The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
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welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast
where we scale up on knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems
i’m trace blackmore the host of the most
awesome water treatment podcast
out there scaling up h2o folks
we are right in the middle of the
interview where conor parish
interviews me and asked the questions
that many of you
have asked of me and now you’re learning
those answers through connor’s interview
before we get back to the interview we
have another
james’s challenge
hello scaling up nation the next james’s
challenge as we grow as an industrial
water treatment professional drop by
drop
is
measure the ph of your dpd free chlorine
test
after regent addition today’s challenge
is about
understanding interferences in your
tests
amongst other things the dpt free
chlorine test requires
a specific ph range to give reliable
results
according to the test procedure the ph
should be between
six and seven if you have a highly
alkaline sample
perhaps over 250 ppm as calcium
carbonate
the reagents may not be able to adjust
the ph enough for the test
highly acidic samples may similarly be a
problem
if this is the case for you refer to the
test procedure on how to properly adjust
the ph
while you’re reading the procedure take
a look at other possible interferences
as well
you never know what useful information
you may learn
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 share
well james thank you for another
installment another
challenge for us to become just a little
bit better each and every week
and folks i’ve received a few questions
on james’s challenge of last week where
he was talking
about determining the volume of cooling
and closed loop systems so
i did a show on that back on episode
116 where somebody called in and asked
how to do that
so if you haven’t listened to that in a
while by all means go back
and listen to 116 and then if you’re
having any issues completing last week’s
james’s challenge
you should be able to continue on
so i hope you enjoy playing with the
chlorine test that james talked about
this week
and i’m really enjoying getting back to
the interview
but i want to remind everybody that
we’re now starting to see
more and more conferences come back into
a live event planning so one of the ones
that is
coming up is the international water
conference that’s always a popular one
amongst industrial water treaters and
they are calling for
abstracts right now so if you want to
present at the international water
conference
now is the time to start putting that
together and presenting
your abstract to them maybe you’ll get
picked and maybe
you will be at the show if you want more
details on that you can go to our show
notes page
at scalinguph2o.com
now we’re returning to last week’s
interview
so here’s the continuation of connor
parrish’s
interview with me
[Music]
i am curious because i’ve been exploring
this a little bit myself recently and
making some changes to it what what does
the morning routine of trace blackmore
look like
i wish it was getting up and working out
it used to be getting up
about 4 30 and going to the pool and
swimming and i haven’t done that in a
while and i i need to be held
accountable i need to be fussed at i
need to get back in the pool
it’s been a while since i’ve been in the
pool and i had a car accident
last summer so it’s been a while since
i’ve worked out as well so i need to add
that so thanks for
airing that laundry out on the on the
scaling up nation of course but no you
stay on the nation hold me accountable
to that so i can be around as long as
possible to bring this podcast to you
all right everyone you heard it here
we’ve got to ask him every time we see
him now
how’s the swimming coming along oh my
goodness i just did that to myself well
and that’s
that’s a great thing to make sure that
we’re getting the things done is we have
other people help us out with that
i don’t know if i’ve ever had 12 000
people help me out with that but maybe
that’s what i need
so that that’s what in my ideal day
that’s what i would do
i do the things that get interfered with
doing
later in the day early in the day so
i can’t go in the pool in the afternoon
because somebody’s going to call
somebody’s going to need something i’m
going to be
pulled in another direction and i know
i’m not successful
when i work out later than
early early morning when the only thing
that’s going on is working out i will
get it done
that means you got to get out of bed
early that means you gotta get out in
the cold you have to go to the pool
all that stuff but then i get to check
that off
then i go to the office and i do the
daily planning
that i mentioned earlier then i just
start working through my day
and as i mentioned before i theme my
days
so i might be working on podcasts on one
days or i might be
working on tuesdays is when the
mastermind group
meets so tuesdays are all about the
rising tide
mastermind and and that’s where my
mindset is and that’s where i’m working
i just simply go through my day
and i make sure that if i
don’t do what i planned i said yes to
something bigger than what
was on my plan but i still need to get
done what was on my plan
so i then either delegate that to
somebody or
i will forward that over to the next day
and then when the day is done
i actually grade myself on how well i
did just like i evaluate the entire week
i look at the day at the very end and
i’ll close things out so maybe i said
yes that you and i were going to do
something
and i did not do something that i
planned on doing
well now i’m going to move that over to
