Change your response.

Life changes. How you respond to those changes determines your next chapter. How will you respond?

Meet Erika

Erika Bogan is a Motivator, Certified Master Mindset/ Mental Health Coach, recognized National Disability Advocate & lover of life, who is dedicated to motivating others to find their purpose through sharing her remarkable story of redefining her life after becoming paralyzed following a traumatic injury.  Erika captivates her audiences, as she shares how she decided to turn tragedy into triumph through forgiveness, personal growth and giving back to the world around her, after becoming paralyzed at the age of 21.

Erika has accomplished many remarkable things and has had many wonderful opportunities since becoming paralyzed. In 2009, Erika was crowned Ms. Wheelchair North Carolina and then subsequently was crowned Ms. Wheelchair America 2010, in rapid city, south dakota, where she competed on behalf of her state for the national title. During her year as national title holder, she was able to be in the Tournament of the Roses Parade in Pasadena, California and was featured in a full length documentary called, Defining Beauty.

Erika is an ambassador for several companies in the disability industry, including Colours Wheelchair and Supracor. she is a recognized disability advocate and competitive adaptive athlete, and has competed in both crossfit competitions and OCR Races around the country. In January of 2020, Erika and her Spartan/OCR race team, More Heart Than Scars, were featured on the Facebook Watch show, Returning the favor with Mike Rowe. <Click to watch episode> in September 2022, Erika and her team climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, to raise awareness on suicide in the disability community. In early 2024, the documentary, Meandering Scars, will be premiering. Meandering Scars is a full-length documentary about Erika’s own mental health journey and her journey to the “Roof of Africa”.

In November 2021, Erika authored a series of Gratitude & Mindfulness Journals that can be purchased on Amazon to help others establish daily practices on their personal growth journey.

Erika humbly attributes all of her accomplishments and opportunities to her lifelong love of learning and passion to get to the core of finding positive results in life by changing her response when faced with perceived difficulties or obstacles in life and healing her own inner traumas.

Erika currently lives in Moshi, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania with her husband Winford, a Tanzanian citizen, and together they own and operate a tour adventure company, Winrica Adventures. They are have also founded their NGO, More Hear Than Scars-Tanzania, whose mission is to: “..empower Tanzanian families who have been affected by visible and invisible disabilities, by meeting basic needs like sustainable and safe housing and education. By easing these burdens, MHTS-TZ will make space for these families to learn ways to empower themselves through entrepreneurship and break the generational cycles of poverty for future generations.”

My Story 

"I always knew I was destined to make a positive impact on the world around me, even at a very young age.  I thrived on helping others, befriending the underdog and giving encouragement to the lost. I had no idea, that something was going to alter my life, in one of the most extreme ways possible, and set my life's purpose of motivating others, into motion. On January 20, 2002, life as I had known it for 21 years changed, literally in a split second.   Two and a half months later, I awoke in the hospital, not knowing what life had in store for me. Little did I know, I was embarking on my greatest adventure….finding Myself."