The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
nation one of my favorite things about
the rising tide mastermind is a session
that we do called a full cup and a full
cup is where we bring a tip or a trick
to each other that can really help
improve our regular day to day and a few
months back eric russo member of the
mastermind and has been on the podcast
several times he brought to us the
rocket book folks the rocket book is
amazing the rocket book allows you to
take notes just like you would on any
other notebook but it has a scanning
feature that turns what you write into
searchable text
it makes your notes able for you to find
this was a game changer for me and i
know it can be a game changer for you we
have an affiliate deal worked out with
the rocket book folks so you can go to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash
rocketbook and you can receive 15
off your first order of 20 or more
[Music]
hello scale it up nation trace blackmore
here the host of scaling up h2o the
podcast where we scale up on knowledge
so we don’t scale up our systems
and nation this is the fourth quarter i
know a lot of us are just killing it and
we have been
the entire year but there’s some others
of us
that maybe need a little push well it’s
my hope that all the lessons that you’ve
learned throughout this year
you’re learning how you work and you’re
assessing how do you do things better
how do you continuously improve yourself
not just because you want to but because
of the lessons that life is teaching you
i remember somebody was very discouraged
a couple years ago because they did not
accomplish the goals that they wanted to
accomplish
and within the rising tide mastermind
something that i really enjoy doing is
we get to do one-to-ones with each other
we talk about our personal goals and how
we can get each other motivated and
maybe we can share something that the
other person just can’t see that’s going
on
and when we can bring light to that that
unlocks the potential of that person
getting whatever they’re trying to get
done done to
and with that this specific individual
was really down on themselves because
they did not achieve
several of the goals that they had set
out for that year well we started
evaluating all the things that went on
during that year and folks it was things
like they had a new child
they moved they had in-laws that they
had to move and their spouse
was in school
so all these things were going on
and that was information that
maybe they knew a little bit of
but they didn’t know all of it until it
actually happened well folks it’s okay
to realign your goals
when you learn new information
but i think a lot of us what we don’t do
is we anticipate
life actually happening or we just say
we want to get this one thing done and
we don’t look at what’s going on in our
lives right now and what’s going to
happen in our lives in the immediate
future to make sure we’re setting
ourselves up for success now i asked
this individual knowing those things
that you endured and successfully got
done during the year
would you have achieved or even
attempted
to do these other goals and the answer
was a resounding absolutely not
well then i asked this person
how many of these things did you know
were going on when you made these other
goals and pretty much all of them
and that was the point i wanted to make
on that coaching session that we have to
take all the information that we have
available to us to achieve
those goals to make sure that those
goals are even realistic now sometimes
we’ve gotta push through knowing that if
we do something that’s uncomfortable
that’s not going with the grain of our
life but if we just do it a little bit
and get it achieved it now alleviates
all this other pressure and that’s
really the only way that we get back
time when we can do things like that my
friend rory vaden calls that a
multiplier so if we can find a
multiplier in our life that we can
suffer through a little bit to know that
we can get that back later that’s a
different story but the point of this is
is make sure that when you are making
your goals that they do align with all
the things that are going on
in your life now let’s say they don’t
is it still an important goal
and if you want to get it done does it
make sense to wait until it aligns with
things that are going on with your life
and sometimes the answer is going to be
no you just got to get that done
other times you can say once these
things are off my plate it’s going to
free up time and allow me to focus and
that’s just one part of the equation the
other thing is it’s going to put you in
the right mindset so don’t just put
things off for the sake of putting
things off and if you’re putting things
off because your day-to-day is too busy
that’s a totally different conversation
because your day-to-day is never going
to get any better unless you start
making changes unless you work on the
outside of what you consider comfortable
and if you’re there your day-to-day will
continuously get better but if you’re
not doing things because you are staying
in the day-to-day that’s what i want you
to consider
nation i’ve talked about the five-minute
journal before on this podcast but it’s
been a while this is a tool that i
recommend to a lot of people it’s a tool
that i use it’s a tool that my wife uses
it is called the five minute journal
because it won’t even take you five
minutes to complete it
what it is it’s three questions that you
ask yourself in the morning before you
put your feet on the floor getting out
of bed and then it’s two questions that
you ask yourself right before you go to
bed it’s amazing
how that helps train your mind
to filter out all the clutter and focus
on what’s important to you you combine
that with goal setting and nation you
will be
unstoppable i’ve got an affiliate link
to the five minute journal you can go to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash journal
and get yourself a copy of that
back when we were all on the lockdown
during the pandemic the five-minute
journal is something that really allowed
me to focus on what’s important when
everything that we knew was changing
last year it allowed me to make sure
that i was doing the things that i
needed to do and with all the negative
