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 1218: “Stotan”

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…let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

I love to run and I have the utmost respect for distance runners and especially those who are ultrarunners who can cover vast distances in a single run or over a set period of time.  One of the greatest of our time has been Scott Jurek.  Jurek wrote a book a few years ago on running, fitness and diet and in this book, “Eat and Run”, he tells the story of Australian ultra runner Percy Cerutty who in 1939 adopted what Cerutty called a “Stotan” lifestyle to help him overcome a two-year impending death diagnosis.  “Stotan” was a cross between being “spartan” and “stoic”.  Being “Stotan” was, Cerutty wrote; “An athlete needed hardness, toughness, and unswerving devotion to an ideal, but he also needed to embrace diet, philosophy, cultivation of the intellect, and openness to artistic endeavors.  You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone.” (footnote – Cerutty lived to be 80 years old and dodged that doctor’s diagnosis).  How often in business do we consider all aspects of who we need to be so we can become the full picture?  We more often than not find ourselves focused, in silos, heads down and maybe even purposefully ignoring the bigger picture and influences that could distract us.  Maybe we should consider becoming more “Stotan” in how we approach our business challenges.

The Apostle Paul writes enough about running and athleticism that he either was an athlete himself or he truly appreciated what it was to be an athlete.  He tells us that our spiritual journey is a race.  He tells us to strip down the weights that hold us back, to open our eyes to God and fix ourselves on the victory of falling into Jesus’ arms as we break the finish tape of life.  It is a beautiful picture to imagine.  Today is a lap of the race that we run.  Will we take today and run the lap that we are in to our best ability or let this lap get away from us?  As Cerutty said, to be the best athlete we must “do” and we must take ourselves to places that are beyond our comfort zone.  God never said our race to Him would be easy.  But, He did say it would be well worth the effort!

Reference: Hebrews 12:1 (New Living Translation)