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 3K40: Early Or Late

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“Work hard to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail. When the master of the house has locked the door, it will be too late.”

Last week I saw a guy stringing Christmas lights into trees.  I looked around and I saw his van which showed he was part of a company that does this work.  I said to him, “Wow, you are ahead of the game this year.”  His response to me was, “In my business, I’m either early or I’m late.”  I can see that.  While in many businesses, we strive for just in time to control inventory and supply chain issues (remember back when we were able to control and manage a supply chain), there is something to be said for being early.  As I like to say, “There is no stress in being early.”

I’ve been wracking my brain and the scriptures to try and find a time that Jesus was late.  There was the time when Martha attempted to tell Jesus that He was late and because of that Lazarus died, but Jesus quickly corrected that wrong assumption.  And there are no accounts during His ministry that He left people waiting for Him when He said He was going to somewhere (or at least none that I can find).  Why is this?  Well, among so many other reasons, I see it that Jesus respected other people and He knew that time on this earth (His being short) is a gift and we are not to waste it or abuse it.  And, we know that He was an early riser and got a jump on the day before others got going.  And finally, He does tell us that are consequences to being late to accept His invitation to join Him in His eternal Kingdom.  So, maybe we are to hear that word and we should strive to not be late for Him or others and better yet be early.

Luke 13:24-26 (New Living Translation)