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 875: Looking Up

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.”

“Things are looking up!”. That’s one of those statements we love to hear in the office or from the CEO. Of course, if things are looking up, that might have meant that the picture wasn’t all that rosy before, but we will let that go for now. Optimism encourages enthusiasm and confidence. It’s well known and shouldn’t be ignored. When in doubt about how to to motivate a team, get the call rolling, or starting an initiative, put an optimistic leader in charge and others will follow. Here in Silicon Valley, I see it all the time. Founders and entrepreneurs are over the top optimistic and this optimism pushes them through all kinds of walls and challenges. It’s infectious and it works. So, if something isn’t going well in your organization, look to the leader and see what level of optimism they are exuding and then go from there.

King David tells us to look up to see God’s craftsmanship. He is so right. We need only to look up into God’s heavens to understand His power and where we fit into it all. God gives us so many reasons to proclaim His glory and to be optimistic, hopeful and excited about our future and what He can do through us. Today, let’s not forget to look up to see Him and to be the ones that others see optimistic about life and all that we have been given.

Reference: Psalm 19:1 (New Living Testament)