information that was out there it really
helped me use
my brain as a filter so i was working on
the things that had direct impact for me
and the people that i care about and i
was filtering out all the rest of the
noise i would not have been able to do
that because my mind would not have been
tuned to do such if it weren’t for the
five minute journal again that’s scaling
up h2o.com forward slash journal scale
nomination as many of you know i was the
president of the association of water
technologies several years ago and many
times during my eight-year stint on the
board of directors
members would come to either me or the
board of directors and say i’m having
problems finding people but even more so
people were saying they didn’t
understand
why they weren’t attracting younger
people to their companies
how to do that and the association i
think does what they can to help with
that but today we’re going to talk to an
expert on that topic so here’s that
interview
scouting up nation my lab partner today
is i addison jung but we’re going to
call her dr i and i’m so excited to talk
with you dr eye today
there are so many things that you know
and that are broken in the education
system
things that people like myself as
business owners need to know
about communicating with younger people
and we’re just going to cover all of
that but before we do do you mind
telling the nation a little bit about
yourself
yeah of course so first of all thank you
so much for having me on this podcast
and i’m looking forward to it and i am a
professor turned entrepreneur i got my
master
from syracuse i got my phd from
university of maryland and i was
teaching in higher education
for 10 plus years
and finally i came to the
sad conclusion that the current
education model is no longer
serving the next generation to help them
become career ready and life ready so i
asked myself an audacious question do i
want to be part of the problem to
continue to perpetuate
this broken education model or do i want
to be part of the solution so i decided
to be part of the solution and as a
result of that i resigned from my very
comfortable well-paid college professor
job and started running my own company
and so nowadays i i offer different
educational programs at my own company
and i mainly work with teenagers and
young adults to really help them develop
confidence and motivation and also gain
real life skills so that they can be
future ready and career ready and life
ready so that’s kind of what i do and my
work has been featured in forbes
entrepreneur today show pearson
education and a number of other places
it’s really impressive all the work that
you’re doing and the company’s classroom
without walls and i want to talk to you
as a business owner first and actually
before that let’s even jump back a
little bit further as an entrepreneur
because i know how scary it is to leave
a paying job a comfortable job and then
start something from scratch where you
have nothing how did you make that leap
it is a very scary decision i think the
biggest part was an identity change
because
for my entire life i spent my entire
life in education and i only had one
identity which is a teacher right a
college professor so when i decided to
resign from that position i was
also resigning from that identity so it
was really hard for me to understand
okay
i’m saying goodbye to that old identity
like who am i like who is this new
person that i’m becoming to
i have no idea i really had no idea so
that
mental transition is very very hard so
before i resign from my job i was
actually already building my personal
brand i was really active on twitter
and in 2017 i actually started my very
first live streaming show and i was
still a college professor at the time
but i realized that i couldn’t really
serve my students that well because the
only thing i had was degree like i have
so many degrees but you know what i
don’t have real life experience
but
that is what our students need in order
to learn to grow to become a
professional so
realizing what i couldn’t do in the
classroom and i started my very first
live streaming show
and
it is actually called classroom without
wars it was really my intention to use
social media as a way to bridge the gap
between classroom learning and a real
life
application and on my show i was
teaching social media public relations
and communication classes so on my show
i interviewed says golden you know guy
kawasaki mark schaefer
and so many amazing amazing incredible
entrepreneurs business people to come to
my online classroom my live streaming
show to have a conversation with my
students that was an eye-opening
experience for the students because
surprisingly
the younger generation even though
they grow up with technology they don’t
know how to use social media the way
that you and i are using social media we
use social media to create to serve us
but most young people are allowing
social media to use them it is very
different so it was an eye-opening
experience for my students so i wow you
can do that with live streaming i can
interview people
and so not only did my teaching improve
as a result of me building personal
brand at the same time
my personal brand started to generate
some income for me and speaking gigs and
consulting
and different things i was like wow that
was really interesting so that also gave
me some faith
in my resignation knowing that actually
seeing some cash flow not a lot
a little bit cash flow i was like wow
i can actually make some money based on
my personal brand outside the classroom
so that has given me lots of hope so
it’s not just like you know i’d like
cold turkey saying goodbye to my job but
there was still lots of fear because the
money i was making through my personal
brand was definitely not enough as how
much i was making as a college professor
but i realized that you know i we also
homeschool our kids they don’t go to
school so with teaching position and
doing research running my side hustle
and trying to be a mom
it’s time to say i have to cut right i
just cannot do all of them so it was a
hard time to make a choice so i decided
to to try this
and to you know have some faith in
myself so i resigned having some cash
flow but not a lot and it is really the
best decision i have ever made in my
life
and uh i i’m really happy yeah now i ask
