About Me

“Quality of life is about seeking new and exciting experiences, growing as a person and helping others.”

Mattias Asplund

Who Am I?:

ASPLUND LIFE COACHING is a sole proprietorship company (TIN: CZ7105069972) run by me, Mattias Asplund. I grew up in Gothenburg, Sweden. At the age of 29, I decided to move abroad as I was seeking new experiences and a different lifestyle. Since then I have lived most of the time in Prague, Czech Republic, but also in two other parts of the world.

In my past career, I have predominantly worked as senior manager or director in large international corporations with a global/regional agenda. My life experience and current situation is truly cross-cultural. I am married to a Czech woman and we have two daughters. While three different languages are circulating at home within my family, I communicate mainly in English. Driven by my career choices, I have worked and lived for multiple years in four countries; Sweden, Thailand, Switzerland and Czech Republic.

I have an active and progressive lifestyle. Jobs, work scopes and companies have been changed many times, and I like to experience new activities and places. As long as I learn something new and do exciting things, I live. My major hobbies are playing golf, hiking in mountains, skiing, and composing electronic synth music. In the summer, I love doing tasty barbeques and going for rides on my scooter.

Psychology and human relations have been within my area of interest for a very long time. While having worked mainly as business manager, my major strengths are ‘strategic thinking’ (planning and getting to desired goals) and ‘soft skills’ (understanding people). Since the age of around 30, I have developed my competence through leadership- and coaching training programs, and by studying plenty of books about self management, psychology, philosophy, life strategy, and life coaching.

Coaching Style:

It’s important for me that you will be successful at work and happy about your life in general. That’s my commitment to you as your coach. I do not tell you what to do. While I lead and guide you throughout your thought processes, you will draw your own wise conclusions and formulate your desired outcomes.

I am nice, but tough. I work with clients thriving to become better selves, who want to prosper, fulfil their dreams or career goals, or simply to get more meaningful lives. My clients are committed to improve and act boldly in order to reach their desired state (goal). They take responsibilities for their lives.

I am your professional speaking partner, but not your friend. In front of me you can open yourself completely – reveal your strengths, weaknesses and dreams, without worry about the impact on your image or consequences on the future relationship.

I find it important to mention the following: Among many useful tools, models and techniques, I have learned many ways how to manage stress and destructive mind patterns. While I may transfer some of these techniques to a client when appropriate, for example when a client finds oneself in an overwhelming life situation, I would like to make it clear that ASPLUND LIFE COACHING is not specifically focusing on stress-relieving techniques, such as mindfulness, meditation, etc. There are other professionals who can provide such guidance much better than me.

Moreover, the coaching process and service provided by ASPLUND LIFE COACHING is not about mental therapy. We may go deep into exploration of core values and identity, and dig into dreams and day-to-day problems in the coaching conversations. But it’s not about therapy, when a person rather needs to deal with negative past experiences, depression, anxiety, solving conflicts within families, etc. Again, there are professional medical- and mental practitioners who should take care of such issues.

Even if we normally talk about ‘identifying the problem’ in the beginning of the coaching process, it’s not necessarily about working yourself away from a negative current situation. The ‘problem’ (i.e. wished outcome, desired state), could as well be about excelling in your current situation, growing in your current role, or making an already good life situation even better. Or, in fact, making your dream a reality…

Work Experience:

Throughout the majority of my post-university career, that started in 1997, I have worked as leader of business and people in large multinational companies, like; IKEA, Mondelez International, Danone, Amcor, Asahi, and Volvo Group. I have held several managerial roles, such as Global Category Director in Switzerland and Procurement Director for the Czech & Slovak Republics. I have managed managers, functioned as senior mentor (coach) for more junior colleagues, as well as developed and conducted internal training programs in Presentation Skills, Sourcing Strategy, and Supplier Relationship Management.

I am used to remote communication and management of people. Direct reports of mine have resided in United Kingdom, Sweden, Lithuania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and of course in Czech Republic. Projects and collaboration with colleagues and business partners have taken place on all five continents and in many developing countries around the world.

Being successful at what I do and achieving great results has always been a major driving force within myself. I was awarded the certificate ‘Collaborator of the Year’ in Mondelez International for my outstanding way of managing people relationships internally and for successfully enhancing relationships with competitive strategic suppliers. In Asahi, I received an award certificate called ‘The Money Maker of the Year’, thanks to contributing with the strongest cost saving results in the company.

Prior to my more than two decades within Procurement and Strategic Sourcing in large international corporations, I worked a few years with Competitive Intelligence and Market Strategy as a management consultant in Stockholm, Sweden. During my university studies, from time to time I jumped in as a temporary teacher in grammar schools covering up for teachers on sick leave.

I set up my life coaching practice in 2020 as a side business. Working with ambitious people and helping others as a life- and career coach is my true purpose, and I target doing that on full-time basis some years down the road.

