186 Transcript

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welcome to scaling up the podcast where

we scale up on knowledge so we don’t

scale up our systems hello everybody i’m

trace blackmore

your host for scaling up h2o

and folks march 22nd is

world water day so we as industrial

water traders

we might not think that we have holidays

that we can celebrate

we of course know that we share

industrial water week as a celebration

each and every first week of the month

of october

but there are also other holidays out

there so what are you going to do

on march 22nd for world water day

while you’re thinking of things to do

something that i hope is on

your calendar if you are an industrial

water treatment company owner is that

you are going to join

us for the business owner series webinar

that we are hosting every quarter and

the next one

is going to be march 26th this is going

to be with

my business mentor tim fulton and he’s

going to be talking about

how do we ensure that we grow in a smart

way so i hope you have already

registered for this webinar

but if you have not you can still do so

by going to

scaling up h2o.com forward slash

business that’ll take you straight to

the sign up page

and we will see you on that zoom call

keep in mind it’s not going to be a

regular zoom call

we’re going to have some activities for

you we’re going to try to make it as

interactive as possible because i know

regular zoom can be boring so we’re

going to try to make it as exciting as

we can and i guarantee

you are going to walk away from that

webinar

with some tools that you can immediately

start

using now maybe you’re not a water

treatment company owner

and you’re wondering what we have in

store for you well this is what we have

in store for

everybody in the industrial water

treatment industry it of course is

the hang the hang we have done several

times they have been

wildly successful folks this is how

we network and we meet people and we

don’t have to leave

our office we don’t have to leave our

home

and we can find vital contacts within

the water treatment community

and that is going to be held april 8th

at 6 p.m eastern time so if you have

not joined one of these you do not know

what you’re missing and you don’t want

to miss this one

if you have attended you of course know

that you need to attend because we meet

new people

and we have a lot of fun so if you want

to register for that you can go to

scalinguph2o.com forward slash hang

and all the information for you is right

there

at your fingertips i hope to see you at

one or both of those events and i’m

actually not done the awt

has got an event that’s coming up on may

5th it is their annual technical

training

and unfortunately with all of the coved

restrictions that are out there there

are extremely limited spots and folks if

you have not signed

up for this yet unfortunately

it is sold out but i am told that there

is a waiting list so if you do want to

attend

make sure that you get on their waiting

list

and you can do that by going straight to

awt.org

and letting them know that you are

interested

there’s always the hope that more spots

are going to open up because

restrictions are going to drop because

hopefully all the things that we’re

doing within the communities with the

vaccines and everything else

that we’re going to start getting back

to normal soon

don’t know when that is but maybe it

might make it towards may

so if it does you want to be on that

waiting list now let’s hear from james

and hear what his next challenge is

[Music]

hello scaling up nation the next james’s

challenge

as we grow as an industrial water

treatment professional drop by drop

[Music]

