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 1421: Practice Makes Permanent

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“So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say?”

In the summers I get to play more golf than I do the rest of the year.  But, because I don’t play consistently all year round my game starts off each summer as poor as it was the year before (sometimes worse) and then I notice that it gets better and then levels off, only to start all over at the same bad place the next year.  I haven’t taken many lessons in my life, so I shouldn’t really expect to get any better because I keep practicing my same poor swing and approach to the game.  You see, practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.  If you practice what is wrong, you get really good at being wrong!  Consider how we work, manage, lead, and get things done in the workplace. Somewhere along the way we get some courses and workshops on particular work skills, but for the most part we learn how to work on the job and for most we practice over and over this self-taught approach not knowing if we are good at working in the best way, or just good at working in our own way…which might be bad.  Think about how you start each day in the office.  Is your routine the best way or is it just your routine?  What we practice becomes permanent so we better be sure we are practicing a better way.

In possibly the first teaching that Jesus did with His newly chosen Apostles, He puts it right out there with them and challenges them on their practices.  When He asks them why were they continuing to call Him Lord but then not doing what He told them to do, He was saying to them, you are practicing the wrong thing!  How can we strengthen our faith so that we can handle all that hits us daily?  We can start with practicing what God teaches us and doing to consistently and in His guidance.  What He gave us to practice will not only be permanent, but it can be eternal!

Reference: Luke 6:46 (New Living Translation)

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