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 2666: Seeing Is Believing

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“Yes, come,” Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.  Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?”

I saw an ad on Facebook for a set of cleaning of supplies for the house.  The pitch was that what we buy at the store is 89% water and buying the packaging and throwing it away after we are done with it, just doesn’t make sense. So, the company has come up with reusable bottles with a cleaning concentrate (comes in a vial that opens into the bottle) and you provide your own water.  That’s it and when you are running out you reorder the vials and voila, you have a new bottle of cleaning spray for at least a third of the price.  But, could that be real?  I wouldn’t know unless I took the risk, which I did.  So far so good, as the product design delivers and if the use does too, then we are good to go.  The money back guarantee helped close the sale, but it was when the box arrived that the seeing made me a believer.

We all know the account of Jesus walking on the water and then bold Peter taking his own walk, only to be maybe a little more than embarrassed when his doubts had him begin to sink.  Of course, Jesus saves Peter, but not without a little nudge about Peter’s lack of faith.  There is lots to learn from this account, but one thing that stands out to me is why wasn’t it enough for the Disciples to see Jesus walking on the water and then right there and then start praising Him?  But, Peter had to see it for himself, just like we all do.  Which, just made the gift of Jesus coming to the earth as a man that much more so we could see it ourselves to help us believe.  And, like us, so are the people around us wondering if what they are seeing from us is real and worth believing.  Here we are coming off the summer vacations and our breaks and there are plenty of people around us today who would rather still be on the beach than back at work.  What is the message that we are sending in how we have come back to work?  Spring in our step, or shuffling through the day?  Want to be different today?  Approach the day with excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation of the great things that can come from the day.  After all, this is the day the Lord has made!

Reference: Matthew 14:22-23 (New Living Translation)