wednesday or maybe because i know my
calendar
an even better day to do it is friday so
because i did that
weekly planning i can move it to friday
and it’s got a better chance of getting
done
and then i just wash rinse repeat and do
it all over again
i don’t have if you look at my calendar
you think oh my gosh
trace doesn’t have a lot of free time
and that’s not really true
i’ve just decided where i want to take
it
and i want to admit i’ll watch things on
netflix i’ll watch television shows i’ll
listen to podcasts
but normally that’s around time when
it’s okay to do that and i’m not
saying no to something else because i
want
to watch entourage on hbo max or
something like that
so that’s pretty much how my my day to
day goes and
some days are better than others i’ll
just end with that
well i think that’s the case for all of
us and like i said
mine’s a massive work in progress right
now and i
vacillate between should i work out in
the morning should i work out later
and i guess the jury’s still out on that
one but i guess what i’m finding
to kind of echo what you said is there’s
certain things like exercise
that it’s very easy to say
no i need to keep working i need to keep
doing this so if you don’t do it first
thing in the morning
what i’m finding is a lot of times it
doesn’t happen so
i guess i’m drifting back towards that
morning workout myself and
scaling up nation can probably look to
hold me accountable for that as well
i did want to maybe shift gears a little
bit here
and see what your thoughts were
around the future of the water treatment
industry it’s something i think about a
lot
obviously we see every day how much the
world around us is changing
there’s a lot of things going on really
across
all different aspects of life
so with that being said one
how has the water treatment industry
changed since you started i think
looking retrospectively to see okay
here’s where it was here’s where i
thought it was going to be
and actually here’s where we are is an
important step in this process
but then if you were to extend that out
10 years into the future i think the
analogy you like to use with us as you
get in your delorean
and go back to in this case let’s say
2030 like the back to the future movies
what do you think you’re gonna see you
know i remember
when i i really started the water
treatment industry in the early 90s
although
i was doing little tasks for my dad
but through that point when i was doing
a little task for my dad when i was a
small guy and then through high school
and then
when he actually started paying me uh
in the early 90s i remember that there
were dedicated people
at all the accounts there was always
somebody there
that was waiting for you and their job
was water treatment now that might not
be their only job
now some people they had teams of people
that all they did was
deal with the boiler and the cooling
tower but
we don’t see that today so i think
that’s probably the biggest
difference that with manpower
manpower has really shifted and the end
user puts
a lot smaller focus and emphasis
on having people on site to actually do
that
when we do get it more often than not
it’s somebody that already has
a full-time job of other tasks and now
this is added on top of it and now we’re
at inconvenience when we ask
them to to do something and that’s not
because they think poorly of us
it’s just because of of how all the
other things that they’re really being
held responsible for
and one of the unfortunate things about
water treatment is sometimes problems
happen very quickly
but normally it takes a while for a
water treatment problem to
really create a problem so if somebody
doesn’t test something today if somebody
doesn’t do their job today they’re not
necessarily going to see it today or
tomorrow
but as you know as the scaling up nation
knows eventually it
will show and we won’t have good
efficiency
or maybe it even shuts the plant down
but i would say that that is
definitely the biggest difference i’ll
also say the biggest difference
is control equipment now in the early
90s when i started
we were using microprocessor controllers
now before that
there were just simple analog
controllers that were reading
conductivity and then they normally
activated a pump when they reached a
certain conductivity and that was
that was all we had i say we that’s all
my dad had i inherited a couple of those
things in the 90s but i
quickly tried to change those over to
microprocessor controllers
and connor i remember in 1999 my job was
going around to all my accounts and
putting
new chips on the motherboards that were
in the controllers because
they were not y2k compliant
so that that was like a month and a half
job i was just
changing all these switches out can you
imagine we didn’t have the forethought
to think past two digits so
when when i talk about the future i
think that’s the future
what can we dream about what can we
think about we’ve gotten past thinking
in two digits now we at least think four
digits so we can we can have our
equipment work into the future
but our equipment is getting smarter
our equipment is not only recording data
our equipment is able to make decisions
program decisions
based on that data so we don’t
necessarily have to be there
if something were to happen maybe the
orp goes low
so it’s going to initiate a pump well
maybe
there’s some ai that’s built in there
and there are a couple of decisions
maybe how fast that pump
goes so there’s just so much that we can
do today that we couldn’t do
then with intelligence and i don’t think
we’ve even scratched the surface on
artificial intelligence when it comes to
water treatment
so if i were to get into the delorean
and look
into 2030 i would see
