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 2343: Hear and Practice

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“But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.”

I’m a fan of the language App, Doulingo.  With just a few minutes a day, consistently used, one can pick up the basics of a new language.  It’s fun and engaging.  It’s too bad not all Apps are as good.  But, even as good as it is, Duolingo is totally ineffective if all that we do with it is to listen and not perform the exercises as practice for learning the language.  I am reminded that we might provide lots of information and instructions, but unless that is usable and compelling enough to actually have us listen, learn and remember then we are just wasting our energy, resources and time.  Worse yet, we are creating a perception by our customers that we don’t care enough to make something interesting and worthwhile for them.

Should we just listen to what God tells us and go about our own way?  Or, should be listening and then put into practice what He is teaching to us?  Of course, we are to do the latter, but how often do we consistently do so?  We don’t, even though we know that when we don’t we are being foolish and reckless (like building a house on sand).  But, God welcomes us back from each of our bad decisions and even when we act as though we haven’t heard a thing He has been saying to us.  So, today when we have a misstep, or we fail from what we know He would want us to do, we can do like what works so well in Duolingo; take 5 minutes to hear God through His Word and then go practice what it is that we heard.  We can be assured that God will provide just the right lesson for us.

Reference: Matthew 7:26 (New Living Translation)