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 292: Thresholds

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I have written before about how different our attitudes are when we are going to work versus going home. Many people will talk about how they are “different people” at work versus home, and they don’t like it. They talk about how they are positive, enthusiastic, optimistic at home, but on their way to work it feels like all of that life is sucked out of them. What happens that makes us feel this way? Why is it that when we start thinking about work that a whole different set of feelings and emotions creep up on us, and why does it have to be that way? Since no one but ourselves can control our emotions and feelings, it doesn’t have to be this way and it all begins with the management of the thresholds. Each day we cross the threshold of our homes on the way to work, then we cross the threshold of our workplace. Later in that day we cross that threshold again on our way home and then we return to the threshold of our home for the last crossing of the day. If we were to think intently and deliberately about our emotions and feelings each time we make those crossings, then our attitude can be managed consistently. And that consistency is important in how we are viewed, appraised and interpreted by others around us, both at home and work. What God has to say about this can be found in Psalm 100:4; “Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.” The point here is that we can make any threshold His gates and His courts. It is all in how we think about our work and homes and the attitude that we bring into them within our hearts and minds. We can cross any threshold in a place of thanksgiving and praise and make them a place that can be called His. This week as we come off the long weekend focused on thanks, let us not lose that spirit and instead bring that same thanksgiving and praise to God with us as we cross the thresholds to leave home, go to work, leave from work, and go back home. May each threshold be the thresholds that are His.

Reference: Psalm 100:4 (New Living Testament)