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 2853: Just Enough

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“Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”

I’ve been impressed by a number of business leaders I know who are taking this moment in time to step back and conceptualize what the future of their enterprise will be over the next 20 years and make the changes now that would be necessary to get them headed in that direction. However, I am just as impressed with those who don’t have that skill (or luxury) who are just staying consistently optimistic and pragmatic as they put one foot in front of another each day to keep things moving while looking forward as much as they can, realizing that day to day is good enough for right now. I was talking to a CEO who does business with one of the large rental car companies who told him that day to day is all they have right now as their biggest issue is how to solve on where to park (store) unused cars that in a normal cycle of business would be distributed across the country by consumers using them, but now they all need to be parked somewhere, by someone, then retrieved, by someone, and brought to an airport or rental office so a consumer can rent them. Until they can get enough flow of renters, that business is going to be stuck in only day to day.  We might feel like that right now, but let’s remember, a day behind us gives us a chance for a day in front of us and that could be good enough for now.

An upcoming guest on our Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast (you can find the podcast here) said that in his hospitality business that he has had to trust that God has given him a lamp to guide his feet and path forward. When he said it, it sounded hopeful and reassuring.  And then he added, and he accepts that a lamp gives out about 4 1/2 feet of light in front of us and that God gave us that metaphor to understand that we have to trust and surrender what is beyond the throw of the light is only in God’s hands, and that He will reveal what lies ahead only when we trust in Him and take one more step forward.  Yep, God’s lamp unto our feet is just enough.

Reference: Psalm 119:105 (New Living Translation)