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 661: The Power Pause

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“Those who control their tongue will have a long life; a quick retort can ruin everything.”

I was told the story of a CEO who had the chance to meet the Dali Lama and have a private session with him. Each time the CEO would ask a question the Dali Lama would take an abnormally long pauses before he answered or spoke. The CEO said it felt very uncomfortable to just sit there and wait for the responses, so as his time was winding down he asked the Dali Lama why he took so long to answer between each question. After another long pause he answered, “Before I respond I ask myself three questions about what I am about to say, before I speak; ‘Is it kind?’, ‘Is it true?’, and ‘Is it necessary?’. As I listened to this story I was struck by his answer because wouldn’t our work places be so much better if we all were to ask ourselves those three questions before we spoke? We work in the land of the opposite where there is a competition for the first word to be spoken (or written). How much better off would we be if we could step back and not be so impetuous with our speech? I have watched more than one career go on a derailment path because of a word spoken in haste or worse, anger. Trying to put the genie back in the bottle looks easy compared to reeling back in words that didn’t want to be spoken.

In Proverbs we are told the same thing. We are told to control our tongue and to curb the quick retort. One can lead to long life. The other can ruin everything. Today, let’s check our words and learn that there is a power in the pause. We may not have any other way to do it other than to try to ask ourselves the three questions before we speak. But, that’s cool too. Whatever it takes to let our minds and souls catch up with our tongue. Let’s today practice pausing and see what good can happen.

Reference: Proverbs 13:3 (New Living Testament)