The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
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[Music]
welcome to the scaling up h2o podcast the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our
systems i’m trace blackmore the host of the scaling up h2o podcast nation this
is episode 258 and as i am recording
this episode i’m looking at some of our show statistics and again every time i do
this i do this i’m just extremely humbled at how well this show is doing
and a couple of things one we are well over 10 000 people that regularly download this podcast on a regular basis
and we are in the top 100 podcasts listened to
in two countries italy and sweden so i don’t know how that
happened i’m sure glad that it did and my ask is
those people that are listening to us in italy and sweden please join us on
the next hang the hang is going to be july 14th eastern time we’ll be meeting
at 6 00 p.m and i would love to meet some of the
people that are making this a top 100 downloaded podcast in those two
countries of course we’re mostly in the united states i’ll say over 92 percent
of our listeners are in the united states and then there are about 75 other
countries that listen to the scaling up h2o podcast
thank you for everybody out there in the scaling up h2o nation it is just amazing
that the scaling up nation has gotten so big and i will tell you that i am so
humbled i am so proud i am so honored to be the tribe leader of the scaling up
nation folks let’s face it all i do is have a microphone and i try to come at you each
and every week with a few words that hopefully inspire you to love this
industry as much as i do to look for new things that you can do
to find out more about our industry more than you perhaps know in our industry
i encourage you to talk about our industry with other people and above all
else how are you going to make this amazing industry better because you
decided to make it your career and that kind of gets us to
our show today we’re going to be talking about careers in water treatment and i
went ahead and looked up how is career defined a career is defined as a
profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent
calling i really like that definition and normally when i don’t like a definition i look a couple up until i find one that
i like but that was the first one that i came to and all of us that call
water treatment a career i think that’s a pretty good way to define it we all have to train to
understand water treatment and the thing about water treatment you never stop training you are always learning
something new because there’s always something new to learn my father told me when he
started training me that the day i thought i knew everything about water treatment was the day i needed to quit
water treatment because i was never going to learn everything and i’ve met people out there
that don’t think there’s anything else to learn in water treatment and they’re bored
folks there’s no reason for you to be ever bored in this industry
because this industry will never stop being a teacher
you may stop being a student but there’s always something new to learn
if you care to learn it so i’m talking to anybody out there now that might be
bored in our industry if i’m talking to you i promise you
you are doing it wrong this industry has so
much to offer you if you are willing to pay the price
my goal is to learn something new in water treatment each and every day
some days it’s easier than others i will tell you there’s some days that i do
have to go looking for it and there are other days that it finds me fairly
easily but when i go to bed every night i want to know that i learned something
that i didn’t know from the previous day i urge each of you to do that especially
if you are bored in this industry and by the way one of the easiest ways to get
bored in this industry is to do the same thing over
and over and over if you guys have ever seen a factory where somebody is doing
the same thing over and over and over again of course that’s efficiency but i can’t
imagine that’s very stimulating if you are treating your job in water treatment
like that as i said you are doing it wrong and if you normally start by doing
something a certain way maybe end that way maybe do something totally different one
of my mentors bruce ketrick senior taught me a long time ago
that every time i go to service an account do one thing different
and let the customer know that you did it by the end of a year you’ve done 12 things that are up and out of the
regular scope showing value to your customer and by all means make sure you tell your
customer you did those things and document those things in the service report because when they come to you
because somebody always comes to them with a lower price than what you are paying
you’re going to show them not only are you doing what you said you were going to be doing you did 12 extra things and
those 12 extra things allowed you to stay sharp in that account probably taught you some new things and they also
provided opportunities for you to learn more about the system that probably translated in more
services for you to offer your customer so never be bored in this industry
always look for the next thing here are some next things that you might
be finding some interest in so the american chemical society is having
their conference august 21st through 25th in chicago illinois we’ve got a lot
of chemists in our industry so i’m sure there are several people that are members of the american chemical society
so to find out if this is a conference that you should be in go to our show
notes page and we will have links for you to find out more also mark your calendars for industrial
water week industrial water week is always the first full week of october
starting this october october 3rd through 7th
a day each and every day that week that we will be celebrating industrial water
treatment monday will be pre-treatment tuesday will be boilers
wednesday cooling thursday waste water and then friday will be careers an entire week just for
us mark your calendar and do something to celebrate with other people in the
industrial water treatment arena this is an entire week where we get to celebrate
this amazing career that we have and we want to make sure that we are
