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 1445: Contrarians

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“But when you call the people to an assembly, blow the trumpets with a different signal.”

In the stock market the contrarian is the short seller who are always betting against the stock and the company creating more shareholder value.  We also see activist investors and board members who want to do the opposite of what the current board and management team are out to achieve.  Even within our own ranks there will be people on our teams who take the other side of the argument, sometimes just for the sake of being known to be a contrarian.  Being a contrarian is not wrong, but it is certainly in the attitude and approach that we take that keeps it right. Without contrarians we wouldn’t have inventions.  We’d just keep doing things the same way we always did with little improvement or desire for change. It has been the contrarians who brought us cars, light bulbs and ipods.  And while they might seem a little crazy at first, these are the people who through their time, energy and spirit persuade others to go with them on the contrarian ride.

Jesus was the ultimate contrarian.  The world was following a set of rules and laws for humans to follow.  He superseded them with His commandments that we are to turn everything over to Him so that we can be His true followers.  Jesus didn’t even follow the expected cycle of life!  He proved that through Lazarus and His own resurrection that death was not final and that life through Him can eternally beat out death.  We’ve explored many times the contrary to popular beliefs and ways that we must accept if we are to follow Jesus, but let’s also remember that love, grace, service and mercy that is shown to others because of our love for Jesus are the most positive contrary acts that we can bring to a world that expects just the opposite.  In Numbers the direction was given to blow the trumpet differently to gather and assemble the people.  It may be that we are being called to do just that today.

Numbers 10:7 (New Living Translation)