Arete Coach 1217 Stephen Bruyant-Langer "Design Your Future: Blueprint for Life and Career Success"
- S1E1217
- 53:23
- July 5th 2025
In this insightful episode of the Arete Coach Podcast, host Severin Sorensen interviews Stephen Bruyant-Langer, a distinguished executive coach, keynote speaker, bestselling author, associate professor, and founder of The Personal Business Plan (PBP). Recorded on February 28, 2025, via Zoom, this episode explores transformative coaching methodologies, future-oriented life planning, and the structure behind personal reinvention .
With an episode titled, "Design Your Future: Blueprint for Life and Career Success", Stephen Bruyant-Langer brings a wealth of corporate and entrepreneurial experience:
- Corporate and executive search experience: Stephen’s early career spanned 15 years in global marketing roles at L’Oréal and Coca-Cola. He then spent two decades in executive search, including a tenure as Managing Partner of Korn Ferry Denmark .
- Transformational pivot: A personal life crisis became the catalyst for his transition to coaching. He developed The Personal Business Plan, a proprietary methodology for life and career planning now used in over 90 countries .
- Thought leadership: Stephen is the author of three influential books: Career, The Personal Business Plan, and The Existential Playbook, addressing themes of success, personal strategy, and meaning .
Key Insights for Executive-Level Coaches
- Start with the future in mind: Stephen advocates for "future-back" planning—coaching clients to envision life 10–30 years ahead, then reverse-engineer the pathway with clarity and intention .
- Structure breeds freedom: His 10-session coaching process provides the structure needed for clients to explore deeply while ensuring measurable outcomes—a concept he dubs "freedom systematized" .
- Pedagogical integration: Stephen combines coaching, curated readings, and a robust online toolkit to help clients create a comprehensive, 100-page life strategy document .
- Master the Choice-Action-Responsibility model: This mental model targets client blind spots, helping coaches diagnose and address areas where clients may procrastinate, blame, or ruminate .
- Be available, be present: For high-performing leaders, availability builds trust. Stephen underscores the importance of concierge-level, just-in-time coaching to accelerate impact .
The Arete Coach Podcast explores the art and science of executive coaching. You can find more about this podcast at aretecoach.io.
This episode was recorded on February 28, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 by Arete Coach™ LLC. All rights reserved.
Arete Coach: Exploring the Art and Science of Executive Coaching
“Arete Coach Podcast" Explores the "Art and Science" of Executive Coaching hosted by Severin Sorensen. The “Arete Coach Podcast" is for executive coaches and anyone considering becoming an executive coach. The podcast is especially valuable to executive coaches who are lifetime learners with deep curiosity about the "art and science" of coaching. In this podcast, the ‘art of coaching’ is explored through engaging interviews with leading executive coaches from diverse backgrounds sharing their individual coaching journeys, learnings, methods, best questions, and situational approaches to executive coaching. Beyond best practices, the podcast will regularly mine research on the ‘science of coaching’ and explores ongoing scientific discoveries and studies looking for what works and why, with an aim to improve the core body of knowledge for executive coaches and the industry. Severin Sorensen has provided over 7,500 hours of paid executive coaching sessions and he holds the following coaching certifications: ICF/ACSTH Certified Executive Coach (CEC), Certified Organizational Development Coach (CODC), Certified Life Coach (CLC); and the IAC: Coach Masteries Practioner. Severin Sorensen has an M.Phil in Economics at King's College, Cambridge University, and undergraduate degrees in Economics and Political Science from the University of Utah.
The Arete Coach Podcast is the copyright of Arete Coach LLC.
Severin Sorensen is host of the Arete Coach Podcast, where he interviews executive coaches and researchers with the aims to celebrate and explore the art and science of executive coaching today.
Severin is a senior executive coach, serial entrepreneur and lifetime learner with a passionate curiosity about people and businesses. Severin is the CEO of ePraxis LLC, a premier level retained search firm that provides executive headhunting, talent selection, and executive coaching. (www.epraxis.com)
Severin is a certified coach with an IAC Masteries Practitioner designation and 800+ hours of ICF/ACSTH and other advanced training in Executive Coaching, Organizational Development, EOS, Life Coaching, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and Positive Intelligence (PQ). Severin has over 7,500+ hours of paid executive coaching working with high performing executives, owners, and operators of public and private companies throughout North America.Severin's coaching clients include boards of directors, CEOs, Presidents, GMs, COO, CFO, CTO, VP Engineering, VP Talent, and many other positions.
Severin lives in Park City , Utah and his virtual coach practice includes clients throughout the Americas.
From 2010-2018 Severin was a Vistage Chair where he coached three CEO and Key executive groups. In 2011, Severin received the "Rookie of the Year Chair Award" from Vistage. Since 2013, Severin has added international speaking for Vistage, CEO conferences, executive peer groups, and corporations on the topic of identifying and hiring difference making top talent.
In terms of the types of clients coached, Severin has coached new CEOs (with less than 2 years experience), large company executives (e.g., Managing Director of Rio Tinto), numerous high-growth entrepreneurs operating INC 5000 businesses, multi-generational family owned businesses, and primary-equity business owners who are still actively managing their companies. Severin has experience coaching both private and public company executives and their executive teams.
Severin's own coaching practice is tool based, using diagnostics, surveys, and Socratic questioning to get to root issues. You can learn more about Severin at epraxis.com (insights), LinkedIn, Quora, and Twitter. If you think you might be a good fit for executive coaching with Severin, he is happy to give you a free test drive coaching session to see if this would be good for you and your team. You can book a free test-drive 30 min coaching huddle at: calendly.com/epraxis.