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 1322: Stop Comparing!

“…what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”

Yesterday I wrote of looking right and left and how we compare ourselves to others.  It’s easy to write and talk about it. It’s hard to stop doing. I found myself in a Board meeting yesterday trying to bring a point home and the only way I could do it was to make a comparison to another company. I watched as a number of people were writing down what I had to say.  I hope I didn’t create another false competition.  There is nothing wrong with competition, or even comparing, unless we become obsessed so much on others and how they are doing that we forget who we are ourselves and how well we are doing, how we can get better internally, and never full of bragging or arrogance when we actually do exceed those in our peer set. It’s about attitude and how we carry ourselves.  One of Major League Baseballs greatest of all time, Derek Jeter, announced his retirement yesterday. It was not lost on me, or many others who I read, that Jeter made his announcement without comparison, fanfare, or any hubris. Imagine if our companies and CEOs were more like Derek Jeter.

In church a few weeks ago at Reality LA the pastor said that there were the four things to do to stop comparing:


-Affirm and honoring the good that God has given to other people
-Immediately pray that God will give and bless those people more
-Support them in their blessings and then serve them to add to their blessings
-Gladly take the lesser place in service 
This is hard stuff to do, but if we find ourselves turning ourselves inside out to stop making comparisons with others, then we are living out the example that Christ has given us and that can only lead to good.
Reference:  John 21:22 (New Living Translation)