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 2951: Winners and Losers

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“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

It’s the time of year when Patti and I start getting excited about heading to Louisville on the first Saturday of May for the Kentucky Derby weekend.  Last year, the Derby got moved to Labor Day weekend and no fans were allowed in.  This year, I don’t get my second vaccine until three days before Derby Day so we can’t attend.  It’s a real bummer.  It got me thinking about the 2019 Derby, the last one we attended, and how for 22 minutes at the end of the race, those who had bet on the favorite, Maximum Security thought they were winners, only to have Maximum Security disqualified and Country House, the 65-1 odds long shot named the winner. For 22 minutes a lot of people thought they were winners, only to find out that they weren’t. And so it is in business and life.  We might sit at the top of the heap for a time, almost appearing to be unassailable, only to find our lead gone, maybe to never return.  Intel is going through that right now and retooling management, product, technology, etc. to see if they can regain their winning position.  Net, winning doesn’t come with a guarantee.

Consider that for three days after the death of Jesus, those who wanted Him to die felt like they had won. The Disciples and the followers of Jesus felt defeated and lost.  And then on the third day, the final result was revealed and we know the rest of the story.  Ironically, those who never believed that Jesus rose again, nor that He was the true Messiah may have gone to their own graves feeling as if they won, only to find out in eternity that their prolonged “winning” was instead an eternal.  We should know by now that there is no consistent winning in life, other than in the following of Jesus.  All the rest that we are working so hard for can be taken from us at any moment so lets be sure that we place our full life’s wager with Christ.

Reference: Romans 10:9 (New Living Translation)