Erik Kruger's Lessons in Becoming the Best Version of You Entrepreneurs who function at an optimal level don't develop a high-performance state of mind by accident. They learn to focus, build on their experiences and open themselves up to self-development.

Player: Erik Kruger

Company: Mental Performance Lab

Visit: mentalperformancelab.com

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How does a physiotherapist who dreamed of touring the world with sports teams become a mental performance coach for high-impact entrepreneurs? Ask Erik Kruger and the term he'll use is "accretion', the process of growing and adding layers through experiences.

The point is key: No journey is ever a straight line from point A to point B. Most of us spend years figuring out what we want to do through a process of elimination. It's by doing that we figure out what we like and don't like; what ignites passion in us, and what we're good at.

Erik's journey began in physiotherapy. He graduated in 2007 and started his own private practice with a friend in 2009. He was quickly realising that his dream wasn't aligning with reality though. "My goal was to be the physio who toured with the springboks. Instead, I was locuming at hospitals and travelling two hours a day to reach my private practice offices," says Erik. "I couldn't see my future in it."

It's an interesting lesson: Until you do something, you won't always know if it aligns with your expectations and goals. But no experience is ever a waste.

"Physiotherapy ended up allowing me to have a side hustle. I could pay the bills while I figured out my entrepreneurial journey, because I had no idea what I wanted to do when I started. I registered 45 domain names before I settled on Better Man, and Better Man led me to the Mental Performance Lab and my coaching business."

Launches and lessons

While he was still in private practice, Erik met fellow entrepreneur and Shark Tank investor, Marnus Broodryk. "Marnus was still in his own start-up phase. We were at FTV and he was handing out business cards for his accounting business, The Beancounter, to everyone he met. I took one, but only ended up contacting him months later because I needed to set up a website, and I thought he'd be able to give me some guidance."

The website was for the practice, and Marnus helped Erik via skype to set up his first WordPress site. In Erik's own words, it was a terrible website, but the bug bit. From that moment onwards, Erik's newfound love affair with the digital space began.

"I liked the idea that you could just create something and people would come," he says. "I found out very quickly that's not how it works at all, but by then I was playing around with as many website ideas as I could think of."

Marnus and Erik played around with some ideas, and settled on directory sites. "The idea was that people would pay a monthly retainer to be on the website and that's all you'd need to create annuity income. You also wouldn't need advertising revenue, which requires ongoing sales."

Because of his own area of expertise, Erik thought a directory for physiotherapists would work well — one of the regulating bodies disagreed. They viewed the monthly retainer as a kickback, which is illegal in the medical profession.

So, Erik moved on to his next idea. "I was doing everything over eLance and Odesk, from web development to graphic design. I started thinking that we needed a local freelance community that entrepreneurs could tap into. My brother agreed to invest in the idea and we hired developers from India to build the site. I directed them to a few sites I liked and briefed them on what we wanted."

Six months and R70 000 later, Erik received a cease and desist call from one of the big players in the freelance space. "He was furious. It turned out that the developers we had hired had copied his website, section for section, header for header. I had been focused on client acquisition, not the development of the site — I hadn't even checked what they were doing.

I'd only focused on the feedback from beta testing. Faced with being sued for infringement, we took the site down immediately. I was trying different things and failing miserably, but I was also okay with that."

Finding a niche

Erik didn't let his failures deter him. "I was trying to figure out how to make money from digital assets. I registered 45 domain names, and for every one of them I built a WordPress site and developed a marketing strategy. I'd go to work, get home and just do digital for the rest of the day."

To upskill himself, Erik also took courses on digital marketing, Facebook, Google marketing, WordPress and DNS set-ups. "I created a fitness website for brides-to-be, a mentor site for models and websites for girlfriends to help them run their businesses. Each website would be up and running for a few weeks, and then I'd lose interest, close it and move on."

And this is where the foundation of Erik's journey really begins. The fact that he hadn't yet found what he was looking for was a lesson in itself. "Clarity is a process; I can see it with my clients all the time," he says. "I didn't know it then, but I can see it now. Clarity only really comes from wanting to find clarity, trying to find clarity.

We often talk about evolution in entrepreneurial circles, but the reality is that evolution can only happen when something already exists, which means you have to be out there trying new things to find your purpose, or big idea.

"When I started coaching, what I was doing with my clients back then versus now is vastly different. No matter how much I read about coaching, thought about what coaching should be like, or listened to different coaches and how they do it, I would never have reached the point I'm at now, if I hadn't been doing it myself. That's how we learn and evolve."

For Erik, the 45 websites he created led him to Better Man, and that's where his journey started to pivot. "Better Man was the idea I stuck with. Up until that point, I'd been looking for things to do and ways to monetise them, but they were all external and not what really came naturally to me. There's no such thing as a lightning bolt idea that hits you and that's it. Amazing, masterful ideas are the result of trial and error.

"People think clarity is a switch, illuminating everything. But it's actually like striking a match, and that match keeps burning, and you strike another and another and another, and slowly the room fills with light. Even then, you have clarity for a moment, and then the matches burn out, and you have to start again."

In the case of Better Man, Erik was tired of trying to find something that would work, and instead decided to create something for himself. "I've always been into self-development and the idea evolved from there. I decided to create a website based on interviews I'd do with successful South Africans — I'd learn from them, and share the interviews online."

