| Podcast Edition Forged, Not Found |
|
|
|
|
|
Pull the Anchor.
Let the River Take You.
What 13 NHL seasons, a first retirement, and a baby named Emberly taught Brooks Laich about the difference between fighting life and flowing with it.
|
|
Brooks Laich played 13 years in the NHL. He wasn't just a player — he was a guy who earned the nickname "Brow Down Brooksy" from his teammates for being wired so intensely toward winning that his coach pulled him aside in November and said: Brooks, you're not going to have any friends by Christmas. Lighten up.
He was released at 35. Not retired. Released. And for nine months after that, he did exactly what had made him great his entire career.
He pushed back.
|
|
"Brooks, I see you as a boat in a river with an anchor down, fighting the current. My challenge for you is to pull your anchor and let the river of life take you where it may."
Steve Weatherford to Brooks Laich Former NFL Super Bowl Champion
|
|
Brooks's first response was something close to anger. Because Steve was right. The attributes that had made him exceptional in the arena — the relentlessness, the refusal to accept anything less, the digging in when things got hard — were now showing up as shadows. They were keeping him anchored in a river that wanted to take him somewhere new.
Bryce heard that and recognized himself immediately. He spent nearly three years after his last competition trying to hold on — wedging the anchor between rocks, as he put it — while his body and his life were both telling him the same thing Steve told Brooks.
How you go from A to B is not necessarily how you go from B to C.
|
|
The Lesson
The skills that make you exceptional in one chapter can become the very thing holding you back in the next. Pushing through worked in the arena. In transition — in relationships, in fatherhood, in building something new — the move is different.
Not surrender. Not giving up. Releasing the anchor. Trusting that the river knows something you don't yet. And having the composure to stop fighting current that's trying to take you somewhere better.
The best attributes are tools, not identities. Apply the right one to the right job. Know when to put it down.
|
|
| |
I promise I will always build a great life, keeping you and our family at the center of it.
|
|
|
Brooks is getting married this summer to Kat, his favorite person on the planet. Their daughter Emberly is eight months old and the light of his life. His mornings are slow — Emberly in his arms at breakfast, quiet time on the boat, walks in the Idaho hills. His days are full. And everything else comes after the center holds.
He also founded World Playground — a company rewriting how people book travel. From NHL center to entrepreneur, father, and fiancé. The river took him somewhere good.
|
|
This Week's Question
Where are you fighting a current that's trying to take you somewhere better?
|
|
|
Listen to the Full Episode
Brooks Laich on the NHL, identity, fatherhood, surrender
and what the river taught him about letting go
|
