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 2185: A Patient of the Process

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“Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”

Pastor Terry, the Pastor of my church, Cornerstone in San Francisco, has been teaching on how to grow through adversity.  He is sharing out of a life experience he had two years ago and his message is hitting home each and every week as we each can recognize adversity that we have faced, are facing, or will face.  It’s a bummer, but just like our businesses there are only three states we can be in – failing, staying steady, or growing.  Only one of the three is acceptable. So, we are going to face a time when the going is going to get really tough and there is only one way to survive and that is to move through the challenge to get to the other side. The key is to be able weather those storms and grow and strengthen at the same time.  If we can learn to do this through our attitude, approach and actions, then we will be better capable of withstanding the next storm or obstacle. One of the take away points that Pastor Terry has taught is that we have to be patient with the process as adverse conditions and situations don’t just disappear or go way overnight.  In fact, sometimes they can drag on for what feels like an eternity and we have no choice but to be patient as things work themselves through.  As I was reflecting on this lesson I realized that in order to truly be patient with the process, we have to let go of the control we would like to have over the process and trust that things will work themselves out.  It was then that I said to myself, “I can’t be patient with the process, unless I let myself become a ‘patient’ of the process’”.  You see, to be a patient, it means to allow our well-being, healing or recovery to be prescribed by someone else and then we have to subordinate our own thoughts and dispositions to those of the one prescribing.  We must become like a good patient if we really want to find true patience.

I know it goes without saying that God is our great physician and healer, but we have to be reminded often of this, because we don’t live our lives as good patients of His.  We ignore the prescriptions.  We don’t listen.  We do just the opposite of what we are told and we don’t regularly take our daily doses.  But, if we can attempt to be better patients in this process called life then God will give us all of His promises and blessings, bringing us closer and closer to Him, which as we know, is the source of our strength.

Reference:  James 5:10 (New Living Translation)