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 1989: Inside Out

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“And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.”

When a balloon gets filled with more air it is the outside of the balloon that goes where it has never gone before. The same happens with our companies. We start a new initiative, hire someone to develop a new product, we invest to grow, and who gets pushed to new places? It’s those who are the furthest from the outside…sales and customer support both end up further out there than ever before. So, before we decide to just blow harder from the center, we need to consider how far out our teams are able to go before they pop.

I was advising someone this week about how to tell their story to prospective employers. Theirs is not a straight-forward story to be told and in order to bring forth the creativity of this person, being a worship music leader of their church would be the perfect example of what they can do that others can’t. But, that means putting right out there, their faith and it’s someplace this person has never gone before. Here’s the difference t from what happens in the world. When we allow God and the Holy Spirit to fill us more with faith so that we can expand ourselves to speak to others and be an example for Him, we can be assured that we won’t pop and that we can expand as much as we allow ourselves to be filled by Him.

Reference: 1 Corinthians 2:4 (New Living Translation)