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.
Retail Therapy
Day 164 It might not seem like such a big deal, but it was: I got great service in a store in a mall. It was amazing! I was greeted warmly. (I’m on the road and nowhere near home, so it wasn’t because I’m a regular customer.) I got help with what I needed. Checkout [...]
Full StoryLove Rose
Day 162 There’s no avoiding this truth: my Mom is experiencing changes in how she perceives the world. People help her to send cards, as they have for years, and I received two for my birthday. Her handwriting used to be so very beautiful that people remarked on it all the time. Years ago I [...]
Full StoryDullicious
Day 160 I almost picked up my computer by its screen just now, but I stopped myself. Why? Because yesterday I saw somebody else’s computer disintegrate: screen, frame, guts, whatever was attached to the keyboard was in dozens of pieces. I never knew that part of the laptop had so many, many separate hunks, strips, [...]
Full StoryHappy Birthday: A Celebration in Red, Black & Blue
Day 159 I think people in my world are surprised that I really, truly, honestly, did not have any plans for my 60th birthday. Once upon a time I had plans, but it became clear several months ago that “we make plans, God laughs.” So the helium went out of that particular birthday balloon, and [...]
Full StoryThe Old In And Out
Day 152 I’ll never forget the first time someone told me I needed to learn to breathe. She was a guest on my talk show on WLAC-AM in Nashville back in the 1980s. She told me that most people don’t breathe properly, and I thought that was hysterically funny. I suggested that I, and the others, must [...]
Full Story$#!+ My Mom Says
Day 145 My mother always used to say, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.” I made a big decision several weeks ago and I got what I wished for. That triggered an avalanche of change, which was inevitable. I knew when I made the decision that if I got what I wanted, it would be [...]
Full StoryYou Tell Yours And I Tell Mine
Day 143 One thing my journalism career pounded into me every day: there aren’t “two sides to every story.” There are many sides to most stories, and it’s possible that all of them are true. Do You See What I See? If you work with couples, groups, teams, you know that many people can have [...]
Full StoryI Don’t See Under My Feet
Day 142 I love a moving sidewalk. No matter how many times I step onto the magic carpet, I enjoy every ride. I especially like walking on the moving sidewalk. It feels like skating without ice, just short of the ability to hover above the ground and fly. I’m walking, but I’m assisted, almost invisbly. [...]
Full StorySupport Sis Stem
Day 141 I’ve mentioned that I was at a coaching conference in New Mexico last week and that I had a rare in-person session with my own coach, Renee Freedman. Renee was excited to see this photograph in the room where we met. “I love that photograph,” she said. We couldn’t find the photographer’s name, or I’d [...]
Full StoryMay Be The Last Time, I Don’t Know
Day 139 When I first started drafting this post, a friend had just told me about a diagnosis that will change everything. “I wish I’d known I was never going to be able to _____ again,” said my friend. “I would have made a different choice about the last time I was ever going to [...]
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