myself why didn’t i do this earlier
question we probably all ask ourselves
but uh but what’s the proverb the best
time to plant a tree is 20 years ago the
second best time is today yeah i love
that yeah so i want to ask there is a
student out there that is listening and
they’re thinking i’m not getting
everything that i should be getting to
prepare myself
for after school for real life
how do you make that connection
yeah i mean i i have that i get that
question all the time the things that i
feel like very few students are actually
developing essential life skills
research has shown that gpa
grade point average is actually
inversely related to innovation and if
you ask any business owners and
innovation is a very important quality
that we’re looking for in our students
but
the entire school system is telling us
what truly matters is our children’s
academic performance look at their gpa
look at their grade but grade is
inversely related to to innovation in
other words the higher
the gpa
the less likely that a kid is to
innovate
and one of my favorite books is titled
eight students
work for c students
b students work for the government
my and i have so many studies like that
just recently i write
another study that came out last year so
a group of researchers they are trying
to understand
and trying to investigate our children’s
curiosity because albert einstein has
said that you know i’m not smart i’m
just very curious i stay with problems
longer right so curiosity is a very
important thing
and they started how curious our
children are
and when the kids were five years old
and they asked on average
107 questions per hour okay five years
old we’re talking about american kids
and
by the time children become middle
school and high school students they
stopped asking questions so on average
for two hour period they ask about two
to three questions
so you really have to ask yourself from
107 questions per hour to two questions
per two hour period what’s really
happened
what happened is that they got more
educated
and they are being told by their
teachers but the school system to shut
up to listen they they did way too many
multiple choices right there’s only one
one question there’s only one answer
don’t ask don’t question obey so if
you’re a really good student you know
coming out of the traditional system you
are very good at following instructions
you are very obedient
but my challenge the thing that i’m
trying to disrupt is that is that what
we need in the 21st century the answer
is no so to answer your question i feel
like all the kids coming out of this
system
needs to go through some additional
training to develop some essential life
skills and i think the easiest way that
they can do this is that every student
should launch a live streaming show or a
podcast
i say for example
if i’m a doctor i want to become a
doctor
i don’t even know this is good for me or
not and in fact there’s another study
saying that almost 50 percent of
millennials regretted about the major
that they chose when they were student
and i definitely had the same regret
because the things that students spend
their entire life in a very artificial
environment
listening to the teacher
telling them
9 a.m you are taking a language class
10 am is time to use the bathroom 11 am
is time to do physical education
when you do that
after two plus years you lose your
ability and agency to think on your own
behalf so i highly recommend that every
kid
you know especially graduating from high
school and college start a live
streaming show if you want to become a
doctor can you use linkedin you know
which i call digital networking to
practice digital networking to identify
a few doctors and to interview those
people on your own live streaming show
or on your podcast to first of all
practice your communication skills
because so few students actually know
how to communicate and a harvard study
actually suggested 85 percent of a
person’s career achievement actually
comes from
soft skills only 15
comes from hard skills so start a live
streaming podcast interview people put
yourself on camera to see how good you
are at listening
articulating yourself asking questions
on the spot and also when you do an
interview with those professionals you
can really test is doctor good for me
what is the typical day like for them do
i really want to do this that can save
you so much time
and so much money if you discover wow
that’s not what i want because i heard
from so many kids they wanted to become
a lawyer a doctor
or pr person because of sex and city
whatever show they watch right and they
feel like oh wow
i watch an episode of sex and city and
simanza is a pr professional i want to
be like her therefore i’m choosing a
major and that is the worst way to
select a future right
so do an interview with real life pr
practitioners do an interview with real
life doctors to see
their real life right so that is
something i would tell to the young
people
now i can just see a young person is
hearing this today and they’re thinking
that doctor’s never going to come on my
show if i ask him
yeah i mean that’s uh that’s a great
question and i think many young people
have that fear on the other hand and i
want
you know every young person to
understand
leverage the fact that you are a student
and i tell my students all the time
everyone
has a soft spot in their heart for the
next generation
right if you are like a 40 years old
like myself trying to get access go to
all those people on my show people be
like who are you they will be thinking
about it but if you say
i’m only say uh 17 i’m trying to figure
out my life do you have 30 minutes to
have a quick interview with me i would
really greatly appreciate you
80
if not 90 percent of people will say yes
and i like just myself as an example i
get podcast requests all the time i
never reject your kid like i’m like i’m
actually going above and beyond like
after the podcast is over i was like
yeah tell me more about your life how
can i help you right so i think most
people are willing to serve to give to
the next generation so leverage that
card when you are a student you really
have nothing to lose and play that card
you know i’m a student i don’t have
anything can you please help me and try
that
