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 43: Lifted Up

In the Psalms, David is such an inspiration. He seems to almost always have the right word for the right time. David was a worker before he was a king. He worked in the fields as a shepherd and learned a skill the hard way, through experience. When we are mired down in the muck and mire of work and we feel like we are caught in a pit, that pit can easily feel like a pit of despair. At work it can be the smallest of things that put us in this mood and feeling. Why such a little thing like an errant word in an email, or a phone call not returned, or not being invited to a meeting can create a feeling of loss or hurt? These are the little things that, for some reason take on a life of their own and can quickly turn into an all consuming issue. When this happens we can quickly lose our perspective and instead of looking at our problems from the top of the mountain top of confidence, we look up and out of our pit of despair and the issues just get worse and worse by the minute. So what are we to do? While many things at work can be managed and handled through our own skills and experiences, there are many things that we need to turn over to God and let Him work it through for us. Psalms 40:2 gives us a clear example of what God can do for us. David says. “He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.” This is the God who comes to work with us day in and day out. He doesn’t need to swipe an access card to come to hang with us at work. All he needs is the invitation from us to join us in the pit and meet us in the mud and mire. If we are willing to invite Him to take over and help us through the challenges we face we will find ourselves finding the solid footing that we once had. Can you take God to work with you so that He can lift you up?

Reference: Psalm 40:2 (New Living Testament)