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 2931: “-ize”

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“And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.”

 

A couple of weeks ago my Patti bought a new car.  It was needed as she’d driven her last one for 15 years. As we were going through the final parts of the process out came the extra “offers”.  Always at the end of the sales pitch there is the “-ize” offer.  Weatherize, Diamondize, Sparklerize, etc.  It’s a funny process as you know it is coming, but you still have to stop and think for a moment as to whether this is a good proposition or not.  And, at the end of what takes longer than it should, I think they are counting on us being worn out and saying, “Sure, just Superize me!” Is this why car salespeople and dealers get such a bad rap?  Let’s consider what we are offering to our customers and consumers to what they may be thinking, “Are these guys just trying to “-ize me?”

On the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast we interviewed Dr. Tony Evans, Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas.  Along the way in the conversation he said we should all be trying to “Kingdomize” our companies. At first, because of my experience with “-izing” as mentioned above, I didn’t think it was the right word.  But, as I wrote it down and have pondered it over the weeks, I think he is exactly right.  What better can we do than ask for the protection and covering that God can give us, our people and our ventures?  And, what better can we do than to be sure that all that we are working on and doing is to bring glory to Him through our work?  With that, I’m all in on the Kingdomize program!

Reference:  Mark 16:15 (New Living Translation)