determine the volume of a cooling tower

or closed loop

by tracer addition and or calculation

knowing the volume of your cooling tar

system is important for knowing how much

chemical is required

in batch additions to calculate holding

time indices

and so forth does your customer know the

volume

does it match what you’ve determined if

you don’t know how to calculate system

volume

based upon a change in a tracer or other

chemical you’ve added

now is the time to find out by asking

your manager technical director or

searching the internet

it’s a useful skill to have be sure to

share your experience on linkedin by

tagging it with hashtag jc21

and hashtag scalinguph2o this is james

mcdonald

and i look forward to seeing what you

james thanks again for another challenge

i was looking at some of the social

media posts that people are posting

completing james’s challenge and i have

to tell you the before

and after where we are not only keeping

but improving the cleanliness of

our customers work areas that was pretty

impressive

some of you out there have really done a

great job with posting

to hashtag jc21

or scaling up h2o and i love being able

to see

the progress of your work so please

continue to do that

and james thanks again for bringing us

another challenge

well folks in honor of world water day

we’re going to have

an interview like we normally do but the

interview is going to be

a little different

hello scaling up nation and welcome to

another episode of scaling up

you might be a little bit confused right

now of who this strange voice is

um my name is connor parrish some of you

may know me probably

many of you don’t i work for fct water i

live out in colorado and i’ve been

fortunate enough to get to know trace

over the last six years

he’s been a great mentor to me and the

idea came up to

flip the tables around and interview

trace

and have him be you know a guest on the

podcast similar to

how he has many guests on the podcast i

fortunate enough to get to have many

great private conversations with trace

and i thought it would be good to

maybe share that with the rest of you

and the rest of scaling up nation

so hopefully you can take some out of

this i know i get a lot

from all of my conversations with trace

trace how you doing today

i’m doing great that’s uh that’s a

pretty high setup i hope i can

reach that bar well we’ll see i don’t

know you’re the one that’s got all the

experience so

i think jumping right into you know

being on the other side should be no

problem for you

well i am looking forward to it good

good me too

i thought a good starting point might

just be the podcast

itself you’ve built quite the audience

quite the platform

and so i just thought it would be good

to understand a little bit more

about the why behind it why do you do

the podcast why do you do all the things

that you do as far as giving back

i know and i see how much time it

requires

so so why why so that’s a simple

question

i guess a very complex answer i’ll go

back to

i really look at this industry as a gift

that my father gave me

he was in this industry he brought me up

in this industry

and he would always show me when

people would not respect this industry

when we were out in the field and he was

like that’s an example of somebody

not loving what they do not showing

their customer

what it is that they do and how much

they love it

and a few years ago my father passed

away

and i really feel that this podcast

allows me to do something that i love

which is

of course water treatment but also to

teach

water treatment as i mentioned i was

very fortunate to have my father as a

mentor and a teacher into water

treatment and

no stranger to to anybody that listens

to this show but i’ve got many mentors

that have helped me with that

and i feel that not only do we need

mentors to

help us get to the next level and see

things that we’re not going to find on

our own

but we also need to pay that back

and we need to have people that we are

mentoring

and we need to train people and and all

the stuff that that we

we mostly do on a regular basis uh on

this show

and i believe that the podcast the

mastermind

all the things that i do allow me to

help what my father started with me

raising that bar in the water treatment

industry

at the same time it also allows me

to kind of pay tribute to my father and

carry on his legacy yeah that’s that’s

incredible

i certainly can appreciate having a

father in the water treatment industry

it’s it’s a great

resource to have it’s it’s a great way

to continue to build that relationship

so that that really uh

i guess strikes close to home for me as

far as

the podcast goes do you have any stories

i’m curious

um as far as you know what the most

difficult podcast you’ve ever recorded

i’m sure you get in

to all sorts of different scenarios with

different types of guests

whether it’s difficult from the

standpoint of the content or difficult

because maybe you had a guest that

wasn’t reacting the way you were

expecting to react

tell me a little bit about that well i

will tell you the most

difficult podcast i ever recorded was

episode 166

that was the 2020 halloween episode

and i decided that i was going to read

edgar allan poe’s the raven

not water treatment at all but i’m i’ve

always been a fan of edgar allen poe

it’s one of my wife’s favorite

literary works especially the raven

and there’s there’s a lot of

alliteration in that poem and words that

we don’t use today

and that took me so long to

practice to get down to get a right

cadence

by far that was the most difficult

podcast i ever did

question might come up with people we

know why did you do that that’s not

water treatment well one

i’m always telling people to challenge

themselves

let me tell you that was a true

challenge for me

it was something that i couldn’t do when

i first started

it i i could do it i could read it but

it wasn’t anything that anybody wanted

to listen to so the fact that i did that

that was me

stepping out of my comfort zone and

doing something

that i did not naturally gravitate to

so i would say that by far episode 166

was the hardest that i’ve ever done

now i will say that the reason the show

is so successful is because i get so

many

great guests i mean there are so many

people out there

that are just fantastic at what they do

they

are experts in their field and they’re

willing to freely

share that with the scaling up nation on

this podcast

however and i’m not going to mention

names but there are some guests that i

have to coach more than others

for example this is a podcast and when

you ask somebody a question

and they give you a yes or no answer

that’s not really good

for a podcast so a lot of times i’ll

of course off recording i’ll coach them

a little bit

and normally that happens at the

beginning uh

but then people will get over it very

quickly but that has happened

a few times yeah i can probably

understand that i think the first time

that i was on

all the way back in i think it was 2017

now

there’s a little bit of i don’t know if

you could call it camera shy but

you get put on the spot and everything

drops out of your head

so you know maybe there’s something to

that

but as far as the reading of the edgar

allen poe story

i was uh just a small little side story

here

my my friends in high school forced me

to take readers theater with them

as an elective and let me tell you that

is challenging so

certainly i feel your pain when it comes

to having to jump in

and i had the audience of 12 other

people who were my friends whereas

you’ve got the whole scaling up nation

although it’s a great audience so i’m

sure everyone appreciated it

well connor i can tell you when i was

practicing it did come into my head okay

12 000 people are going to hear this

no pressure no pressure at all right

just 12 000 more closest friends

i’m curious to to get your take on

on the evolution of the podcast i know

we talked about you know i was here

early on

obviously as a fan i’ve listened

throughout

the years as it’s progressed but from

your perspective

how is the podcast different now from

really when you first started

all the way back in i guess early 2017.