dr this podcast serves the industrial
water treatment industry and it is an
aging industry which means a lot of
people are getting ready to turn their
companies over to a younger generation
and we have a systemic problem where
it’s an industry where unless you know
about it unless somebody tells you about
it
people just don’t know about it as a
career option what advice do you have
for our listeners today to make sure
that we’re getting the right message and
how do we get that message to the next
generation
i mean this is amazing question i
personally really don’t know much about
your industry when you reach out to me i
was like i don’t think i could be good
yeah i already know nothing
so i i think many people have that
question and i think as a business owner
it is our job to do storytelling and the
story selling right so if you are just
treating this as um i’m doing a business
presentation this is our mission this is
our vision blah blah blah most people
will fall asleep especially the younger
generation
those are the people who watch tick tock
videos you know every tick tock video is
like
30 seconds
50 seconds so very short attention span
right so you know to to really get those
people’s attention you have to speak
their language which is storytelling and
the story selling so what are some
stories that you can share with us about
your business right so what i learned as
a college professor when i was trying to
engage with my students i was like you
know what
i realized that as a professor for so
many years i was talking at this level
that is not working and my students are
at this level i need to go to their
level and speak their language which is
social media right i really need to use
social media to connect with my social
media we use emoji we use everything
that the way that my students talk is
how i talk and then we connect it right
so like one thing that you guys can do
is storytelling and story selling right
just don’t tell me stories my i don’t
know if many people in your industry are
actually on instagram are actually on
tick tock those are the places where
young people actually congregate and you
need to go where they are i supposed to
be like you know i’m here come come
they’re never going to come to where you
are you have to learn to study them to
learn about their language to go to
where they are and practice the way they
are telling stories they’re consuming
content and you will get their attention
i guarantee you and second way is to do
influencer marketing it is so amazing so
powerful right if you can
identify
it is very hard to find 1 000 people who
are really passionate about what you do
but it is not that hard to find one
single person so if you can find one
person who has a relatively
large following on social media i’m not
even talking about millions like even
50k 100k 20k
they’re good right so share with those a
few influencers and ask them leverage
their platform to spread your message to
spread your story and to engage with the
younger generation
so now we found a person they said hey
this really sounds interesting i want to
interview for the job and now i take
them through our interview process to
see if they’re eligible to come work for
our company
is this the same interview that i would
give a 45 year old or does it need to be
tailored for somebody coming right out
of school
a hundred percent has to be tailored
right otherwise it would be like what
are you even talking about right so it
has definitely to be tailored and maybe
you guys can even hire some people who
are social media savvy they they’re good
at creating content and they can start
sharing what you guys are doing you know
behind the stage show us some really
cool stuff like one of my friends has a
chocolate shop so every day he was using
snapchat to show us how he was making
the chocolate because very few brands
actually do that i was like wow that is
so interesting and young people love
that right so traditionally we have b2b
business to business b2c business to
customers but the new age is h2h right
human to human and we want to connect
with you at the human level and the best
way to connect with each other at a
human level is through storytelling
through story selling through leveraging
social media and this is something that
young people are really passionate about
right so
definitely tailor the interview and
connect with them add things that they
are passionate about they are really
good at
i’m sure there’s somebody listening out
there that says isn’t it their
responsibility
for them to shift how the business owner
is thinking or how the person that’s
conducting the interview is thinking
instead of vice versa
i think uh great question i think it
really depends on the field in my field
right there are we have hundreds of
millions of applicants i don’t even have
enough time to go through every single
application right so in that case you
can probably wait and for the students
to kind of
figure you out and connect with you
where you are but if you are on the
other stream and on the other spectrum
and uh i think we need to figure out if
i’m struggling receiving applications
people are not even interested in what
i’m doing like i’m just i have been
standing here and shouting hey look at
me but nobody’s paying attention if that
is the case i think it is time that you
spend some time energy to study your
audience to see how you can connect with
them better so it depends
i think that’s a great answer if you’re
not getting the results you want you
need to change right exactly exactly
what are some of the things that you’re
doing to prepare your students to go out
in the workforce
so besides you know like really learning
how they can use social media to
practice digital networking which has
been really powerful for all of my
students and also learn
how they can use social media to do more
content creation as opposed to being a
passive consumer as what i mentioned
earlier most
children kids are allowing social media
to use them as opposed to they are using
social media to serve their own career
needs very few kids are actually doing
that so that is another way
and another big segment and i really um
focus on a lot at my school is to really
help our students develop essential life
skills like you know adobe there’s a a
