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 2181: Sleeping While Present

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“When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.”

Imagine walking over to your co-worker’s cubicle and there he is stretched out on the floor, not passed out, but instead with his head on a pillow and gently snoring?  Our first reaction?  After our astonishment and a photo taken, we would likely begin thinking about how he never lives this moment down.  That would be the way it would go in most of our offices, but not in Japan.  In Japan, there is a term for sleeping on the job.  It is called, Inemuri, and there it is a bit of a badge to be earned.  You see, if you are practicing Inemuri it means that you have worked so hard and so presumably long, that you worked yourself beyond fatigue and all the way to exhaustion, ultimately to sleep. Is this something to be proud?  I don’t think so if we consider the lack of productivity (not to mention lack of safety) that comes from this level of weariness.  But, if we asked and monitored the alertness of our employees we might find that more than we desire are not that far away from being in the state of Inemuri.

Jesus just needed His Disciples to stay awake a few hours.  But, they couldn’t and Jesus certainly didn’t commend them for working themselves to their own level of exhaustion. He asked them, just as He asks us to stay alert on His behalf.  I read His Word this way – our lives are short here on earth and each and every day He places us within experiences by which if we are awake and alert, we will see that what we can have a positive impact on others, leaving us with a door to open in their lives to the impact of God.  So, if we are to sleep while we are present, we are to miss out on all that He has for us, which means today is a great day to ask Him to wake us up!

Reference: Matthew 26:43 (New Living Translation)