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 2968: Record Keeping

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“Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.”

An interesting thing is happening in our household.  My wife, Patti, is getting pinged almost daily now from reporters, documentary makers, etc.  Yesterday, she was contacted and did an interview with NPR and then later in the day by Netflix to contribute to a project they have underway.  Who knew that my wife would become a star?  Well, she might not become a star but she is an integral part of a story that is being made into a high-profile movie that is capturing a lot of attention.  More to come on that later.  But, what caught my own attention yesterday was that one of the reporters was trying to track her down and her former employer told the reporter that “They didn’t have any record of her”.  I was a little taken aback by that as she had worked there for over 25 years.  But, the thing is that she left there nearly 25 years ago.  When we talked about this, Patti reminded me that in the company division that the reporter was checking she and I were not yet married so maybe her records there were under her maiden name.  Possible.  Still, it reminded me that we might think that we have all the records intact and that we can reference easily the past.  But, guess what?  Records are only as good as what we documented at the time.  I had to go the doctor yesterday.  The doctor was shocked that I was able to bring him annual records of test results that dated back to 1997.  He said to me, “No one has this”.  I smiled.  I like to keep good records.  We should all keep good records, but also be realistic enough to know that sometime soon even the records of us and what we have done, accomplished, achieved and contributed will go away.

In the Bible what we have been given (and I do consider it a given gift) in reality is only small glimpse of the life of Jesus.  Think about it.  The record we have is from a few days over three years and all four Gospels pretty much capture the same events.  Obviously, none of the Disciples were into Bullet Journaling (look it up – it’s great and works).  John even tells us that he only caught a small portion of all that Jesus did.  But, I think this is a good lesson for us.  When the record is written it is always about the impact one leaves.  It could be with one simple act that could change the trajectory of many lives.  I’m going to explore this more tomorrow, but for now consider this today.  If the record was completed on our lives at the end of today, what would we have done today to contribute that could be life-changing and record additive for someone else?

Reference:  John 25:21 (New Living Translation)