The Faith Code at Work: Purpose, Fulfillment, and Legacy | Rusty Rueff | 606

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. And today my guest is an old friend, Rusty Ruff. I usually don't do this, but I'm actually going to read his bio. I usually kind of rush through those because they bore me, but Rusty's got such a cool bio that I'm gonna, I'm gonna Share it with you. So Rusty invests in, advises, and governs startups. He was appointed by President Obama to his Advisory Committee for the Arts for the Kennedy Center and was coordinating national co-chair for technology for Obama. Most recently, he served on the founding team of Invest Innovators for Biden. He is a director of Alioth Talent, a co-founder, run coach, Nate Tomeas Restaurant Group. He was on the founding boards of Glassdoor and HireVue. He was the CEO of Snowcap. I'm going to fast forward through some of this. He's written a book. When it comes to the Grammys, he was the chair of the Grammy Foundation in LA, and he's got a new manifesto for the human side of business. And then most importantly, Rusty, his wife Patty, and Theo, his French bulldog, reside in Burlington and Charleston, Rhode Island. So talk about a Renaissance man. Welcome aboard, Rusty.

Hey, Peter. Thanks, thanks, thanks. You know, I always think about like profiles and stuff. You almost like don't even want to have one out there. You just want to go, Okay, you know, let's find out who this guy is. But yeah, exactly.

So let's sort of keep to the theme of the podcast, but tell us about your journey, not through all the, you know, from Grammys to White House and all that, but like, what's the through line for you as a thought leader? And if we were to sort of do an intellectual archaeological dig, let's get to the start and kind of where it is today, because I think it's things build on their foundation. As it relates to leadership?

Yeah, you know, I, I'd like to think that I've, uh, that I've got actually thoughts that, uh, that other people want to follow, and I could actually be thought of as a thought leader. Now, um, but I think what, uh, there, there are a couple of places where in my career and upbringing and all of it comes together that I think that I have, um, I might have something that people look at and go, okay, well, that's thought leadership. And, you know, I spent a lot of time, you saw there in my background, but, you know, I was at PepsiCo for a lot of years, Electronic Arts for a lot of years doing the human capital stuff. So I, HR, lots of other functions. And then I got to be a CEO and I got to run all these organizations, as you mentioned, the Grammy Foundation and theater boards. And, you know, and what I've come to, Peter, is that this whole thing, not surprisingly when I say this, is one big human experience, right?

Right.

Our work, our relationships, the things that we spend time on, it's just one big human experience.

Well, but stay there a minute because I think that, you know, you and I are probably about a similar age. When we were coming up, that wasn't so, right? It was your personal life was personal, your business life was your business life, your spiritual life is your spiritual life. Like, so that's— I mean, we sort of take that for granted today, but that hasn't always been so.

No, that's, that's exactly right. It was, it was very segmented and you— and put in silos. And in fact, you didn't, you didn't allow for those things to be blended because your work became such a big deal, you know. Yeah, your self-esteem, your ego, everything was around your work, and people didn't really want you to hear anything about anything outside of your work. And, um, but I think what happened, and I will go back, let's say, um, about 35, 40 years ago, the workplace began to meld in other parts of life. Yep. And, and started to talk about things like work-life balance, which you would never have heard about. 50s, the '60s, even the '70s. But in the '80s, we started to talk about it. And one of the first things that employers started to look at, and I, and I, I'm old enough, and you are too, to remember, was they recognized that, well, wait a minute, you bring your whole self to work, and one of the things you bring to work is your body. So your body, we're going to recognize that's important, and your health and your, and your fitness are going to be important. And, you know, corporations built Gyms and allowed us to go do things and go running on running tracks and, you know, schedule time in our meetings to go do that. And they invested and they said, okay, now you brought your body. And then, and in the last 15 years, they started to say, okay, well, I guess we should also pay attention to your mental health and, and, and parts of your mind. And so now we let you bring your mind to the workplace and talk about those things.

Right.

What we've not done is we've not spent much time on the spirit. So if you think about the platform of our lives as an isosceles triangle, mind, body, and spirit, right? We've not really looked at that. Although in the workplace, we want your spirit to be strong. We want you to be committed, not just compliant. We want you to identify with our mission and our purpose.

Yeah, but well, I just, I just want to push on even on the mind stuff. I think we do realize people bring their minds to work, their emotions to work and all that other stuff. It's only the last couple of years, like kind of COVID post-COVID, that mental health is addressed differently in the workplace where it used to be, you know, if you were to look at employee resource services and such for mental health, say 3, 4, 5 years before COVID It was really extremes. If somebody came in, you know, going postal or so obviously depressed or drunk or addicted to something, we'd say, oh my God, what do we do? Like, Rusty fell off the ledge. Like, okay, let's call. Now it's not that. We've moved a few standard DBAs.

