The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
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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 and Nation we
figured why not why not give you a couple of episodes that kind of explain what it’s like to have a podcast and
talk to a couple of people that are involved in either this podcast or they have water treatment podcasts themselves
so that’s what we’re continuing this week we’re giving you a behind the
scenes Peak at what it means to do a podcast and just some of the things and
people that are behind all of that we are serious when we ask you to send us
your show ideas when you send those we have a complete process that we use to
make sure that we can get those ideas when we are ready to start brainstorming
and if you’re wondering we do that about every quarter we figure out either themes that are going on through the
year and then we try to break up the year into various themes and then from
there we plan what we are going to do who we are going to invite what we’re going to talk about how we’re going to
talk about it and all things in between well today we’re going to hear from a
fellow podcaster in the water treatment space and there’s not a lot of us out
there and I don’t think that’s a bad thing I think it’s great that we have fellow podcasters out there in this
space because I think the more information we can get out there about how awesome industrial water treatment
is the better it is for us all and when I get to talk to a fellow podcaster I
get all sorts of ideas that I can bring a better product to you the scaling up
nation of course everything we do is around raising the bar of the industrial
water treatment in industry and I hope that you’ve heard a show at one time or
another that inspired you to do something maybe it inspired you to think
a little bit differently and that created a change in your day-to-day and
that change allowed you to learn something else and then maybe you shared
that with someone else and maybe that someone else shared it with somebody else and we just cascaded a thought
throughout the entire Water Treatment Community so I hope that you’ve been a part of that the scale nomination gets
bigger and bigger every single day and that’s because of all the scale-up nation members making sure that people
in this industry know that we do have a podcast that is just for them and I want
to share another one that you might enjoy as well when we introduce our
guest but before I do I want to let you know about a couple of things that are
coming up that you want to mark your calendars with and if you have not been been to our show page in a while you
want to go ahead and navigate over there because we have an events calendar that keeps track of everything that’s going
on in the industrial Water Treatment Community to make it so easy for you to
stay in the know and even add dates to your calendar with one simple click go
to scalinguph2o.com go over to our events page and you’ll see everything that I am talking about on the show so
Nation here are some things that you want to put on your calendar on November 10th we’ve got another hang coming up
and if you’ve never been on a hang it’s something the scaling up Nation does to allow all the nation members to get
together and just Network just meet each other you never know who you’re going to meet you never know who you’re going to
help and you never know who might help you we’ve connected a lot of people and
solved a lot of of issues with the hang and we do it by having fun normally we
put out a beverage that is optional that you can bring to the Hang we always have
a themed beverage and then we get to meet some people we might not have met before and then I break you out into
small breakout rooms over zoom and I do that twice over an hour and then right
before the hour’s over I bring everybody back together and then we do some sort
of game I’ve done games like trivia I’ve done games like the price is right and
there are a bunch of things that I’ve done that I can’t think of to tell you on the podcast right now but let me tell you there were a lot of them and we had
fun at every single one of them and then I’ll get feedback the next day that
somebody was having problems with the water softener and somebody helped them with that or somebody had some problems with the waste water jar testing that
they were doing and somebody gave them some advice for that so somebody was having problems getting into a
particular account and somebody on the Hang had a contact that they didn’t have and they were able to get into that
account so you just never know what’s going to happen you can find out more by going to scalingup h2o.com forward slash
hang and go ahead and register for the hang and then something else you might want to put on your calendar for
December 6th through 8th in Thailand is the International Water association’s
biofilm conference of course we’re all about biofilms here on the scaling up
H2O podcast if you’ve listened to episode 253 I had Dr Paul sterman of the
center of biofilm engineering at Montana State University on where we spoke all
things biofilm and gave you a peek behind the Montana State curtain of all
the things that they’re doing so we can get better information on how we treat for biofilm so if
biofilms are your thing go ahead and go to to our show page and we will have all
that information for you of course you never have to worry about taking notes on scaling up H2O we’ve got all of that
on our show notes page and our website is getting better and better all the time to make it easier for you to find