doing that properly so we’ll make sure to have hashtags we’ll make sure to post
things on social media i hope you will take advantage of that so we can all celebrate together and
just like every industrial water week we will help you celebrate with a brand new episode each and every day that week and
we’ll probably have some fun things for you to do to help celebrate industrial
water week once again mark your calendars october 3rd through 7th
nation i love to have guests back and that is exactly what we are going to do
today so nation please enjoy this interview
my lab partner today is shawn mcgrade of corrida returning guest from episode 188
sean how are you i’m doing great trace thanks for uh for having me back
absolutely you know it’s not just me that wanted you back the entire scaling up nation wanted you back
you were one of the most listened to episodes that we have ever recorded
wow that’s amazing that’s definitely an honor to kind of share my story with the scaling up nation and i don’t know maybe
encourage some more folks that were curious on what the industry is all about sean i really think that you did a
fantastic job of explaining to lay people what it is that we do and
whenever i get a statistic from my team i always want to know well how do we know about that why did that actually
become one of our most listened to episode so we started diving deeper into our metrics
and what we found is it’s one of the most shared episodes we can actually track and see who’s sharing episodes and
that’s where most new water treaters find us because people in the scaling up nation says hey this is a great episode
you person that’s not listening to this scaling up h2o podcast this is something you should listen to
and what we think we don’t know for sure but we’re thinking that water treaters
shared this episode with people in their family or friends because it really did a good job episode
188 you did a great job of explaining what it is that we do how we got
involved in this industry and i think it really allowed people to breathe and they could give a resource
where people finally understood just a little bit about what being an industrial water trader is
yeah sometimes that’s one of the most challenging things is trying to explain to our friends or family what we
actually do it’s an honor that i was able to kind of paint that picture for folks
well since that episode did so well and the scaling up nation loves sean mcgrade we’re gonna do a part two of that so
everybody out there in the nation wants to know what has sean been up to since episode 188
i’ve been up to a lot you know bringing on more clients you know i’ve just won a
a grueling bid for a couple data centers here in minnesota that was i think it went on for three or four different
rounds so that was really that was a really good win um recently i went out to seattle
for the awt technical training week that was a great time got to meet some some more folks in the industry you know how
important that is to me trace and the lectures were phenomenal i mean you had bruce ketrick talking about boilers
uh he made it so interesting he did an excellent job of just making it interactive jim lucanich
you know funny story there we work for the same company and i’ve talked to jim you know via email or text or you know
calls many of times but i never got the opportunity to meet him in the flesh so he was out there in seattle and it was
great to actually get to meet him in person and for those who know jim i mean he’s an interesting character in the
best way possible so that was definitely a highlight of going out to seattle
you obviously were part of it you did some calculations and some sales training j farmery finally got to meet him he’s
kind of somebody i’ve looked up to for a long time going out to seattle was a great time numbers were down out there i think
because of some of the covid restrictions so i i think it you know some people were
telling me cleveland was a lot busier so i’m kind of glad i went out to seattle it was more of an intimate you
know setting and i kind of foresee the same thing with vancouver you know there with the travel restrictions i don’t
know i don’t want to say numbers are going to be down but the folks i’ve talked to they’re only going to send a select amount of people up there
so that would be you know another great place to go to meet folks and really have that intimate one-on-one or
conversation because just not as many people up there what else have i been up to
i recently wrote an article for process heating on film forming a means my first
paper so that was an honor to be asked to write that that’s awesome you’re a
published author now since we’ve last spoken to you yeah definitely it’s
really cool sean you mentioned the awt convention uh of course that’s going to
be in canada in vancouver and you can’t talk to another water treater
and hear them say well i think attendance is going to be down and i don’t know if i’m going to go and maybe
it’s not going to be the best year to do all that we’ve got the travel restrictions but what i just love that i
heard from you is you’re really looking at the positive you’re saying okay well maybe there aren’t going to be all those
people there i’m going to have even more time to spend with the valuable vendors that are
presenting either with papers or they’re in the exhibit hall we’re going to be
able to connect with people that we maybe want to know maybe they were too busy because they had so many people
they had to meet with on a normal convention but now they’ve got a more open schedule i love that attitude
and i hope more people subscribe to that yeah you got to look at the glass half
full as they’d say so sean uh a lot of people have not been to the awt technical training this was
your very first technical training for somebody that’s listing out there and
maybe they don’t think they know enough water treatment in order to go or maybe
they’ve been in this industry forever and they think that there’s nothing for them to learn how would you speak to
each one of those people so if if somebody’s new to the industry and kind of scared to go out there
because they don’t think they know enough i mean the fundamentals and applications course is specifically designed for those
