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 3K29: As Is Versus As Was

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“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

As things start to come back in business, and in general, I have run into a number of conversations with the topic being the comparison of “as is” versus “as was”.  Last night I was on a Board call where we reviewed the statistics from Regional Theaters across the country and on average theaters are seeing 50% of the audiences that they had in 2019. There are two ways to look at that number.  We can look at it from the perspective of “as was” and be really depressed.  Or, we can look at it “as is” and be grateful that there are that many people who are coming back to theaters.  It is the same conversation in restaurants, airlines, hotels, churches and anywhere where the gathering of people is the offering.  I’d suggest that “as is” is the best lens to not only accept, but also to build from.  “As was” might come back, but until it does, it will just be a drag to dwell there.

What a gift God has given us with the new person we become with our salvation.  “As was” is dead.  “As is” is what matters.  And from the point of acceptance on, it will only be about “as is” as the prelude to “what will be”.  We have that hope and assurance so if there is anyone who should be able to accept “as is” with gratitude and joy, it should be us.  Our “what will be” is too exciting to even think about “as was”.

Reference: 2 Corinthians 5:17 (New Living Translation)