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 2943: The Missing Ingredient

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“Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love.”

During the pandemic shutdown (hard to believe that yesterday marked one year in the Bay Area since the initial shutdown on March 17th, 2020 – the first in the U.S.) I thought something fun to do would be to spend some time in the kitchen.  No, not the metaphorical kitchen as too many cooks in the kitchen, the real kitchen where food comes from.  The Sunday New York Times has created an “At Home” section and each week there are recipes that even I can make.  I learned a lot in trying to cook.  If there is one thing I figured out early on is that if you want the dish to come out good and tasty, you can’t ignore any of the ingredients.  I know, some are reading this who are actually good cooks who can improvise and substitute ingredients and even leave out some and it will still be good, but for us novices, every single ingredient counts.  And, I think that is true in business.  Some have the wisdom and are adept enough to improvise and skip a step or two, but for the most, we need to be sure that we pay attention, follow directions and never leave out anything that is required.

There are so many things that we can do to bring glory to God in our work and lives which, The Bible leads and directs us to do so.  Paul tells us to be on guard, to be firm in our faith and to be courageous.  We could stop right there and it would be good, but there is a missing ingredient that Paul then reminds us, “And do everything with love.”  That my friends is our difference in the world.  There are many who do good and it is a blessing that they do, but do they do it from a place of love?  The love that Paul wants us to choose and show is the love that we express because we are loved by God.  Yes, for God so loved the world that He gave us His all and He asks us to share His love and let that love be infused and included in all the rest of what we do.  Love is the ingredient that makes the real difference.

Reference:  1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (New Living Translation)