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 1128: Distracted Living

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“…I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.”
As we are told and reminded over and over again, distracted driving is dangerous and can cause someone, ourselves included, to die.  Even when we know it though, that desire to be on top of everything  and current at all times can take over and there we are, texting or checking email at the stoplight or while the car is moving.  Driving takes focus as do many things in our work today.  But, competing with that focus are the instantaneous and compelling distractions of our phone, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, Apps, etc.  You could say that we live in the age of distracted living.  We know this in our businesses where it is nearly impossible to keep our consumer’s and customer’s attention beyond the briefest of moments.  Ask yourself when the last time you watched something that wasn’t live when you actually allowed the ads to play all the way through.  That would be the golden age of advertising that didn’t last.  We must understand, compensate and compete vigorously against the distractions if we want to build and grow brand loyalty.

Our spiritual lives are on a constant barrage of distractions!  The devil dangles all he has in front of us all the world has to keep us distracted and less engaged with God. Sometimes it is like Satan has the DVR controller and he just fast forwards us from Sunday to Sunday and loves that we didn’t see, hear or feel anything of God for the whole week. Think about it that way and it gives a whole meaning to the term “controller”.  As we know, our workplaces are the perfect place for distraction as well.  One hour to the next is filled with something or someone who shifts us off course, sometimes slightly and sometimes horribly.  Our challenge today is not to be distracted and to fix ourselves on Him today.  Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t perfect.  Like the scientist trains hid mind or the athlete trains her body, we have to train ourselves to have resolve, commitment and unwavering focus on what really matters; bringing glory to Him!
Reference: 1 Corinthians 7:35 (New Living Translation)