We’re living on the Atlantic Ocean this summer. Colleen and I get up before dawn most mornings and stand on our 12th floor balcony to watch the sunrise. Every panorama is unique. Some mornings present an orange fireball that peeks above a placid sea into a cloudless sky. On other days, the horizon is boiling with thunderheads. Waves crash onto…

By Scott Westerman  The signature of the truly great vs. the merely successful is not the absence of difficulty. It’s the ability to come back from setbacks, even cataclysmic catastrophes, stronger than before. ~Jim Collins Whenever I need a refresher in the fundamentals of great leadership, I return to Jim Collins and his seminal work, “Good to Great“. Within it’s…

By Scott Westerman “Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.” ~ ORISON S. MARDEN “People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change,” writes Charles R. Swindoll. “They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds…

W. Scott Westerman, Jr., the man I’ve always called “The Real” Scott Westerman, passed away peacefully early in the morning of April 18, 2018, on what would have been my mother’s 93rd birthday. She would want me to remind you that she left us on Dad’s birthday nearly 13 years ago. He was lovingly cared for by the team at…

After 8 years, 3 months and 17 days of living the Spartan Life, Colleen and I are headed back home to Florida. On January 1, 2010, we began our MSU Alumni Association adventure at the Alamo Bowl. Since that time, we have lived and loved the MSUAA lifestyle. Michigan State cured her Ovarian Cancer twice, giving us a second life…

By Scott Westerman  It’s been a week off the grid recentering with my family and a time to ponder some of the things that that the world needs now. When I see the often overt hate speech that proliferates so freely in the pseudo anonymity of social media I feel two powerful emotions: anger and sadness. I am angry that…

By Scott Westerman I’ve been at a conference of my alumni peers this week. On the last evening, one of our valued colleagues announced her retirement, telling the crowd to “Drink, Steal, Swear and Lie”. I was a bit taken aback… until she explained.. Drink daily from the cup of knowledge. Never stop learning and you will never stop growing….

Listen to an audio version of this message. Scott’s Maxim: “Most of our bad juju is self created and a result of continuing to think about what we might have done, instead of what we still can do.” Class reunions are a time for reconnection and reflection. As the years pass, people grow and change. Many of the people we…

Do you know someone who seems to love to wallow in self pity? There are people out there who thrive on unhappiness. Most of them don’t do it intentionally, but they like nothing better than a good audience to listen to them tell you how horrible their life is. And boy, can they tell the story. They weave a tale…