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 1416: Learnings From The Camino (part 4): It Is Your Own Camino

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“I will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments.”

This is part 4 of a 6 part series on my learning and takeaways from my Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.  It just so happens that this post about the freedom of the Camino falls on the day before our American Independence Day celebration. As the Camino Pilgrims meet each other with the traditional greeting of “Buen Camino”, it is also often common to hear, “It is your own Camino”.  What this means is that you are to walk the Camino at your own pace, not at another’s pace, unless you so choose.  So, you don’t slow down or speed up for someone else.  It is your own Camino.  This becomes beneficial when you are covering 20 plus miles in a day.  There is a freedom in determining and being able to choose your own pace.  There are few things in life that allow us to do so and certainly in business the pace is usually determined from those at the top who have made the decision on how fast or slow the organization must move. When pace is dictated to us and then measured it becomes very personal, very fast.  When we ask someone, “When do you think you can get it done?”, do we accept that answer or do we then try and modify their pace by asking for it earlier?  We might find that if we keep the overall goal in front of everyone that we can allow some freedom in individual pacing and for the employee this can be liberating.

David covers so many great areas within the Psalms.  As he drew from his life experiences he made his words real to us.  When he wrote of “walking in freedom” he likely was not only thinking metaphorically but as a former shepherd, he may have been thinking of literally how he walked. To physically walk in freedom is great but to spiritually walk in freedom is awesome. God promises us that if we devote ourselves to Him that we will experience the freedom that can only come from Him.  Today, you might feel shackled by all sorts of things.  It might be deadlines, or pressures, or loss, or sadness, or just frustration of too much to to get done and not enough help.  Whatever those areas are that are holding you back, turn those over to Him and he will free you and let you walk forward with joy and hope.

I wish each of you a Happy Independence Day and a great long weekend of freedom!

Reference: Psalm 119:45 (New Living Translation)

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