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 1933: Cool or Fool?

purposed worKING No Comments

“Control your temper,for anger labels you a fool.”

I lost my cool last week.  After I was through, I told the people who I was on the phone with that I knew I sounded foolish in my anger.  While at the moment I was getting the frustration off of my chest, it felt kinda good, but the moment I was done, I felt shame and embarrassment.  There are people who seem to make anger and losing their cool part of their daily work.  What they don’t know is that end of the days, we create nicknames for them and cast them as fools.  I’m as guilty as anyone and because I don’t want to be known as a fool, I know I need to keep my anger in check.

Not much more needs to be said as Ecclesiastes makes it very clear.  When anger seeps in we need to ask God to give us patience.  We can also take a deep breath asking The Holy Spirit to grab control of us.  Another way of thinking about anger is that not only do we look foolish when we get angry, we look wise when we don’t.

Happy Memorial Day.  Let’s remember those who served and gave of themselves for our freedom.  Purposed worKING will be back on Tuesday May, 26th.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 7:9 (New Living Translation)