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 346: Is Your Heart Really In It?

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This is a question that I have asked and been asked during my career. Usually this question comes at a time when something big needs to be accomplished and there is a question as to whether or not the person being assigned is up to the task, or not. In my case, I was being asked to take on a job that I had done before and it was a lateral move in many ways.I am more than sure that the reason I was asked the question was that my body language and my level of enthusiasm was not portraying that my heart was not really into making the move. As a side note, my heart was not into it and about 18 months later I ended up leaving the company. It just goes to show that many actions and words start with where one’s heart is on a subject. If our hearts are into something then our words, our actions, our attitude, etc. will follow. And vice versa; if our hearts aren’t into it, we will find ourselves trying to fake it and it will become obvious to others. This is why we need to be very much in touch with where our heart resides, especially as believers who are working to work and live our purpose. We read in Matthew 12:34 on how important this is to what we do; “…”For whatever is in your heart determines what you say”. If you are trying hard today to make others believe that what you say is the truth, or how you really feel, but it is not what is in your heart, then you are only fooling yourself. Start first with finding out what is in your heart, or getting your heart right, so that you can be assured that the words and actions will be credible, honest and real.

Reference: Matthew 12:34 (New Living Testament)