the content that you are looking for so if you haven’t been to the page in a while again at scalinguph2o.com I’m sure
you are going to like what you see well Nation as I mentioned we are in the
middle of podcast month and I just made that up we’re talking about podcasting
you the scale up Nation wanted to know more behind the scenes of having a
podcast and we’re also inviting fellow podcasters on that are in the water
treatment space during this month so we’re going to continue that here is the
interview my lab partner today is Anton Walter of
GF and fellow podcaster Antoine how are you today I’m really really happy to be
with you trace today I’ve been listening to you quite a lot I enjoy being on that same microphone with you today well we
actually do have the exact same microphone don’t we aren’t we sharing the the Shure sm7b I guess it’s a road
for all the podcasters you start with something and you build your way up to the sm7b and then once you tested it you
you cannot go back absolutely this is microphone number four or five for me and and I’m glad it’s the last one
because they get expensive they do well we’re going to talk all things water treatment but I thought we
could we could talk about podcasting in water treatment let’s face it there’s not that many podcasts out there that
are in the space that we’re in why did you decide to start a podcast in water
treatment and before we begin uh can you tell the scaling up Nation a little bit about your podcast
so my podcast is called Don’t Wastewater so it’s a bad spun because I want it to
be a lot about waste water and their thoughts yeah but you don’t want to waste water so the donkeys between brackets that don’t waste water a bit of
the two elements I started out of frustration in the middle of the pandemic I couldn’t meet anyone and I
was sitting home enjoying my time with my family and my kids but I thought something was missing and that something
was discussing with with people and I firmly believe that’s how you learn new
things it’s really about sharing and meeting people who have totally different expertise than you have and so
I started just without knowing where that would head and um yeah out of
habits then I was pushing out one episode every week for now two years straight and I’m really really glad I
started and I wouldn’t think twice if I had to redo it again so what was that thought I mean did you
know what you were doing when you started a podcast because I had no idea so I knew a little bit about it because
I was already podcasting before I had a French podcast about sales when I was in
sales because I thought that’s always been my process for learning things so I had a bit of an idea and I’m a big
fan of podcasts so I’m listening far too much podcast I mean when I’m doing the
dishes I’m assuming to podcasts when I just was doing some some concrete works in my basement today and the full day
was listening to podcasts and I thought you know as you said there’s not that many podcasts in that space and I
thought yeah I would like to have maybe an European perspective on things which
didn’t exist at the time and maybe have a little bit more matter to to listen to
because yeah you’re guilty Trace you’re only pushing one once per week so that
wasn’t sufficient to me so I needed to have a bit more and yeah that’s how it started well I I think I shared this
with you I was once a month when I first started and I went to a podcast convention yes there are actually
podcast conventions and one of the speakers there said if you’re not doing a daily podcast you’re doing a
disservice to your audience and and I thought this guy was crazy there was absolutely no way I had the bandwidth to
do a daily podcast but I did get his message I figured if you did anything
less than a week then people couldn’t develop the Habit they forgot that you
were even out there fully agree with you podcast is is a matter of habits it’s really about I
know that that podcast comes out on the Monday that one comes out on a Tuesday so I know if we’re Thursday I’m
listening to two that’s podcast and so it’s really part of the daily life in the pandemic everything was a bit
shifted because you didn’t have that time of I’m walking to go to to my office or I’m taking the train or I’m
taking the plane or whatever so that shifted a bit the habits but since we return a bit to to the world where we go
out and meet people that’s fully part of the routine of that podcast elements maybe that was the rule of radio in the
past but I firmly believe that we are replacing some whole radio for the better I think so too and I think the fact that
there are less rules are really no rules around podcasts we can discuss things
that need to be discussed in the way that need to be discussed and the link that needs to be discussed and we don’t
have to worry about you know getting cut off because the the next commercials coming on so I think it’s really going
to change how people get their information it’s already done that but I think it’s going to continue to do that
fully agree so your first language is French uh however you speak English on
your podcast tell us about that I would say there’s two reason for that the first is I never worked in France so
basically all my my water treatment experience all my my business experience everything is abroad which means to me
French is the language I speak with my wife and with my daughters so I have a
big difficulty to find the right and proper words in French so it would be hard for me to interview people in
French because I guess I would be be you know in France we do a lot of jokes about Jean-Claude Van Damme because he
