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 2795: Reentry

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” So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

We now are talking about “reopening” States across the country. For us individually, it will feel less like an opening and more like a “reentry”.  It makes me think about those space missions that we learned about as kids and the astronauts and their space capsules/shuttles as they returned to the earth’s atmosphere.  Back then, the angle and speed by which the space capsules reentered was very important.  Too steep and the capsule would come in “too hot” and burn up, too shallow and the capsule would skip off the atmosphere into space like a skipping rock.  And maybe, that is what we need to consider as we “reenter” the workplace and other activities soon.  It’s been a long five, now starting a sixth week of Shelter in Place for Patti and me and believe me, we are ready to get back to our regularly scheduled programming, but we also have talked about what it will be like when “off we go” to a day outside of the house, by ourselves, etc.  I’m thinking, too much too fast isn’t a good idea, but too slow and too hesitant won’t be right either, so like the brave astronauts who commanded their space capsules, I/we all need to thoughtfully and prayerfully find the “glide plane” that is best for us and to start that planning now.

I’ve been spending time in the Old Testament and I have been struck now more in these readings than in times past about the Israelites entry into Canaan and how they finally got there and who got to make it in and who didn’t, Moses in particular. There come certain things in life that God chooses for us to not achieve or attain and without a doubt they are always the hardest things for us to accept. This time we have been in, and might be in for a while longer, will mess up a lot of things in our plans, goals, jobs, dreams, careers, etc.  There might be aspirations we have that are being delayed or changed that we have no control over and yet, we need to have something to hang onto so that “reenter” in the best frame of mind and spirit. We are taught that He goes ahead of us and like anyone who is leading or guiding someone well, God will not take us someplace that is not good for us or not in His will.  That, we can know for sure.

May we reenter well; at His speed and angle, which He is preparing for us even now.

Reference: Deuteronomy 31:6 (New Living Translation)