Target Clients:

ASPLUND LIFE COACHING’s objective is to make good people better. Given my own experience – referring to above section – my ‘ideal client’ is a middle manager, with our without direct reports, working in an international company in the age between 20-55. Of course, I also coach entrepreneurs, professional sportsmen, teachers, consultants, university students, and other ambitious people who are committed to embarking on a successful life journey ahead.

Regardless where you come from or where you are today, it is important that you are eager to establish a motivating and meaningful life strategy. The key to a more successful life is having a superior strategy for living it. Your life strategy is especially shaped by your beliefs, values, personal management system, and thus by your decisions about spending your time, energy, money, skills and other resources.

As a client of mine, you want to make it clear to yourself what you really want and identify desired (future) state. You are eager to set up well formed outcomes and put together a strategy in the form of relevant and achievable actions. You are responsible for your life and willing to step-by-step successfully get to where you want to be. You want to prosper and become more successful. In the beginning or throughout that change process you welcome guidance, challenge and support from another person.

As your strategic life- and career coach, I will help you with all that.

Life Challenges:

I have failed many times. Let me tell you about how my experience from some dramatic failures actually turned around and resulted in successes:

I failed in the first semester at a technical university in Sweden. I decided to quit the technical studies and I went to work for some time, while thinking about what to do next. Half a year later, I started at an economical university. I loved it and successfully completed my studies one semester ahead of the normal four years time. After earning the title Master of Science in Business Administration, I got my first post-university job as management consultant in Stockholm. The failure had to be experienced in order for me to become successful in something else that resonated better with my core identity.
In 2009, after working nine years in different job roles and country locations in a Swedish international furniture company, I had to resign due to significant disagreements with my manager. Shortly thereafter, I found a job in a leading American FMCG company which was very rewarding. I manifested myself as an international business manager, working 100% in English language, surrounded by sharp and challenging colleagues from all over the world. My confidence and competence level increased rapidly during the six years I worked for that new company. In the beginning of that change process I was very nervous and unhappy. Retrospectively, I am so grateful that the change of jobs was forced onto to me at that time. Not only did the change result in improved competence and a boosted career, it made me strong and better equipped for bigger changes later on.
Some years ago, I experienced a stress burnout from an overwhelming work situation. There were too many large projects on my desk, all going on simultaneously and with open ends. Consequently, this resulted in a physical collapse of my body and a few weeks sick leave. This sounds like a bad thing that happened to me, right? At that very time, it was indeed not a pleasant experience. However, that strong negative experience gave me highly valuable insights concerning my life priorities and approach to work. I earned an increased ability to say ‘no’ to unreasonable workload and to put up limits toward others. As well, this very strong experience triggered me to reflect on what I really want to get out from my professional work life. Shortly thereafter, I started to take the first step toward setting up my life- and career coaching practice.
Ever since adolescence, I have had plenty of issues with my health. Let me mention some of them; malignant melanoma, gastric ulcer, salmonella infection, tinnitus, IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and weak immunity system. I have been close to relatives who have gone through difficult divorces and lost their dear ones who changed their cosmic address. I know how it feels to experience a deep personal crisis and to live with periods of severe health issues. Life can be hard sometimes, when all expectations on oneself piles up, and there simply is not sufficient energy or resources to make it all work. In those moments, one go on ‘survival mode’ rather than expecting any quality of life. I also know how to police one’s thoughts and think creatively, and how to get out from the hole or ditch. From my own experiences, and from my life coaching studies, I know how to mentally and physically work oneself up from a crisis in order to experience new successes and happy moments, bigger and stronger than ever before!

Above life events, and thousands of other strong experiences, have shaped me to the person I am today. I share them openly here, in order for you as potential client to get to know me better. It’s important you get a picture of how I think and reason. I won’t take ‘air time’ from coming conversations speaking about myself. The life coaching process and the powerful conversations we will have are about YOU.

Remember that failure is the best platform for future success and prosperity. It’s all right to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them and become a larger and better person. The more activities you undertake, the more ambitious and hard working you are, naturally the number of mistakes you do will increase. That’s why I like these words of wisdom from Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA: ‘Only while asleep, one makes no mistakes.’

Acknowledgements:

Some of my training- and award certificates relevant within the scope of life- and career coaching are available here. However, such papers and documents are of limited importance. What matters is how you will perceive me as coach throughout the coaching process and in our conversations. Through actions in the moments of truth I will deliver value and bring you to a new level and a better self.

Testimonials – learn more what people who have worked with me in the past say about me.

In recent years, I have specialised my learning and gone deeper within the area of life coaching and life strategy. Since 2015, I have done a lot of study and practice of life coaching. From my participation in the advanced training program run by Kain Ramsay and Achology (the Academy of Modern Applied Psychology), I earned an Advanced Life Coaching certificate. My NLP Master Practitioner certificate was gained from an excellent training program provided by the Strategic Coach & Trainer, Graham Nicholls, who runs The Priority Academy.

I am an accredited member of the Association for Coaching (AC), link to membership certificate.