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 254: Storytelling

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I heard a gentleman named Andy Goodman speak on the power of storytelling. He rightly said that storytelling was the first social networking, dating back 30,000 years, and that all that we do today with blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is just using shiny tools that further our innate ability and desire to tell and consume stories. Storytelling is ubiquitous in our culture, even at work. We tell the story of the gained or lost customer, the terrific or the terrible boss, the productive or unproductive employee, or the great or horrible job we have. It is just part of who we are. On Monday, many of us will start the week with, “how was your weekend?”, looking for and wanting to hear and tell some stories. The stories we tell are a window into who we are and a reflection of what and how we think. As Andy Goodman said, “stories are our identity”. This thought has resonated and sat with me since I heard it. It has made me think, what are the stories that I tell and what do they say about me? I think of the great storyteller, Jesus, and what his stories said about Him? We as believers know that His stories said everything about Him. The parables, the stories He told, were told to reveal Himself and the kingdom of God to us. And oh how they resonate even today. Much of my work philosophy and coaching with others is rooted in the story of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30. Hardly a week or day will go by that I don’t in some way use the foundation of that story to help others. We all have have our own stories that we tell. Some are good, some not so good. But each of them tell others who we really are and what is important to us. Today would be a great day to stop and listen to the stories that you are telling and if they are not the right ones then it may be time to undergo what Mr Goodman calls, “narrative therapy”. Narrative therapy is the removing of bad stories and replacing them with good ones. Some of us are stuck on a bad story. Work is bad, the job is bad, co-workers are bad, life outside of work is bad, on and on. If those are the stories you are telling to yourself, you can be sure that you are telling the same stories to others. And, what does that say of you? There is a great book of stories to go to replace the ones you have been telling. Look no further today than God’s Word to find the stories to reshape your own story.

Reference: Matthew 25: 14-30 (New Living Testament)