For decades, Brooks Laich’s life revolved around one goal: winning a Stanley Cup. When he walked away from that dream at 35, he said he felt like he failed himself and his family, friends, and fans.
“I never won the Stanley Cup — something I’ve been chasing since I knew life existed,” said Laich, who played for the Ottawa Senators, Washington Capitals, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Los Angeles Kings.
Laich told Business Insider that although he thought he was happy after his hockey career ended, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words “I retired” for five years. He also went through a divorce after he finished playing, and said everything stable in his life was “massively disrupted within a short period of time.” He said he worked out intensely during that time as an outlet for his frustration.
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“There’s a nine-month stretch of my life where I really don’t have much memory,” Laich said, adding that it was one of the “darkest times of life.”
Laich, now 43, said coming to terms with the end of his hockey career didn’t happen overnight. It took years to decide whether to see his career as a success or a failure. Along the way, he tried new paths, including hosting a podcast for iHeartMedia and launching a fitness app.
While he enjoyed both, neither gave him the same sense of purpose he felt with hockey. Eventually, he discovered his passion for travel and decided to help travelers make new memories.
A few months ago, Laich launched World Playground, which aims to connect travelers with the lowest possible hotel and cruise prices by eliminating booking commissions.
World Playground
“My personal mission in life is to inspire people, and travel is my method to do so,” Laich said in a follow-up email. “I want everyone to live an exceptional life.”
While few people retire from professional sports, the challenge of reinventing yourself mid-career isn’t unique to athletes. As AI reshapes the workforce, more people are rethinking their careers. Laich has two pieces of advice for anyone navigating such a major life transition:
Follow your curiosity
Laich said he asked himself after his hockey career ended what he would do if he had unlimited money. His immediate answer was, “I would grab my friends, and I would go travel,” he said.
Laich said that after spending his life in team sports, he was drawn to adventure and the power of shared experiences. So in the two years after hockey, he traveled the world, trekked with gorillas in Rwanda, swam with humpback whales in Tonga, went on safaris, and scuba dived in Indonesia.
World Playground
Inspired by his passion for travel and making new memories, Laich said he wanted to create a platform that would open that experience for others.
Laich suggests gravitating toward “your natural curiosities,” and the things you spend “massive amounts” of time already doing. Then, apply your intelligence to figure out how to create a business around it, he said.
Use the same skills
Laich’s second piece of advice is to be OK with starting over.
He said keeping the mindset that if “you can build it once, you can build it again” helped him through the transition.
“I built that brick by brick from the time I was a child to eventually make pro at the age of 20 and then stayed there for 15 years,” Laich said about his NHL career. “I can do that again.”
Laich said it’s an adjustment from going to being a pro athlete to no longer carrying the team name. He said ex-athletes often “get terrified” after they switch industries because they’re starting from the bottom. However, he said the same discipline, resilience, and work ethic that he used in hockey could be applied to succeeding again, even in a completely different field, he said.
“Know that you can do it again. It takes time, that’s the hard part,” Laich said.
He recommends surrounding yourself with people whose skills and knowledge differ from your own. The best teams share the same values and goal, but bring different strengths, he said.
