Erik van Roessel
Performance Coach and
founder IMPACTUS
He grew up in Tilburg, without any family history of entrepreneurship. Still, the desire to be an entrepreneur one day was there from an early age. Erik van Roessel’s story demonstrates resilience, determination and the ability to turn setbacks into opportunities. At an inspiring location in Berkel-Enschot – just a stone’s throw from his office – he talks candidly about being an entrepreneur and the journey to it. And in particular about his company IMPACTUS, with which he helps other entrepreneurs achieve the highest results in a highly effective manner. Both in business and personally. The location, with its high ceilings and imposing windows, provides an almost metaphorical backdrop for how Erik himself approaches life: “If you are open to change and willing to invest in yourself, the path to personal and professional growth is infinite.”
“The bigger your mission, the more solid your foundation should be.”
In his role as a coach and sparring partner for SME entrepreneurs in particular, he focuses on self-leadership. Erik: “Self-leadership is the foundation on which you can build results. Without this solid base, there will be no result, or at least not the desired one. The more powerful your foundation of self-leadership is, the greater your successes will be. With a solid foundation, the sky is the limit. Integrity is very important here. Not only in working with others, but especially in the relationship with yourself: do what you said you were going to do. Even when no one is watching. Making commitments to yourself and sticking to them is directly related to your self-confidence. This is how you build a more powerful version of yourself.”“The grief of losing my mother fueled my desire to get the best out of life. I definitely wanted to live life to its fullest.”
In terms of self-confidence, Erik seemed to have no issues. After graduating from technical institute, he started working at a national installation company in Oisterwijk at the age of 21. Three months later, when his supervisor’s chair became vacant, he seized the opportunity. Despite his young age, managing and leading teams came naturally to him. Erik says: “I was young, but I was able to handle the responsibility very well. At the same time I kept looking to achieve more success. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, a manager, I wanted to continue my studies, get an MBA. In retrospect, I was mostly compensating for my young age, which was totally unnecessary.” The ambition to excel was probably unconsciously fueled by the tragic loss of his mother at the age of eighteen. Erik: “The grief triggered me to make the most of life. I definitely didn’t want to throw in the towel to later on regret all the things I could or should have done.”“Don’t set all kinds of conditions before you start, just go and make decisions along the way.”
Even within the walls of his practice, he teaches entrepreneurs that you can always chose which path you take, no matter what life throws at you. You can either adopt a victim mentality or take ownership of your situation. It all depends on which path you nourish. “When you find yourself stuck, you have to take steps. Don’t set all kinds of conditions before you start, but go and make choices along the way.” Erik looks back on an impressive career, but experienced a real personal breakthrough when he came into contact with performance coaching as an entrepreneur: “After I had been the director of a construction company, I decided to set up a new business for another brand within the building industry in the southern part of the Netherlands. The start was promising and we grew quickly, but the workload was weighing heavily on my personal life. I had grand ambitions at work and grand ambitions privately but I couldn’t reconcile them, at least not in my head.” It was just then that he saw a post by Nils come up on LinkedIn:“To get what you want, you have to be willing to do what it takes to get there.”
Erik says: “His statement triggered me, but confused me at the same time: Did he mean I had to work even harder?” From Nils, he learned that it is not about balancing the scales perfectly, but about balance and imbalance. You have to set parallel, concrete goals and make those equally important. After all, if you are doing well in business but not in your private life, you can’t speak of high performance. “I went to Nils because I was looking for a better work-life balance and because I wanted to develop more effectively and powerfully as an entrepreneur. However, during the process I found out I was not happy having final responsibility as a company owner in the construction business. I like to keep my promises, but felt stressed because I was heavily dependent on others to keep mine.”“I chose passion and commitment on a specific goal. Previously, I chose status and money, hoping I would get to enjoy what I was doing.”
At that point, Nils asked him a life-changing question: “If you were allowed to do it all over again, would you still be an entrepreneur with final responsibility in the construction world again?” Erik: “I couldn’t help but answer this question in the negative. Then you know that you have to take a stand and that there are some choices to be made.
I sold my shares and decided to continue full-time with IMPACTUS. This was truly a life choice, a purpose. Together with Nils, I discovered where I was not living up to my full potential and began implementing what I actually knew all along. For the first time in my life, I was no longer guided by ambition and drive to succeed, but by passion and commitment. Nils is still my mentor. He helps me to become a better coach and is 100% committed to my greatness. If I ever tend to lean towards taking on the victim role myself, he shows it to me right away.”
“Nils has the unique ability to make the unconscious conscious. Without him, I was still feeling unsatisfied, despite a really successful career.”
Also at IMPACTUS (Latin for influence) performance coaching is the foundation. Erik: “Coaching is about leading yourself, building your foundation, before you can take others along. The goal is to change your so-called pre-programmed future, and that requires powerful old-fashioned action. Giving advice in coaching is not customary, doing so is rather tantamount to sacrilege. Still, I notice that my clients need a sparring partner, especially if their entrepreneurial circle is small. I am primarily a performance coach, but my twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur, director and leader come with it for free. In the coming years, it’s my mission to support many entrepreneurs in their personal and business growth and development. The goal is for them and their loved ones to experience the impact of a well-developed foundation of self-leadership that enables them to live life on their own terms. Impact-us seems like a fancy play on words, but nothing could be further from the truth: if you have a rock-solid foundation, the path is clear for true transformation. And your entire environment will benefit from that.”