yeah so on episode 182 we

had my staff basically uh

two great people lauren vonfeldt and

sean

dooley and they are fantastic they are

experts at what they do

helping me with content and making sure

that i

sound halfway intelligent when i speak

so sean’s got some magic equipment that

he uses to help with that

i didn’t have that when we first started

the show i didn’t have anybody

i didn’t even know what a podcast was

probably six months before i started

this show i’ve said many times a great

friend of mine charlie cicchetti who’s

been on this show several times he was

the one

that said i needed to do a podcast and i

replied back was wow that’s a great

compliment what the heck is a podcast

and he gave me my first podcast player

and gave me some

recommendations on some podcasts that i

could listen to

i guess it was about two or so months

after that you and i got together we

were in annapolis maryland and you

really encouraged me to do the podcast

so we

are coming up on four years where we

have had scaling up h2o

so when we first started when i first

started four years ago

i didn’t have any of the equipment that

i have now i didn’t have any of the

software that i had now i had a bunch of

youtube videos that i watched and i

tried to piece the show together myself

i did the editing myself

and it was a hot mess i’m not going to

sugarcoat anything

it was it was whatever i needed to do to

get on the air

and if you have any doubt of that listen

to episode one

and you can see that there you can hear

that there’s just a tremendous

difference in that fast forward to

today i don’t have to think about the

podcast we have procedures for

everything that we do i think we have

from

beginning to end of an episode there’s

tasks that have to be done and

when i get ready for a recording i don’t

have to think about it i pull up that

checklist it tells me every little thing

that i need to do now i do it pretty

often so i don’t have to look at the

checklist

but i always scan the checklist just to

make sure i don’t forget something

silly that’s going to create a big issue

when we actually try to

post edit the podcast so

i would say the procedures have

definitely changed

the equipment have definitely changed

the i didn’t have people we have people

now

we have great people now that help us

out with that and i hope that you can

hear

the progression of audio quality

from episode one where i used uh my

bluetooth headset

and then i’ve upgraded a microphone i’ve

actually upgraded my microphone

three times one of the one of the bad

things about having the podcast is

there’s a lot of technology involved and

i’m a technology junkie so when the next

new thing comes out i’m always itching

to get that

but i had the fortune to work with

somebody who is

in media his name is scott slade he’s a

local reporter here in the atlanta area

on fm 95.5 wsb

and he’s been in broadcasting for over

50 years and i got to teach him scuba

diving

and he was just so grateful for me doing

my job as a scuba instructor and and

opening up that world to him

that he’s mentored me and he’s helped me

get all the equipment that i have now

and make sure that i know how to use it

and even help me with some of the things

in my procedure

streamlining those so i could get an

even better product to the scaling up

nation

i can keep going on but four years has

brought four years of experience

and i hope you can tell a huge

difference between

four years ago and today that’s awesome

i love to hear that story in the

progression

how do you think things have changed or

maybe they haven’t as far as

getting guests the things guests say

now that they have a feel for what

scaling up is and how an episode might

typically play out

have you noticed any sort of shifts or

changes through time

from the content standpoint well i will

tell you

i didn’t have to beg guests to come on

in the very beginning but i don’t think

it was far

from that i had to explain to people

what a podcast was

i had to explain to them why i was doing

it who was going to be listening to it

how we were going to be doing it so fast

forward four years from now

and podcasts are even more popular

i think i read there’s over 1.2 million

podcasts

out there today i mean it’s incredible

everybody’s got a podcast

so with that i don’t have to explain

what a podcast is

but i also don’t have to beg for a guest

to come on

we now get guests that are calling us or

emailing us

and they want to come on the show and

that’s awesome because

of finding an entire year’s worth of

content

we plan on a year we break it up in

quarters

and then every quarter we make sure that

we have all the guests

all the if we’re doing any uh

sponsorships

whatever we’re doing we try to plan 90

days out because as

you know connor this isn’t my main

job this is one of my passions that i do