We have. We have some of that.

And I think that we've brought that in, but we haven't necessarily retrained the old folks like you and I to say, well, what are the new boundaries here? How do I address if I pick up a queue that I, you know, you're a colleague and I think you might be depressed or stressed or something. How do I handle that in an appropriate way? Because, you know, calling out a big meeting, say, hey, Rusty, you look depressed today. Probably not a good idea. Yeah.

Sadly, that probably happens.

I'm sure it does.

It does because we don't know how to deal with those things. You know, there's no one-size-fits-all answer here, but I will say this. Is, um, the openness to conversation is not the thing that's the, the most beneficial today. And that's when someone can actually— you don't have to be like super courageous or super despondent on either end of the spectrum to be able to go in and sit and tell your boss, hey, listen, I'm feeling really stressed out.

Yeah.

And, and you're correct. I think what's exacerbated, you know, since post-COVID, and I think it's awesome, right, that you and I and anybody else can work wherever we want to work. But, you know, it gets, it gets a little lonely in here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and we need affiliation and we need ways to, to, you know, some of the best times in my career were those times that, you know, you walked out of a meeting, it was a tough meeting. You walked down the hall and you said, You know, that was tough. What are you doing tonight? And you say, wonder, let's go to happy hour. That's— yeah, that. And, you know, and so we got to— we got to watch out for loneliness that turns into helplessness and turns into hopelessness. And we got to have our ears open and our eyes open to those who work for us. But I will just say that I think that, you know, we are in a much better place. We're in a much better place being open with mind and body. And I'm, and I'm encouraged now that people are starting to talk about spirit because spirit is, um, and the reason I bring this up is because I wrote this book, The Faith Code, and I am, and I am so right. Sure. I am so sure that our whole being, you asked me where thought leadership comes from, my, our, that our whole being must have spirit included. And, and anybody can define what that their— what's— how their spirit strengthened in their own way.

Um, but let's stay there a minute. So stay there a minute because I think this scares the heck out of a lot of folks, right? Because if we can both identify, quote, faith-based companies, yeah, right, where they're really clear, you know, Chick-fil-A comes to mind, whatever. And it's not that they're good or bad, or I don't want to get into all that, but like, whatever, they self-identify and make some trade-offs from a P&L standpoint to a brand standpoint. This is who we are, this is what we believe in. And this, and that's what we're about, right? Most companies aren't that blatant about it, right? So most, most companies wanna say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Everybody can do whatever their thing is. We probably don't even need to opine as an organization as to what we believe. So how do you, like, what's the spectrum here from, Uh-oh, we're identifying as this, whatever this is, to welcoming and then even defining spirituality in the workplace. Because I think just the words, the language, scares some folks.

Yeah, well, remember, the root word of spirituality is spirit. Yeah, you know, so for me, Peter, I think the organizations that do it the best are those ones that provide open forums for people who have different interests different backgrounds to come together and find that affiliation, right? So through employee resource groups, through different kinds of networking opportunities, to sharing things, you know, on a Slack channel that they belong to that somebody else doesn't wanna belong to, but it's there if they wanna belong to it, is the best way for an organization who's trying to make, who's trying to make sure that their employees do feel like they can bring their full selves to work. I think when it gets difficult is when someone doesn't feel like they bring their full selves to work. And then when they hit roadblocks and barriers, they don't have anybody to, again, affiliate with, or they don't feel like they belong to that organization anymore. And people quit companies, they don't quit people.

Yeah. That's right.

And if, if, if I have a group of people and we all do, you could call it whatever you want to call it. We all found our little tribes inside of companies that were where we were like-minded and had certain passions and, and we leaned on each other.

Yes.

And if we were really lucky, you know, we've now long, we've now long left those companies, but we still have those friends.

Love it. Love it.

Those are the one.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps. As well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. What is your hope with the book that who do you hope reads it and what do you hope they do differently as a result of being exposed to your ideas? Yeah.

So I mean, I'd love for everybody to read it. It's— I'm sure not everybody is going to. But what I would like you to walk away with, read it or not read it, is we use the, we use the metaphor of are you building your life as a platform or an app? And, and I would like everyone to stop and step back and say, you know, what is the platform of my life? Am I building my life on, am I building it on mind, body, and spirit? Am I building it on values and principles? Am I building in on deep relationships that matter?

