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 128: Give It Your All Cheerfully!

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I have been writing recently about how work and our jobs can take a lot from us and cause us to become tired, weary and burned out. So, this post will seem contradictory in that this is about giving our all when we do our work. But, maybe not so contradictory after you finish reading. The expectation on all of us in our jobs is to give 100% or more. It’s the nature of business to make an investment in an asset and expect to yield all that asset has to give and more so. The financial accounting rules allow us to depreciate an asset down from 100%, over time and until eventually at zero value left, it comes off the books. But people, talent, us, as an asset do not depreciate (at least we hope we don’t) but instead appreciate with experience, knowledge and know-how. So, the return on the investment in people should be much greater than 100%. If a business hires an employee they should be able to say that they are getting more from the employee than what they are paying and therefore that person becomes “highly valued talent”. It’s just how business works and we shouldn’t fight that, in fact we should fit right in and be an example of that equation working itself out daily. Nowhere in the Bible does God ever ask us to do something half-hearted. We are to dive in head-first with faith and give it our all. And such is how we are to be in our jobs too. In Colossians 3:23 Paul and Timothy write this: “Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord, rather than for people.” Paul and Timothy were challenging the people of Colosse to give it their all and to be an example of people who were working as if they were working for the Lord, which should be with the greatest vigor and joy one could imagine, and for that example to be able to shine through to others with whom they worked. Each day we get the opportunity and privilege to decide how we want to approach our jobs. We can do just enough to get by and have others questioning our commitment, loyalty and work ethic, or we can go at our work as if we were working for the Lord and have others see us as different, inspiring, and motivating. I think we all know which is the right approach. But, there is a another key word in the verse and that is that we are to do this, “cheerfully”. Yes, work can bring us down and our jobs can wear us out, but if we are leaning on Him to get us through then we can also pray that we can bring cheerfulness into the office with us, this in itself will make us different. So, today, give it your all and practice your cheerfulness. Practice makes permanent. So, start today and see where it goes for you. I pray that it will take you someplace that is good and right for you.

Reference: Colossians 3:23 (New Living Testament)