but i am a water treater and i have to

make sure

that my company is working so i would

say the big thing is is that

guests are aware of the scaling up h2o

podcast

and if i call them they know exactly

what it is that i’m talking about and i

don’t have to go

through what i did in the beginning to

explain what the podcast is

so people understanding what the podcast

is and wanting to be on this show

is definitely the biggest change well

you mentioned

that this isn’t your only job and don’t

worry i’m not going to let that escape

because we’ll definitely jump back into

how you were able to do all of this and

and some of the productivity tips and

tricks

i did just have a few more questions to

wrap up the kind of the podcast

giving back type section that we’re

working through right now

really two simple questions what have

listeners told you

about the impact being the first one

and is there anything new that we can

expect to see coming out with the

podcast anything exciting coming up that

you want to share

with the scaling up nation well to

answer your first question

i want to begin by saying that this

humbles me

so much i am in atlanta georgia

i bought a microphone i started a

podcast

and i was hoping just people that work

in my company would listen

and now we’re up to thousands of

listeners

and that is incredibly humbling to me i

am i’m so honored to be able to

host this podcast and to also

bring something that allows somebody to

feel that they’re not alone in their day

and that’s the repeated comment that i

get most often

that thank you so much for doing the

show i’ve learned so much

but i feel like you’re in the car with

me and

instead of driving from account to

account to account

and in between customers not seeing

anybody

or listening to a program and not

learning anything

i can do both and people have thanked me

for being their

roadside friend as they drive down the

road when

i’ve been to awt functions such as

conventions or the technical trainings

people will come up to me and i’ve even

had people ask for my autograph which i

got to tell you i still don’t know how

to handle that that is that is not a

world that i’m used to

but uh i’ve got to get out of my own

space and realize that you know

they’re really happy to see me and and

whatever they ask i’ll i’ll try to do

i’ve taken lots of selfies and things

like that

i’m not comfortable doing that but it

doesn’t matter what i think

they really want that and i want to make

sure that i support them

that’s really something that i find

interesting that people treat me as a

a semi celebrity at these events and i

think you and i have been at lunch

at one of these events and you’ve seen

that very thing happen so how did i

handle it

well i don’t know first of all you got

to give the people what they want right

that’s right you take you take it in

stride no i think

it’s it’s funny right it happens and

there’s always this moment of like

did that really just happen look on your

face but then you jump right back into

the trace that we all hear and expect to

see and take it

very graciously so i think it it’s it’s

a cool phenomenon to see

and really it’s a testament to what

you’ve been able to do with this podcast

and i have to say i’m again i’m

extremely humbled by that

and i’m i’m so pleased that people

enjoy what we’re putting out there

i’ve received some comments that have um

have really really stuck with me

people call me all the time and say

thank you for

helping me get my cwt these are people

that i’ve never met the cwt

is the certification that people

that do the same type of water treatment

that connor and i do which is the

certified water technologists

and i’ve never met them before they

said because i talked about it on the

show because i gave them some tips

because i

encouraged them to get it that was the

catalyst that they needed

to go ahead and get that done so again

extremely humbled by that and i had one

individual come up to me

and they were almost in tears and they

were telling me

how much they love their job and of

course you and i know we we love our job

but they said that wasn’t always the

case

they said that they were bored in their

job they

didn’t enjoy doing their job and it

wasn’t until they started listening to

this podcast

and the little things that i would

suggest that people do

to get out of the day-to-day rut

they started doing they started to find

a new passion

for this job they’ve since earned their

cwt

a job that they were planning on

quitting he’s now

talking to his owner to help buy

him out so he can take over

that company and i’m just amazed by that

story he says that’s because of my

podcast

i said that’s because of him and he got

different motivation

but to have somebody say that to hear

all the things that i hear about scaling

