The Coach
Ruth Ann is an IAC certified professional coach.
She serves as a thinking partner to a variety of fascinating individuals, including scientists, authors, non-profit executives, entrepreneurs, journalists, people of ultra-high net worth, creative artists, and others who are doing something that interests her. She accepts a limited number of new clients for one-time sessions and 10-session engagements.
Ruth Ann was honored with the 2008 Vision of Excellence Award at the first Harvard Coaching Conference, recognizing her contributions of energy, resources, talent and money to the coaching field as a pioneer in coaching-related philanthropy. In recent years, The Harnisch Foundation's funding has included grants for coaching-related research, emerging coaching-related philanthropies, executive coaching for leaders and fundraisers, www.coachingcommons.org, www.thegiftofcoaching.org, and more.
These investments are based on Ruth Ann’s belief that the coaching conversation is the model for healthy human interaction, and that everyone could benefit from learning to communicate the way a coach does. That is, by paying attention, listening carefully without judgment, giving respectful feedback, asking provocative questions so the other person can expand thinking, effort, consciousness.
And sometimes what’s needed is a figurative swift kick.
Starting Over (Again)
Day 233 I continue to prove that I am an exception to the “do it this many days in a row and you will change your habit” theory. I can’t think of a single habit that I have changed permanently through this method. My inabiity, unwillingness, or whatever-excuse-I-have-today to post daily here is only one example, [...]
Full StorySooey? Phooey.
Day 224 This is for everyone who wrote me privately to ask if they were the source of personal disappointment I wrote about in the “No Good Deed” post. It wasn’t you. If you’re sensitive enough to ask if you were the one who disappointed and hurt me after I extended myself for you, you’re probably [...]
Full StoryTake This Job And….
Day 222 Among the things I never expected to do in this life: choose drawer pulls. This is not a task for which I was groomed and trained. Lawsy, Miz Scarlett, I don’t know nuthin’ bout pickin’ no drawer pulls. However, the sales representative knows. He deftly slides panel after panel along the display rack, expertly [...]
Full StoryThis’ll Only Take Two Minutes (YMMV)
Day 219 Four people heard the same words and came to four different conclusions. One said “It’s just a little bit up ahead.” The other three began asking what, exactly, was “a little bit”? Was it a block? A mile? A few miles? The non-answer answer was: “We’ll be there in just a few minutes.” [...]
Full StoryPut Up ‘Em Whips
Day 218 After “I Come For The One” was posted on day 216, I received two thoughtful messages from people I trust who said, “Stop being so hard on yourself.” I protested that I was not being hard on myself, that I intended to tell a story of persistence, determination, and acceptance of self as [...]
Full StorySix Things I Learned In Six Months Of Doing Nothing
Day 217 (The following is the text of the talk I gave at TED University on July 12, 2010.) Hi, I’m Ruth Ann. On January first, 2010, I began a one year sabbatical.I’m at the halfway mark, and I’d like to tell you Six Things I Learned In Six Months of Doing Nothing. OK, Obviously, I wasn’t [...]
Full StoryI Come For The One
Day 216 I still haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to my own TED University talk, which has been available online to attendees of TEDGlobal2010 for some time now. My experience was affected by a number of factors that combined to cast a shadow. First and foremost, my mother died. I received the [...]
Full StoryNo Good Deed
Day 214 Disappointment reigns. Someone who has been the recipient of much kindness and much generosity has behaved in a way that is hardly the way I would have expected or hoped. It’s certainly not the first time that I’ve invested in someone who later acted in self-interest to my detriment. However, each time it happens, the [...]
Full StoryAll Is Vanity
Day 205 When the Book of Ecclesiastes was written, “vanity” referred not so much to self-adoration as to the futility of human endeavor. My late mother used to (misquote) scripture, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” All our labor is in vain, all that we produce and collect and accomplish means…what? Many people described my mother as [...]
Full StoryKeep Calm And Carry On
Day 202 There were two lines, and I was prepared to join whichever one moved fastest. At my left, the customer’s voice was loud and sharp. “Two dollars and nineteen cents for THAT?” The cashier did not make eye contact, but politely repeated the total. To my shock, the customer flung the cash at the [...]
Full Story