Just stay there a second, because I think it's— that's so well put, because oftentimes thought leaders, when I ask them a similar question, they dive deeper into the woods of the change and the metamorphosis. And as a result of X, I want Y to happen. I love that you're just asking like a great goal for you. And I think an attainable goal is can you just ask the question?

That's right.

Whatever the answer may be, may be right. Like, and there isn't in this case a one answer. It has to look exactly like my definition and this, that, the other thing. But, you know, I think too often as thought leaders, we triple-click, right? Before we say, well, what's the— how do we shake people out of a trance? And I think the best way to shake people out of a trance is get them to ask, ask a question, ask them something that like, that's a great question that somebody might have been exposed to, let's say, at a lunch and learn in the workplace. And then over the dinner table with their partner say, you know, I did this thing today. Yeah. Here's what got me thinking. Right.

And, and exactly. That's it. And yes. And if you want to ask another question to yourself to try to get to what is that platform? Yeah. You ask yourself the question, what are those things that if were taken away from me by choice, by not my choice, they were taken away from me that I feel like I It would be such a loss.

Right.

I care so much about that I want to preserve and protect and always make sure it is my, is what my life is built around. Those are your platform aspects.

Yeah.

Those are those things that when you really get down underneath it, and what you'll find when you talk to yourself in the shower in the morning is ask yourself those questions. Things like your job, you'll go, well, you know what? Yeah, I would really, yeah. Well, you know what? I really don't like, I don't really like my job. You know, if I lost it, I could get another one.

Right.

I lost my spouse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

If I lost my health.

Right.

If I lost my mind, if I lose my spirit, Those things, those things, if I lose, would be devastating. And those are the things that are our platform.

Those are the things— And I think the struggle with that is more so as we're coming up the ranks and working really hard and so myopic and all that, that we think that an accomplishment like being awesome at PowerPoint or mastering a room or all the thing, the skills that we develop, they typically are not mentioned in a eulogy, quite frankly. Like, wow, Rusty was— wow, if you ever experienced a Rusty PowerPoint, man, you were in a great meeting. Are you kidding me? That's not what they're going to talk about, right? So I think there's a point. I mean, some of this somewhat Maslow-esque, because this, you know, this higher level stuff, like if you don't have your basics met, if you're unsafe, if you're financially not stable, if, if, if, like, right. When is this, you know, is it a luxury or is this sort of, you know, first world problem or how do you square that circle?

No, it is. I think it is Maslowian, if that's the right way to say it. Maslowian in the sense that we all, we all are doing it. We're just, and we all have it. We're just not prioritizing.

Correct.

Right. And so, you know, and I know people who have prioritized as part of their life for as long as you know them, taking care of their physical well-being. Yeah, they're going to win out over those who didn't, whether—

well, I would say maybe. I mean, there are some of those people that are so extreme egomaniacs that it's all me, me, me, me, me, and they're, they're taking care of, of the physical aspect of their life at the expense of—

out of balance, out of balance of relationships or the other things that, that, that matter. I don't get that.

But those are the Popeye bicep, right?

Yeah. But let's call those the edge cases.

Okay.

That's all right. Because like at the end of, at the end of the day, there's only, if I take my mind, body, and spirit, there's, my mind is going to deteriorate and my body is going to deteriorate. Yeah. No matter what we do, we're going to work hard at it and we're going to delay it. And we're gonna be Mr. Longevity and we're all gonna subscribe to Peter Attia and, you know, and we're gonna live, you know, right, right. No, no, I can with 100% certainty, I'm gonna tell you, you're not gonna beat that. Yeah, there is an end. However, at the end of our day, at the last moment of our lives, our spirit could be the strongest it's ever been in our, in our lifetime.

Right. So, so it's not subject to my knees creak and I can't find the car keys.

Of the three, it's the only thing that can get better while everything else decreases.

I love that.

And that's our, and our spirit, you know, again, wherever it comes from, it's a platform thing. It's a platform thing that, that we can count on. And, and you know, and you and I have right now, again, we are old enough that we, either have parents or friends of our parents or other people. And there's a couple of different ways people go out of this earth. There are those that go out of this earth angry.

Yeah.

Despondent, depressed. I never got there. It didn't work out. And then there are the people who go out of this world going, you know what? What a heck of a life I've had.

Right.

And yesterday, was a great day, and today is going to be another great day. All the way to the end, I want to be the latter.

Love it. Well, I appreciate your time. This has been awesome. It's just been a fun conversation, and I always learn a couple of things when you and I have an opportunity to have a chat. So thank you for coming on today, Rusty.

Thank you, Peter. Great to talk to you.

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