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 1180: Personality Power

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For God is working in you, giving you the desire and power to do what pleases Him.

In April, a random book hit the bookshelves in the U.S. titled, “The Cuckoo’s Calling”.  Since its’ publishing date and through this last week it had sold a whopping 500 copies. The author Robert Galbraith had received some good reviews but the sales were like most first novels, weak and uninspiring.  With only 500 copies or so sold, there wasn’t much opportunity for social buzz to get it going.  So, like most other books, the author wouldn’t recoup his advance and the book would be out of print before it got started and Mr. Galbraith would be able to call himself a published author and get on with his next novel, or back to his day job.  That is until this past weekend when the world found out that Robert Galbraith was actually someone named J.K. Rowling. Since that discovery, “The Cuckoo’s Calling” has run through it’s print run, the publisher is scrambling to meet demand, and I predict in a few weeks time Robert Galbraith will be a New York Times best-selling author, if not a #1 spot holder.  Lest we think that there isn’t power in personality?  This is a great reminder that we need to use all we have when launching new products or services. We so want to idealistically think that the great idea we have will take off on its’ own, but in truth to make it through the clutter, it does not hurt to have personality behind it to give it the power to get off the launch pad.  This is why considering partnerships, strategic alliances, or even letting others take the spotlight in the promotion or branding may be the better way to success.

I shy away from promoting myself or thinking that my personality/brand makes a difference for God and the expansion of the Kingdom.  I feel like it is having too much pride. But, each time I hear about or meet someone who’s personality and brand proceed them, only to find out later that they are believers, I think, “How wonderful it would be if more people knew of their faith and what an example they could be.”  Remember the Sunday School song verse: “Hide it under a bushel basket? NO!…I’m gonna let it shine!”  In Philippians, we are told that God works in and through us and He gives us power to bring Him pleasure and glory.  It well could be that part of that power is our personality, our brand, our presence, that we are supposed to be bringing into the world to be the example of His power.  The question we have to ask ourselves is this;  “Are we leaving God’s message in an unknown state for those around us or are we putting our full personality behind Him to bring His love into the mainstream of our lives for others to see lived out and through us”?

Reference: Philippians 2:13 (New Living Translation)