We recently connected with Erica Terblanche and have shared our conversation below.

Erica, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I believe that being happy is our birthright – every being has a right to happiness and the Dalai Lama says, “Every being wants to be happy.”

My business Thrive Guru brings the Science of Happiness, Well-being and fulfilment into the boardroom and the classroom in a way that help people live their best lives.

We all deserve to be happy. But it takes work – because happiness is a daily practice, its a skill, it is a muscle and we can all build more of it if we are willing to invest the energy.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

“I struggled in my early career life with low grade depression and to find the highways of happiness. It set me off on a 20 year long search to find the secrets of happiness.”

Today I teach people in business and coach my clients to building their best life. I also do a great deal of motivational speaking on the subject. One of my speaking mentors described my work and journey in the piece below:

Erica Terblanche is a business strategist, endurance athlete, positive psychologist and writer that people can relate to – and who can lift and carry them on a wave of inspiration. Erica is one of South Africa’s most formidable endurance athletes. As an adventure racer, she raced for South Africa’s unbeaten Team Cyanosis and represented South Africa in the Adventure Racing World Championships in New Zealand.
Following her own testing life experiences, she turned to Trail Running and has won some of the world’s toughest multi-day trail races, including the 7-day, 270km Sahara Desert race in Egypt: probably the toughest footrace on Earth. Until 2019 she held the record on the Mizano Ultra in the UK for the furthest distance without once stopping: an astounding 208km.
Since becoming a half-centurion, Erica has swum to Robben Island; she ran Comrades(90km) and completed the Thirteen Peaks Challenge(120km) and placed second in the tough Grand to Grand 270km ultra in Utah, USA – worthy achievements by themselves, but she did it all within the same month!
Erica is not just a world class athlete. Her initial professional training was as an engineer. She went on to complete an MBA and spent 20 years working in corporate strategy and organisational change. She has worked for some of the world’s top-tier strategy consulting firms including Bain & Company, and FTSE 100 businesses in London, at top-leadership, Executive, and Board level.
Her own experiences of reaching what looked like corporate success at an early age – but not finding personal fulfilment – led her to explore this contradiction. She has a degree in psychology, a master’s degree in positive psychology and is a qualified CTI life coach, an ORSC relational and systems coach, and a qualified Barrett’s Values coach. She speaks regularly on radio on the science of happiness.
In 2018 she founded Thrive Guru in Cape Town, which continues to teach people the practical and science-based skills of mental well-being and happiness, at home and at work. In 2021 she published her first book RUN for the Love of Life – an inspiring and life-affirming memoir, which within a few months of publication became an Exclusive Books top recommended title.
For all her almost super-human achievements, Erica touches audiences with her authenticity and infectious energy: but perhaps most with her disarming humility, and her deep compassion for what it is to be human.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I started out after a twenty year successful career in corporate strategy I wasn’t prepared for how difficult it was to build my own network of clients in the field of learning & development, coaching and public speaking.

I had much value to add but simply couldn’t break into the corporate L&D market fast enough to pay the bills.

And then lockdown hit – globally!

It was the death knell for my new business.

And so I decided to use the time to writ a book and create awareness for my story and what I bring to businesses.
As my book began to sell and then became a recommended title and eventually a best-seller I got fantastic opportunities for making my offering known and now have a weekly show on radio on the Science of Happiness and teach at big listed companies and at schools and have found it far easier to grow my network.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson I had to unlearn was to court certainty – and to want certainty – and to expect it.

This is not the life of the entrepreneur!

Now I know that there is no certainty of what work may arise in the pipeline – but instead of fearing it I see it as an incredible opportunity – because I know also magical and hardly-imaginable windfalls can come on the wing of uncertainty and when one has let go of the small handle of perceived certainty.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thrive-guru.com
• Instagram: erica_terblanche
• Facebook: ericaterblanche
• Linkedin: Erica Terblanche https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericathriveguru/