Find Yourself
I’m beginning to sound like a broken record here, but I’ll say it again, transitioning out of sport is tough. Hockey especially so. Most of the time you don’t even know it’s happening, let alone how to manage emotions, the people in your life, your finances, and probably fifty other things unique to your situation. It might even be better if it happened all at once, but for most of us it’s a slow burn. It usually takes us a few years to even grasp what’s happening. It’s easier to try and hang on as long as you can, trying to find a team that’ll still have you.
When you do finally make the call to hang em up, it won’t be long before panic starts to set in. Your friends are all of doing their own things like building careers and families. Your parents are probably pushing you towards school, or some kind of mundane career that couldn’t interest you less. Now, I’ve got nothing against traditional careers, other than the fact that it took me way too long to figure out that I wasn’t cut out for one. Chances are that if you’re reading this now, you probably aren’t either. Some of us are just destined to make our own way, for better or for worse.
Hockey players especially, are conditioned from a young age to walk a different path than most people, even other athletes. It becomes the biggest part of our identity, and in a lot of cases maybe the only part. I know for me, I haven’t played competitively for just over twenty years at the time of writing this. That means I’ve officially not been playing, longer than I actually played for. Yet, I still consider myself a hockey player, and I likely always will. Hell, my dad’s still out there twice a week, tearing it up at age seventy-five, post heart attack. I can’t see it being any different for me.
A huge reason we face such a tough transition out of hockey, is this loss of identity. It really is loss, but not one we think about grieving over, when we probably should. No more performing at the highest level on the biggest stage. No more fans… Just pressure to find a new way to make money, and all of a sudden be able to fit into a traditional career like everyone else; which of course you don’t. Your resume doesn’t exactly line up with most job descriptions. Even if you do catch on somewhere, you’re behind the eight ball because everyone’s younger than you with more education and training. Even if you go back to school, you’ll still feel like you’re playing catch up, just to try to be able to do something you probably don’t even care about.
Sorry if this sounds a little dire, but unfortunately it’s the reality for many of us. It certainly was for me. I spent over a decade trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. After hockey, I went to university. I went because that’s just what people like me were doing. I didn’t particularly care about any of the subjects I was taking, and I din’t handle the lack of structure very well. I spent most of my time drinking rather than studying, which of course resulted in a lot of failure. I did eventually get my act together and graduate with a degree in history. (Exactly what every employer is looking for).
My parents and my sister were all teachers at one point or another in their lives, and since “doctor” or “lawyer” weren’t exactly on the table, I thought I’d give it a go. Because I was behind the eight ball, and my grades weren’t probably good enough to get straight in to teachers college, I decided to try teaching over seas in South Korea.
Long story short, I spent a decade trying to fit into that world, and it never really felt right. Eventually, I was so burnt how from this constant struggle, I ended up cutting a contract short and moving home to regroup. I looked for work back here in Canada, but times were tough. I still didn’t fit most job descriptions, despite being overqualified for a lot of the roles I was looking at.
I probably should have mentioned earlier, that during my time in Korea, I was reintroduced to my passion for design. Growing up I was big into drawing, but like most creative dreams I was encouraged to put that aside and find a job that offered money and security. Now, technology had come along way at this point, and I was pretty clever when it came to computers. I figured out how to design hockey team logos for jerseys, and eventually full blown websites for the teams I was playing on, all just as a creative outlet that helped me get through the day to day of a career I wasn’t really suited for. By the time I had “retired” from teaching, I had already sold a few websites. Despite loving design, and being able to make some money doing it, it still didn’t compute for me, that I could actually make a living doing it.
One particularly bad day after another failed attempt at trying to make it in the real world, I was showing a buddy some of my design work. He said, “why aren’t you just doing this, you’re really great at it.” It was weird that such simple question evoked such an ah-ha moment. Why wasn’t I just doing this? How couldn’t I have seen what was staring me right in the face. I had pretty much unconsciously set up the foundation for what would become a successful business.
I felt pretty dumb for not seeing it sooner, but it was almost like I needed someone to give me permission to pursue my own dreams, rather killing myself trying to help someone else build theirs. I didn’t grow up around entrepreneurs, and I didn’t even consider it a real option. I spent so much time trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be, instead of looking inside myself to see what was important to me, what kinds of gifts I had to offer the world, and how I might muster up the courage to take that leap outside of my comfort zone and give this a real shot. It was literally the best decision I’ve ever made.
The moral of the story is, as it turns out, I was and I am more than just a hockey player. I’m a lot of things, and I’m not defined by anyone one of them, but rather by all of them together. The challenge for you is to look inside, and find those parts of you that are just sitting there waiting to be nurtured. Sometimes you have to ignore the pressure placed on you by others, and even by yourself, and trust your gut. There’s a good chance you’re already giving yourself some signals on an unconscious level. Try to tap into that. Try to find someone to talk to about these kinds of things. Athletes tend to make for great entrepreneurs, and I bet there’s a line up of them just waiting to talk your ear of about it.
