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 1104: Finishing

purposed worKING 1 Comment

“I brought glory to You here on earth by completing the work You gave me to do.”

I have found in work that the two times that take the most time and that we spend an inordinate amount of time on, is trying to get things started and trying to get things finished. Both are so important and both have huge amounts of friction points that want to keep starting and finishing from happening.  I admire starters.  These are people who take initiative and are not fearful of their ideas and efforts being ridiculed.  But, I admire finishers even more. Maybe it is the distance runner in me but really everyone can get to the starting line with the least amount of commitment and effort. But, to get through the starting line and to the finish, well, that is a different story all together. How many ideas have we seen get started and never finished?  More than any of us would want to count or admit. I learned early in my naive and over-zealous days that an idea that is started and never finished was probably better left not ever started. Think about and decide what we are going to finish, before we ever start, and we will all be better business people and serve our companies well.

Jesus said to God His Father that the glory He brought to God was through the completion of the work He was assigned to do.  Jesus shows us the power of finishing.  In his last words on the cross, he declared the finish line.  From His sacrifice for each of us, how can we not finish what is given to us and finish well?  God wants us to bring Him glory with what we have been given.  He expects completion. He expects for us to be there at the finish line.  When we think we can’t make it, rest in His assurance that the finish matters and that He wants to take us there. In the middle of this Easter week, let’s remember and consider that God finished well for us so that we could start a new life with Him.

Reference: John 17:4 (New Living Translation)