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 273: Delighting In Weakness?

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While I am on vacation, I have asked friends, and encouragers of Purposed worKING to contribute. Today’s post comes from Hank Stringer. Hank is a dear friend, an experienced executive recruiter, technology entrepreneur and author, including the co-authoring of our book, Talent Force.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (New International Version) says: “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

At work we have our strengths and our weaknesses. We have good times and we have difficult times. There are some things we do well and others we don’t. We’ve all experienced the fear of being asked to do something we know we don’t do well, either because we lack the experience or we just have not been blessed with the abilities to accomplish the task at hand. Think of asking the executive to fix the plumbing or the janitor to build the spreadsheets for a new business model…are these weaknesses, examples of the difficulties we sometimes face?

If we react to them as a weakness, if we are embarrassed or hide from our inabilities then yes, by not admitting or addressing them we will not improve in fact we procrastinate and worry which can affect other aspects of our lives. Is this a formula for balanced living and work? No, there is a better way.

God has this figured out. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 he tells us to delight in our weaknesses, difficulties, persecutions and insults. The formula for doing this with ease is easy know that through God’s perfect grace, the gift of His Son who died for our sins and rose again He provides the greatest strength – eternal relationship with Him. Accept your weakness and difficulty as a reminder of His perfect strength.

Reference: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (New International Version)