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 634: Quiet Ambition

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“This should be your ambition; to live a quiet life, minding your own business…

There are many ways to derail a career but at least in legitimate ventures other than a complete lack of integrity, the most consistent way to kill a great career is to be outwardly and overly ambitious. When someones ambition becomes known and the person wears that ambition loudly and openly in full view of others something happens where few if any wants to help make those ambitions come true. Whether it is envy, resentment, or something else, there is not a lot of energy expelled by others to support someone who is overly ambitious. In fact, it is just the opposite. Those who have quiet ambitions and work on the behalf of helping others are the individuals who others want to help and push forward. Yet, we get in our head that we have to be loud, that we have to be boisterous, and that we have to let others always know what we want or we fear that we will get left behind or not recognized. This is likely our pride, our ego, and our insecurities all coming to bear at once. But, it is a killer and the overly ambitious can find themselves lonely and left behind.

Paul tells us that part of our ambition should be to be quiet in our life and keep our business to ourselves. What I hear Paul saying to me is that if my ambition is too strong and I am loud with my life then my ambition is not only wrong, but could be damaging to me and others. This is a strong word for us who are in this fast-moving and always changing world in which we work. The work world tells us to be “out there”, to be self-promoting, to Facebook and Tweet ourselves into the lives of others, to publish ourselves, etc. Yet Paul counters this culture with asking us to reset our ambitions and to find a quiet way of living. It is a good challenge for all of us to check our ambitions, check our volume level, and to check our hearts as it relates to what is important in the larger scheme of things. Today, ask yourself where is your ambition and how loud of a life are you living? Too loud today?

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 4:11 (New Living Testament)