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 1286: Audacious and Outlandish Hope

“The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra. Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm.”

A famous U.S. General said, “Hope is not a method.”  He is right and even in my own company, I used to ban the word “hope” from being used in concurrence with business plans and objectives. But, let’s not underestimate the power of hope for causing people to dream, imagine and innovate.  If vision is “A description of those things not yet seen”, then hope is the magnet that can get vision to come out of us.  If we hope for better, then we will be drawn to come up with our own ways to make it better. The word hope got overused politically and maybe we shy away from it now because we don’t want to get labeled, but let’s not give up on hope.  Audacious and outlandish hope may well be the breakthrough that you have been looking for (and hoping).

As Isaiah prophesied the coming of Jesus, he also described a world that was filled with audacious and outlandish hope.  You need read no further than Isaiah Chapter 11 to see how crazy he was!  Or was he?  Indeed he was not.  He gave us a vision of what our eternal future will be, the power of God and what the Kingdom of Jesus can and will be for all of us who believe and accept.  When we get caught up in being cynical, suspicious and doubting we are casting aside God’s hope for us.  Is there not a better time than now to let our hopes be unbound and available for others to see?  Let’s put aside the rest and let our hope that comes from Him spring forth this week. 

Reference: Isaiah 11:8 (New Living Translation)