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 1245: Only One Letter Difference

“…for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law.”

I was typing out a note and was attempting to type out the word “teach” but instead ended up slipping my finger one letter to the left and ended up with the word “reach”.  As I reread what I was writing, it was interesting that I could almost exchange the words and the message would be the same. In order to best “reach” someone an element of teaching can be the difference between truly breaking through or not.  The same can be said for teaching.  In order to truly “teach” one must have a “reach” into a person to have them truly learn. When we reach and teach together it can be very powerful and truly have an impact.  Whether it be our advertising, our external or internal communication, we should keep our hands on the keyboard around both the “r” and the “t” and be sure that we are working to both reach and teach in all that we do.
Jesus understood the power of both teaching and reaching people.  Today, He allows us to do both as well on His behalf, while He still is teaching us and attempting to reach further into us and strengthen our relationship with Him. We can be better if we follow His example of being a teacher and reaching out and down to people around us.  When we think of how and what He wants us to do with our lives, we can think about both and then commit ourselves to working and living in His likeness.  What opportunities will you have today to teach and reach?  Actually, more than you may have considered!
Reference: Matthew 7:29 (New Living Translation)