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 2907: Taking A Break

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

I’ve been checking in with Founders/CEOs on how the holidays were for them.  Most of the stories are the same; quiet, muted, small, etc.  But, digging under it a bit, too many of the responses were accompanied with, “I worked a lot.”  It’s one of the harder parts of this remote working.  Work is more than ever, right there in front of us, just a few steps away, continuously calling like a siren. We all think we can go 24-7, until we can’t. The best way to be sure that we can be our best when we are needed is to be sure that we are refreshed and energized.  The only way to do so is to be sure we get our time away and to do so on a regular schedule and not let the pull of work all-consume us.

It’s interesting how the Ten Commandments are structured. The first commandments are about our relationship with God. The final six are about how we are to live with others.  And between those two sections, comes the direction to take a break with a Sabbath.  It might be that God built us to take a break so that we could have the free space to intentionally worship as we think, ponder, imagine, recharge and get ready to convert our relationship with God into implementation with others. The temptation is to to go, go, go.  God doesn’t want it that way for us.  He wants us to be sure we don’t forget to take a break for Him. Let’s do so this coming weekend.

Reference: Exodus 20:8 (New Living Translation)