that most likely you and i are doing a
lot less service
that there’s going to be equipment on
the ground at the location that’s making
decisions now decisions that we’ve
programmed in
that is able to respond so if there’s an
issue
instead of the customer calling you and
saying you come down here tomorrow are
you telling the customer you need to do
this
i truly believe that the equipment will
be able to make those decisions
and probably alert you that there’s a
potential problem
on the horizon and you know this hasn’t
happened yet
but because this is the data that i’m
getting
you better come here and service because
there’s going to be an issue
and we talked about that on episode 183
we talked all about
ai and when we look at all the
infrastructure in the world
and how the ai works and is making
decisions
it’s allowing people to do more of what
they’re good at
and not all the little tasks we’re
giving all the little tasks
to the machines we’re allowing the
machines to do that
so we can make better decisions and do
better things
with our time that makes perfect sense
and i think
it’ll be interesting to see how that
continues to evolve even in the six
years that i’ve been
in the industry i’ve seen a shift um
towards more automation
more remote monitoring all of those
types of things and
obviously like you said that’s just just
scratched the surface
do you think there will be a shift in
prevalence of cooling towers
of boilers or anything associated with
chemical treatment discharge i mean how
do you how do you foresee
either environmental regulations
shifting opinions
about the use of chemistry
impacting the water treatment world
so if we were to get back into delorean
and go to 2023
i think that if we were to look at water
bills
then compared to now they would not
translate they would be
so out of whack water is so cheap right
now
i think it’s an afterthought we only
have so much water
and because we live in such a great
technologically advanced society right
now
you know we need water to to do all
these things and we’re using water in
ways that we’ve never used it before
but there’s only so much and because of
that we have to make sure we’re
utilizing it properly and i think the
only way and nobody’s gonna like this
but i think the only
way that people are going to start
respecting it more
is there’s going to be a more charge for
it it’s going to be a higher cost
now i don’t think that’s because people
are going to try to change people’s mind
i think because we’re using so much
water i think there’s going to be
less readily available water for us to
use so
without a doubt i think the 2030 water
treater
their job is to make sure that they’re
as efficient as
possible in their water usage i think
that’s going to be their primary
job i also think with all the ai with
all the monitoring equipment that we’re
going to have then
the problems that we talked about
they’re going to be known
almost instantly that something didn’t
happen
and because we’re measuring everything
we’re now measuring everything for
efficiency
we’re going to see the impact of that
and now because
most likely water is going to be so
expensive we’re probably going to get a
report on how much extra water we now
had to spend because of that now it’s
not a surprise
when we get that water bill so i think
we’re going to see a lot around
all the things that we should be doing
now
but we’re going to have more equipment
and people watching it closely so water
conservation
energy conservation are we using the
best chemistry
for that area now i know we have
limitations on things that we can put in
municipality water now but i think
that’s going to get tightened up and i
think we’re going to make sure that we
use the optimal chemistry so things are
getting
used up in the system and they’re
not going to uh the water treatment
plant where they have to deal with it
and i think we do
we do a really good job of that already
as water treaters
but with everything that’s coming as far
as monitoring
i think that’s going to help us make
sure that
if we’re putting a biocide in that it’s
pretty much 100
spent by the time it reaches the drain
for putting a corrosion inhibitor in
it’s all used up in the system before it
goes out the drain i think those are
some of the things that we’re going to
see
yeah and i guess for me one of the
takeaways i get from that vision when i
start to reflect
on that is i think it’s going to force
the customers to listen to us
to be more responsive to actually value
what the water treatment world what
water treatment professionals are doing
so i don’t hear this as oh my gosh
there’s change on the horizon
we need to be terrified i hear it as our
role as experts in this field
is only going to become more important
our value is going to increase so i view
it as from just purely the perspective
of a water treatment professional
as exciting and that the future is
quote unquote bright because of all
these issues surrounding water
and there’s going to be a true cost
there’s a true cost associated with it
now
but it’s going to be let’s call it
magnified in the future
to where i think it’ll be easier
for us to maybe get some of the things
done that we would recommend now but
just get put on the back burner
i think that’s an excellent point and i
think it’s also
showing the scaling up nation that our
careers our industry is here to stay
and and change isn’t something we need
to be scared of matter of fact when i
was thinking about those things i was
excited about that because exactly as
you said
we’re going to be looked at an even more
valued professional
at every customer that we talk with
because as you said they know the impact
of what’s going to happen
if they don’t do what we’re advising
