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 2890: Somethings…We Just Aren’t Ready For

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“They will do it here to avoid carrying the sacrifices through the outer courtyard and endangering the people by transmitting holiness to them.”

I remember once being told by my boss, “You just aren’t ready for that yet”.  I was not happy with his conclusion but I had no other choice but to accept it, learn from it, and be sure that next time, I’d be ready.  I’m watching this same conclusion play out with a number of people who are reaching for positions that there is no way they are ready for, but no one is telling them this truth.  And as they hit wall after wall, they are losing confidence in themselves and their abilities.  In one case, I intervened.  I’d seen enough that I felt I could speak into this person’s qualifications and self-evaluation.  It was not an easy conversation for me as I prefer to be the person who encourages and builds another up in their career and self-estimations, but in this case, I felt I had the responsibility to assist in a different way.  At the end, I’m not sure the message was all that well received, as reality isn’t always, but I know that if heeded, my advice will lead to a better result now, for a brighter future soon.

There is lots in life we aren’t ready for and there is nothing more clear in this regard than in our readiness to totally understand God and His plans for us.  God’s truth is full out Holiness  It is pure.  But, it is also searing and purifying.  I’d love to know what God has in store for me, but it is likely that if revealed fully it would be a bit like the line from a “A Few Good Men” when Jack Nicholson tells the character played by Tom Cruise, “You can’t handle the truth!”  No, we are not meant to know it all on this earth and while we desperately would like to, God holds back what we can’t handle and reveals what we can.  It’s a nice assurance to know this to be true.

Reference:  Ezekiel 46:20 (New Living Translation)