Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 2261: Brainology ™

“From a wise mind comes wise speech; the words of the wise are persuasive.”

You don’t have to look far to find a program to help strengthen our brains.  Brainology is set up to start brain training as early as middle school.  Most of the brain training programs market themselves to help us keep from having a declining mental strength, but sure, why shouldn’t we be exercising our brains as much as we do other parts of our physical bodies?  Back in the 1980’s companies started offering on-site gyms.  The (correct) thought was that employees who were in better physical health would be better and more productive employees.  How long before we see brain gyms on-site to help us keep our brains as strong as they can be?  Maybe not that far off.

We can differentiate between our brain and our mind.  Our brain can be strong but our mind can be weak.  I was taught early by my high school choir director that practice doesn’t bring perfection. Practice only brings permanence. So, we can strengthen our bodies but end up only making a bad movement or action permanent, not perfect.  And the same can be said of our fully capable and able brain that is quick to think the wrong things, speak the wrong words, do the wrong things.  So, our strong brain must be tempered by a disciplined and correctly focused mind.  Which have we been paying attention and which do we need to start exercising today?

Reference:  Proverbs 16:23 (New Living Translation)