individuals so i wouldn’t shy away from you know being intimidated not knowing enough i mean
that’s what it’s there for and then for the folks who kind of have that mindset of oh i know everything i need to know
technology continues to change you know year in and year out you want to stay up to date you want to
stay current with what’s going on in our industry and the presenters you know they’re in tune
with all that stuff you got to look at it like i want to learn and learn and learn or be a forever learner and not
only just the classroom setting and getting to ask those questions that are sometimes you know tough or you think
are going to stump people those are the caliber of folks that are going to be able to field those kind of
questions and and you meet people you know you connect you network with folks
throughout the nation so you you get to build relationships with other like-minded folks
a lot of people get in this industry because it pays well it’s very interesting i truly believe that people
stay in this industry because of the community it’s the people you know and the people that you meet and they’re
helping you with your day-to-day with your career of course one of the things that we’ve
formed is a mastermind group you’ve been one of the original members and we got to all get together in
seattle for the technical training and we decided to go out to dinner we had our own room in a restaurant and oh my
gosh the community was just amazing yeah that was an amazing dinner that was a lot of fun uh it made me realize how
many folks within the industry are part of that community and how we all help each other
it’s just amazing how this the mastermind groups have come together and how we all have each other’s backs you
know that sense of community is hard to find and it just you know that dinner kind of
highlighted how close that bond or relationship between all of us really is
yeah it definitely was a highlight for that entire week and we went ahead and did that again when we were in cleveland
and you know the thing that i just think is just amazing is how incredibly nice and
generous people are in our industry you know let’s face it we’re all competing with each other
but at the end of the day if you call somebody you know and you have an issue
i have never in my entire career had somebody tell me that they are not going
to talk to me or to go pound sand or figure it out on your own they’ve always been
very generous with their time people have even given me formulations that i’ve had issues with i can’t think of a
better group of people and not that you need to join the mastermind to experience that but oh my goodness it
definitely puts that on steroids totally agree so sean what are some of the things that
you do when you’re not in water treatment specifically i know that you are a fisherman and you catch some of
the ugliest fish i have ever seen in my life why would you want to
catch this fish what are they called musky lunch or musky for short they’re
beautiful to me i think it’s all relative um but it’s it’s just the allure of you
don’t get one every time it takes a lot of work and effort grinding it out trying to catch one of these fish
you know a lot of people will compare it to deer hunting and going after that one
big buck i think they closely relate you know you’re going for that apex predator
and when you get one i mean they’re they’re massive fish i mean i think the only
other fish in my area bigger is something called the sturgeon so yeah it’s just the sport the thrill
of it’s an adrenaline rush you catch one of these fish and i mean i don’t want to sound like a wuss
but the adrenaline rush is going so hard that you’re literally shaking your hands will be shaking no matter how many of
these you catch it’s the same reaction every time and if if you’re not getting that adrenaline
rush well then you need to find something else again well i’ve been saltwater fishing
before and we might have caught a sailfish or something like that and you really have to struggle to get that guy
into the boat and a lot of times they break the line is that the same experience with this
freshwater fish yeah it’s definitely they fight hard you want to get them in the boat as quick as
possible because they’re they’re known for shaking the hooks or getting off you
know they’re they’ll thrash around or do these head shakes a lot of people the
tactic or technique is just to horse them in not give them time to get off
but yeah it’s a challenge to get them in and you got to have a good net man to get them in the net
a lot of fun though sean you mentioned you sold a few new accounts we have a lot of people that
are listening to this episode and they also have on their list that they need to sell some new accounts what tips do
you have for getting a new business with everything that’s going on this year
there’s a lot of tips a lot of my business lately has been coming from
referral or getting in front of people um so i’m written into an rfp so i i get
to i get to show up or i get to play in the reindeer games when a bid comes up and a
lot of that just comes with time within the industry and getting credibility
around here covet is kind of loosening up so people actually take meetings which is nice i mean when we when it was
first going on or at first you know kind of the world shut down you couldn’t get in front of people everything if you
were lucky you might be able to take a zoom call with a plant or a prospect or whatever but things are starting to
loosen up so i just i’d encourage folks to get in front of people
see how you can help them and i’m always a huge advocate of the holistic approach
you know not just chemistries there’s there’s other stuff you can do to help them big picture wise whether it’s
pre-treatment or you know list goes on and on just start getting in front of folks don’t be scared to knock on some
doors or or that kind of deal pareto’s law eighty percent of the results come from twenty percent of the
activity what should be the activity that we’re doing each and every day that drives new
sales effort diligence you know planning sales time within your day you know sometimes
we’ve had a long day and we you know face some challenges and
