Maksim Asenov
The New Face of Global Life Coaching
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Maksim Asenov holds an international education in theology and organizational leadership. He is an entrepreneur, coach, and author who builds bridges between spirituality and leadership. Trained by global figures such as Tim Storey and John Maxwell, Asenov develops his own mentorship and transformation programs that inspire thousands and has become one of the leading voices in the new wave of Bulgarian leaders with a global mindset and local impact.
You’ve been trained as a coach, leader, and mentor by some of the biggest names in the field – John Maxwell and Tim Storey. What did that training and their life philosophy give you?
John Maxwell is a globally recognized leadership teacher with over 50 books on the subject, and Tim Storey is one of the pioneers of the life coaching profession. Tim and Tony Robbins were the first big names in coaching. From Maxwell, I learned that the most important and foundational thing in leadership is to be able to lead yourself.
When I started reading his books, I was still living without water and electricity in the largest ghetto in the Balkans. What I learned was how to lead myself in a good direction, with good habits and a disciplined mind. With great discipline, willpower, and faith.
If it weren’t for his books back then, I don’t know where life would have taken me. Because when we don’t lead ourselves, something or someone else leads us. And our path and our life are our personal responsibility.
Maksim Asenov and Tim Storey
Tim Storey, for me, is not just a teacher but family. He teaches me every day how to be a better person and counselor. There are many people who get into coaching just to be in a position of authority, teaching others using professional experience and a formal training scheme. Tim taught me to work with care and concern for people. That’s the major difference-maker – that’s what brings real impact to any training.
What does it mean to lead yourself?
In one word – discipline. Discipline means doing what is hard, what you don’t feel like doing, but you’ve identified that in the long run it will be the best for you. Daily effort – whether that means waking up earlier, avoiding certain foods, exercising, changing your environment, your routine, your business, or your approach…
Strong individuals have a high level of self-control.
What is coaching? Is self-control its main goal?
Literally, yes. As for the profession itself, a person can get certified, go study, or even, especially in our region, probably buy a diploma. Coaching is based on our own truth, and coaches guide us toward that truth through questions. Most people are not used to hearing themselves because they live more in the external world than inside themselves.
I’m not just a coach, but also a mentor. Coaching doesn’t pressure you – it leads you through questions into your personal depths, while a mentor gives direction and correction. Most mentors are not great coaches, and many coaches aren’t cut out to be mentors. I combine both approaches because I’ve been through a lot and I can save people years of wandering.
We live in a world where everyone is a guru, mentor, or advisor – whichever social media platform you open, someone is there to tell you how to live. Why should we pay for help when it’s everywhere around us?
Just because you get useful information doesn’t mean you feel it, want it, or will use it. I know many people who have hundreds of saved videos in their phones – recipes, tips, supplements that will make us immortal, meditations, advice from gurus…
In most cases, those videos just sit there, and we forget about them seconds after saving them. Nothing can replace the individual approach in coaching. The live connection with a person who genuinely cares about you and is searching for you, alongside you.
In mentoring and coaching, we don’t just help people know what they should do – because everyone knows that to lose weight, for example, we need to move more and eat properly.
The lack of motivation is what keeps people from getting up and doing what they know is right. That’s where the coach steps in – directing your attention to the things that can get you moving.
You mentioned the things that get us moving—but what are the things that block us? Is it failure?
Failure is a necessary part of success. True success is not the absence of failure. True success is what you do when you fail.
We’re surrounded by technology—we live in smart homes, with smart phones, smart cars, smart devices… everything around us is tech. And we start imagining that we, too, should operate like machines. So when we fail, we take it the wrong way, as if we’re broken and there are no spare parts for us.
But we are living, spiritual beings, and from birth to death we are constantly evolving. What matters is what we cultivate within ourselves. And we’re not always able to judge on our own which part of us we need to invest the most in.
My favorite Native American parable about the two wolves illustrates this best. In it, an old Native chief was teaching his grandson about life. He told him that inside every person there is a battle—a battle between two wolves.
One is evil—it is anger, envy, jealousy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, pride, hatred, and lies.
The other is good—it is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, compassion, generosity, truth, and faith.
The little boy thought for a moment and asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”
The old man smiled slightly and replied, “The one you feed.”
It’s easy, when you’re in a bad environment, to make bad decisions—to feed the wrong wolf. Not everyone has a mentor to guide them through a crisis. And you didn’t have one as a boy—yet you managed to come out of the neighborhood unharmed, get an education, build a healthy family, and a strong career. How did you do it without support?
I believe people like me come out of crises and tragedies stronger so that they can help others sincerely and authentically afterward. That’s exactly why my book “Courage in Crisis” was so highly regarded.
It’s truly a living handbook, filled not with dry theory but with real methodology that actually works—otherwise, I wouldn’t be here today giving you this interview.
It’s not a lie to say that I’m probably the only person who grew up in Fakulteta [a marginalized neighborhood in Sofia] and ended up on the cover of Forbes. And that’s definitely something that will inspire and activate many others.