them to do
i love that that was a great comment
cool well
one of the things as i was preparing for
this i was curious about i’m not sure
i’ve ever heard this from you is
i know it’s true because i have probably
five or six that i could think of off
the top of my head
what’s the most embarrassing moment that
you’ve had
in the water treatment world let’s call
it
when i first started out and again this
isn’t running the task i used to do for
my dad when i was a small guy
this is when i actually started getting
a paycheck my dad took me to one of his
accounts and it was a
turkey rendering plant and i i was in
richmond virginia so this was out in the
mountains of virginia
beautiful out there but as you started
getting close to the plant
you knew you were getting close to the
plant you could definitely smell
the plant and this now became my account
my dad turned it over to me
and i had a really good relationship
with all the people that were there
uh they took their water seriously
because they knew that if
if they didn’t take their water
seriously
nothing else would work in that plant it
stunk
it i mean and and i cannot
say over the podcast to qualify how bad
this smell was and the cooling tower was
right by the rendering pit
i mean it was it was just horrible and
not to mention the the biological issues
that we had because
they didn’t set things up properly in
their plan
well in addition to having that account
i was also supposed to find
new accounts and right by there
there were a bunch of buildings that
one property manager had and i don’t
remember her name
a very very nice lady
very very proper always well-dressed
very
very well groomed everything was always
in place in her office i mean that’s
just how she was
and it was really difficult to get an
appointment with her but
i knew i could sell one building by
talking to
that building engineer or if i won her
over
i could get all 12 of those buildings in
that complex
well i finally got an appointment with
her and
trying to be efficient i serviced the
turkey rendering plan
and then i went to go visit her and
she told me that i was
offensive smelling i believe was the the
term
that she used so that was being so
excited
to win that appointment and then her
telling me that i stunk
uh that was pretty bad so what i’ve
learned since then
is uh i carried a change of clothes with
me and uh if i were to see somebody
after going to that turkey rendering
plant there was a
stuckey’s uh truck stop i would actually
take a shower there at the truck stop i
actually tried taking it at the plant
but the stink would actually penetrate
the new clothes on the way out from the
shower
into the car so i had to get away from
the plan so by far
that was my most embarrassing story
oh man so let me ask you this did you
get the account
i did get the account uh i think i spun
it some way that i was so excited
because i was i was so excited for this
appointment
i had just and she knew the plant i mean
she could smell it when the wind blew
she knew exactly where i was i did get
the business
but i made sure every time i met with
her that i stopped at that stuckey’s and
i changed my clothes
i i love that i think one of the things
that is an important takeaway from that
is some of the most embarrassing
what we feel like are the most
embarrassing moments ultimately lead to
good relationships
you get the business you keep the
business
it’s a it’s a different take on what
otherwise would have just been a normal
meeting right so
i think that that’s that’s a great
takeaway from that story the other thing
that i’ve learned at least when going to
rendering plants is
if you wear your leather work boots in
there those leather work boots are going
to hold on to that smell for
for weeks so just beware your car
smells like that it’s horrible i
complained about that to my father
and i said dad this place stinks and he
goes son that’s the smell of money
what my wife uh i park in the driveway
and my dog will run out and start
licking the mud flaps on my car after i
drove on site and she’s
that is disgusting get get the dog away
from there so yeah i uh
have to be careful not to let the dog
you know go to town on the mud flaps
from the
the rendering sludge of the parking lot
we could have a whole podcast about the
blunders of conor parish
but one story that i thought would be
would be funny to share
right when i started off somehow i don’t
remember the exact details around it but
i had a meeting
at a power plant in wyoming that
i’d never been to before and so i i show
up i go through security
and they tell me okay go through this
hallway there’ll be a turnstile
and the chemist is going to meet you at
the turnstile
so i walk through i you know get down
i’m waiting at the turnstile
and it’s been 10 15 minutes and still no
chemist
now not really having a lot of
experience in these types of plants
i didn’t put together the fact that the
chemist’s office is probably in some
dark
hallway in the center of this plant and
navigating all the way through and out
to the turnstile
probably is a 15-20 minute task
depending on where they’re at and what
they were doing at the time
well all i thought was you know what
maybe i did something wrong maybe i’m at
the wrong spot and i look and there’s a
phone
right next to the turnstile so for me i
was like i’ll just pick up this phone
i’ll talk to security
and no problem so i pick up the phone
hello hello i say into the phone
what i hear is the entire plant
intercom system my voice
saying hello hello
at that point i’m totally panicking i’m
like oh my gosh i just announced myself
to the entire plant
so i put the phone down and i’m sitting
there i’m like oh no how am i going to
