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 2990: Overnight Success?

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“Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!”

My more knowledgeable Venture Capital friends can correct me, but the days of a company being founded, products launched and gaining an exit within a short time frame seems like days of the past.  An entrepreneur asked me recently, “How long should it take for a new company to get to a liquidity event?”.  Of course, there isn’t an answer that is one-size fits all, but I did say, “Wrap your mind around running a marathon and if something comes along before then, consider yourself to be fortunate.”  As I see it these days, it’s not unreasonable to think that it could be seven to ten years of hard work to realize what we once would call an overnight success.

Why can’t God just answer our prayers on the spot?  Why all the waiting? For whatever reason, while running yesterday the Diana Ross and The Supremes song, “You Can’t Hurry Love” popped into my head.  “You can’t hurry love, you just have to wait…”  That’s also part of our waiting on God.  His love knows best for us and sometimes what we really need is to just wait.  It demands patience of us.  And consider, if God has the patience He has with all of our human misgivings, starts and stops, sin, doubts and disobedience, then surely, we can have patience to wait on His divine timing.  So, let’s not find ourselves pursuing overnight successes when it comes to our prayer life.  Let’s let God’s love have its’ timing with us.

Reference:  James 5: 17 (New Living Translation)

Note:  As you might be following along, we are approaching the 3000th post of Purposed worKING.  Many of you have been with me since the beginning in October 2008.  Others might have just recently subscribed.  Either way, I’d like to thank you for reading along daily with a special 1/2 hour Thank You Zoom Call on Wednesday July 14th at 1:00pm PDT/4:00PM EDT.  If you are interested in attending, email me at rusty@rueff.com and I will send you the link.