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 2013: Resistance

“Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”

Wow, is it hard to get something going inside of a company or what?  New ideas, new products, new ways always run into resistance and then battles are fought to be able and push through.  The issue being then that good and smart people will only battle so long and then they move on to someplace that values their thoughts more and where it is easier to try and move forward.  So, everyone loses. Yet, on the other hand, when attempting to hang onto the hard things like 100% customer satisfaction or unsurpassed quality standards, or following through on good management practices, the resistance to slip seems so much less.  Leonardo Da Vinci said this, “It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”  Chew on that today and consider where there is too much resistance going on and too little happening.

If we are striving to live a Godly life and follow Jesus, then there will always be temptation and enticements to not do so.  There are bigger forces at play and the more we draw closer to Him, the more the other side wants to do all possible to stop that from happening.  So, Da Vinci is correct, we are better when we resist at the time, in the moment, when even the little things confront us.  So, what is it that we need to resist today?  And, let’s be sure that we do so by bringing the power of God’s mercy and grace with us to provide all the resistance possible.

Reference:  Matthew 26:41 (New Living Translation)