explain this and then someone else comes
over the intercom
whoever just picked up the phone put
down
the phone and uh that was the start to
uh to the meeting
needless to say i was very rattled going
in meeting with this chemist
so let me ask did you get the business
on that one
unfortunately no but i’ll go ahead and
say
it’s a power plant so i’ll use the power
plant as an excuse and i was very green
i don’t remember what the meeting was
about anyways but
but no it was a rural wyoming water
plant power plant excuse me
and in that instance the embarrassing
moment did not
uh result in the same way that yours did
okay so a couple quick questions here i
know
um the scaling up nation’s been pretty
patient as we’ve
maybe had a fairly long episode but i’m
curious
and this is something that i know you’ve
liked to ask in the past
what historical figure would you have a
beer with if you could
somebody that’s helped me more than
i think they could ever know because
i’ve never met them is
stephen covey i was given the seven
habits of highly effective people when i
was 19
i was working for mass mutual at the
time that was my
in-between job in between water
treatment and
because of that i realized that water
treatment was really where i needed to
be
but somebody gave me that book and we
went through the seven habits of highly
effective people
and that was really the foundation
of everything i just mentioned in
productivity so
how do i come up with my goals my roles
my mission all of that stuff
that’s helped me become a better person
and because i’m constantly trying to
make myself better
it allows me to help other people do
that for
themselves and uh he passed away
uh i want to say maybe about five years
or so ago
but i would love to one he i don’t think
he would share a beer with me he was
mormon i
don’t know if he drank or not but
whatever beverage of his choice i would
love to sit down let him know what his
work
meant to me and i also would like to
know what he left out of the book what
were the things that the publishers just
said it was too long
and we can’t put that in there i
did have the opportunity the closest
i’ll ever come was i met his
son who’s now head of franklin covey so
his book is the speed of trust and it’s
basically how to use the seven habits
in relationships it’s a great read it’s
almost a how-to when you have a
misalignment of expectations
what to do to realign those expectations
and it gives you 13
behaviors that you can identify and then
choose to
to work on a great book but i have met
him
and it was actually at a seminar for his
book and we were broken out in these
workout
sessions and my round of four people
was a little bit light because i think
everybody else had like six or eight
people
so he walked off stage and he sat with
us to be in our group
and we started talking and we ended up
eating lunch together
and i asked him and i know you’ve read
the book and i know there are a lot of
people out there in the scaling up
nation that have read it but there’s a
story in there
about expectations and he’s talking
about his little son
and how he was going to get and i’m
talking about
the father stephen covey how he was
going to get his little son
the gentleman that was sitting at the
table with me to keep
the yard what he said green and clean
he said the end result is what we’re
going for however you get there
it’s up to you and he goes into the
seven habits of highly effective people
on how to have
this conversation with people and then
the result is the yard looked as
horrible as it could have ever looked
because they didn’t really set it up
right and he breaks that down
anyway so i asked him what is his
take what is his story on the failure of
green and clean
and he looks right at me and he goes i
was seven
that’s awesome that’s such a great book
and there’s so many nuggets and lessons
and great stories in there so to hear
the perspective of his son is is awesome
so when i was preparing for this
interview one of the things that i
always like to ask people is for book
recommendations i’m a huge reader
but i realized that one i’ve talked to
you
a lot about books and and whatnot
but it seems like it’s always business
or productivity related books i think a
lot of the things that we’ve referenced
back through this podcast even today
are tying back towards either
productivity books business related
books i’m curious i guess one does trace
read non-productivity non-business books
and if so
what are some of your favorite books
either non-fiction or fiction books that
i guess would be viewed more as that
filling of the gas tank type of a book
as opposed to
work so i will admit i gravitate to
the business and productivity books it
it gives
it teaches me something and then i can
do something after i read it and i can
measure the results
i really enjoy that it it’s really
difficult for me
to read something that’s not that i have
to force myself to do that
but like you i also have a coach and
he’s tim fulton he’s been on the show a
couple of times
he will say trace this month you’re not
going to read any business books i want
you to read some pleasure books
and it that’s what really what it takes
for me to read something
that’s that’s not a business book my
favorite non-fiction book
hands down is the hunt for red october i
have read that book dozens of times
i’ve got imagery that um i can
i just i just know where they are not
from the movie but just
how i’ve envisioned all the things that
they talk about
in the book i can reread it and it’s
like i’m watching a visual movie so
that’s a really easy
read for me and i’ve always enjoyed it i
bet i’ve read that i don’t think i’ve
read it a dozen times but it’s probably
