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 2713: Obsolescence Pivot

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“Christ died and rose again for this very purpose—to be Lord both of the living and of the dead.”

Wall paper used to get really dirty when we heated our homes with wood fire stoves and coal.  Yuck. How did you clean the soot off of the walls?  Well, of course you used Kutol.  Yes, Kutol.  Everyone knew Kutol and everyone used it.  You scooped it out of a jar and then you rubbed it on the wallpaper and it collected the soot, leaving the wall clean and then you threw it away.  It was a doughy type of substance so it was easy to use and relatively clean.  And then we stopped heating our homes with coal and wood and wallpaper didn’t get sooty, now not needing to clean the walls and Kutol sat on the shelf with nothing to be used for.  And then, a kindergarten teacher recognized that this product was non-toxic (which meant kids could use it) and that the dough like material held its shape if you molded it into something.  So, why not turn it into a product that kids could play with?  Fortunately for the owner of Kutol, that kindergarten teacher was his sister-in-law and she took the obsolescence of Kutol and turned it into Play-Doh. And the rest is the story that apparent obsolescence is not at all the end.  It rather can be a pivot that just might turn out to be something really special.

So many times we will say that one closed-door opens another and that we just need to let God do His work in our lives to open and shut those doors for us.  If it was only just that easy to trust and follow in that way.  Closed doors can feel like we are becoming obsolescent. We feel our skills are no longer needed, we aren’t relevant, we’ve lost our mojo, we are no longer supported, etc.  We’ve all been there and we will likely be there again.  In those times, let’s remember that our God is the great God of the pivot.  It all looked like it was over.  Jesus had been crucified and everything His followers had expected was gone.  Their God, their leader and their faith had become obsolescent.  And then three days later, there was a pivot.  When we think we’ve become obsolescent, we are never so in the eye’s of God.  He is ready to give us the pivot we need.

Reference:  Romans 14:9 (New Living Translation

 

Have a great weekend and please come out on Sunday night to my Tightrope Talk with Pastor Terry Brisbane if you want learn more about the necessary tension between our faith and our work.