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 856: Speed Bumps

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“Patient endurance is what you need now, so you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that is promised.”

Yesterday, Congress passed the “Jobs Act”. Among many incentives for businesses, the Act really opened up the path for start-ups to move from an idea to a full-fledged business with less regulations and speed bumps. There are also some very creative allowances for how to fund a company that provides more opportunities on how to tap capital infusions. Some would say that the removal of the speed bumps will accelerate companies moving into the public markets and/or receiving more capital. This might be true but it doesn’t provide any underlying accelerators really. The only accelerators to faster business growth (even with unlimited capital) are the talent of the people in the organization and market readiness, which can certainly be influenced by marketing and creativity. When we see an overnight success we think they all can be that way. Don’t we wish. What we need to remember is that perseverance and commitment goes a long way and we should not forget that the long run also gets us to the same destination and that speed bumps are only there to make us less reckless.

We can’t accelerate God’s timing or God’s will either. Paul tells us in Hebrews that we must be patient and have endurance. The Pastor of my church (http://cornerstone-sf.org) , Terry Brisbane, spoke over the winter about this and I noted what he said one Sunday, “Faith is preparing for the moment that will never happen, but we believe it will.” How remarkable our careers and lives could be if we were to wake each day with that imprinted within us? If we did, then when we hit our own work and life speed bumps we could just power through with the faith and endurance that God expects from us. Let’s today consider where we are letting the speed bumps get the best of us and figure out what we need to change in ourselves that lets God power through for us!

Reference: Hebrews 10:36 (New Living Testament)