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 322: Immunity

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Immunity was a word that was seldom used in common language before ten years ago. What it meant then was be immune to a disease or some catastrophic illness. That was the context in which we use the word. Now we hear the word all the time and it means getting to stay for another week on the television show. It means not having to be evaluated and judged by our peers. I have heard the word used in business settings too when someone doesn’t have to give a presentation or their budget gets approved without scrutiny, they got “immunity”. It is strange, and true, that having immunity at work would be a great thing. Imagine not having to go through the stress and pressure of performance evaluations, or not having to worry about the reaction of a customer, or not having to worry if you are going to be put on the layoff list or not. That level of immunity would indeed be excellent. It would also be nice to have career immunity where you could know that you will be successful in your endeavors and that the set of jobs that you have chosen will all add up to something great in the long-run. Alas, no matter what challenges we win and alliances that we have formed, no one gets that level of immunity at work. And because of that we let the worries of work, the worries of others, the worries of our self-esteem, our worries of performance and ability to contribute, sneak up on us and zap our confidence and courage. It is in those moments that we privately say a prayer to God, “If only I could get immunity from all of this”. God certainly wants us to be bringing our work worries and problems to him continuously but His immunity and promise does not come through the work that we do or the man made decisions that happen all around us. He provides us the ultimate immunity through His Son as we read in John 14:6; “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” As we wish for immunity in the lives that we live and the work that we do, let’s not allow ourselves to get caught up in the temporary immunity that carries us from week to week, but instead stand on the promises of the ultimate immunity over those things that really matter.

Reference: John 14:6 (New Living Testament)