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 1413: Learnings From The Camino (part 1): A Very Long Walk

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“Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

The first thing you need to know about the Camino de Santiago is that it is a very long walk.  Depending upon where you start, it can be as long as you want it to be.  Here is the map of Europe that shows all the different ways one can walk (or bike) all to Santiago, Spain:


 My Camino journey was just at 100 miles. For other pilgrims I met on the Camino their walk was eight times and plus that distance. When we decide to do anything that is going to be long and arduous, it takes commitment and a reason.  When we think about delivering on an organizational strategy it means that it won’t happen overnight and that many people will have to be committed for a long walk.  A learning from the Camino is that if we allow each person to understand why they individually will want to sign up for the long walk, that there is real power in the “What’s in it for me” mentality.  While we don’t want to set up activities and purposes that revolve just around the “me” in us, it is very much in that place where if we are honest, we can understand and express our “why”.  And knowing our “why” is a powerful motivator.

Our walk with God is as long as He determines it will be, which we don’t know the length until the end. But, we can make that walk in assurance because of where we know we are going. There is no greater “why” than this!  Today, we start a continuation of that walk and will see arrows and signs pushing and pulling us in many directions.  If we keep our eyes on Christ, then the path we are walking, the words that we speak, the actions that we take will be moving us in the right direction in our walk with Him.

Reference: Genesis 13:17 (New Living Translation)