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 2407: All At Once

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“Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

Here in the Bay Area we have a crisis.  No, it is not what I have written about regarding technology platforms and the issues that are surrounding them, it is a crisis of “Scooters”.  Yes, I wrote, scooters, as in two-wheeled transportation vehicles, some electric-powered, some not. One would think that we would welcome new ways of transportation that are eco-friendly and more convenient. And, I believe we would have had not there been hundreds, if not thousands of scooters showing up all at once.  We are not built to receive too much at once.  I imagine had the three scooter companies who have entered the San Francisco market, slowed down, rolled out gently, taught people through marketing how to use scooters to improve transportation there wouldn’t be the pushback.  But, that is not what we do today.  Instead, we are in the age of “all at once”.  What lives below this is the old adage that it is better to ask for forgiveness versus permission. And this is where we run into problems.  All at once, seldom, if ever, works.  We are better when we test, assimilate, train and ensure that our customers and consumers are ready for what we have to offer.

It is not God’s way for us to expect anything all at once. In our careers we would love if everything we have dreamed, just showed up.  But, that is not how it works. In fact, all at once in our careers, when it happens, usually doesn’t end well. We are taught to wait on the Lord and trust on what that outcome will be.  That doesn’t mean we are not to have ambitions, dreams and goals.  But, it does mean that we shouldn’t find ourselves disappointed, depressed, discouraged or desperate because what we expect has not come to us when we thought it would.  It comes down to where we place our priorities.  If our priority is for it to come to us all at once, then we end up where we shouldn’t be. But, if our priority is to bring glory to God in all that we do and following Him, then He will deliver.  That we can count on!

Reference: Psalm 27:14 (New Living Translation)