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 2631: New Calculus

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you”

Twice this week in both a personal and business context, I’ve been asked, “Yeah, but would they do that for you/us if in the same situation?”  My answer was the same, “That’s the wrong calculus…we should not do things for others based on what they might, would have, or have done for us.” The right calculus is to not care what someone else might, or should do, in return.  Instead, we should do what we know is right and only think about the equation that way.

I am not one for advocating the improvement of God’s Word…but if I could….I’d suggest that the Golden Rule would not read, “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you”, but instead, “Do to others more than whatever you would like them to do to you.”  Why do I think this way?  It’s because Jesus did so much more for us than we could ever expect we can do for Him, and He modeled that for us.  And in the day and age that we are in, for God’s love to be noticed through us, we want all the differentiation we can get.  And when someone does indeed go way above and beyond for someone else, so much that it doesn’t really add up why, then it gets noticed. That new calculus can be our and us today!

Reference: Matthew 7:12 (New Living Translation)