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 2408: Headstands

“Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.”

Last week Amazon’s Jeff Bezos drew some attention from his annual report as he delved into the values and principles that are driving him and Amazon these days.  He described the inspiration that came to him from a handstand coach who said that to realistically master finding the balance and strength of doing a full handstand it would take six months of practice.  Bezos said, “To achieve high standards yourself or as part of a team, you need to form and proactively communicate realistic beliefs about how hard something is going to be.”  I also found this inspiring in that nothing that is of value comes easy and going into any new project, assignment, new hire assimilation, launch, etc. it is in our realistic and persevering approaches that success can be found.

Paul told Timothy that perseverance was part of the pursuit of a righteous and godly life. Our pursuit to bring glory to God in our work and lives is a constant striving which we will never master, but with time and persistence we will find greater ability to hold onto hard sought-after strength and balance.

Reference: 1 Timothy 6:11 (New Living Translation)