used to be speaking French and now more and more he uses a lot of English words in French so everybody’s joking on him
and I grew up making jokes about him and his way of speaking and I thought I don’t want to become that joke and
nowadays if I speak French I am fully the joke so I better not record it so that was reason number one and reason
number two is that I want to reach out to many people in this industry and you have to face it we somehow French people
lost it against the the English speakers so everybody speaks English and
unfortunately or fortunately not all everybody speaks French so if I want to
interview some some cool guy from Sweden from the US from China from wherever I mean we share the English language which
means you can have that weird French accent like I have or other types of accent but at the end of the day
if the content is right people will forgive you for for the accent and and
yeah you collect people so so that was the I would say the main reason for me choosing the the English to to podcast
so I’m curious how do you determine what the topics are going to be on your show that’s really really interesting because
you have a very well thought process and you’re very organized I’m the total
opposite so I’m a mess so sometimes I’m going to a conference and I’m listening
to 10 20 different speakers and I’m thinking all of these guys are women are amazing and I definitely want to go a
bit deeper into the rabbit hole because in a conference you just have five minutes to pitch or or 10 minutes to present something and that is not
sufficient so that is a First Source and quite recently I was at the global Water Summit I was at the Blue Tech Forum I
visited efat I visited AquaTech and all of those gave me like a bucket list of people that want to invite so that’s a
First Source then there’s LinkedIn to be honest and there’s a lot of things which
are shared on LinkedIn and I’m thinking that’s interesting that’s not interesting to me and every time I think
I would have many questions that thinking oh that’s a hint that I might
be having a cool episode with that that guest and the last source is um some new
research papers that come out some new books that come out which I try to to read on a regular basis and which make
also fall for good deep dives into some matters when you go to a conference what are you
trying to do you’re trying to interview certain people do you have certain products that you’re trying to find out
more about what what is your process to get what you’re seeing at the conference to your audience
to me the conference is a way to take the temperature of the industry you see where it heads to meaning that if
someone is presenting something and no one else is talking about that thing then maybe that someone is a precursor
and you can have a discussion with him but that’s not mainstream yet if you see that three four five companies are
presenting something which is pretty similar and you don’t know the ins and outs about it then probably it’s a good
opportunity to dive a bit deeper and to get to know the topic because it’s going to be very relevant to your business and
if you see that 15 companies are talking about the same thing then forget it because you’re already too late to to the game so that’s a bit how I look
conferences and then honestly I’m not that much of a product guy being working for a product company usually we are the
ones coming with the products so I’m really trying to understand where the market goes all the time so that we can
be a bit ahead of the market trends and we can team up with whoever is in the
early phases of that new trend so that we we help them grow and because
nowadays that’s the best way to have an impact so those are the two phases of my presence on conferences
I would wish one day to do live interviews at conferences I I did a
couple of them but this kitten is always so busy that it’s hard to to fit it into the agenda
I want to say it was four years ago whenever awt was in Palm Springs I did
north of 50 or 60 interviews just walking through the convention hall and
I spent all night editing those because we were trying to get the experience to
the audience as it was happening it was it was the most laborious thing that I
have ever taken on in my life I didn’t get any sleep that week I’m really surprised that my sound editor didn’t
quit after that it was it was just so much work and I just decided that I’m
just not doing that again there’s no way that I could put all the pressure on my staff to do that but it was interesting
being able to catch the pulse of everybody as they were going through the show what they were experiencing
what they came as far as expectations with and what they were hoping to leave
with what they were hoping to find so I I want to figure out a way to capture that but not have to do all the work any
any ideas I would say there are two faces to that coin I’m fully with you with the fact
that you can share a bit the the mood of the conference and I’m not doing it on
the podcast usually but I have another show which is called the water show together with my partner in crime beer
and Otto and um and we do live shows from these big shows like trade shows or
we will be um at akima at the the World Congress from the International Water Association
and so far and so on so that’s one way uh the other thing is there’s this Zoom
fatigue and connection fatigue of people because of the pandemic which means that I’ve met some of these conferences
organizers and they on purpose decided to be offline and to not share that much
