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 865: It Is Finished

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“When Jesus had tasted it, he said, ‘It is finished! Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

This past week I met with a young entrepreneur who was just about to give up and call it quits on his startup company. He comes to me to ask for advice on occasion and I was glad to be there for him at this moment when it seemed he really needed me. Lots of things have been going well for his business, but he was beating himself up pretty badly as his own self expectations are very high. You can’t help but like this in an entrepreneur but it’s not always fair for the pressure to be that high. After an hour of talking it out and having someone (me) help him zoom out and see how much has been accomplished in such a short time, with so little I might add, he was ready to go back to work and charge the hill again. It’s not always smart to keep going when you know that you aren’t going to succeed, but we shouldn’t give up before we have given it our all. I had to remind this entrepreneur that quitting is a permanent decision to a temporary situation. We should all in our businesses know the difference between the right time and the wrong time to throw in the towel. It’s not always easy to see so we might need the help of others, but we should have as clear of a picture as we can on when and where that decision should be made.

As believers we never have to make the decision on when to say that we are finished, because Christ did that for us. Yesterday we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus and as we thanked Him for the sacrifice He made for each of personally, we can see that it is only He that earned the right to say, “It is finished.” We should never find ourselves giving up, quitting, or slacking off from the work that God has given us. How could we ever when we know what He went through to allow us to be able to lead the lives we can to bring glory to Him? If you are finding ourselves on the verge of quitting anything that is in front of you that you know you should be continuing and furthering, then I encourage to restore the Easter story into your heart to be reminded that we, and what God wants to do with us, is never finished.

Reference: John 19:29 (New Living Testament)