up h2o

again the word i’m going to come up with

is is i’m just humbled i think that’s

why i was recognized this year with the

ray baum memorial water technologist of

the year award

when i accepted the award i did it on

behalf of the scaling up nation because

i feel that

that is a a group award the the fact

that

i started something but now the scaling

up nation is its own

something i feel that the people that

gave me that award saw that and that’s

why i was presented with that last

september

now you asked the question what’s coming

up new on the podcast

so a lot of the same we’ve got we’ve got

a really good

format that seems to work that people

enjoy

what we’re trying to do is expand that

so how do we help the scaling up nation

be more connected and that’s what we’re

focusing on

so how do we make it easier for you

connor to reach out to somebody in the

scaling up nation

so we’re trying to do more with social

media we’re trying to make it

easier for people to to post to that

we’re trying to do some things with the

website to help bring people together

the simple fact is as you know this can

be a very

lonely job when we’re just out there

grinding and servicing

so trying to make sure that people one

have content that they can listen to

whenever they want to listen to it but

also know that not only are they

connected with me but they’re connected

with the entire scaling up nation so

that’s

what we’re trying to make easier for the

community

that’s awesome and as a as a proud

member of scaling up nation i

i can’t wait to see what continues to

unfold

in the future as you you know continue

to apply

everything that you’ve learned and all

of your great skill set

to figuring out how to i don’t know if

solve the problem is the right word but

continue to make an impact and to be

honest i love to hear the story about

you know the people calling you saying

hey you know i got my cwt

because of the podcast or you’re able to

help me reframe the way i look at my

day-to-day

work that that’s truly incredible and to

be honest i can i can see how the

podcast is able to have that type of

effect

so on behalf of scaling up nation thank

you so much for for all that you do

well i appreciate that and it’s my honor

it’s my pleasure to do it

all right trace so now i think i’d like

to explore a little bit about one thing

that’s always amazed me about you

is i see that you do the podcast that we

just discussed

obviously you run your own business a

water treatment business which

has all sorts of implications from time

consumption you’re involved with your

church you’re involved with

scuba diving instruction you’re involved

with the awt

i guess my question really is how how do

you

manage all of that how are you able to

be successful in each one of those

fields because it’s clear that you are

well i appreciate that and i i think it

all boils down to

the choices we make we we all have

seven days a week we all have 24 hours a

day we all have so many hours of

daylight

that doesn’t change that’s a constant

with everybody i think what

changes is what we say yes to

and a lot of people that i’ve mentored a

lot of people that i work with

i don’t think they really think of the

power of what they say yes to

and they default to what their yes is

they allow

things to fill up their day so

i’m a big planner i actually explained

how i do my planning on episode 178

but i will look at last week and i will

evaluate how last week went

and i do put a lot of things in my

calendar and sometimes i put too much

and i’ll evaluate that and i’ll readjust

for the following week or maybe it’s the

opposite i felt i had too much

free time or i didn’t know when i got

free time where

i was supposed to be spending my best

time

so this current week allows me to adjust

from what i learned

from last week and then i put that into

play

and i always think like if you right now

were to

ask me trace can you do this i’m a nice

guy

i like you i want you to be successful i

want to help you in that success the

first thing that pops in my head is

absolutely yes i want to help you

however

i have to temper that with the planning

that i did

because one if i make a commitment to

you that i’m going to do something and

then

i don’t honor that commitment that’s

going to hurt our relationship

and i think that happens a lot to people

and they don’t realize

why their relationships are not where

they need to be

so if you ask me to do something i need

to consider that i need to consider the

weight of that

and there’s a phrase that somebody

taught me a long long time ago

whenever somebody asked me to do

something i always ask myself

if i say yes to this what am i

inherently saying no to maybe it’s

spending time

with my family maybe it’s one of those

church commitments that that you

mentioned earlier

