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 1552: Online Etiquette: Part 6 of 7 – What’s My Motive?

purposed worKING No Comments

Last year Jon Acuff, wrote an article for Relevant Magazine, entitled, “7 Questions to Ask Before You Throw Down Online”.  Each of these are worth exploring in the context of purposed worKING and how we handle ourselves in the workplace and online.

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Okay, everyone else questions our motives, so we too should question our own motives.  Wnile we all like to think that our motives are pure, can we be really honest with ourselves for a moment and admit that when we do things online we might be acting like we are there to be helpful, but down deep there is much of helping ourselves as anything?  Now, that isn’t all bad as helping our customers is also helping ourselves and our reputation with them.  But, when we just get out there on social media acting like we are there to provide knowledge, assistance or support that at the end of the day is better for us than others, then we might be messing up without even knowing.  Certainly engaging in any argument online we need to be sure that we have a motive that is pure.  Arguing online or taking on others isn’t sport.  It’s dangerous emotional warfare that we need to be sure that we in it for the right reasons.

Pride or haughtiness just doesn’t cut it as a proper motive for us. It might be for others, but as followers of Jesus, we can’t stand on those motives.  Our motives need to mirror those of His heart.  If we really think and act this way, we will find that much of what we could be stirred to participate in, will fall aside.  The need to have the last word will leave us.  The need to be the first to respond will lessen.  The need to be right all the time will subside.  Our motives can deceive even us.  Let’s take time today to evaluate our motives before we act.

Reference:  Proverbs 4:23 (New Living Translation)