with the people who are not there because you have to feel that Serendipity of being at the conference
and really meeting people and I do get that that feeling so I think the rights in between is maybe what I co-produced
with blue Tech at the Blue Tech Forum which is to have like the full conference is over and you just meet
some key stakeholders and you just do like like um rewinds what’s what stood out in in
the conference so people who really missed it can have the the main golden
nuggets that were shared but on the other hand you’re not like listening to three four five hours of content I mean
you had to be here to to experience it so it’s a hard balance to find between
those two extremes but I think that’s that line that you have to walk
what’s something you’ve learned now that you wish you knew when you first started [Laughter]
that’s a good one actually when I’m looking back at my very first episodes
the very first that aired is special because it was a face-to-face interview
um which happened just between some ease up of the lockdowns so
so that one’s a bit special to me uh close to my hurt because I was interviewing my former boss at Suez so
but what I didn’t notice by recording uh at that time is that you need to give
people more context you cannot just dive into a topic you you need to start with the helicopter view you need to Circle a
bit around the topic and then go deeper and deeper and deeper and people who are still there after half an hour they
deserve that you go in the depth of the topic but you have to start by by getting people where they are and I
think that’s something when I’m listening back to my first episode which is a horrible thing to do
um that is really something which which caught my my ears like you cannot just
start with your first question being so how how do you remove one for dioxan okay wait wait what is one for dioxin
what are we talking all about what are you doing uh why is it a problem at first who’s having that problem where I
mean it’s the the very basics of journalists even if I’m not a journalist I don’t want to be one but you need to
be answering those five W questions first and if you if you get those clear
then you can go to to the next step so I think if I could go back two years back in time and meet myself I would say hey
wait a minute you don’t need to to try to prove everyone that you’re clever because you’re you’re just bouncing a lot of
complex words you have to be very very pedagogic if you can explain something
to someone then you really understood it and that is the real way to show that you understand the topic I’ll say in training what we do in the
water treatment industry that’s really the big difference between the people I think are fantastic instructors and then
others that are just up there explaining what they know and and what I mean by
that is if somebody takes a room of students and they want them to leave the
room with more than they came in with that’s probably going to be a pretty good presentation that’s probably going to be a good mindset that the instructor
has but then we have other people that come into a room and they want to explain to people how smart they are
and they’re thinking about themselves and not the people that are trying to learn and I know you’ve been in those
rooms and you’re just looking at your watch and you can’t wait for that lecture to be over and and I want to say
that’s what you just said yeah I fully share that this feeling it’s really about I think the key word
here is probably storytelling you need to to be it sounds always like if you say storytelling then people oh come on
it’s marketing again no it’s not marketing it’s about we are all taught since we are kids that a story starts
were by Once Upon a Time and stops by um and that’s how it ended and if you if
you keep that in mind and you try to to build your your storytelling and your episode and
your your line of questioning around that then you’re going to catch people you’re going to get them to a certain
place and then you have some key take-home messages do you think podcasts transcend borders
so when I say something on my podcast is it more specific what’s happening over here in the United States or does it
translate well over in France I will say when I listen to yours I think it
translates perfectly over here are you just doing that well or is that a thing
with podcasts or is that a thing with our industry our industry is very specific in the sense that you have the end users are
really small small small small Islands they don’t touch that much of the other islands around them and if you go to
really the core of the industry like the suppliers like I have the chance to work with them these suppliers we are
touching a bit all of those parts and that’s if it’s the place where I see podcasting because
actually all of these events I mean if you’re rebuilding a treatment plan for instance you would do that once or twice
in your career but if you listen to stories around you of people who did it then you feel like you know what worked
well what didn’t work that well and you get that that sharing of experience and
and that’s the beauty of having different stories of different places because actually it doesn’t matter
really where it happens it’s about water was in a certain State before you need to bring it to another state at the end
of the day and everything which happens in between can be translated or or adapted to your specific situation and
sometimes it’s not even about the technology it’s not even about the story itself it’s about the process how do you
start by figuring out the real problem how do you start solving it who do you need to team up with and that applies
