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 60: Sunday Is Really The First Workday

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I am sorry to say this to you because we all look so forward to the weekend. Wasn’t it the band Loverboy who sang, “Everybodys working for the weekend!”. Yes, the weekends are a time of rest and we should all take advantage of our sabbath time and our down time. With today’s technology and being constantly online it has gotten harder and harder to find that “away from it all” downtime. All that said, I will put forward that Sunday, and in particular our church time on Sunday is an important first step of the work week and we should consider it really the first workday of the week in our preparation to have the kind of week we truly desire. I say that from the context that we are reading this and trying to live out God’s purpose in our work lives and as such we are in constant preparation for what the day, the week, the month, the year, the lifetime has in store for us. So, let’s go back to why Sunday is so important to get going in the right way for our workweek. Those who are called into the ministry have been called to ready and equip all the rest of us who carry the Word and the purpose of God into our work week and to our offices. Ephesians 4:11-12 says: “He is the one who gave these gifts to the church; the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.” What a great assurance. God gave the pastors at our church the gifts needed to equip us in the work that God has asked us to do for His purpose. And with that assurance, why would we ever miss an opportunity on Sunday to not be in church to gain the wisdom, lessons and equipment we need to make it through our work week. Many leaders hold their weekly staff meeting on Monday mornings to do just that for their teams; to be sure everyone is ready, prepared and aligned to take on the week. God does that for us with His staff meetings every Sunday in His church and he gives each of us an early jump on the week. So, next time we are thinking of blowing off Sunday church, we might think whether or not we would lightly blow off God’s Staff Meeting that He has prepared for us. Think of Sunday as the first positive move into the workweek and know that you are being better equipped and prepared to meet whatever it is that you will face in the coming week.

Reference: Ephesians 4:11-12 (New Living Testament)