145: Kevin Rutherford: Chief Eternal Optimist (CEO) of NUUN Hydration tabs and the keys to happiness. Get inspired…

What You Will Learn:

Kevin Rutherford shares the importance of maintaining a strong team. “In my mind, culture is the single biggest advantage in any team. Business, sport, doing your case studies in grad school or something like that. Like, truly, the single most biggest advantage is all about the team. There is plenty of data that shows the accumulative IQ of a team is always much greater than an individual. And so, that is the greater part that truthfully gets me fired up. The product is one thing. What gets me fired up actually is getting the team rallying behind our cause.”

Was there a moment in time that Kevin Rutherford had in his past prior to Nuun, where the impact of gratitude struck him clearly? “I need to be part of a team as opposed to consulting because I’m not getting energy from that. I realized that I think I have a gift of connecting people and helping people and helping them accomplish maybe more than what they thought they could. I realised I didn’t know that until I really reflected, and an abundance mentality and gratitude gave me more confidence and then I stepped forward and put myself out there. So, I didn’t actually start Nuun.  But, I did take over well over six years ago.”

Does Kevin find pleasurable fulfillment in solving problems instead of being stuck in the office all day? “I didn’t realise it at the time when I first started moving forward in the Triathlon world with swim and bike and run. It is so meticulous, especially swimming for me, it is so technical in that you are always trying to perfect it, and the repetition. So, what ends up happening is by refining this skill to get fine-tuned to get more efficient at everything you are doing, over and over and over, and over again. It is these incremental gains and what ends up happening is you end up becoming sharper and your head becomes clearer because you are just so focused on that moment in time. I have found that it actually helps me in my work life. Because that sharpness, that ability to focus and concentrate then translates to when I’m in a discussion with somebody directly across me.” 

Why can unplugging from technology strengthen our ability to focus? “The phones we have, the smart phones, are basically connected to us. They are an extension of our person. So, we’ve got all of this clutter, and imagine if you could take that completely away for 2, 3, or 4 hours depending, even longer if it is a weekend day actually. It is close to eight hours in a day. So, you take that and you are full-on focused. Like, the muscle that you are building with your brain by not getting all of this clutter of the world really does translate well. I’m a massive believer in integrating sports into your life and that will help you in your business.”

What exactly does Kevin Rutherford mean when he says, ‘culture is alive.’ “When I think about a thriving team and culture, there are many things that come into play. By the way, my belief on this one is ‘culture is alive,’ meaning, it is a living ecosystem that changes all the time. A person leaves your team, comes on the team. Culture is changing. An issue happens. A new competitor comes in. Something went wrong. Something is going right. It is changing. You have to feed it. It is not a checklist.

Adapt or Die

Kevin Rutherford gives us his perspective on being nimble enough in your field to adapt in our ever-changing world. “You need to adapt a little bit. Or, if you don’t adapt, you’ll die. So, in the business context, I love using the example of Kodak. Actually, do you know this? Kodak actually invented the digital camera. But, yet where is Kodak today? Because they basically had it but they kind of held on. They didn’t adapt as to where it was going, and so they thought well, if we hold onto this we are good to go. Then sure enough, the digital camera went and catapulted. They couldn’t actually get theirs on track because they waited.”

Transition to Nuun

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Kevin Rutherford also talks about his career transition at Nuun and the business growth that flourished after his hiring, “I actually came in and said, I’m not changing anything right away. I need to figure out first of all what is going on and first and foremost, what is working. Because there is something that got us here to this spot. So, this is what I find really cool about the power of people and culture. Within the first two months, 60 days, I personally cannot do anything to change this. To be clear, I might be at the helm. It’s a mindset that then drove execution and changed the trajectory of the company. Within 60 days we were already starting to truck long and grow faster, and we actually never slowed down since that point.”

Links to Additional Resources:

• Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
• Emilia’s Everest for the Epilepsy Foundation: markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy-wb/
• Kevin Rutherford: Linkedin
• Nuun: nuunlife.com