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 2353: Overnight Breaking News

purposed worKING No Comments

“Don’t sin by letting anger control you.Think about it overnight and remain silent.”

A couple of weeks ago the Bay Area was put under a Tsunami Alert.  A big earthquake off the coast of Alaska triggered the alarms and the Northern California coast and anyone living within 5 blocks of the Bay were to be ready to evacuate.  The problem with this alert was that it came at 3:50AM and no one I know knew of it until they woke up.  There was no tsunami, but what if there had been?  We never know what we are going to face in the mornings when we turn back on the phone or log back in.  There was a time, and I can still vaguely remember it, when we went to bed to sleep that there was no company news or messages to respond to until we got all the way back into the office and would check our inboxes (our literal wooden, metal or plastic inboxes) and written phone messages that our Assistants might have taken after we left the office.  When I reflect on those days, I wonder if we actually had better thinking then than today?  I know I would think more on those things that were important, being able to not be distracted by the urgent or the immediate.  I don’t long for those days, but I do wonder if we shouldn’t somehow explore how to allow people to have more times of freedom of thought, versus going to bed worrying about what will be breaking overnight that they should get up and check on. Some of our best thinking time can be as our mind is at rest.

Part of our being always on and always available is that we can’t always control our emotions as well as we should, and if like me, the last things I read or talk about before I sleep can set the tone for the night’s rest or restlessness. So, I’ve found it’s a really good idea for me to not scroll Twitter before I go to bed.  🙂 We all have our trigger buttons and it might be the contentious email late at night that sets us off.  You know, King David had a lot of enemies and lots of reasons to get angry and need to think about what to do with those who angered him.  But, in the midst of it all, he left us with the advice that using the night to think and allow our emotions to calm is a really good thing.  What a simple, but profound, life lesson for each of us to contemplate and consider adding into our life axiom.  And, imagine how much better we can be for those around us if we were to follow the advice consistently?

Reference: Psalm 4:4 (New Living Translation)