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 375: “Come Back To Me When You Have More Stories”

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Career impatience is a terrible thing. We all go through it at some some point. This is when we think we are ready for the next job or the bigger assignment or the promotion up the ranks, but we aren’t actually ready for any of these because we don’t have the experience, wisdom, or honed skills to do the job. Unfortunately, it is hard to find someone who will be honest enough with us to set us straight. Instead we end up frustrated and can’t understand why others moved ahead of us. Many a person ends up leaving a job and a company over this reason, but had someone just talked to them honestly they would recalibrate and be okay. This happened to me once in my career when I just knew I was so ready to go to the next level, which as I remembers back then was the title of “Senior Manager”. I was obsessed with it and hounded my boss, yes, hounded him about it. He was a patient guy and he looked at the 28 year old in front of him and said, “Come back to me when you have more stories”. At the time I didn’t understand what he was saying but over the years I realized that when you gain experience and wisdom you start to have stories that can be told and when you can tell stories to others about experiences and examples, then you are ready to take on the larger role. This is Good Friday, the day that we remember as the day our Lord was crucified. It is a solemn first day in a three-day triumverant celebration on Easter. Jesus came to this earth to be like us and like us, he had to work and live and grow into the time when he was ready for the fulfillment of His calling. While He was still God, He was man and as a man he collected experiences and the relationships so that he could tell His stories. Those stories became the parables that we read in the New Testament that shape us into the people that He wants us to be. Even in the footsteps of Jesus we can gain career learning. We have to be like Him with patience and perseverance knowing that it all doesn’t come to us overnight, but rather we have a journey of years in front of us before we reach the final goal. Jesus was God and Jesus was man, but Jesus didn’t become the fulfilled Messiah until the stone rolled away and He rose from the dead. Jesus had three days that none of us will have to ever go through. And from those days, came the story that each one of is sent out into the world to tell. The journey of a career is long, and only with time can you collect the stories that you will need to be the leader and the best at what you do. Don’t rush it and don’t think it is going to pass you by. Sometimes we have to walk in long and tough roads to get to where we are supposed to be to pick up a few extra stories along the way.

Happy Easter and may the blessings of the One who went the whole way for us, be on you!