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 1063: Repeat Performances

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“But as for you, promote the kind of living that reflects the right teaching.”

This past week Apple delivered a stunning quarter of results.  Stunning because they reported $31B in profit in the quarter- amazing!.  But also stunning because they lost almost 20% in market value because Wall Street didn’t see unbridled growth and new products to deliver them even further up the market food chain. There is a law of big numbers and maybe Apple has hit that ceiling, but it’s just as much about our society’s way of keeping score and measuring results as it is whether or not they can actually get any bigger.  If we are always to measure by quarter over quarter, or year over year, then all companies will at some point peak and ultimately fail in the eyes of the investment community driving investors top put their money elsewhere. The irony is that Apple has enough cash on their balance sheet and they are so profitable that they don’t need Wall Street any longer and if not for the employee compensation that has an equity component, why would they need new investors, or current ones at all?  I am waiting for the first company that will finally come out and make this call to Wall Street and then see what they do.  The point is that after a while if it’s always the repeat performances that matter that we will all someday be unable to deliver.  Are we ready for that day?  And when it comes, will we be able to be like Apple and still hold out head high and see that the results delivered are still stellar!

Let’s be very thankful that God doesn’t grade us on repeat performances.  God is so loving and merciful that He knows that we can’t always get better period over period.  He only asks that we never stop trying and that we give all of ourselves to Him to strive to bring glory to Him in all that we do and then share His good news with others! Paul wrote to Titus and directed him to promote the kind of living that reflects the right teaching.  If we are to live as God desires us to do, we won’t be chasing the next big win or constantly seeking to repeat and overlap our achievements. We will instead turn to Him and seek His will and pace for our lives and then do all we can to live in, out and through the direction He provides.

Reference:  Titus 2: 1 (New Living Translation)