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 269: A Little Sabbath Time

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The way work is set up for most of us is that we work a bunch of hours over a five to six day period and the seventh day is off, unless there is a real problem, overload, or huge deadline that we might miss. We, in most cases, can get our day of rest, that is if we choose to take it. Many of us, myself included, find some time all seven days to “do some “catch up” or take a few minutes to “get ahead of the week”. This is not all bad, but when analyzed it means that our brains are tuning into our work seven days a week and we never really give ourselves the chance to bring our minds down to a more peaceful state, if even for a day. After all of these years of working closely with others on their work and careers, I can almost smell burnout on someone. I can see it in their eyes, their mannerisms and even sometimes in the wrinkles of stress on their face. This may be because it is also so obvious to others when I personally reach that point. I can even see it in the mirror on me. The shape of my eyes change when I am tired and/or stressed. As you can imagine, it is no fun to know that you are stressed, but then to see it, and still not be able to do much about it, well that just adds to the stress doesn’t it? God modeled a day of rest of all of us, and then established that day of rest as a day of sabbath for us to turn our attention away from the world around us and turn our mind to Him. He even laid out in Leviticus 25 a “Sabbath Year” every seven years. For those who enjoy a “sabbatical” period in their jobs, they can thank God, Moses and the Israelites for this. God asks us to rest in our lives and to put some time for Him in between the daily work that He has given us to do. He wants us to be refreshed and ready for the next challenges ahead of us. If we are exhausted, stressed, beaten down, we cannot be ready for the next obstacle we will face. It may be that God is calling you to be thinking about how much rest you are getting. Is He telling you in other ways that you are reaching a “redline” on your life tachometer? If you sense it, feel it, hear a voice inside you or from a friend, loved one, or co-worker, that it may be time to get some rest, take heed of those words. God needs you refreshed, strong and ready for the work that He wants to do through you in your job. Maybe this week is the week to start planning towards using this coming Sunday as a true Sabbath day of rest.

Reference: Leviticus 25 (New Living Testament)

Note: I will be taking my own advice over the next three weeks as Patti and I head to Africa on vacation. Purposed worKING will continue for you though as a number of people have so graciously offered to guest contribute. We will also be repeating a few of the posts from the past year that have been the ones that seemed to resonate most. Talk to you in a few weeks and in the meantime, be blessed in the work that God had given you to do and don’t forget, that each day is a day of purpose for His glory!