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 1113: Big Dreams

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“It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.”

I love to work with entrepreneurs because they have, at a minimum, big dreams! It’s in their DNA to think bigger and longer than others.  Sometimes it is just outlandish thinking, but at the core there is a big dream that they have already been able to visualize becoming reality.  We’d all be better if we had a little more of this inside of us.  If we start small or with no dreams at all, we don’t get much further than what others establish for us as paths and ideas. Companies, big or small, need dreamers and when one is recognized there needs to be support systems to help them fashion and work to make those dreams come true.  Ever seen a dreamer come and go from your company?  It hurts doesn’t it?  Why that is is because we also like to be around those who can dream and help author the future for us.  As you think about hiring and developing, consider how many dreamers you have in the company and if not enough, then go find more!

Sometimes to obey God, we also have to have some of that dreamer in us. While it was faith that and obedience that had Noah build the ark, we forget that he was doing something that had never been done before. As such, there had to be some dreaming going on at the same time. I was in DC a few months ago at the National Community Church and the pastor taught on the dreams of Noah. He said it took Noah 120 years of life and at the completion,Noah had no idea whether the ship would float or not. And back up, even before Noah could build the ship, he had to have materials. First thing Noah did was plant trees.  Apparently a ball cyprus takes 45 -200 years to mature and Noah needed nearly 800 trees (764 according the pastor teaching this lesson) to construct the ark. Noah followed God’s instructions exactly and then allowed his own dreams to help him visualize what it would look like and do when it all came together. I have been told that by dimension and stability that even today, Noah’s ark is a standard that all other ships are built. What we dream can become the way of the future. Are we dreaming what God wants us to do with our lives?  Are we willing to wait and follow exactly what He tells us to do?  God’s Kingdom needs more workers who were like Noah; a big dreamer!

Reference:  Hebrews 11:7 (New Living Translation)