you know we’re ready to go home but if you can if you can change your mindset if you if
you can have some self-discipline and even if you don’t want to you know
plan that or i’ll do it tomorrow or whatever if you force yourself if you tell yourself i’m gonna do this regardless
you’ll reap the rewards or the outcomes will will be much greater if you just continue to put it off you gotta build
that time into your plan or into your schedule otherwise i mean every day
things come up if if you don’t plan for it i mean the saying if you don’t plan you plan to fail
it’s kind of one of those deals something i love to encourage salespeople to do and let’s face it
everybody who’s listening right now you are a salesperson is to track your sales activity so what
what are you doing that will actually produce a sale and i’m willing to bet
most people would be shocked how little time they’re actually putting into that
definitely i worked through a program during covid where we had a third party
you know talk about virtual sales and and kind of hone our prospecting skills
and he had something called a sales funnel and it just basically looked at the analytics behind how many calls how
many appointments you know the numbers to actually get that one sale so it kind of really woke me up to
understand that it’s a numbers game and you just you gotta be diligent you gotta put it
or plan for it and make it a priority otherwise it’ll just fall by the wayside and days will continue to go on and no
new sales sean i know you’re very diligent in wilson’s versatile sales program
when i teach sales i teach the temperaments and nation if you haven’t
heard about the temperaments i think i’ve had kathleen on at least twice and it’s been one of the items that has
helped me with every single one of my relationships more than anything that i can think of so episode 117 was last
time that kathleen was on but sean i’m curious because people ask me all the time how does temperament and vsp how do they
all match up or do they you know what it’s funny you bring this up because i had a light bulb moment
when we worked through i said this you heard that so i had went through csp and vsp
by wilson’s learning and then when we you know read that book within our mastermind group i’m like wow these
actually closely relate just yeah one of those light bulb moments and i think you’ve had bob bob davis on the show as
well from wilson learning i have i definitely connected the dots there and temperaments
go hand in hand with uh the different temperaments or different groups in vsp
and basically all you’re doing with this knowledge is understanding how
to talk to somebody so understanding how they’re going to be receptive to what you’re trying to say to them and
it’s not to trick them it’s just to be able to speak their language i mean there’s a bunch of different
temperament things out there i mean enneagram i won’t go into the weeds with it but they all closely relate and
the whole rationale behind them is understanding how other people tick
to give you you know better way to actually communicate with them i’m a blue
in in the temperaments or in i heard this you heard that which means i’m very analytical trace your red just knowing
that i i have a upper leg in knowing how to communicate with you number one and number two what how you’re going to be
receptive what or on the reverse side what you do when you’re not you know
clicking on all are firing in all cylinders there’s also the reverse side of understanding if something’s wrong
with them where they go to and and you could probably speak to that a lot
more than me but it just gave me a whole different way of looking at relationships and communication and i’ve
you know i’ve transitioned that within my you know technical sales are building relationships with my clients
and it’s helped immensely i love that you set it up that the big
thing is it’s not about manipulation it’s about better communication and that is so key and there are a lot of great
sales materials out there and sales trainings but many of them are how do i
make somebody do something that i want them to do and i love that you said that’s not what this is this is about
communicating better and you brought up that you are a blue i am a red so an example of that is you
are very analytical you speak the language of order and perfection where i
am read i speak the language of power and control and i don’t like to get bogged down in
the details i like to know that there is a control and somebody is in control if
nobody’s in control i’ll step up and take that control but if you bog me down in details
you’re going to lose me however if i don’t communicate with you in a way that you can see all the details i’m going to
lose you it’s such a great tool most definitely it’s been a game changer for me
and you mentioned bob davis nation that’s episode 239 uh he came on and he talked about all the great programs that
wilson does and sean is a product of that and he’s out there making and closing sales so
there you go can’t have a better testimonial for that sean you had mentioned that you read i said this you
heard that because it’s one of the books that we assigned in the mastermind do you think that would have been a book
that you would have found and read on your own possibly i mean like i said i i dug into
some of the other temperament books it wasn’t the next book in line but i definitely benefited from from
that being brought to the mastermind group i mean honestly out all the books we’ve read in the mastermind have helped
us all but i i’m sure glad i you know it was introduced to me and i thought it was a
lot of fun when we were at the live event we you know we took whatever 15 20 minutes for all of us to answer
uh the questionnaire and just be brutally honest and it was funny going around the room and
you know everyone who’s a blue who’s a red who’s a green who’s a yellow and just
seeing all the different temperaments within our community were you surprised to learn anybody’s temperament
not necessarily i was more it just more reaffirmed some of my suspicions
so knowing the language and how to communicate better with certain temperaments how has that changed how we
talk with each other within our mastermind group understanding again the communication