really everywhere so you can tell a very very U.S Centric story and that can be
apps absolutely perfect for someone at the other end of the words to listen to and the opposite
is true as well you can hear a story from your neighbor and that’s not relevant to you because you’re not in
the same situation in the same space so it’s really about getting the thought process which your guests share which my
guests share and and to have that thought process translated into your life and to try to to think the whole
time what’s needed for me and what can I apply for myself what’s the one guess that you know
you’ve made it when you booked them on your show I could have an easy answer here because I’m chasing them down for a
while I have started my podcast Journey at the time where the merger between
Suez and verlia started to make the heads headlines so it’s something that’s I chronic a bit on my podcast I had some
special episodes around it and I tried to to tell the story from everything you
could find outside what I’m missing here is the inside part of the story and I’m
really trying I I have been trying antoinferro and Bertram when they were the two heads of serious and Julia I’ve
been trying Estelle Parker enough and Sabrina Susan since they both both took over and so far I didn’t even get a no I just
got something ah it’s not the right time maybe one day so that would be maybe the the obvious answer but don’t get me
wrong I would be blessed to have them and I would be really happy to have them but I don’t have like this this absolute
guest in mind because my ultimate goal is that every single new one which comes
on my microphone gets me a portion of the truth with a big T
and sometimes I have no clue when I discuss with them when I interview them
and it’s much later than when I read something or I discuss with someone else that I start to connect the dots
and you you need to rely on Serendipity you need to have many dots out and to start then to connect them I can give
you an example I know that you you’ve read that book because it’s in your excellent book list on your website the
worth of Water by Gary wait and and Matt Damon when I read that book I thought oh wait I’ve heard a lot about the overall
Concept in another book uh with uh David Lloyd Owen who was on my podcast and
I’ve heard about blockchain from another of my guest Katrina Donahue and I
thought okay now I combine all these informations water credits or micro credits uh the the bigger picture with
David Lord Owen and the tool with blockchain all of that might be totally
rubbish and nothing but maybe those dots connect and then they can move something so I just put those people in contact
and maybe one day something comes out of that and maybe someday nothing comes out
of that but I have the feeling that within my brain those dots connected and that is really the state of Minds I’d
like to achieve with the podcast connecting the dots I love that do you get recognized when you go to events for
the podcast oh that’s really that’s the vanity
metric but but but yeah I have to say people reach out to me and say
um yeah are you the one podcasting yeah it’s me um then we we made a couple of
experiments like I met with um Adam tank which you you you you discussed on that
microphone as well and we made some some pictures and then people figure out like we are influencers and it’s pretty funny
to me because I’m I’m the one holding the microphone and having the questions I’m nothing more and I don’t intend to be anything
more so it’s not about being recognized but once in a while I get a very very
friendly messages um from former students when I gave some lecture or from people I don’t know at
all or from people well well introduced within that industry and when I get the message who tells me you have a shitty
French accent uh your sound isn’t always perfect but the content is really good
then I’m like okay then I nailed it so I’m curious of all the jobs out there
you said I want to be in Wastewater how did that happen
first I have a very interesting story with water which is that I attended an
engineering school uh so water engineering school where my parents met so somehow I can’t tell how much I
choose about being a water professional and how much was written from day one because when I was a kid my father was
trading some hours of me doing some weird stuff with water against lunch invitation to the guys that had to
repair my mistakes once I was done playing with it so since always I’ve been playing around with with water and
what I love with the Wastewater part of it is that you know it’s this childish element of playing with nasty stuff and
making something valuable out of it I sometimes I mean don’t get me wrong processed water is great industrial
water is great drinking water is great but sometimes I feel like I would be a bit constrained if I had to just take
water and make it possible I mean that’s written you know what it is it’s the
same quite everywhere in the world whereas with Wastewater you can do so many things you can do resource recovery
you can do ways to energy you can be treating very very detailed compound
like micro pollutants and you can also do the very basic job and and still have
something very rewarding because you see that the river you’re discharging to is in a much better shape if you do your
work do your job right so that’s what I like about Wastewater honestly what would you say was one of your most
oddest Wastewater experiences that you’ve had actually I have to be honest here and I
