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 2806: Three Tides

purposed worKING No Comments
“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.”

Most people think that are two tides….high and low and that tides come in and they go out.  But, there is one other tide and that is “slack tide”.  That’s when the shift of the tide, while happening, is hard to discern and the flow of the tide seems like it has almost stopped.  But, it hasn’t.  It’s either ending one and starting another but we just can’t tell for a little bit.  I think we can all agree that we’ve been experiencing an outgoing tide for a couple of months now and are now wondering if we have reached low tide yet or are we in “slack tide” yet?  If we are in slack tide, then that is great because that means the tide will be coming back in soon.  This experience is not unlike so many ebb and flow cycles in our businesses and lives.  We are just rowing along and then the tide changes. While I’d like to say that our business and life tide shifts could be as predictable as the tides of the ocean, they never can be that way, but we can be doing everything we can to prepare for the next shift.

Yes, life is always changing and shifting, but our God never does. I’ve been encouraged by those who are letting their faith row them against the tides of fear, anxiety, uncertainty and doubt. What this crazy time is telling me is that no matter how hard I personally row, I can’t on my own break through the tides, but God can.  He’s got this and knew it was coming so He has a plan for when the incoming tide is to resume and when it does He will return us to new levels we never imagined.

Reference: James 1:17 (New Living Translation)