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 738: Super Wisdom

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“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace-loving, gentle at all times and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere.”

I was recently with a young entrepreneur who tried to convince me of all the things he knew and in the course of the conversation try and convince me of all the things I didn’t know. He was doing his best to try and be “wise”, but the more he tried, the more “foolish” he looked and came across. This is of course, not an unusual occurrence in a business world where freshly minted graduates come into the workplace full of vigor and unlimited optimism and confidence. We also have built the “system” to reward and recognize the new and for the young to push on the old. It is no wonder that those with no wisdom display all the signs of not having it even though they think they do. This is why it is important that in the businesses that we run that we take the time to spend with the up and comers and help them learn the ropes and find a pace that allows them to succeed but also to learn, take-in, experiment, and realize that there are many ways to solve a problem and many years before one can claim to “know”.

I love the verse in James that explain what wisdom is really like. To me, what is described is “super wisdom”. How great to be able to have such traits and to be able to bring those things forward to others. how James describes wisdom is how we could all best live our lives. Imagine that we were able to come into our workplaces and demonstrate these ways of treating others and handling ourselves? Would there be any doubt by anyone that we we were not “wise”? As we work to develop ourselves and to try and walk in the footsteps and example of our Lord, let’s work to become truly wise by allowing God to work in us.

Reference: James 3:17 (New Living Testament)