have to say that I’ve been working myself with Wastewater at the very beginning of my career but then I went
to the dark side of the forest pretty fast and was working in sales and uh and in marketing and in business development
so I didn’t have that much of my hands on anymore but one of my most
interesting encounters with Wastewater was when I was working on a project in
in India in in Gujarat because those are the places where you think well of all
the things that you could do to to develop a country the first you would do is not treat the Wastewater but the
community there had a strong understanding of how all of the water is a cycle and I would say they had a much
better understanding of water as a cycle than I had before meeting them so that
was an eye-opening moment for me because I thought yeah it’s not just about a
cost for being in business or compliance question it’s also about preserving the services that you get
from nature that you will still get in the next year’s decade and so far and so
on so that is really what you’re doing when you’re treating the waste with the right is Back to the Future a thing is that a
movie that you’re familiar with over in France yeah yeah all right so uh that’s one of my favorite movies I refer to
that on the show all the time so you’re you and I are going to get together we’re going to borrow doc Brown’s
DeLorean we’re going to set the time circuits to 30 years into the future what does our industry look like
oh God I wish I would have a clever answer to that one let me cheat we are
currently I mean the big topic for the water industry right now it is the sdg6 so you would expect that in 30 Years
everybody has access to water everybody has access to sanitation we solve a bit
of the water scarcity riddle we we get sure that we balance things that will
reuse water much more that we we use all the energy in waste water but if I’m
being honest and uh if instead of going 30 years in the future I go 30 years back in time that leads me to the end of
the 80s beginning of the 90s and that was the the end of the water decade of the United Nations and people at that
time were saying you know we’re going to solve that and everybody’s going to have access to water and everybody is going
to have access to sanitation and they thought that achieved that by 2000 and I have to say they failed so how can we
make sure that we don’t do that same mistake how do we make sure that in 30
years it’s not about just talking and having plans but it’s about walking the talk and and really doing stuff
and the big difference between how we address that problem today and the way
they addressed it 30 years back is that nowadays I think we understand that
there’s a value in doing things right it can be the ESG framework it can be the
sustainable development framework whatever you want it to be but if you’re solving a social challenge or if you’re
solving an environmental challenge then eventually you’re going to make a successful business out of it and so if
you’re in peace with yourself with being profitable by doing the right thing then
I’m pretty sure in a fully optimistic that the water industry will get there in 30 years that we solve the Wardrobe
Wastewater challenges we have out there in the world so to come back after all that sidetracked to your question 30
years in the future I wish that as an industry we have a peaceful relationship with the fact that in that industry
you’re allowed to make money so water isn’t free water has a value
and on the other hand that you have to treat it like a very valuable good which
impacts 99 percent of the worst GDP so water is precious and the water industry
is Central to all of that being the Bedrock of all other Industries and I’m
pretty sure that probably the hard way in 30 Years everybody will have understood that
maybe because they run out of wardrobe maybe because they had bad experience but hopefully as well because they’ve
listened to season 35 of the scaling up H2O podcast and that by then they’ve
listened to so many episodes that they cannot deny the the value in water I can’t imagine 35 years of the scaling
up H2O podcast so thank you for that thought that’s uh that’s fun to think about probably about a dozen years ago
somebody that I work with gave me a question and the question they gave me was how do you know what you don’t know
and that question is just consume me I’m always trying to learn new things because how do you know what you don’t
know so that’s my question how do you know what you don’t know pretty easy to discuss with people and
you will notice that there’s a couple of things that you take for granted and they will tell you and explain you how
you’re wrong and there’s so much that you just don’t ignore about their words so it’s about
speaking with people who are not just exactly like you people who are different who come from a different background who work in a different space
and there you will learn so much and and have so much hints and and things about
yeah what you don’t know I mean it’s that old good old Greek Maxim that you
know that you know nothing which was replaced recently by the good old HBO Maxime which says You You Know Nothing
Jon Snow and I think both are both are right it’s about just recognizing that
you know nothing and the key about that is asking questions I remember my my
first sales calls when I was paired with a senior sales guy and we were entering
sales calls and I was just candidly asking questions and he was giving me
like on the table he was just kicking me like stop asking questions we have to look clever and I was like no that’s not