Erik's first interview was with Maps Maponyane, followed by Tim Noakes. The site wasn't getting a lot of traction, but Erik was having fun. "It was the first thing I'd done where I didn't have any real plans to monetise the site. I was just doing something I enjoyed and figuring it out."

Erik did want to grow a community though, and so he concentrated on Facebook and email marketing to build up a Better Man database.

"I wanted to experiment with different mediums of communication," he explains. "The two things that really moved the needle were the group, which was 18 000-strong, and the daily emails I started, which quickly reached 16 500 people."

Through the community he had built up, Erik then found a way to monetise the business through events. "I was sharing content and ideas that struck a chord with me, which meant they were valuable to other people. That's how I built up a community, and from there I could offer access to that community to brands."

For 18 months, there were regular Better Man events, all sponsored by top lifestyle brands. The business was doing well, but through the platform and the community, Erik discovered a new direction: Coaching.

"Once I'd built up the community, I played around with a few different ideas, looking for ways to monetise the platform over and above events. We launched a fitness eBook, an apparel line and partnered with brands for events, but the one thing the community kept asking for was coaching. The events worked as marketing platforms — the next morning I'd sign up clients — and even though I hadn't known that this was where Better Man would lead, I discovered it was a direction I wanted to explore."

Focused direction

Up until that point, Erik had been trying a lot of different avenues to see what stuck. He also admits he had shiny object syndrome — even with Better Man. "I was too responsive to every question and query. You can't just jump around and hope you'll find success; you need focus and direction."

Interestingly, even coaching didn't offer that at first. Erik tried group coaching and Mastermind groups before realising he needed to really focus. It meant stopping the events and even pulling back from the community he'd built, although his daily emails continue, and all group members are the first to hear about workshops and seminars.

"Finding my path required me to sit down and take a long look at what was — and wasn't — working for me personally. You can try and figure out what people want, and that's important, but you also need to understand your personal drivers, or you'll never stick with something long enough to make it a success.

"I was trying out mentor calls through the Better Man community, and I realised that they weren't working for me. They felt superficial; like I wasn't driving results. When I spoke to someone, I'd get off the call and I wouldn't feel good. I'd feel like I'd just spent time telling someone what to do, but where were the results?"

Once Erik made the decision to be a coach though, his focus shifted to being the best coach in South Africa. It was that decision and direction that made all the difference. "I went out and bought every book I could find on coaching. Then I wrote all the models that spoke to me up on white boards and started creating my own coaching framework."

From there, Erik, signed up for his Master's Degree in Management, with a focus on business and executive coaching. By 2017 he was coaching full time.

"I had to build up my confidence, which is evident in my early pricing models, but my masters has been the biggest game-changer for me. It shifted a few fundamental things for me, from my coaching approach to developing better listening skills.

Ultimately though, internal drive is the biggest differentiator. I want to be the best coach I can be, and that's making all the difference."

Because of that drive, Erik has also found his niche. "I want to have a big impact on the world, which means I need to help people who in turn impact the lives of others. CEOs and entrepreneurs are my focus area. My influence and impact are amplified when I'm coaching a CEO of 500 people."

Since finding his niche, Erik has worked with a number of high-calibre clients, including some of South Africa's top executives and entrepreneurs.

Action, not words

Better Man gave Erik the platform he needed to launch his coaching business. Although the journey has been organic, once he made the decision about what he wanted to focus on, each step forward has been far more intentional. "I believe in visualisation and intention. Intention is determining where you want to go and then breaking that down into goals. My intention is to become the most sought-after speaker and coach in South Africa. Everything I do works towards that goal."

In line with this goal are Erik's own experiences. "Everything we do and think is the culmination of our experiences. In my case, it's personal experiences as well as what I learn from my clients. Coaching is a gift for me. I can spend time with the CEO of a multi-national and come up with solutions and insights that I can then share with the owner of a 30-man business. With an outsider's perspective you can start seeing patterns. Coaching is practical, and it draws on the human experience, even in a business context.

"It's easy to believe that you're too busy for a morning routine for example. When I see someone who does have the time and still isn't following a routine, I ask why. What is the deeper value or belief that they aren't tapping into or living? What experiences of highly busy people who still find the time can I draw from and share? Every experience that is shared broadens our collective exposure."

Personally, Erik follows many of these practices himself. "I learn about them and implement them. It makes me a better coach. We're all human, but at the top of the business ladder, we need to perform optimally. There's a metrics side to business, and a human side, and you can't ignore either.

"Founding the Mental Performance Lab has been about developing a high-performance state of mind. It's not just about smashing metrics, but functioning at an optimal level. You need to do the right thing at the right time, and to achieve that, mindfulness is key. You can function flat out, always racing ahead, stressed and busy, or you can function optimally. That's my focus."

READ THIS

Acta Non Verba: The Playbook For Creating, Achieving And Performing At Your Highest Level

Erik Kruger's first book is a collection of 160 thoughtful reflections on what it takes to live a life of action and not words. Acta Non Verba's purpose is to get people moving, creating, and generating an unstoppable drive in both their business and personal journeys.

This is not a book to read from cover to cover, in one sitting. Each day there is a new chapter waiting to be read. Put this book on your bedside table, and read a new chapter with your first cup of coffee every morning. Each message is short so you can read it quickly, in the moment, and then reflect and act on it for the entire day. It's a book that demands action.