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 3K95: Almost

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“When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”

“Almost”.  It’s an easy word to use and it is also a dangerous word to use.  When we hear “almost” as a modifier it could mean a lot of things.  The word shows up in our work all the time: We are “almost done”,  we are “almost ready to start”,  we are “almost there”.  But, what one person hears in “almost” can be so different than the what the speaker means.  When we hear “almost”, and we are likely to hear it is many times today, then it is on us to ask for clarification on what it really means, not just leave it no clarified.

We have to go to The Message translation of the Bible to find Jesus ever using the word “almost”.  In this verse His words are being translated from “not far”.  Even here we can see that the word “almost” is not enough.  Jesus tells the man that while not far, or maybe close, that there is still a ways to go before he crosses into God’ Kingdom. And, in this context, more for the man to understand and then surrender to Jesus.  Maybe that is the way of God.  While we are here on earth we are always working our way through being “almost there”, even when we have decided that we want to be a part of God’s kingdom.  God has so much more to reveal to us and He does it each time we seek more of Him and yes, one day the word “almost” will be removed from our vocabulary.  Until that time though, it is on us to commit and strive to be closer and closer to Him.

Reference”  Mark 12:34 (The Message Translation)