the way I think it works I I really believe there’s nothing wrong in asking questions as long as you don’t ask
really silly questions that you could have solved with a simple Google search before entering the room but what’s
wrong is to go out of that room and and having left open things that you could have asked and solved and realized you
don’t know and someone explains to you and then you know it and then you can come up with more value so it’s really
about being humble and yeah going back to the roots we know nothing and it’s
absolutely fine to ask so many people think like your colleague that I can’t ask this question because
it’s going to make me look silly I love what you said that if we don’t ask the question we’re not going to get to the
right answer so how do you convince somebody that is too timid to ask that question because
they don’t want to appear as if they don’t know I’m pretty sure it’s not timidity I
would say it’s really um your self-esteem is is hurted if you start to
to show some weakness and so many studies show nowadays that the way to
connect with people is by exposing your weaknesses and to show what you don’t know so that they can be of help because
people want to help that’s the way we evolved as a society that’s how we came up as cavemen and grew up to be an
associate with no nowadays with 8 billion people on Earth it’s because we are tempted to help others at any point
in time so I think it’s impossible to convince people just by being very very
very direct and telling them do it do it do it the best way to convince people to raise questions to raise questions so
you can question them and there’s a brilliant book about that called spin selling
um which is sales book I’m pretty sure it’s in your in your book list I mean it is it is uh I’ve definitely referenced
that in the sales training that I do for the association of water Technologies it’s one of my favorites as well it’s
pretty interesting because you see if I if I stay on on the sales side of things which is about connecting people so which is a good proxy uh you see maybe
many sales book authors that were writing in the 80s and 90s about how you have to to show your excellence and
everything and some of these altars have come back in the 2010-2020s by saying wait here’s a new book who just
contradicts everything I said before because now I’m firmly convinced you have to ask questions so the best way is
to prove that it works so usually when people ask me what’s the benefit of
raising questions say look I have 97 episodes out there as we speak where I’m
asking questions to people who are so more clever in their field than I am and
if I can just take 10 of fifty percent of their wisdom by by asking questions
then that’s the value I get and that’s what’s recorded but if you do it in your daily daily life if you make it a
routine even when my daughter comes back from school I ask her questions because that’s how you you connect with people
well I’m not going to let it slip you’re in episode 97 what are you going to do to celebrate 100.
that’s a good question because I have two things colliding I have the two years of the podcast and the 100 so I
don’t want to celebrate twice three weeks that would be really like like like self-centric my original plan for
episode 100 was to get someone um on my show to interview me
um but then I thought yeah who wants to to know my story once that they already
listened to it in the scaling at H2O podcast so that would be really twice the same so I guess I’m gonna have a
surprise for two years of the podcast but if I tell it here it’s not a surprise but one by the time this one is
out I guess the second anniversary is going to be done so go back to my my feed and find out the special second
year anniversary and you’ll find the surprise I have something in mind it’s not yet done so maybe it’s going to turn
out exactly as in my head and it’s going to be pretty good or it’s gonna be horrible because in my head it sounds good but in reality it’s not I’m sure
it’s going to be fantastic Antoine I think you and I struggle from the same thing we we feel that if we take credit
for the podcast that it is Vanity and what I’ve learned and I’ve been coached
through this that if somebody feels that they have to celebrate work that you and
I have done it’s okay for us to accept that and it’s it’s we can do that in a
humble way because it’s not about us it’s not about what we did it’s about how they took what we did and used it
how they ever needed it I’m not saying it as good as the person that coached me through that but it did help me get out
of my own headspace and think about oh I don’t want to appear arrogant you know I I enjoy doing this and I really don’t
need anything more than that but what I wasn’t doing was I wasn’t honoring where
that comment was coming from and I wasn’t allowing that person to give me what they needed which was to thank me
for something that I inspired in them and I truly believe that they did all
the heavy lifting in that they were the ones that maybe they heard something on our podcasts but they then got the
certification or they then went out and made that sale they did all the work but we helped and it’s okay if you and I say
well thank you for letting us know that it’s hard Doctrine I know I agree with you I fully agree with you it’s just
something where I’ve been terrible since I’m a kid in uh I used to play the piano quite a lot and people would come to me
and was like no no don’t tell me if it was good or bad that I don’t want to know I hope you had a good time but but don’t tell me so it’s really about I
