Erik Kruger, author, speaker, and coach spends most of his time coaching entrepreneurs and executives on mental performance. His speaking career has grown reactively from his coaching work, and he just released his book “Acta Non Verba” last year.
However, he didn’t know this was the path that was meant for him. His journey began as a physical therapist.
From Physical Therapist to Digital Entrepreneur and BetterMan
Graduating from university as a physical therapist was exciting, but as he was creating a website for his therapy career, he was fascinated by digital. He continued working as a physio, learning, creating, and building websites on the side.
Eventually, he had an idea for a site called BetterMan, inspired by his drive to grow and improve. He started podcasting, creating videos, and even running ads, but it wasn’t until he started his daily email that he started to see real traction. His book “Acta Non Verba” which means “Actions Not Words” is a collection of the best of his daily emails. Today, he has over 16,000 subscribers.
“To be honest I think the difference was all of the other projects that I started were started with the premise of ‘How do I make money?’ And BetterMan was the first one that I said ‘How do I do just what I love? What just feels natural to me?’”
Facing Imposter Syndrome
He often felt that if he introduced himself as both a business coach and speaker, and a physio, people wouldn’t take his passion for coaching seriously.
When Rich Mulholland, a legendary entrepreneur, speaker and fellow South African, signed up for his daily email, he felt a twinge of imposter syndrome again. He questioned whether his content was really that valuable.
However, he credits his experience as a physio for preparing him to coach others to overcome struggles and equip him with important skills. Each of these moments of uncertainty were important parts of his journey to finally coaching full time as he does today.
Acta Non Verba
Accretion is the idea that the small things accumulate over time and create your life. This concept has been a fundamental part of Erik’s growth and career.
“When you realize this, when you thoroughly and truly realize that your life is an accumulation of your decisions and of your actions, then you have no other option but to become more intentional about with the way that you act and the way you make decisions and you realize that it’s not just about those big moments it’s really about the small moments and how you make the best of each of those.”
He highlights how when we look at successful people we are looking for the shortcuts and hacks, the one thing. This is not realistic. Living with accretion is a much more self-aware way of living, and we have to start small.
Advice
Whenever we set goals, we say ‘What does better and faster look like?’ This is important and good. However, Erik also encourages spending some time looking at where you can go deep. From relationships to the way you show up in the world, and who you are. Then, put that into action.
Contact:
Coaching: Erik Kruger
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