recent adobe study came out and they
scanned millions of job postings resumes
and trying to
discover what are
the factors that matter the most when it
comes to you know finding good jobs
working for a company and they discover
the 5c which includes communication
collaboration creativity critical
thinking
and creative problem solving so those
are the skills that i prepare it is one
thing that you do an exam hey what are
the five elements of communication what
is the definition of non-verbal
communication it is one thing to
understand that it is totally different
to apply that so i do a number of
different projects with my students to
really help them not only understand but
actually apply and to develop those
essential soft and life skills and
another component that i prepare my
students is to really work on their mind
and uh
after
you know being a traditional student for
so many years and our students have lots
of self-limiting beliefs and i think
even us i had lots of self-limiting
beliefs before i started my business and
i still have some nowadays right because
as you grow you start to dream bigger
you will continue to grow those
self-limiting beliefs so we talk a lot
about how to rewire our brain then our
my students understand actually human
beings
on a daily basis we have 60 000 thoughts
on a daily basis and
i think 85 of them is actually negative
so we have so many thoughts and a large
percentage of them is actually negative
and every single day we think the exact
same thoughts as yesterday so to
understand that in uh way
i taught my students quite a number of
techniques that they can apply to rewire
their brain
which is really really powerful and one
of my favorite quotes from dr joel
dispenza i really love his work is our
personality creates our personal reality
and our personality is made of how we
think how we act and how we feel so i
work with my students on the thinking
level a lot you know starting with their
thought and we do journaling positive
affirmation scripting and a number of
exercises and techniques to really help
them grow and build that
resilience
and so that they’re ready to face
whatever challenges the life is going to
thread them
what’s one way a business owner or an
interviewer can test to make sure they
have some of those qualities
i think it is to like you know people
are doing this type of interview like is
it called behavioral interviews and you
know give or scenario give you the case
like a situation and like see how they
are acting and i think that is you know
give them a real life project a real
life puzzle i know many of my friends
who are in the entrepreneurship space
they will be asking to give them a real
business problem can you actually solve
this you know if you are uh in business
major i you know here is this idea can
you kind of share with me how can we
bring this from ideation to a profitable
business right like what are your ideas
i definitely see the trend which is more
based on higher hiring based on skills i
suppose to be based on degrees so
traditionally people are only looking at
that piece of paper you are telling me
that tell me economy you are telling me
why you have a major in physics in
engineer whatever
but that is over
so right now it is the show me economy
don’t just tell me how good you are
don’t tell me what degrees you have can
you actually show me right so show me
what you have created as a result of
that piece of paper so more and more
companies are hiring based on skills not
just based on people papers i think
anyone running organization we need to
transcend beyond that piece of paper i
have worked with people who graduate
from ivy league schools but they still
are just like no i you can’t do this job
at the same time i have hired people who
don’t even have a degree but they’re so
good
right and i interview entrepreneurs
and uh sheila about him i don’t know if
you know her she’s a really big name
online tien and she has her own
company she does lots of video
production filming and she shared on my
on my podcast saying that
her company they prefer to hire students
who are actually self-taught as opposed
to students who graduate from school who
have that piece of paper because
self-starters they know how to learn and
they can figure things out and their
knowledge is more updated
than traditional students who just come
out of school with that piece of paper
but no real life experience so anyone
interviewing students should really give
them create real life problems scenarios
to see how they are handling i opposed
to the traditional interviews i don’t
even think you can get much out of those
traditional interview questions anymore
what motivates these individuals so for
the longest time people thought hey
throw more money at people and that’s
going to get them excited what are they
looking for
i think you know
i love this book from daniel pink he
like drive he talks about purpose
autonomy and mastery those are the three
factors to motivate anyone you know
these those are we homeschool our
children and those are the three factors
that i apply to my own homeschooling
journey right and the number one is like
purpose so for any organization because
the drive has to come from inside right
and that’s why there was a study that
came out last year from yale university
talking about how 85 of us high school
students hate their school like
literally hate their school 85 right and
because they don’t have that essential
purpose and of and also they don’t have
autonomy and they’re probably being
forced to learn something that they have
no idea right you have to learn this
physics like why they don’t have that
sense of purpose when they don’t have
that purpose they don’t have that drive
so if you really want to motivate young
people or anyone i feel like especially
the younger generation when they choose
an organization they want to be a part
of your mission they want to be a part
of your vision they want to know why am
i doing this
how is doing this contributing to the
bigger vision right i think there are
like lots of local companies there they
are like have a bigger cause right like
for me the people that i’m hiring to
work for me at classroom without was and
they know my mission i was like the job
you are doing is so important we are
