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 1297: Emotion, Choice and Distraction

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“But Jesus told him, ‘Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.’”
  
All good sales people know that they must know and recognize, and then be able to respond to, the answers they receive that are the beginning of a deal slipping away from them.  But the rest of us try and close deals everyday with our teams, partners, investors, employees and yes, even with our bosses without the same experience or skills.  Here are three responses to watch out for: 

  • The “Emotion” – “I just don’t know how I feel about this….”  
  • The “Choice” – “I have some alternatives that I need to review first…”  
  • The “Distraction” – “Right now, I just have too much going on to pay attention to this…  

 How we anticipate and ready for these common responses can make the difference between being able to close the deal, or not.   

As Jesus reached out for disciples to follow Him, He heard in response many reasons why not.  These responses were filled with emotion, choices and distractions as reasons to not follow Jesus. We do the same.  We let our emotions, choices and distractions get in the way daily of our walk with Christ.  Work in itself is filled with each of these.  We don’t feel like we can make the hard choices and when we get to that point there are business trips, meetings, a crisis that needs us now.  Within a moment, we have lost our path.  Jesus’ love is unwavering.  His gift for us comes without ties or catches and the only person who can close the deal, is ourselves.  Are we ready to put aside the emotions, the choices and the distractions and put our focus on Him?

Reference: Luke 9:62 (New Living Translation)