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 2159: What Corner Are We Trying To See Around?

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“Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you.”

Each new year we face the same new challenge – to try and see around the corner for what the future may bring for our businesses, our competition and what the greater economic forces coming our way that may, or will be uncontrollable.  What we know is that the future can be foggy and it takes concerted effort to try and see much beyond our low beams, but that we have to do so if we are going to make the right decisions.  And if we are honest with ourselves, this takes real diligence and the willingness to be okay with being frustrated when we don’t get it right the first time.

Someone I have gotten to know this past year is Dave Blanchard.  Dave leads a group of believing entrepreneurs through his organization, Praxis.  He sent his 2016 reflection note and began it with the quote below. I wanted to include it in this PwK post because as we try and make sense of our future, even though we are told over and over where we are to keep our eyes affixed, it’s easy to lose that focus and also get frustrated, angry and maybe even depressed.  So, as we start our new year, let’s be sure that we have our pursuit of what is in front of us in the right perspective.

“As servant people we are relaxed. The weight of the world has been lifted from our shoulders; we are not the managers of society — nor would we be if we thought we were. We don’t have to save democracy and the free world; we don’t even have to save ourselves…Should we be ineffective, our cause is not lost; should our efforts bear fruit, this will not be their justification. Our living in the present reality of the kingdom and the triumphant coming of the kingdom are not connected like the links in a causal chain, but like promise and fulfillment, as the artesian well to the distant mountain lake. We serve not in order that the kingdom might come, but because it is coming; the certainty of victory is the beginning not the end of our course.” JHY

Reference: Proverbs 4:25 (New Living Translation)