not far away from that
another thing that i’ve read is i’ve
read all of the
game of thrones books i really enjoyed
that series on
hbo and there was a departure i think
around the third season from the show
and the books
and if you have not read those books
they are by far
superior to the show and if you didn’t
like how the show ended you probably
like
better how the books set that up and
other than that
i just don’t read a lot of non-business
books
there you have it folks you gotta read
all the business books and productivity
books to be like trace
i don’t think i don’t think anybody
wants to wants to pull on that thread
i uh no i i can appreciate that it’s
sometimes difficult to to break out of
that mindset of
yeah but if i’m going to spend you know
however many hours reading it’d be great
to
continue to improve or to can you
continue to learn
i’ve gotten better about reading fiction
and non-fiction
but i i can totally relate to that
trace i know you’re a huge scuba diver
i’ve heard many you know either stories
about teaching training all of that
i’m curious i just recently read a book
about cave diving which kind of got me
thinking about this
uh what’s your craziest scuba story well
i’ve read that same book
and i don’t have anything that crazy
and and i can shift gears a second let’s
go back to michael phelps i’m a
technical scuba diver i can train
other technical scuba divers so that’s
kind of in that book that you were
talking about
where they’re really breaking the limits
of regular recreational
scuba diving i didn’t start there so
i started out with a friend of mine
when we were down at the beach saying
hey i’m going scuba
the other alternative is my wife was
going shopping so
do scuba for the first time or go
shopping so i said hey let’s
go shopping and matter of fact and i was
thinking the entire time
how terrified i was that there was no
air down there
so i didn’t have a great experience my
very first time as a scuba diver
because i didn’t get training and i then
it was just a discovery class they kind
of just threw you in the water and hoped
everything went well
well later i decided i wanted to get
training
and there was somebody that guided me
through
what i needed to know in the basics of
scuba diving
and then i got certified and then after
getting certified i decided i wanted to
learn some more and i started learning
more and i started getting more
experience
and today my deepest depth is 258 feet
on a rebreather my longest dive was four
hours
and 12 minutes on a rebreather and i’m a
rebreather instructor
so i didn’t just start out that way so
that’s
my michael phelps story as far as scuba
diving
the scariest story that i have is
i was on my rebreather for those of you
that don’t know that’s called closed
circuit so open circuit is what you’re
used to that’s when you exhale
on a on a scuba regulator and you see
the bubbles come out
on the rebreather no bubbles conceivably
the air you come
off of the boat with is the air that
you’re recirculating
in this loop the great thing about this
is i have a lot less air capacity that
i’m carrying down in those cylinders
but it lasts a long time you heard me
say i got a four
hour and ten minute dive folks i wasn’t
out of air
i just got tired i wanted to come up so
you can you can stay a lot longer and
there’s no bubbles well you go down
there to see
all the creatures well the bubbles scare
the creatures
so now they’re just looking at you and
you see
so many more things underwater
when you don’t have that exhaust of air
bubbles coming out
well i was down in the florida keys and
for those of you that are divers and
have not
dove the florida keys it’s one of the
best diving spots
in the world not that i’ve seen them all
but from what i’ve seen
in the united states i mean it’s just
incredible so
we were diving the bib there’s two boats
that are really close to each other that
are wrecks the bib and the duane
their coast guard cutters they’re about
a hundred feet
and i was on the rebreather and there
was a lot of current
there was a mild amount of current when
we started the dive but it really picked
up
during the dive so much so
it took everything that i had
to get from the wheelhouse back to the
up line
where the boat was so normally you swim
against the current and
use the current to take you back where
you’re going well the current had
shifted
and it really shifted so i was using
everything that i had to get back to
this line
well if you imagine on a rebreather it
takes time
for all this stuff to work and i was
breathing pretty hard
i had over breathed the rebreather
and what that is you get a build up of
carbon dioxide in your system
i’ve been through enough training i
recognized that and i remember
thinking because i still had a really
long way to swim
it wasn’t long but because of the
current it seemed long to get to that
upline
and if i didn’t make it i was just going
to get blown out somewhere and hopefully
a boat would pick me up or something but
i remember thinking as i was swimming
you know is this it is is this is this
going to be
you know the last thing that i do and
then right then my training kicked in
i’m like okay i can kick more
efficiently
i can purposely breathe this rebreather
and not just give up to how my body
wants to breathe i can i can breathe it
more properly and i made it to that line
obviously because i have this podcast
and we’re talking today
but that was that was the moment where
you know i had to make a decision and i
had to rely on my training
so that was a really real moment for me
in scuba diving
another funny story in scuba diving is i
go to bonaire which is in the southern
caribbean
i think it’s the lowest island in the
caribbean
