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 2769: Positive Visualization

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“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.“

Patti and I took a week of vacation travel last week.  We went to one of those places where you are seeking to be out of touch for a while.  The weather, the accommodations, the food, the company and the travel to and fro were all great.  But, it was impossible to get out of the “mainstream” because of the news and continuing conversation all around us about Covid-19.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, was concerned and every conversation was dominated by it in some way.  It was impossible to physically. mentally or virtually escape.  And so it is with anything we have going on in our work or our lives that is either bubbling up or we have concerns of it arising and soon boiling over.  I think of companies who have security breaches, a product tampering, a service failure or a problem with an employee(s) that when it surfaces will put them on the defense instead of the control and direction that is preferred.  So, what can we do during these times?  Well, sometimes the best thing to do is to accept that for a time frame it is going to be really difficult and very choppy waters and prepare for the worst.  But, at the same time to balance that with thinking about the future when the rough times have passed.  For instance, on the plane ride back, I started looking at the back half of the month of April and beyond and the exciting things that I can be planning for then. If all I did was think about the next few weeks/month and all of the confusion and turmoil that will (and is already happening) with the changes because of the Corona Virus impact on travel, scheduling, economic ramifications, people, etc. then I’d find myself more than bogged down and maybe even paralyzed in not knowing what to do next.  But, if I positively visualize the future, then things start to get better, even now.

One cannot predict what will come next.  Futurists and fortune tellers like to tell us that they can, but they can’t. The only Truth of the future is the one that God gives us. He asks us for our faith in Him and if we give that wholeheartedly and fully to Him, then we can count on that future to be what He promises.  Maybe what could help us today is to stop for a moment and to positively visualize what it might be like to rest in His presence with Him forever.  He’s got all of this under control and He’s working even now, in this moment, on our behalf to prepare not for the worst, but for the best of all.

Reference: John 14:1-3 (New Living Translation)