what is it that i’m saying no to and

it’s okay to say

no to something as long as it’s a bigger

yes so

maybe i already had something on my

schedule for wednesday that you’re

asking me for help with

but because of our relationship because

of the goals that i have

i’m now able to say yes to you saying no

to something that’s already in my plan

and feel really good about it because i

know where i’m going i’ve done the

legwork i’ve done the planning

i have a mission statement i have my own

personal values

all these things i use to gauge these

decisions

and i also say no a lot more than other

people

an example that came up just the other

night you mentioned i’m a scuba dive

instructor

well we have regular meetings and most

people

will say yes i’ll take this commitment

normally a class

and they’ll never look at their schedule

i’m looking at my schedule and i’m

saying no i can’t do this weekend no i

can’t do this weekend no i can’t do this

weekend

okay i can do that and sometimes i feel

people are thinking i’m not being

accommodating but

i’ve already done the planning i know

that if

i put it on my calendar it’s going to

get done and they

know that too at the dive shop people

will put things

on the dive shop calendar that they’re

going to teach it they never check their

own personal calendar

and then i get a phone call because

they’re not available

and can i cover that so that’s what i

think

i do that helps me tremendously

is one i plan i know where i am

within that plan and i consciously make

an effort to say

yes to the biggest yes when i have two

questions

that makes sense and i think that’s

great perspective to keep

there’s only so much time so be very

careful

with your commitments i think that is a

great lesson

one thing i’m curious about because i’m

sure a lot of

scaling up nation thought this as you

were going through it

the planning and the review of the

previous week and the planning out of

the upcoming week

it sounds like it could be a lot of work

how do you reconcile the work that

you’re putting into that

with i guess the benefits that you that

you receive

i’m sure obviously it makes sense

because you’re doing it

so could you really fill in

some of the gaps for scaling up nation

of one

how do you make the time work and why

does it work and

and two maybe if they’re not willing to

jump in with two feet what might be a

way to to get started

um down that path so i’m going to answer

that

by taking a little segue if i were to

ask you

to tell me probably one of the most

accomplished olympic swimmers who comes

to mind

michael phelps michael phelps michael

phelps made a commitment

and a plan that he was going to get to

the level that we

all celebrate him at today we saw him

do the competition we saw him receive

what does he have like 24 gold medals or

something like that

some incredible amount it’s it’s amazing

well and that’s what we celebrate and

and i think that’s what people focus on

oh wow he’s a great swimmer okay well

let’s back up a little bit

he did not start out that way he had

a commitment that he wanted to do that

and he was

willing to do things other people other

swimmers were not willing to do

what are some of those things he decided

he was going to be

in the pool every single

day that included holidays that included

weekends that included birthdays

he was in the pool doing something every

single

day and he he would tell people that on

some days

he was one of a hundred people in the

pool on

other days he was the only person in the

entire

complex that and all the coaching he did

and all the things

that we don’t know that he did that is

what made him the athlete that we

celebrate today so by no means can i

compare

what i do to what michael did but

people hear what i just said that i do

with my planning

and they’re thinking oh wow that’s where

i have to get to well you got to get in

the pool every single day in order to

develop that habit now i’m going to be

very honest with you when i first

started that

it was not easy and i had to force

myself to do it

and i had to make sure that i was

constantly coming back to it and there

were weeks that i forgot

there were weeks i did better than

others and the fact

that i failed some i succeeded some

but i kept consistent at it today

i don’t even think about it it’s just

something that i do something that i had

to consciously

force myself to do and take myself

through i probably had a checklist

because i’m a checklist guy

making sure that i was doing all those

things that probably took me an hour to

takes me minutes to do now now because i

do it every single week because i do it

every single day

i’m mentally thinking through it as i’m

driving to work

so one of the things i do i do my weekly

planning on

sunday at seven now sometimes i miss

that time but sunday at seven is just a

