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 490: WorKING Context

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I get asked by believers who work outside of the ministry if the work they in their day jobs really matters to God? I usually smile because I have only asked myself that question a million times. The question usually comes from someone who has an inclination and a gnawing inside of them to go into the ministry or get more involved in their church, etc. My conclusion to the question is that God does care about the work we do, but not in the way that the world measures or values the work. For God, the work we do daily to feed our families is the means to a different end. If God gives us all that we have and God created all that is around us, then God recognizes the value of work and the value of our jobs, but He cares about the “how” of what we do, not the earthly “what” results. Don’t let this sound offensive but the people around us don’t care that much either in what we do. If they did, then we would all know and remember and be able to quote the accomplishments and accolades of the person who is doing the exact job that we have right now, 50 years ago. Do you know who was sitting in the office that you sit in 50 years ago? Do you know who had the job title that you have 50 years ago? You may be in a job that you are the first to do it, or you are self-employed, but even for you, think, who was doing what you are trying to doing 50 years ago at another company, or in the same community? The fact is that few people are remembered for what they did. What God cares about is “how” we do it. That is evident all over the Bible and the teachings that we receive. Just read Romans 12:1-8 and apply that to our work and we can see the emphasis that He wants us to have. What is great is if God truly cares more about the “how” than the “what”, that it does not matter what we do for a living but we are all in very important jobs. We can be a CEO or a student. We can be a teacher, a maintenance worker, a salesperson, an assistant, an accountant, a director, a writer, a lawyer. The substance of the work is really inconsequential. How we go about our work and use the platform that we have to bring glory to God is the context that does matter. So, as you ask yourself the question about your job, your profession, or your work and how it matters, know that the answer lies not with what is on your business card but in how you do the job that has been given to you.

Reference: Romans 12:1-8 (New Living Testament)