disrupting education we are creating a
new education model we are re-educating
the next generation and they’re like wow
i’m part of this big picture that
motivates them and definitely not money
and so much research has shown that you
know monetary reward is good for manual
labor you know if you move 10 bags from
here to here i’ll give you five dollars
if you can do 20 bags i’ll give you 20
dollars for for manual labor monetary
reward works but if you are asking
people to be curious to do to innovate
to do intellectual work
a monetary reward can actually
hurt people it prevent them from taking
risks so don’t do that but actually
share the purpose share like make them
feel like wow we are a movement that’s
what i tell my people we are a movement
the classroom without wars is a movement
and you are part of this movement and
that i discover is really good at
motivating young people
i give a lot of
my credit to being successful in this
industry to people that have taken the
time to teach me things my mentors
and
i went out and i saw somebody that had
knowledge that i didn’t have that i
wanted and i asked them would you mentor
me and
nine times out of ten they all said yes
how do you motivate younger people to
get the courage and to have that first
conversation to ask to be mentored
oh great question i think the reason
that many young people are not doing
that is fear fear of rejection
again that i think is a result of the
current education model because when
you’re a student right you’re so afraid
of losing a point you’re so afraid of
not earning that a right because your
teachers are asking you your parents are
asking you feel like wow getting that
grade is so so so important if i miss a
point first off you get a mark right
cross red mark
and that hurts you right it hurts you
like identity like oh my god i got the
question wrong so i think we need you
from the school model to help eliminate
that fear
fear of making a mistake
fear of rejection and to re-engineer our
curriculum in a way to celebrate
failures to celebrate mistakes you know
again albert einstein he said that if
you have never made a mistake in your
life it means that you have never tried
anything new right i love that code so
that is what i share with my students
like actually in my coaching sessions i
actually have a planner it’s like what
is the mistake that you made today and
we celebrate wow congratulations you
made a mistake god what did you try
and what license did you learn as a
result of this mistake the only mistake
in life is one that you haven’t learned
a lesson from if you have learned
something from that mistake it is not
mistake right so we rephrase
and failure or fail as
first attempt in learning
and
i think we need to instill that into all
of our children so once we eliminate
that fear of being rejection of being
told know who you are and more and more
young people are willing to talk to
strangers to open up knowing that they
might be rejected
let’s flip that question around we have
many listeners today that have so much
knowledge in their heads how do we
encourage them
and how do we explain the benefits of
them becoming a mentor to a mentee
oh definitely and i learned so much even
from my own kids i’m learning from my
own biological children on a daily basis
there are only six and ten
and uh like when i coach my students i’m
always learning something today the
other day
one of my students she’s only 14 and she
told me something about tick tock i was
like wow that is so cool i had no idea
and i i think for you know to encourage
people of our generation
and to to entice them to become mentors
and coaches is to really push them to
put themselves out there right build a
personal brand especially on linkedin i
really love linkedin and start putting
yourself out there and start sharing
what you have learned and once you do
that
you are going to attract some people
right especially if you are using the
relevant hashtags you are going to
attract some young people and they will
be commenting oh wow that is a great
point i never realized that before right
so first step i think you really have to
put yourself out there and make yourself
available and so more young people can
reach out to you once you have a taste
of that you’ll be like wow we can learn
from each other right so what we say at
classroom without was is that we are
both teachers and students at the same
time i’m now the stage on the stage i’m
a guide on the side so we embrace that
you know we’re both teachers and
students at the same time i love that
you are absolutely crushing linkedin
what are your top tips for somebody to
do on linkedin
i’m actually speaking at linkedin
friday so i’m super excited for speaking
good
i love linkedin you know business wise
linkedin has generated so much money for
me i’m really really thankful
so in my case what really benefited my
business is that my live streaming
content i go live on linkedin so i have
been uh live streaming on linkedin
for
two years so when linkedin just launched
their live streaming and i got it and so
that has helped me a lot i think the
video is the filter that’s what i
thought everyone if you can embrace
incorporated video you know going back
to that h2h so if you can incorporate
video into your marketing branding
business make a huge difference and even
for young people it is a great way to
show your communication skills and so
embrace video and if you can embrace
live streaming that’s even better and
showing up consistently showing up
consistently make a big difference and
another piece of advice which is what i
learned from my journey on linkedin is i
feel like most people’s
linkedin content is not that good it’s
very canned and i think if you want to
really leverage social media you have to
show up as a thought leader by
like to stand for something or stand
against something what is your message
what is your story if you use social
media to run business you should stop
thinking the more hearts the more likes
i get on my post the more money i’m
going to make there’s no correlation
between how many hours you get on a post
versus how much money you’re going to
make and some of my posts i really
generate at least and clients like they
don’t even get that much traction but
the right people are reading my posts so