piece understanding their attributes or how they like to communicate what you
know like you mentioned uh i’m a details oriented guy you don’t want all the details so knowing that i just gotta hit
my bullet points to get a message across have the main points but i don’t i’m gonna lose
you if i start getting in the weeds and each temperament you know has a variation of what they’re receptive to
or how they’re going to receive something in the best light or the best way yeah i’ve been really impressed with
how people have dug into the temperaments especially in the mastermind and when we give feedback
during that part of our call people are actually using their knowledge of the fact that i’m a red or
you’re a blue and how to deliver that information and i’ve seen where people have been a
lot more effective in utilizing that information because they’re they’re not mishearing it or they’re not taking it
to a level that it wasn’t meant to go to because there was a miscommunication people are really trying to put on other
people’s lenses and help them where they’re at definitely do you think people get tired
of me talking about the temperaments on the podcast i just love it so much no i mean i think you’re passionate
about it it’s it’s a great resource or a great tool and i mean you can apply it on so many different levels i mean they
have a kids version of the book to understand your children better you know it’s really there to
develop you know better relationships or understand people at a deeper level and i can understand why you’re so
passionate about it well i appreciate that i hope the nation is uh enduring me
talking about this nation if you have not looked into i said this you heard that i tell you it is the best thing
that i have ever done to help every single one of the relationships that i have in my life and
it wasn’t something that i was going to look for it was something i was having problems with and it found me
and i’m sure glad that it did and kathleen is actually coming out with some more materials
so i’ll be sure to keep you up to date with that you mentioned the children’s book it’s how do we use temperaments for
our kids but i tell you it works for everybody you take out the word child and it works for every human being and
it is just action packed with all the extra tips and and guides on how does a
yellow talk to a blue how does a blue talk to a red it just has great information in there
so we’ll have all that information on our show notes page but i just want to highlight that because that’s one of the
ways that you can become more successful in how you communicate
what it is that you do to a potential customer and do it in a way that they
really enjoy being educated about what services you’re going to provide for them
sean what are some other personal development tools that you’re using i know we do a lot in the mastermind i
know you try to do a lot on your own but let the scaling up nation know what what are some things that you do that perhaps
they can do as well i like pushing or challenging myself kind of bringing the best version of
myself to the table whether it’s in my personal or you know professional life a
big one is just reading books whether it’s you know physical book or audible i’ve been fortunate to have a lot of
good books introduced via our group and we actually work
through them and we digest them and we spend time looking at them from all different points of view every other
week you know we have a book discussion where somebody leads the conversation
i i’d say that’s that’s been a huge part of my personal development is just
taking the time to learn new material some of the other things you know just
jumping on the internet if something i’m curious about uh there’s this thing called google out there where you can
pretty much find anything you want to about any topic so i’d say just having that curious
spirit or being what i consider a forever learner that’s definitely helped the most with my
personal development and growth is just having that spirit that i always want to
keep learning and keep digging in whether it’s water treatment or other things i’m interested in i mean water
treatment specifically it’s like an onion you know there’s layers upon layers and you can just keep
peeling them back and you’ll never know it all none of us will ever reach the point where we know
everything in water treatment it’s just not feasible or possible but there’s a resource out there that
will help you with whatever you’re trying to figure out sean how do you know that you don’t know
something ah i don’t know i haven’t thought of that
before um somebody asked me a question and i can you know be honest or look at
myself in the mirror and be like wow i don’t know that not having the answer
and i might have a suspicion or i might you know have some insight of what i think is the answer
but until it’s validated or confirmed i don’t assume anything i heard that phrase from a gentleman
that i still work with his name is tim fulton and he asked me that he said how do you how do you know what you don’t
know and ever since he asked me that question i have just been consumed by it and people
say trace why do you read so much why do you have all these conversations with people why do you always introduce
people to to other people and it’s for that reason it’s very selfish i’m always trying to figure out what it is that i
don’t know that i don’t know so i can get to know it and the fortunate thing that in water treatment there’s always
going to be stuff that we don’t know that we don’t know so learning those things for me allows me
to know that i’m getting better my personal mission statement is knowing that today is better than yesterday in
whatever way you want to formulate that and learning something new guarantees
that i’m doing that so i’m always curious to how people do that nation if you have not considered that i
think you put things in a whole different perspective how do you know the things that you don’t know so you
can start to learn them and sean you mentioned google and i don’t want to burst your bubble but occasionally some
things might not be 100 percent accurate that are online
yes no i i get that trace but i think also what i want to just uh chime in and say is i
