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 2192: “Throw Your Hat In the Ring”

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“Everything in me will celebrate when you speak what is right.”

A differentiation in the workplace, from the beginning of what is defined as “work”, has been initiative.  Seldom do we hear someone say, “She takes too much initiative”.  And if we do, then it’s usually a backhanded compliment and we don’t really want to them to stop taking that initiative.  So, we do want people to “throw their hat in the ring”. I read where this statement comes from. President Woodrow Wilson was being pushed to announce that he would run for a second term.  At the time, one of the most public and most covered by the media events was the traveling circus. So, while one night when President Wilson was at the circus, the Ringmaster (from what was to become the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Baily Circus) egged him on until finally President Wilson made his declaration that he would run again by taking off his top hat (common wardrobe at that time) and throwing it into the circus ring, thereby establishing for as long we can imagine, the best-known term way of indicating that someone is taking initiative; “throwing your hat in the ring.”  Yes, we want people who want to have lots of hats in the ring.

When we consider how we are to bring glory to God in our work, it might be that each and every day God is asking us to “throw our hat in the ring” for Him. I know how hard it is to speak of our love for Jesus in the workplace, but while we search personally for the best way to introduce Him to others, we can each and every day “work out” our faith in all that we do.  We do have moments for us to “throw in our hats” and when those moments do come, let’s be ready to do so!

Reference: Proverbs 23:16 (New Living Translation)