are you using your post to attract the
right people i feel like many people are
not doing that but you really have to
improve your messaging like my messaging
is very clear it’s not for everyone very
disruptive i talk about the broken
education model a lot so most parents
they resonate with my message are those
people who see education is broken they
have to
supplement their children’s education
outside the classroom when they see my
message it is validating today oh wow
this study is saying that
the importance of college education has
decreased 50
oh my god that’s what i have been
thinking that if they say like wow i
need to check out this lady and i can’t
tell you how many people check me out
that way because
like
i am speaking my message i’m speaking
i’m standing for something that i truly
believe it’s now i’m lying i truly
believe the education model is broken
we covered a lot of territory today if
you could only drive home one message to
our audience what do you want that
message to be
so i want to share this quote
when the flower is not blooming we fix
the environment not the flower and to me
when i look at that coat the flower
represents our students
and the environment is the classroom so
often times when our children are not
performing well my own kids i do this
sometimes i’m guilty of this myself i
will be yelling other kids will be
labeling right adhd what’s wrong with
you but instead we need to pause and
reflect on the environment and fix the
environment so that the flower can
continue to grow i guess this can also
be applied to a business environment
right when our employees are not doing
their optimal performance instead of you
know fire them or say something about
them or give them a mean evaluation
what can we change about the environment
to foster our employees to grow to
thrive so that’s kind of a code i really
love
i love it too that’s great imagery well
i’m almost out of question so i’m gonna
transition to our lightning round
question so these are the same questions
i’ll ask of all of my guests so the
first question is if you could go back
in time and speak to yourself on your
first day starting your business what
advice would you give yourself from now
believe in yourself i doubted myself so
much impostor syndrome big time i wasn’t
confident because you know in my story
is that i spent my entire life as a
teacher i never started business before
so i i questioned myself so much believe
in yourself you can do this if not you
who
i love that if not you who we are always
our worst critics why is that
exactly i mean psycho psychology has a
theory it’s like selection bias so which
means that for all the things that are
going great
we human beings we have that tendency to
only pay attention to the things that
are not going well so it is that
selection bias we all have that yeah we
pay more attention to negativity that’s
why you know when you look at news i i
stopped reading news because there’s
really nothing positive right so people
love that type of stories and for us the
same thing we pay attention to the
negativity in our life and we remember
that
you mentioned a couple books already but
what are some books that you would
recommend if people want to read to
learn more about the topics we’ve
discussed
i mean i i’m such a big fan of sex
golden and my favorite book from him is
actually
one of his earlier books called the
purple cow
the animal called and then that book
really inspired me to be different right
like you know when you look at a group
of calls the one that is standing out is
actually different color not black and
gray but a different color so can you be
that different color in your industry
i’m the different color in a very old
industry and i was afraid of that in the
beginning but now i have fully embraced
that and my business has grown so much
so yeah be the purple color call
my last question you now have the
ability to talk to anybody throughout
history who to be with and why
um oh wow that’s a great question
because since we are just talking about
oh i know i was about to say says golden
but i actually interviewed him so kind
of already had a conversation with him
do you know sir can robin’s i don’t
think i do he is the most amazing person
in the history of education and his ted
talk do schools kill creativity is the
number one watched ted talk
sir ken robbins and i love him
unfortunately he passed away this year
or last year he passed away last year so
if i could i would love to have a
conversation with him he talked about so
many problems in education
and i have learned so much from him so
if i could i would love to have lunch
with him
dr you mentioned your podcast tell us a
little bit about that
yeah so it is called uh what is school
for and we also go live on linkedin
youtube facebook twitter
amazon i have just become an amazon
influencer so i’m really excited
and it is called what is school for
inspired by my interview with seth
golden so the goal of the show is to
discuss debate and disrupt education so
that we can future proof the next
generation i go live every friday at 9
a.m pacific time or 12 eastern time and
actually this friday i’m going to
interview a high school dropout 20 years
old drop drop out of school start his
business and just this year you know
right now september his business has
crossed 500k in revenue so he’s coming
to my show sharing his journey why he
dropped out of school how he’s learning
outside the classroom and how he’s
starting his business incredible story
so i’m really excited you know anyone
interested check it out live or replay
well doctor i want to thank you for
coming on scaling up h2o and sharing so
much information with us today
oh thank you so much for having me
what an info-packed interview i took so
many notes during that interview you
know some of the things that really
stood out to me was
how content is used online and
a lot of younger people they just
consume
content and i think that’s the
disconnect with the older generation
where they just see that consumption and
they don’t see what value it brings
well dr i i think summed it up perfectly
when we think of social media the
content that we’re putting out and again
we’re not consuming it we’re now adding
to it we’re putting it out
under the mindset that we are serving