time it’s got some alliteration in it

and i just i look at last week i

evaluate last week

and i plan the upcoming week and i don’t

do a lot with that planning what i do i

review

my mission statement i review my roles

my goals so who

are the most important relationships in

my life

what are the goals that i’m trying to

set out for

and then i start looking at my

commitments and with my commitments

what are the blocks of time that i have

throughout the day

and do i know where i’m supposed to be

for the next week now i’m not memorizing

my calendar i’m just getting familiar

with my calendar

so when somebody asked me to do

something

i have a visual image of my calendar so

i know what my other commitments are

well the other commitments that aren’t

necessarily in my calendar are all the

to-do’s that we have and i was guilty of

putting things on to-do

lists or sticky notes and having sticky

notes everywhere

i don’t do that now i actually now use

my rocket book i love the rocket book

by the way we have an affiliate link

i’ll mention that since that helps us

pay a little bills by the way an

affiliate link i don’t know if you knew

connor

an affiliate link if you bought

something on amazon and we had an

affiliate link for it and you went

from our affiliate link to amazon and

let’s say it was ten dollars

you would only pay ten dollars so it’s

not going to cost you anything different

but amazon will pay us a slight

commission

for bringing you to that site that’s how

that works with affiliate links

so with that i’ll use the rocket book

and if you ask me to do something

and it doesn’t necessarily have a to-do

date

i will write it on a master sheet that i

have of just to do’s

and i’ll put up an approximate to due

date because eventually everything will

have to get done

and then when i’m doing that weekly

planning i look at that master list

i look at where i’m going to be

throughout the week and i just simply

pull things off that match one the theme

of the day what am i working on that day

and that’s something i do too

i try to theme my day so my mind gets in

a particular mindset and that really

helps me with efficiency

and i’ll pull task off there and i’ll

also pull task off for if i’m going to

be in a particular area of town maybe i

need to go get my oil changed and an

account that i need to go service

is going to be by that account so

i’ll then put that there it’s a little

bit difficult to get your oil change in

a tesla isn’t it

i don’t always drive the tesla so if i

service i’m normally in a truck

but uh but yes the tesla has no oil

uh we can spend a whole podcast talking

about the tesla i love my tesla oh i’m

sure we can

and uh it would be a great podcast but

for now i’m sorry for interrupting but i

had to

i had to put that in there so uh

so now when do you do those tasks so

when you have down time so let’s say i

have a 9 a.m appointment

and then i have an 11 am appointment

and the 9 appointment runs until 9 45

well now i have between those two time

slots

to work on my tasks now again i break

this down

in detail on episode 178 but at the

beginning of every day i told you how i

do weekly planning

on the beginning of every day what i do

is i review the day okay where do i need

to be

today let me make sure i can make today

the most efficient

as it can be and then i review all those

tasks that we’re talking about

and i look at all the gaps in between my

appointment that’s where i’m going to do

my tasks

and i don’t like to think what task i

need to work on i do that thinking up

front this is how i do it

i think of what connects to my mission

what connects to my values what connects

to my goals

my roles that i have and that makes

something

important so if something’s important

i then look at the time frame on it is

it urgent as well so if something

needs to be done today or it’s going to

lose

value it gets an a and i just simply

write a little a

right beside it something that’s still

important to me but it’s not necessarily

going to lose value today

that task right beside that gets a b and

then

everything else is an optional task it

gets a c

i then go back up to my a’s and i say if

i only get one

task done today which is the

most important and i put a 1 by it and i

do the same thing with 2 and 3 and i do

that for my a’s and my b’s you can do

that with your c’s i choose not to do

that with my c’s

now 9 45 comes around we’re done with

our appointment

i then look at my task and i go straight

to a1

a little secret and i know you and i are

reading a book called atomic habits

and in atomic habits it talks about the

effects of

dopamine when we do something we get

dopamine and we like it and we we want

to continue doing it so we can actually

use our bodies to help us form this

habit

so a1 is always my daily planning

