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 3K217: When Others Think Us Crazy

purposed worKING No Comments

“When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said.”

We are going through a major reset in the Tech industry.  I stand behind that this is not anything close to what happened in 2020 when the Internet Bubble burst, but there is definitely a reset occurring.  What is fascinating right now is that some of the biggest dreamers of our time (Musk, Zuckerberg, etc.) are having a moment of reckoning and are even beginning to be called “crazy” for how they have managed and led during this last cycle of growth.  I’ve written before, “Growth masks a lot of problems”.  I think this is part of what is going on right now.  The past 12 years have been up and to the right.  There are people leading large parts of companies today that only know hyper-growth and have let themselves, and their companies, get ahead of themselves in spending and hiring.  Those of us who have been through the cycles (many times) know that you can’t go crazy in the best of times and you will be called crazy when you slow things down before everyone else does.  But, sometimes being crazy is more like being ahead of the curve.

When you read the verse above out of context the first reaction might be that someone was writing about one of the possessed, or someone seeking healing or help, or even an onlooker who was trying to get close to Jesus.  But, when you read the third chapter of Mark you will see that this statement is from the family of Jesus as they saw that Jesus and His disciples were ministering to the point of exhaustion without food or sleep.  They thought Jesus was “crazy”.  Well, they were wrong, but at the time they were only responding as maybe any of us would have; questioning, doubting, worrying and even feeling in a place of fear.  At some point, we all might be looked at as “crazy” or out of our mind, especially if we we are following what God has put on our hearts to do and how to be for Him.  The next time someone thinks we might have “lost it”, consider that a compliment.

Reference: Mark 3:21 (New Living Translation)