think you just got to explore if you don’t know something you just got to have that curious spirit
a lot of it can come from other individuals just you know relationships or friendships or whatever
yeah you don’t know what you don’t know and how do you find out what you don’t know
and it’s really a benefit that the fact that we can google something we can get information so easily at our fingertips
now and the fact that we know that it might not be a hundred percent accurate
we can be skeptical with it and the fact that we can be a little bit skeptical means that we’re not going to read that
and take it for face value we’re going to learn the next thing and that’s either going to confirm or disprove what
we just read and then we’re going to learn something else and hopefully before too long we’re actually teaching
that information to somebody in our industry well that’s the best way to learn something is to teach it to others you
know because you have to have your stuff together in order to teach somebody
of all the people that you mentioned in the technical training those were the people that i saw when i went to my
first technical training and i remember thinking wow these people know things
that i don’t know and i didn’t have the language to say that at that time but whatever i put together to say that in
the language that i had i knew i wanted to get better and i wanted to have a command over those topics like those
individuals that you mentioned earlier in the show and i knew the only way that i could do
that was to get involved within that committee because then i was connected
with those people i had a reason and they had a reason to be involved with me
and i just started doing things for the awt i started working on the education committee i started working on the marketing committee and then there
became an opportunity where the math was available for somebody to teach
nobody else wanted to do it and i couldn’t think of anything more than i wanted to start out teaching because i
just really enjoy math so of that i know you are involved with different
organizations what can you tell water treaters today about the benefits of getting involved
and how do you get involved there’s a lot of different ways to get involved i mean awt is probably the
biggest one folks could kind of research or dig into a little bit more i think the biggest
thing is it’s just it’s connected me with folks within the industry so i’m building those relationships
with other people who do pretty much exactly or similar um on the day-to-day
and it just it it makes you so you have that sense of community and you’re not alone
you can bounce ideas off other people you get different perspective
i’m not involved in too many groups outside of the water treatment industry i mean the other big commitment or thing
i’m involved with is firefighting uh so i’m in some different volunteer groups with that but yeah i would encourage
more folks to get involved with different organizations and different groups to
i mean you look at it like you’re giving back but you get so much more out of it when
you’re involved with those type of things totally agree and again it’s all about
community and when we have community we ensure that we’re not a commodity so
think about that and think about what are the things that you’re doing to make sure that you’re making yourself better
you’re making the industry better you’re networking with people you’re forming that community well i’m not going to let
it slip by that you said you were a firefighter so you have to tell us about that how did you get involved with that
okay so back in the day uh i was kind of at this point in my life where
i was a lead engineer for a school district and i knew it wasn’t going to survive
what i wanted to do with the rest of my life so i did some soul-searching and i was big into health and fitness back
then and i was trying to correlate a job that that was important with uh
and i like the sense of giving back to the community or helping people out so
i kind of had this moment where i was like okay the longer i’m with the school district the harder it’s going to be to
kind of break away from this because there’s a pension program and you know it’s it’s a government job so there’s a
lot of incentives to stick with it and i was right around the 10-year mark so
yeah i went back to school well at first i did a little digging to figure out what i needed to do to become a
firefighter and went back to school got my emt uh went through
uh a st paul hiring process which is one of the bigger cities here in the twin
cities area and it’s like i mean what i’d considered the holy grail of firefighting i was
kind of ignorant of how challenging it is to get on that department but i still
went through the motions and i still trained for it and studied and you know i i remember sitting down
uh for the uh written test portion of it and just looking around and there’s like literally thousands of people
in this giant room and i’m like oh i probably don’t have a chance but the physical part i did really good at i you
know there was this thing where if you did their obstacle course in less than three minutes and 30 seconds you got a
hundred points or full uh credit and i did it you know i was training my you know what off back at
that time i did it in like two minutes and 40 seconds and i just remember feeling so proud of all that hard work
fast forward about a year later i was in a d i lived in a different city called white bear lake also that lake has huge
musties in it too just to let the scaling up nation know as well so that kind of worked out great and that’s kind
of where that addiction came in but yeah i still wanted to become a firefighter
so i was a part-time firefighter basically volunteer you know work shifts
and respond from home and uh been doing that for a while now i mean the the fire department has morphed
over the years to be something different different structure where we have a lot more full-time folks
and then us part-time people just kind of supplement them and we work 12-hour shifts there’s a day shift and a night
shift both are 12 hours and our commitment is 36 hours per month so what that equates to is three shifts
per month and i love it and yeah it’s it’s gives me a great sense of
