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 751: Fire In The Belly

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“Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when gossip stops.”

It’s common to hear the coaching from a business leader that he/she is looking for more “fire in the belly”. Fire in the belly is a term used for motivation, initiative, self-starting, passion that doesn’t allow for giving up, etc. Businesses who have fire in the belly in their leaders tend to also have that spirit carry throughout their organization and find themselves moving faster with greater intensity than others. When organizations who have this and then lose it, it can feel like the company has come to a screeching halt. There are many examples that we can all think of where a company that once seemed on top of the world, seems to lose their “mojo”. If we could get inside of these companies and do research we would likely find that there was a loss somewhere of a leader who who lost the fire in the belly and therefore things changed or slowed down. So, when someone is asking about how much fire in the belly the company, or a person has, it is a good question and one to consider the answer.

Now, with each us, we need to be sure that we have the right kind of fire in the belly for us to be effective in bringing glory to God in our work. I know many people who have plenty of fire, it’s just the wrong kind of fire. The things that can fuel us in the workplace can be all of the wrong kinds of fuel. We can get really fired up over being competitive, or being vindictive, or just selfish in watching out for our own personal gains and status. These are the wrong kinds of fuels that should be removed. Solomon tells us that we need to watch out for gossip and quarrels as part of our fuel. As we all need to have a fire in our belly, let’s be sure that we know what that fuel is and how it makes us burn. If we are being driven by the wrong reasons, that fire needs to be managed so it doesn’t start to burn out of control.

Reference: Proverbs 26:20 (New Living Testament)