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 447: The Power of Journaling

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I tell all people who are going into a new job to start a journal of their experiences and learning. Having something written down to review and look back upon can be like learning something twice. It is surprising how many people don’t write down or record their meeting notes, their learning for the day, their phone conversations, etc. I am a bit of a fanatic about this but not as much as a COO that I worked with once. He was an amazing journaler and there was not a conversation that every got garbled or a commitment made that was ever misinterpreted and nothing that was not followed up on regularly until he could take it off of his lists that he would create from his journals. I was so impressed that I adopted many of his methods and have passed them along to others. What journaling also does is prepare us for a day when our memories won’t be as strong as they are when we are young. If we had to rely on only our memories, then for sure as we get busier and our minds (hard drives) get fuller, the tendency to forget and let things slip become more and more prevalent. God knows this about us as He did Moses when Moses was leading the Israelites through the 40 years of wilderness. In Numbers 33:2 He said to Moses; “At the Lord’s direction, Moses kept a written record of their progress.” So, today, think about starting a journal if you don’t already have one. You will be better at remembering, which will make you more predictable and dependable, which will only make you better at what you do and we all, God included, want that to happen!

Reference: Numbers 33:2 (New Living Translation)