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 2521: Focusing In

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“…so I replied by sending this message to them: “I am engaged in a great work, so I can’t come. Why should I stop working to come and meet with you?”

How many times today will we be distracted?  Right in front of us we have one thing that we need to get done today (and sooner than later) but no matter how we are focused, we get distracted.  The phone rings, the text comes in, the notifications pop up, the head comes over the cube wall.  We live in the time of distraction making it sometimes seem that focusing is impossible. It means we need to find another reason why we need to focus and sometimes that it reminding ourselves of the greater impact of our work.  I recall something I heard about focusing our minds when trying to find some peace and quiet, that we need to put the goodness we can do for others first so that we can be dedicated to bettering ourselves, for them.  The same can be said for the work we have in front of us.  When we complete this task or project, who will benefit?  And those who do, if we can’t focus for ourselves, can we focus for them?  I know we can do that!

Nehemiah was under all out attack to not finish the wall he was building. It was one distraction after another and these were deliberate distractions meant to cause him and his builders to lose momentum, motivation and focus.  But, when we read on we learn that by not allowing himself to be distracted that he got done in 52 days what it took 100 years to get done before.  Yes, when we focus in on what God is asking us to do and what He puts in front of us, we can do more than would be humanly imaginable.

Reference:  Nehemiah 6:3 (New Living Translation)