“Our purpose is to find the good and help the rest of the world see it.” ~W. Scott Westerman, Jr. 1925-2018 “The Real” Scott Westerman was born on this date, July 10, 1925. He was the quintessential definition of a teacher, one of those rare souls who knew what he valued and tried to help everyone who crossed his path…

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. We each have within us the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” ~Harriet Tubman I don’t know what it was that made me drive to the Haslett Village Barber Shop that afternoon in 2011. That memory has faded. What I do vividly remember is the…

  We always knew we would love our granddaughter “No Matter What”. We never realized how powerful those words could truly be. “I love you no matter what.” It’s something we always say to one another in our family, a tradition and a truth. When our granddaughter was born with Down syndrome, we wondered if that might test our maxim….

“The people who have the best, most loving ideas tend to be executed or assassinated or discouraged.” ~Sarah Vowell One year ago today, Colleen and I experienced the worst 24 hours of our lives. It began in a visceral encounter with the fallout from the toxic culture at my workplace and culminated at 3:11am the next morning when I got…

What can a Top 40 radio station from the 60s teach us about audience engagement? In 2014, Steve Schram and I got the invitation of a lifetime. The 50th birthday party for our favorite radio station at the Red Eye Grille in Manhattan. We both grew up in the Detroit area during the time that WKNR was in its brief…

Church youth groups were a safe place for young people to hang out in the late 1960s. Or so the grown-ups thought. Joey Morrison and I regularly bolted from Methodist Youth Fellowship to visit Middle Earth, Ann Arbor’s premiere head shop. The black lights, incense and racy posters held our prurient interest more effectively then the biblical retreads that targeted…

I remember when I first heard McCartney sing that song. I could never imagine crossing the threshold. Back then, I was told by my peers, “Never trust anyone over 30!” I thought people were immortal, invincible and fearless. Boy was I wrong. Looking back over six decades, I attribute whatever success I may have had, in great measure, to luck….

By Scott Westerman “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.” ~Earl Nightingale My granddaughter is an exquisite teacher. She is filled with fearless inquisitiveness. When something interests her, she wants to explore it again and again, until it becomes second nature. At two and a half, she loves…

On November 1, I will be shutting down my Facebook identity. It’s something that’s been on my mind for a long time. Beyond the popular privacy concerns, the biggest downside for me is how much time I end up spending there. In the days when I had a very public personal brand, I felt it was important to share a regular…

The fifth chemo is the worst. By now, you’ve watched her struggle with the poison four times. You don’t want to go to work. You want to be by her side. You want to help ease the pain. But you can’t do a damn thing about it. And that’s the worst part. The two of you actually agreed to pound…