and they’re they’re lionfish there and
connor
you’ve probably heard of lionfish
they’re an evasive species
um their rumors are myths that they came
over
uh because somebody flushed something in
a fish tank
i think most likely uh they got sucked
up in a ballast of a ship and then were
probably released here
anyway they are here and they have no
natural predator they
are destroying the reefs i was working
with somebody down in bonaire
and they were showing me how one lion
fish ate 32 shrimp
so i mean they’re just they’re just
cleaning out the reef
they support the cleaning of the fish
and all these other things that the reef
can’t survive with
anyway so when we go down there we
normally lionfish hunt it is a protected
sanctuary so
you not only have to have this
certification to do lionfish hunting
you have to have a guide go with you to
do lionfish hunting
well we were on the rebreathers and we
were down
about 150 feet 200 feet where
nobody none of the guides were certified
to go that deep
so my funniest story is where we’re
taking this class
and they’re telling us that we have to
have this guide and they’re saying no
you cannot go if you don’t have a guide
and we say okay well who’s going to go
with this
at this depth and because nobody was
able to to go at that depth they finally
said okay fine you can do it and they
stamped off on our certification
huh so what is lionfish hunting
entail how do you do that and first let
me just acknowledge
how scared i was just listening to the
previous story so
we’re glad you’re here with us trace but
man i’m not envious of that scenario
well and i hope that’s not the picture
that i paint for the sport of scuba
diving because
you asked me what my craziest or
scariest story was and that was it
now i’ve got thousands of other dives
that
i’ve seen sharks i’ve seen wildlife i’ve
seen
you know you name it and i’ve had great
experiences
so if you would have asked that we would
have had a lot better conversation so i
don’t want you to think that’s what
scuba diving is
that’s just the the worst i’ve ever had
in scuba diving and the most i can
compare to the to the book that you had
of course well we all like the
sensationalist story so that’s what we
went with here
but you’re asking about how you hunt
lionfish so basically
you have a spear and on the end of it is
it’s called a stinger
and it’s got uh three to five points on
it and
what you do is you pull it back there’s
like a a
rubber band it’s a little bit thicker
than a rubber band but you pull that
back you get some tension you aim at the
fish you let it go
it goes through the fish and it’s got
barbs on it so it keeps the fish from
swimming away
now you can’t touch the lionfish so
what you do is you put that into a
special bag
that allows you to put fish in but the
fish cannot get out
now doing this over and over again
that’s what they teach you i learned
that that is not the best way
because it’s got grommets in it that
allow the water to flow
through the bag as you’re swimming so it
doesn’t slow you down
well the fish spines can stick through
that as well and i’ve gotten stung that
way
so what i now do is i
semi clean the fish i cut the spines off
before they go in the bag
and i’ve also learned that you never
shoot the fish
in the meat section you shoot it through
the head
and then that way the meat isn’t
blemished and
the whole reason that you would hunt
lion fishes
is it is destroying the reef they are an
evasive species
and they have no natural predator so
teaching the other fish
that they can eat them like grouper
grouper don’t know what they are so they
don’t eat them but if you feed them to
grouper they now learn oh that’s food
and now
they’re going to start hunting lionfish
so that’s one way we can do it
underwater
we then we take that meat to the locals
and we give them this meat i will all be
filleted and ready to go
and they eat it and they realize oh i
can
eat lionfish and you start seeing
cookbooks with lionfish recipes and
that’s one of the
marks that you know that a town
understands that this is a food source
wow that’s it sounds like fun to be
honest and you’re making an impact
it really is it gives you it gives you a
mission and you know you’re doing
something good
sure cool all right well we got one last
question here that i wanted that i was
just really curious about is what other
podcasts
do you enjoy listening to first off
since i’ve been listening to podcasts
i absolutely love podcast i’m one of
those people that think
you should share what you know so you
can enhance other people with that
and that’s what people that host
podcasts do
connor you turned me on to one of my
favorite podcasts
which is tim ferriss he was one of the
first ones that i started listening to
his podcasts are very long
but they’re extremely informative
and he just has a way of explaining
things
that you just get it as soon as he says
it you just get it his books are like
that
his podcasts are like that so thank you
for that recommendation
he’s definitely on my podcast list
another one i listened to
is smart passive income that guy’s name
is pat
flynn i’ve actually had an opportunity
to meet him through charlie cicchetti
a couple of times and he is by far the
most
genuine person i have ever met his
mission is to share everything that he
knows
to help other people and if you
haven’t heard of him i would i would ask
that you check out smart passive income
what his job was is he lost his job
and he wanted to figure out okay how do
i create a new job where i wasn’t
dependent on somebody else
and he came up with all these different
ways to have smart passive income
and he post on his website monthly
what his income statement is so you can
actually see
