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 2528: Responsibilities

purposed worKING No Comments

“Get the truth and never sell it; also get wisdom, discipline, and good judgment.”

The pace of work and industry is speeding up.  There is no great measurement that tells us this, other than productivity is up, supply chain time has decreased and numbers can be generated with a push of a button. So, what does this do to us?  For one thing, it makes it harder and harder to keep up, listen and to do the digging to know and understand what is and isn’t the truth. Ray Dalia built Bridgewater Capital on seeking the truth in each and every analysis and answer.  He tells people that it has become more difficult than ever to find the real truth.  And, the energy and effort it takes today to dig deeper can be exhausting. But, we have to do so.  If we don’t then the outcomes can be dangerous, if not disastrous.

A very long time ago in 1947, C.S. Lewis wrote a book called Miracles.  My pastor, Terry, gave the book to me last spring for my birthday.  I finished it recently and it was not an easy read.  It is challenging intellectually.  I liked it a lot.  There were many parts of the books that struck me as being as relevant today as it was when he wrote it so long ago. He wrote this about our responsibilities as it relates to seeking and finding the truth:

“In the conditions produced by a century earth or so of naturalism, plain men are being forced to bear burdens which plain men were never expected to bear before. We must get the truth for ourselves or go without it. There may be two explanations for this.  It might be that humanity, in rebelling against tradition and authority, has made a ghastly mistake; a mistake which will not be the less fatal because the corruptions of those in authority rendered it very excusable. On the other hand, it may be that the Power which rules our species is at the moment carrying out a daring experiment. Could it be intended that the whole mass of the people should now move forward and occupy for themselves those heights which were once reserved only for the sages? Is the distinction between wise and simple to disappear because all are now expected to become wise? If so, our present blundering‘s would be but growing pains. But let us make no mistake about our necessities. If we are content to go back and become humble plain man or being a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. But the man who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her/himself is fatal. A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: A society where all were seers could live even more fully.  But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death.”

Ours is the responsibility to find and live the Truth, which when we do and we live it out, we are living up to our responsibilities.

Reference:  Proverbs 23:23 (New Living Translation)