During the height of his collegiate career, his life changed dramatically. On November 3rd, 1984, he survived a catastrophic automobile accident as a passenger in a friend’s car and broke his neck, leaving left him paralyzed from the chest down and diagnosed a quadriplegic. Told he would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, Scott realized his split-second decision to not wear a seat belt altered his course forever.
Despite his grim diagnosis, Scott astounded his doctors and refused to be sidelined. After six months of intense physical therapy at Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado, he fought to stay alive while battling numerous life-threatening complications, including a pulmonary embolism. With the support of his family, friends, and his Christian faith, Scott turned an impossible dream into a reality. He returned to college and graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance and had some fun along the way – competing again, this time, in a completely different sport. They call it full-contact wheelchair rugby, otherwise known as Murderball, a Paralympic sport that allowed him to compete with the best physically challenged athletes from around the world. Working as one, these people came together to expand their Shared Vision and prevent their Mindset from becoming their biggest handicap.
After graduating from college, Scott served as a Financial Advisor in the Insurance and Financial Industry for Northwestern Mutual Life. He specialized in life and disability insurance planning as well as retirement, estate, and wealth planning. He built his business around Individuals, Small Business Owners, and CEOs as well as Doctors, CPAs and Attorneys. In his 5th year, he hit a Big Audacious Goal, which took Grit, and qualified for the prestigious Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), the Premiere Association of Financial Professionals, which is a 100% commission-driven sales production award that fewer than 8% of his peers qualify for annually from more than 500 companies in 70 countries around the world.
At the pinnacle of his career, Scott experienced yet another setback, a second automobile accident. Although he was buckled in this time, new injuries forced him to RE-evaluate, RE-invent, and once again RE-ignite his life by practicing and executing what he preaches.
During his nine-month recovery, Scott reminisced about the resilience keynote speakers he heard at sales and leadership conferences. Their life-changing stories inspire others to chase their dreams regardless of obstacles or barriers. That’s when Scott decided he would make the tough decision to leave an industry he had so much passion for and success in to pursue a speaking career that has taken him around the world.
Scott also took advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help expand his brother’s golf course fertilizer business from the U.S. into Southeast Asia by disrupting an industry and doing what the competition had no interest in doing – offering customers custom-blended fertilizers designed specifically to meet the needs of their golf course fairways and greens based on individual soil tests. This expansion brought in an excess of $1.6 million the first year.
In Scott’s book Vision Mindset Grit, his father defined those three empowering words in the foreword: Vision refers to your goals and aspirations, the endpoint you are seeking; Mindset is the continual mental preparation and adjustment needed to meet oncoming challenges; Grit is the day-to-day determination to persevere when you are too tired, too sore, or too beleaguered to continue on.
Scott has inspired audiences throughout the United States as well as Australia, Spain, the Bahamas, India, Thailand, Bermuda, Costa Rica, Mexico, the Czech Republic, and Canada, as well as our soldiers in North Dakota at the Minot Air Force Base.
On a personal note: During Scott’s 30th high school reunion, he had an amazing conversation with a classmate, Kim Wagner. That conversation continued and, years later, on December 14th, 2019, they married in Maui, Hawaii – standing with Kim’s three beautiful children: Alexandra, Samantha, and Greggory. Scott refers them as his Steppies. And it wasn’t long thereafter that Scott surprised the family with a baby boy Golden Doodle they named Maui!
Scott’s Compelling Story of Transformational Change Is the Hero’s Journey!
“We recently launched a new division and were facing challenges and growing pains common in the start-up phase of many organizations; basic operational and support challenges as well as the challenge of being ‘first’ and having to establish a successful culture and foundation with limited bench strength to draw upon. 