what he’s doing and he teaches you
through his website
and through his podcast how you can do
that as well
but he also talks about productivity uh
he talks about a lot of
other things just like we do on our our
show we’re not just
water treatment one of my favorite
voices of all time is mike rowe i think
he’s got the most
incredible voice and he does a podcast
called the way
i heard it they’re really quick they’re
seven minutes long
and he’ll do uh summer a little bit
longer but
he’ll take something and he’ll start
talking about it
and he’ll twist it so you think you know
what he’s talking about but it’s not
until the end where he does the reveal
where you realize
exactly what the story is he is an
incredible story writer
he puts a spin on things we think we
already know
and i’ve got to tell you i’ve i’ve been
driving down the road i’ve laughed at
those i’ve cried at those
that is one of my my favorites and then
another one
that somebody in our mastermind shared
with us was actually tom hardy
he told me about one called manager
tools
and it’s all about productivity tools
it’s all about
how do we get better expectations with
people how do we have tools uh to work
better with people
and each episode is a different tool
awesome thanks for that
i know if the listeners here are
anything like me
one they’ve got way too much windshield
time and two it’s
too much windshield time for scaling up
to
consume all of that time so i think you
know the recommendation of the tim
ferriss show
smart passive income the way i heard it
with micro
and manager tools maybe that gives
everyone a few more
podcasts to check out to hopefully kill
some of that windshield time and make it
a little bit more productive
so trace again thank you so much for for
doing this
i’m i’m so appreciative of everything
you do and
i want to thank the scaling up nation
for letting me flip the tables here and
take your job here today as interviewer
and uh thank you so much well it was my
pleasure and i hope the scaling up
nation enjoys it as much as i have
well connor i sincerely want to thank
you
for doing that i know it’s uh got to be
interesting
interviewing the host of the podcast
on that podcast but you did a great job
and i i think you answered a lot of
questions that people had
in the scaling up nation and it was
great to be able to
let the scaling up nation know the
answers of the questions that everybody
had
so folks you asked for it we did it and
that is
how we do this show a lot of times
i will pick a topic because you emailed
it to me
you put it on our show notes page you
got that to me and however
you got it to me but with that i then
developed an entire show around that
and i love doing that because when you
tell me what you
want us to cover i know we’re carrying
the right information
on scaling up h2o if you’re wondering
how to do that you can go to
scalinguph2o.com
you can go to our show ideas page and
you can let us know
anything you would like to on
that form who you want us to interview
what questions you personally
have for us or any show ideas
now maybe you have a question that you
want to ask me
and you want me to play your voice on
the air
if that’s the case as soon as you go to
our home page
you will see a pop-up on the right hand
side that says record voicemail
and you can record your voice on
whatever device
you are on people are always asking me
what
the nation can do to help the scaling up
h2o podcast
and i love it that you all are asking
that question i always answer that with
the number one thing is to continue to
listen to scaling up h2o
but it’s also followed quickly by tell
someone else about the podcast
make sure that they subscribe so they
get that brand new episode each and
every week but there’s also some other
things that you can do
search engines rate our popularity based
on
the comment so if you can go to your
favorite podcast player and leave some
comments
about the show that helps us rank higher
that helps water treaters find our show
even easier and folks when the scaling
up nation grows
the content that we’re able to give
grows
within the show as well so we’re all
helping each other
i appreciate the question and i
appreciate all you do
to continue to make scaling up h2o
the best podcast for the industrial
water treatment industry
folks i’m back with you next week with a
brand new episode until then
have a great week folks
scaling up nation i recently asked
rising tide mastermind member
connor parish what are some of the
things that he is bringing
back to his company as being a member of
the rising tide mastermind
here’s what he said it’s allowed me to
kind of think with a better structure in
terms of
what do our employees need what do the
members of our team need to be
successful
and then really trying to empower them
to have some of that
and so for example we’ve kind of taken
some of the
uh some of the things that i’ve learned
and directly are starting to apply it
within our organization
and i think if you were to ask those on
our team
they would say that there’s been a big
change or a big shift in terms of
my interactions and how i’m approaching
things with them since the start of the
mastermind
nation i hope you can see through
connor’s comments why i say
a rising tide lifts all boats
the things that you learn the things
that your people learn
within the rising tide mastermind allows
the entire
team to grow we are always trying to
find something new that will help all
the members
be better at what they do if you want to
find out more about the rising tide
mastermind go to
slash scalinguph2o.com where you can
read all about the mastermind
and apply to schedule a call with me
again that’s scaling up h2o.com forward
slash
mastermind
you