William Shakespeare, our language’s greatest writer, who died 400 years ago this year, was called the Bard of Avon. Considering the abundance of pithy insights and outright wisdom in his plays and sonnets, he might also be called the Coach of Avon.
As a Life Coach, I help clients create breakthroughs in their finances, careers, relationships and spiritual lives. Percy Shelley, the great British Romantic poet, wrote, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” So can playwrights be the unacknowledged life coaches of the world? Imagine, if you will (pun intended) that Will Shakespeare was also a life coach. Imagine no further… I recently found a folio of a brochure that he wrote before he made it as a playwright and was supporting himself as a waiter and life coach. You’ll note that, unlike so many coaches who focus on niches like relationship coaching, health coaching, or spiritual coaching, for example, young Will was so wise he coached on every topic. Here is his brochure.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, LIFE COACH
Purpose & Spiritual Coaching
“This above all; to thine own Self be true.”
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. You will discover in my Purpose and Spiritual Coaching program that the fault, dear prospective client, lies not within the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. You can consult astrologers, or pastlife therapists to discern thy karma, or even a biologist to understand the influences in thy genetic makeup, but ultimately thou wilt realize that the choices thou makest with thine own free will help create fulfillment in thy life.
And why is that? Because, as I tell my clients,
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
It is up to thee to create the significance and meaning. As the sign on mine own desk says, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”
Dost thou want to play the role of father or mother, husband or wife, entrepreneur or employee, Christian or Jew, lower self or higher Self? The choice is thine, but if thou choosest higher Self then awakening can be thine, as well. After all, we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. My Purpose and Spiritual Coaching Program will help you wakest from that sleep, and discover thy higher Self to live an awakened life.
Part of becoming awakened involves changing thy belief system from one of disempowerment to one of empowerment. As I like to say: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. But while changing the way that you think is critical to creating a life based on purpose, awakening the foundation of thy thinking - in the field of transcendental Being - is even more imperative. I frequently tell my clients that it’s all about awakening that level of Being. In other words, choose: To Be or not to Be. That is the key question. The courageous choose life and enlightened life at that.
Relationship Coaching
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. I work on the premise that all great marriages can be great for all time. While I recognize the universal principle that love and marriage bring up everything unlike themselves for the purpose of release and healing, I also understand that with commitment and the learning of important relationship skills, everyone in a significant other relationship can overcome all that is not smooth instead of send him or her packing, create a heart of gold for you and your mate, and learn the love that looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. This can achieve ongoing love and happiness. This work is not for the faint of heart, for thou if thou would call for lawyers to dissolve thy marital vows before man and God, but for thee if thou wish to make thy relationship a standard for all who know thee.
Prosperity & Empowerment Coaching
“Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant never taste of death but once.”
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. My coaching program enables you to achieve greatness or enables you to become so in tune with the Universe that the Fates thrust greatness upon you. If you want to empower your financial life, create harmony in your income, saving, spending and investing. Toward that end, I say to clients: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”
I wouldst speak to thee in this brochure forever but I must sign off, for brevity is the soul of wit, and I know full well that parting is such sweet sorrow. If thou are not living the life thou truly wishes thou art living in the winter of thy discontent. You may know what you are, but you know not what you might be.
