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 1244: Will You Pay 10X?

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“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

If I asked if you would pay 10X for something that you could buy for 10 times less elsewhere, I have a very good idea of what your answer would be, “Heck, no!  Who would do that?”.  But, you see, we do it every day.  I watched my wife do it and with nothing but a little shrug and laugh made the payment.  And, believe me, she is thrifty.  What in the world would she pay 10X for?  The answer: a banana.  She buys bananas in a bunch at the grocery store for 0.19 per banana.  But on this day, before boarding a plane at SFO she paid $1.82 for one banana.  She is not alone.  We do the same with a cup of coffee.  We can buy a pound of coffee for what one venti latte can cost. And the same is true of all of the food ingredients that we can make a meal at home versus eat out at nice restaurant. The irony is that we only do this with low cost items. For everything else we comparative shop and only allow a small markup.  This is the new dilemma for those industries (especially food) where the DIY, grow it yourself market is booming. If what we produce or make and sell doesn’t feel like there is enough “value” (or in the case of bananas and coffee, convenience) we will forever be chasing the lowest cost.  As we create and think about our businesses, finding greater value and offers for the consumer allows for higher price point ratios between what they expect and what they will pay.

We are taught that when we give of our resources through our tithes, that God presses it down and returns the amount given to us.  For many when they read that verse they think that they personally will receive 10X back and try and look at tithing as an investment strategy.  Sure, 10X returns, who wouldn’t?  But, those returns from God are for the expansion of the Kingdom. They may not always come back directly to us, but if we give with our heart in the right place, we can expect that He will provide that return and more with what we have given. Will you give for a 10X return for His work?  That’s just a very smart move!

Reference:  Luke 6:38 (New Living Translation)