others maybe we’re serving our industry
maybe we’re serving a specific group of
people maybe we’re just serving our
company whatever it is is the content
serving and then hopefully other people
will consume that and they will use that
information that content to actually act
on something
in our case hopefully it’s acting on
learning about the water treatment
industry as a potential career and that
enables them to act further on learning
more about industrial
water treatment so maybe you should look
at what you’re putting out on your
social media and if you’re getting the
right results then by all means don’t
change anything but if you’re not
getting the results that you want to get
that’s life telling you that you need to
change something and maybe this is what
you need to change
scaling up nation i’m also curious if
you’re going to change some of your
interview questions
depending on who
you’re interviewing wasn’t that great
it’s not just we’re interviewing it’s
one human interviewing another what is
that going to do for you in your
interview process
how are you going to tailor that so you
can check out those soft skills so you
can make sure that they’re bringing to
your company a lot more than just a
piece of paper that they can think out
of the box they can critically think
and they can add that missing element
that you are looking for in
your company now a lot of water
treatment companies especially they
don’t interview often and they don’t
interview unless they have to which
means
most water treaters are very poorly
practiced when it comes to conducting an
interview so i hope if you haven’t
practiced interviewing in a while you
re-listen to this podcast and think
about what are some of the things that
you can do in your process to make sure
you’re asking the right questions and
you’re getting the right information
from your candidate to make sure
both of you are set up for success for
years to come
as i mentioned in the podcast i owe so
much to my mentors i’ve had many of them
on this show
and nation i would not be where i am
today
and i would definitely be a lot more
bruised up had it not been for the
people that poured into me the people
that shared experiences the people that
gave me information the people that i’m
just able to call
when i have a question and there are so
many of them out there and as dr i said
a lot of us and by the way i’m 46 years
old and i am not too old to ask somebody
to mentor me there is always somebody
out there that knows something more
than i do
about a particular topic well nation if
i want to learn more about that topic
what a great way to do that instead of
just reading a book
i can now talk with somebody that’s done
it that’s experienced it that’s gotten a
little bruised up along the way
getting to where they are now and
there’s just something about people that
want to help other people so if you ask
the question if you have the courage to
ask somebody to help you i almost
guarantee you that that other person
will say
yes
and for the people that are saying yes i
want you to know what you’re saying yes
to because i have the honor of mentoring
several people
in water treatment and business and all
other aspects of life and when you are
mentoring somebody
it’s not that you have to know the topic
inside and out but you do normally know
the topic more than the person that
asked you to mentor them
what’s going to happen
is you are going to have a totally
different experience because now you are
the professor
you are teaching this topic and if it’s
something that you want to know more
about there is no better tool out there
than to change your perspective from
that of a student to a teacher and when
you have to explain that to somebody
else you just have a whole different
understanding of that topic so that’s
one and then two
i truly believe that our goal on this
planet is to learn as much as we can
apply what we learned but also to share
what we learned how are we going to
teach other people what we learned so we
can continuously get better at
everything that we do
just imagine if we all had that attitude
and innately i truly believe we all do
but with all the things that are
bombarding us in society with a lot of
our culture enriching greed it doesn’t
allow us to think that way so i’m going
to challenge each and every one of you
to step away from that mindset for a
second and think about all the things
that you can get
if you decide to start sharing what you
know with other people
nation i love bringing this podcast to
you and i love that you tune in every
friday for a brand new episode of course
i’ll be bringing you a brand new episode
next friday so be sure to tune in to
that
and i know you thought i was getting
ready to forget james’s challenge but
right before we sign off here is james’s
challenge
[Music]
hello scaling up nation the next james
is challenged as we grow as an
industrial water treatment professional
drop by drop is
calculate how much heat energy goes down
the drain with boiler blowdown and how
much it costs
boilers use a lot of energy by design
the more energy the boiler can transfer
to the steam the better
of course a boiler requires blow down to
operate which means heat energy is going
down the drain
do you know how much do you know the
costs
can knowing this information help
demonstrate the need for better blowdown
control or maximizing cycles of
concentration or the concentration ratio
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
james thanks for that and nation if you
are not caught up on james’s challenge
you can go to
scalinguph2o.com and look at every
single challenge that james has put up
you can catch up and by the end of the
year you will be 52 steps closer to
being a better industrial water treater
have a great week folks
[Music]
why do we call our mastermind the rising
tide mastermind well i know you’ve heard
me say before a rising tide raises all
ships that’s one of my favorite quotes
because it’s so true the better we do
the better somebody else can do and vice
versa that’s exactly what the rising
tide mastermind is it’s our members
helping other members to achieve success
and to get there further and faster to
find out more about the rising tide
mastermind go to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash
mastermind
you