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 2900: Rolling Boulders…Downhill

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“Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.”

We know the story and the imagery of Sisyphus, continuously through his mythological existence pushing the stone up the steep hill.  It looks (and feels like this).

 

 

 

 

 

 

This may be the way we are feeling as we go into this weekend, knowing that we have much to do this year and already wondering how we will get it all done. Or perhaps we are already wondering if we have what it takes, or are we the right person needed at this time? We might be wondering if we aren’t just a Sisyphus?  However, there is another attitude that can be adopted and that is the attention to those things that are going well, knowing what we are good at, seeing where we are needed and focusing on them and getting momentum going around these things. It’s what I call, “Rolling Boulders Downhill”.  Imagine if the word went out to Sisyphus that his new calling was to let the boulder go, get out of the way and start chasing it as it rolls. It creates a whole new feeling doesn’t it?  Now, maybe and likely because it is what we do, over time we’d create a myth about the boulder that can never be caught, but let’s go with it for now and just imagine that a boulder with momentum could take us just about anywhere and that could be really fun and exciting.

Whether uphill or downhill, the energy expended and released to move the boulder is energy that we choose to focus.  What we learn in 1 Peter is that when we put our shoulders to the gifts that we have been given for God’s purposes that we will be bringing glory and power to Him!  So, let’s figure out what it is we have to bring and what we can do and then put those to good work to create the positive boulder rolling within our lives and others.

Reference: 1 Peter 4:11 (New Living Translation)