion statement to make, but one I was quite proud of. Yes, proud – not because I’ve always secretly wanted to ‘rock a hawk’ since I saw MR. T in the 80′s! Proud because of what it symbolizes.
In 2011, my business partner, Vinnie, sent me a link to an event that he thought would be a great team building exercise for us to explore. I clicked on the link and it was daunting, absurdly daunting. I’m an active guy…I like to think I’m in pretty good shape, but the description of this event actually made me a little nervous. Let me rephrase that – very nervous. 20-30 Military-style obstacles consisting of things like diving into an ice bath, jumping over fire, getting SHOCKED by 10,000 volts of electricity, not to mention the 10-12 miles of trails, hills and mud. I hadn’t seen anything like it and I immediately dismissed it. I told him, if we are looking for a team building event, lets just cut out of work early one afternoon, hit the bowling alley, have a few drinks and have some fun and we accomplish the same thing – right?
It was the inaugural year for Tough Mudder, so there wasn’t much research you could do on the internet to see what it was all about. Ultimately we ended up making the plunge and invited consultants, clients, and friends amassing a team of 8 people. It was EPIC. It exceeded our expectations on every front and left us thirsting for more. Also, for that first Mudder, we raised money for the Wounded Warrior project and as a showing of our commitment to WWP and Mudder, we decided to cut our hair. Granted this event is loaded with as much machismo you can imagine and the hair cut became synonymous with that machismo.
Four years later, having done Mudder each year, I’ve come to view the haircuts as something bigger. Its a visible display of why we do this event. For the few days we walk around with those absurd haircuts, we can proudly say we do ‘em because we are a team, we do it for Wounded Warrior, we do it because Mudder represents the BEST way to build trust, camaraderie and team work. When you share blood, sweat, and tears with your co-workers then come talk to me about team building. For those that choose happy hours or golf outings or bowling – you can keep it. Bring on the hair clippers and our team will be ready to tackle the next Mudder and show you how well we work together inside and outside of the office!
Btw, this year, we had 45 people with us, along for the ride!!