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 509: Preoccupations

purposed worKING No Comments

The definition of preoccupation is: 1. the state of being preoccupied, esp mentally,
2.something that holds the attention or preoccupies the mind. At the root of preoccupation is the work occupation. That is what we do for a living. We have an occupation. So, it makes sense that a preoccupation would be something that holds our attention and occupies our mind and time, sorta just like a job does. What is ironic is that our occupation is filled with many, many preoccupations. We can get easily distracted on our jobs with the things that are of so little importance in the big scheme of things that we can become not only preoccupied, but almost obsessed with those things that have crept in and taken over our minds. I wish someone could capture the amount of time and thought that happens in a day when we are thinking about silly things like; who is talking to who, why did they get invited to a meeting and I/we didn’t, why is the boss asking two of us to do the same work, who will get the next promotion, why is my budget smaller than yours, how do I get the attention of the boss, etc,. etc. A lot of extraneous things that preoccupy our minds and take away from the work at hand and the bigger goals that we have in front of us. Being preoccupied would not be all bad if we had unlimited time and unlimited energy. But, we all know that our time and energy is limited and if we are going to be the best we can be, we must take advantage of each and every day and hour that we have. This would say that we cannot afford to be preoccupied and instead we must stay on task. The same is true in the bigger picture of our lives. God wants us to be the best we can be at our work and the life that we have been given, but He also wants us to keep it all in perspective. Paul tells us in Colossians to, “Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.” He is not telling us to ignore the world we live in, he is just telling us to not become preoccupied to the point that we lose touch with the bigger picture and the main goal of life. Today, are you preoccupied with something at work that when you think about it a year from now, or even a month from now, it likely won’t matter? Those are the things that should be swept aside in favor of focus and priorities. The same should be true with the preoccupations of life.

Reference: Colossians 3:2 (New Living Testament)