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 2711: Stay or Go?

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“And they stayed there with the believers for a long time.”

I’ve done enough exit interviews and heard the stories of why people change their jobs to know that many leave their jobs because they don’t want to stay and work through the issues that they have, that is, to fight for what needs to be done.  We tend to think it easier to flee than fight.  But, then why don’t we fight harder? I think it is partly human nature.  We can’t really change this because it is in our nature to protect ourselves and many times the best way to protect ourselves is to remove the danger by fleeing the situation.  But, that isn’t the only solution for us.  We can also stay where we are and do what have to do to make it better and don’t run away until we have exhausted all options in front of us.

I recently read a book by former oil executive, Terry Looper.  In it he says that the “the Spirit inclines us ‘to stay and obey’ rather than to ‘run and resist’. To run or resist is our instinctive, human response; to stay and obey is the Christian’s Spirit-led response.”  As I read this, it was impressed on me that this is not to be only in the big things in front of us, but in all instances, so that we can apply the principle in all of our work.  So, let’s be reminded today that when out tendencies scream at us to run, that God is calling out to us to sit with Him, wait on Him and to do this in obedience to Him.

Reference: Acts 14:28 (New Living Translation)