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 2188: Completists

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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law”

I was reading an article about the people who feel, for some strange reason that they MUST, every year, year in and year out, see EVERY Oscar nominated best movie before the Award Show (this year there are nine nominated films).  There was a detailed analysis of the psyche of this type of person.  As I read the article, I was a bit taken back because…well, in all transparency, they were writing about ME.  Yes, I am, by definition, a “Completist”.  And to think, I always thought it was only some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder.  I felt so much better.  🙂  Here’s the business lesson in this:  If you have a product or a service that can capture the attention of “Completists” then consider that you might want to create for those people and then let them do the viral marketing for you.  I remember the years when I was at EA when an annual series of a game wasn’t as good as the past year.  While we couldn’t rest on our laurels, we knew that the “Completists” had to have that version in their collection.  Consumers like this, like me, are out there, waiting for you to give them something to complete.

In our walk and working out of our faith we are called on to be “Completists for Christ”.  We start our walk, we confess publicly our following of Jesus and then we are daily called, to the best of our fallibility, to be “Completists” in our faith journey.  What can we do today to further that walk?  We can dive a little deeper into God’s Word.  We can spend a little more time in prayer.  We can reach to a Sister or Brother to strengthen them.  We can look to the tree of God’s Spirit, pick a fruit and see if today we can’t live this out and be as complete in this area as we can humanly be. Why?  Because, others look for those who can be “Completists” in life and they will wonder why you can be so?  And, yes, you will be able to completely let them know why!

Reference: Galatians 5:22-23 (New Living Translation)

PS:   My topline Oscar Predictions for who will win, whether I think they should or not:

  • Best Picture- La La Land
  • Best Actress – Emma Stone for La La Land
  • Best Actor – Denzel Washington for Fences
  • Best Supporting Actor- Mahershala Ali for Moonlight
  • Best Supporting Actress – Viola Davis for Fences
  • Directing – Damien Chazelle for La La Land