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 949: Performing

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“What should we do with these men?’ they asked each other. ‘We can’t deny that they have performed a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it.”

We are coming into the last weekend of the 2012 London Olympic Games.  It’s been exciting to watch and every day Patti and I have been monitoring the medal count.  I have been fortunate to get a bit of an insider look at the Olympic process because of my ex-bosses involvement and some work I got do with the USOC a few years back. What is amplified by the Olympic Games is that at the end of the day performance matters.  By nature of sport and competition there is a winner and then all others.  Second through the last person have given their all but there is only one who crosses the finish line first.  I was struck by the interview that Lolo Jones gave the Today show.  She was discussing the ridicule and accusations she received from the media in the days before her competition, but she also talked about the disappointment that comes with not winning and not performing to her expectations. I am paraphrasing what she said as she spoke through her tears, “I have worked and trained eight hours a day, six days a week for four years for a 12 second race.”  Few of us can say that we have every put forward that amount of effort for so little amount of time of performing.  Business is like sport.  We either win and beat the competition or we settle for some other place in the consumer’s mind. Sure, there is room for many competitors, but to be great, we must perform and perform better than the next company or person.

Our Christian life is about performing and living out our lives in the closest modeling of the life of Jesus as we humanly can. Yes, people listen for our words, but when those words don’t match our actions then they become hollow and false.  It is our actions and how we perform at what we are given that matters if we want to be an example to others. The Sadducees didn’t know what to do with Peter and John, not because they spoke or thought about the works of Jesus, but because they acted and “performed a miraculous sign”.  It would be wise of us to take a moment today and consider how we are performing in the eyes of Christ and from the perspective of others around us who are watching.  Like I am watching the Olympic medal count with anticipation of American being at the top by Sunday night, others are watching us and expecting, counting on us to perform so that they can also feel confident in their faith.  Let’s do our best to give our best and to perform at the level that God desires from us!

Reference: Acts 4:16 (New Living Translation)