giving back and community you know with all my fellow firefighters and paramedics and emt
um friends and colleagues um i’ve developed some great relationships i’ve seen some
really cool stuff some really horrific stuff and i’m an adrenaline junkie so
it’s it helps supply that craving i have sean as i mentioned at the top of the
show one of the most listened to episodes that we have had was episode
188 so i don’t think i would be doing justice to the scaling up nation if we
didn’t put a little bit more of that into this show so i want to ask if there are people that are listening to you
today and they maybe they don’t know what water treatment is or they’re thinking
about becoming a water treater and starting a career in water treatment
what would you tell them so there’s there’s many different routes right like so if you’re interested in
getting involved in water treatment i mean there’s like the met council or wastewater drinking water there’s
working in plants whether it’s food medical equipment refineries plastic molding you know list goes on
and on there’s specific verticals or markets you could work in and then i mean depending on how early
you’re interested i mean there’s i don’t know if they have this around the nation but we have something called stem
programs where people you know in grade school or high school
can get involved with uh different activities that are related to you know engineering or math or water
and it it you know kind of allows them to see if there is interest and then i mean
something as an internship so let’s say you know some companies out there have partnerships
with college colleges so you know somebody you know maybe studying chemical engineering they do an
internship with the company and get to you know dip their toe in the water no pun intended to kind of see if it’s a
right fit for them you know there’s not i wouldn’t say there’s a lot of people that go to school for water treatment
but there’s many different paths or routes you can take to get involved with water in general
i mean water pollution or quality epa i mean
there are so many different titles or jobs that are related to water
and maybe i don’t know maybe we could throw some other resources on the show notes page of what some of those
resources really are i mean i kind of fell into water treatment um
you know getting lucky and being plucked out of being an engineer or an operator and getting the opportunity to
you know be a part of this industry and i’m sure by this day and age there’s got to be a ton of resources out
there for you know people who are interested in in making this a career
something that came to mind when you were talking about resources and i don’t think a lot of people know about this
one but awt developed a stem kit for like an early high school lab
where they can learn about water quality didn’t frank have a big part of creating
that i believe aquafenix developed it and they’re the ones that are actually selling it for awt i believe i don’t
know that 100 so yeah so if you’re we’ll try to get that link on the show notes page what a great thing to do is
you know be familiar with that kit or how do you talk to your local community about what it is that you do
i remember i was in i want to say seventh grade my dad was a water treater but i could
care less because he was my dad and that was just what he did i didn’t even give it a second thought but i remember one day a hydrologist
came and he had all these i think they were transparencies and slides sean that was the world i grew up in and he was
showing pictures on a slideshow of him sampling water and showing how things were contaminated
and what he would do to figure out where it was coming from and how they could remediate it and i was just fascinated
by that and i went home and i told my dad about that he was like are you kidding me you’ve never asked me
anything about what it is that i do you know we can even have a conversation about this but that did open up a whole
different line of communication with my father and it was because somebody took the time to come talk to
my class and it inspired me to do something yeah i mean think about how many people we could reach or how many
people we could touch that are interested i mean i think the awt resource is huge but now he got me
interested i’m gonna do a little bit more digging and see other ways maybe that’s the next thing i do is give back
to the community in that facet well we look forward to hearing all about that in part three but before we
get there i’ve got some new lightning round questions for you so are you ready
for round two of the lightning round strap in here we go all right so my
first question and i truly believe that every person out there is a superhero and they have their own super power what
would you say your superpower is ah super power i don’t know i mean
i walk around every day with my cape and test kit no i’m just kidding i think uh
my ability to just communicate with folks i think a a big part of that is communicate with you know my clients or
customers a big part of that is just being in their shoes for so long you know
of my life superpower is ability to communicate with my
customers all right let’s move on to the next question what would you say your biggest
accomplishment has been in your career biggest accomplishment i writing that paper that was something
that i didn’t imagine i’d ever do well let’s talk about that for a second okay so you had never authored a paper
before there was a reason you wanted to so what was that reason and then what was your process to actually get it
published so i just wanted to share i love empowering folks or sharing
i think that’s a big trait that you’ve kind of instilled in me as like we always say uh a rising tide
raises all boats i wanted to be able to give back and i was approached by them to write an article and i’m like number
one i was just humbled by it i’m like wow me um but yeah i just wanted to be able to
share with the community if you had a magic wand and you could change anything in the world what would
it be you know first thing that comes to mind is the 6k or you know reed’s passion
for clean water for the world but if i had a magic wand i think it’s just
