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 3K155: Accepting Advice

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“Everyone enjoys a fitting reply; it is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time!”

We usually think that it is harder to receive advice than it is to give advice.  But, both are similarly hard.  Seth Godin says this about receiving advice, “It’s quite natural to be defensive in the face of criticism. After all, the critic is often someone with an agenda that’s different from yours.  But advice, solicited advice from a well-meaning and insightful expert? If you confuse that with criticism, you’ll leave a lot of wisdom on the table.”  He goes on to say that we can think about advice like clothes, just try it on and walk around in the store/moment and stand in front of a mirror/ourselves and see what we think.  More often than not we will know what we like or don’t like.  But giving advice, well that is a whole other story.  It’s easy to criticize, but not so easy to give insightful, caring and constructive advice, especially when we know that the advice might sting a little.  But, for those that we care and love, we can’t not give our advice; that is if we really care about the well-being and improvement of others.

Solomon tells us that we all enjoy the fitting reply and that when we say the right thing, at the right time, it is wonderful to experience.  We can wrap advice in here as well because good advice can also be fitting for when we need it and know we can count on someone wise and caring to help us along.  We can be that person for others and when we are that person, we can be there for them in their times of need.  Jesus taught us to be this way when He commanded us to love one another.  Consider today who might want and need a little advice from someone who is there for them because of our love for Christ.

Reference: Proverbs 15:23 (New Living Translation)