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 1335: Altitude Awareness

“Haughtiness goes before destruction; humility precedes honor.”

I know a company that is hitting the ball out of the park day after day.  The growth is impressive and all things point up and to the right. It becomes easy for this company, and others to come down with, if they are not careful, a case of altitude sickness.  When we reach heights that we are not used to, all kinds of weird things can happen and if we are not careful, the higher we go, the sicker we can become, all the way to death.  We’ve seen it many times in companies where they think they have manifest destiny only too soon to be crashed back to earth.  Does MySpace come to mind?  Or AOL?  Being “altitude aware” is what allows us to fly high but still not lose our bearings or get ahead of ourselves. Any time we feel that we are succeeding, let’s be sure and stay aware of where we are as we climb.

As followers of Jesus, we must always keep our egos in check and remain aware of where we are at all times. The minute we begin to think that we are above others, then we have lost the way of the Father.  God humbled Himself beyond our comprehension when He sent us Jesus.  For us to not live and work in that same humility is to miss the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of God.

Reference:  Proverbs 18:12 (New Living Translation)