peace on earth uh there’s a lot of stuff going out there that’s just really horrible uh so yeah just peace
can’t go wrong with asking for world peace my last question you know the township is going to do
this when they erect a statue of you what does the plaque say
uh gave it his all there you have it folks sean so good
having you back in the studio learning what you’ve been up to since
episode 188 thank you so much for doing that it’s always a pleasure trace thanks for having me back
nation if you have not met sean mcgrade what a great guy sean was one of the
original people that started listening to the scaling up h2o podcast
he was one of the people that started from episode one and thank you for all the people that
listen to episode one and continue to listen to the podcast you know the
episode one used to really bother me now i use it to inspire myself and others
it shows that we all start somewhere and that if we don’t start we will never get
better and if we don’t ask ourselves what don’t we know we don’t know and how do we challenge ourselves to make the
product that we were putting out right now better the next time we put it out i think this podcast is a great example
of that it’s an example of all things technology procedural
how i interview people how i talk how my voice has different
inflections how i hopefully stay interesting throughout the podcast
all these things i have tried to work on i’ve noticed that in the beginning i
would say certain garbage words maybe they were and or um i’ve tried to eliminate that from my vocabulary so you
all don’t have to listen to that when i hear myself speak at a conference
when they record me and i listen to myself later which by the way i don’t care who you are that’s always difficult
to listen to yourself but i can hear a huge difference in how i speak because i practice that because
i do work with people and they critique me on how i speak so if there’s something
that you are doing and you want to do better by all means figure out how to do that
it might be watching some youtube videos it might be hiring a coach it might be putting yourself out
there so you can do some presentations in front of some other audiences
whatever it is challenge yourself and i would say that that sums sean
up sean is always looking for ways to challenge himself he’s a member of the rising tide mastermind he was one of the
very first members of the rising tide mastermind and we just had a live event for the
rising tide mastermind and of course you know we get to learn so much about each other every time we have a in-person
live event sean’s just great he uh he’s always there to do whatever the mastermind asks
for of him and he’s normally helping other people along the way so uh
by all means reach out to sean let him know that you enjoyed this podcast and if there’s somebody
that you want to hear from let me know there were so many of you
out there that wanted me to have sean back on the podcast and as i mentioned
sean was one of the top downloaded podcasts that we have had
throughout our five-year history and i think it’s for a couple reasons one i think it’s because sean is just so
easily well able to relate to other people i think he’s easy to listen to
and i think there’s so many people out there that have shared that podcast with
others to explain what it is that they do i was talking with somebody at the
awt technical conference a couple of months ago and they told me that they use shawn’s episode to teach their
parents what it is that they do and i think a lot of you have done that so with that if you’ve got a new person
that is getting involved in the water treatment industry maybe share that episode of the podcast
with them so they can better understand what they are applying for and i’ve heard of so many
companies doing that that they have a list of podcast episodes of scaling up
h2o that they have perspective team members listen to
so when they come to see them on maybe a final interview they’ve got some better questions about
the job that they are getting ready to accept so feel free to take that tip from other members of the scaling up
nation that i have heard i’ve heard a lot of success with that and sean thank you for sharing your story once again
with the scaling up nation nation here is a brand new installment
of thinking on water with james [Music]
welcome to thinking on water with james the segment where we don’t give you the answers we give you the topics and
questions for you to think about drop by drop now let’s get to it
in this week’s episode we’re thinking about the correct way to install a cooling tower blow down meter
first what type of meter should one use do you know the options available in the
pros and cons of each then how should the blow down meter be installed
vertically horizontally does the meter need to be continually flooded
is freeze protection an issue can the meter communicate with the controller to log the data
why would a blow down meter be a handy thing to have take this week to think about cooling tower tire blowdown meters and how they
should be installed be sure to follow hashtag tow22 and hashtag scalinguph2o share your
thoughts on each week’s thinking on water i’m james mcdonald and i look forward to learning more from you
one nation i want to thank you for spending the last hour with me i always
enjoy bringing these episodes to you and of course the only way i can do that is for you to let me know what you want me
to talk about so if you have a show idea or somebody you want me to interview go to scalinguph2o.com
navigate over to our show ideas page or leave us a voicemail either way i will
be able to keep new shows coming to you each and every week like next friday
have a great week folks [Music]
scout on nation life is too short to do it alone and that’s why i have been in a
mastermind for over a decade it’s why i started the rising tide mastermind and
it’s why the rising tide mastermind is so successful you do not need to face
your problems alone you don’t need to face your issues alone you can learn from others experiences so you don’t
have to repeat their mistakes and you can get further faster because others
are giving you a hand to find out more go to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash mastermind to see if this is the right group for you
you