and it’s important because it’s planning

my day i’m not going to be able to have

an efficient day if i don’t do that

it’s urgent because i can’t plan today

tomorrow

so that’s always my a1 so within five

minutes of walking in my office and it

doesn’t even take me five minutes now

i get to check my first thing off and

get that dopamine hit

so that allows me to make sure

that i am walking through my day

in the most efficient and in the highest

manner

that i can yeah that makes sense and i

think

through conversations with you and

obviously that that great breakdown you

just gave

i’ve really taken away three kind of key

points

from you um the first being i think it’s

critical to

have a mission or a vision something

that ties your actions to

a future that you’ve bought into and you

truly believe in because

when you have that it makes those hard

choices

a little bit easier because you know

you’re working towards something that

ultimately is where you want to go i

think the second thing is

you just gotta do it you gotta just take

the first step and then you gotta take

the second step and it doesn’t have to

be perfect

and there’s gonna be mistakes and you’re

gonna learn but i think

just initiating the process that inertia

you form is ultimately going to help you

get there especially if you’re heading

down the right direction towards your

vision and really

the last piece that i think is crucial

is take advantage of

the dead time or the downtime that

otherwise you were

listening to music or sitting in your

car waiting for an appointment

there’s a lot of time if you really look

at it in the day of a water treatment

professional that could be considered

you know 20 30 minute chunks here and

there that if

taken advantage of properly it’s amazing

how much you can get done

so i think with those three little

tactics that that’s definitely one thing

that i’ve

started to implement into my life and

i’ve noticed a big change so

again thanks for kind of breaking that

down

and allowing myself and the rest of

scaling up nation to kind of see that

yeah connor i want to add you mentioned

listening to music and i think working

out and all that stuff okay

what do you do with that and thank you

for that acknowledgement

and i’m going to back up even more don’t

try to be michael phelps on your first

day you’re learning how to swim

you know you’ve got to do all those

things and michael phelps doesn’t think

about how to swim anymore

you know he he he’s he’s done that he’s

gone way past that and

i i would like to say on the michael

phelps of planning i don’t know

but uh but but with that i i’ve had a

lot of practice so i think that is

key to the for the audience to know but

the other thing that i didn’t mention

when i do my weekly planning and my

daily planning

is i have to have self-renewal in there

maybe that is listening to music maybe

that’s reading scripture for some

maybe that’s going to the gym maybe it’s

all of those things

well here’s the thing that people leave

out of their

tools their calendars themselves it’s

always about

other people my favorite favorite

favorite quote

when we talk about this is from stephen

covey

and somebody was asking him a question

about they didn’t have time

for self-renewal they didn’t have time

to go

exercise they didn’t have time to take

care of themselves and he told them

he goes i totally understand it’s almost

like you’re too busy driving to take

time to get gas and that

is how we treat ourselves so why not

make an appointment with ourselves and

treat it the same way as we do

with other individuals and we schedule

going to the gym

we schedule that we’re going to do

whatever it is that we need to do

in self-renewal if we’re not taking care

of ourselves we’re not going to be able

to take care of anybody else

yeah absolutely and really that’s a

great segue into one of the next things

i wanted to discuss with you

is being in the industry now for you

know a little over six years i’ve heard

so many horror stories

of let’s say 50 plus hour work weeks

with

service and water treatment

professionals who are overworked

they’re feeling burnt out and really

there’s no end in sight because they

finish the month and then it just starts

right over again

how would you approach breaking out of

that cycle do you have any

tips pointers that you might have for

for someone who finds himself in this

scenario

with the exception i suppose of listen

to scaling up because it sounds like

that may have been the solution for one

of the listeners but

are there other things that that you

might recommend

to either reframe that monthly work

to minimize some of the

burden that the water treatment

professional might have on their plate

what do you think about that well i

think listen to scaling up and all the

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