don’t know how to behave with that so so yeah there’s still a lot to to learn well you’re a sales expert how have
sales changed since the pandemic and is this a good thing is this something that
will go back to times prior to the pandemic uh will uh will we be using
Zoom instead of meeting people on a regular basis what do you see for the future in sales
I think it’s going to be a mix of all the above um the the thing which didn’t come back
since the pandemic and hope I hope it will never is something I was very used to which was to take the first plane in
the morning go to a place somewhere at the other end of of Europe in my case and take the last plane in the evening
and in between there was one meeting with one customer and sometimes that meeting was lasting for two hours which
was a very good meeting but still it’s a lot of trouble for two hours meeting and sometimes we discover after half an hour
that it’s it’s better for them and it’s better for you that you stop there because it’s not a match in which case
it’s even more of a long day at the airport for nothing so I think those first contacts have been through through
Zoom through teams through through whatever because of the pandemic and they will stay like that
but we cannot skip the in person because there is much more you’re telling when
you’re in person there’s the body language there’s um all the The Untold elements and and a
different type of connection because I mean even though I’m used to that of
that specific moment in time I’m speaking to my camera which is a weird experience um if you’re not used to that for for a
while so I think the physical meetings will still be a big thing as long as we don’t
get the the Holograms like in Star Wars today we have that level of quality in Holograms then maybe we can skip the
traveling all together um so I think that is a big difference the other big difference is you have to
become more and more of a content creator if you’re in sales I I can’t tell how the sales word was in the 80s
90s I wasn’t around what I’m getting from from the flavors you get from that
time is that it was fully okay to to just go out and say my product is awesome and it used to be green now it’s
red plus we have a 10 person discount if you buy it right now so you better buy it right now I think if you do that nowadays people
look at you like oh actually they don’t even look at you you’re just some noise in in the noise so it’s about
getting and and um and bringing across the value you can bring to people so in in my case
the podcast is a full part of that I want the water industry to understand that we as GF piping systems we have the
capacity to translate their process struggles into actually products that
can work together and deliver on the promise so I felt that what people would
need to get from me is the proof that I I have a sound understanding of this industry that I understand the
challenges and that hence I can come up with Solutions so it’s not about me saying that we have the best bold lab in
the world because we do have the best power up in the world but I guess that’s totally uninteresting for everyone out
there but if I can show that I understand the struggles you have with the process then
I can come up and explain to you why that ball I mean that specific fixed situation is exactly the solution you
need so it’s about transitioning from my thing is the best to you have a problem I have a solution
I’ve got so many more things I can ask you but I think we should probably go ahead to our lightning round section so
these are questions I Ask of all of my guests the point values are triple so it’s anybody’s game at this time so are
you ready to play absolutely here we go here we go the first question if you
could go back in time and talk to your former self on your first day as a
Wastewater specialist what advice would you give start much much much easier with the
content start discussing with people and record it for your own record it doesn’t
have to be even shared with the words but if I had documented the discussions I had with the very first professionals
I met that would still be useful to me today so document it if not for the word document it for yourself that’s really
what I would advise myself all right here’s a bonus question that I’m slipping in so same exact question and
it’s totally selfish for my benefit we’re replacing the word Wastewater specialist with podcaster how would you
answer that I would say invest in jeer because you you mentioned your microphone to be
number four number five uh mine is number three and when I started I
thought you know I’m a former musician so I can just use the same and um it just makes a whole difference if you get
the right sounds from the beginning and I do get that the most important thing is content but I wasn’t really convinced
of that when I started so I just noticed that the first five or
ten feedbacks I got about the podcast was your sound is so lame and when you get that as a feedback sorry it hurts
and it just it’s not a service you you give to the people who who dedicate one
hour of that time to discuss with you when the feedback isn’t about what they shared it’s about the way you framed it
so that is really something I would share to myself what are the last few books that you’ve
read on the last conference I went there there was a conference by Erica giese
who wrote the book Potter always win which is one of the hard copy you have I don’t have that much anymore so that’s
the one I’m reading right now it’s really interesting it’s about finding finding water around the world in in
places I mean in cities a bit everywhere like finding the untold water I would
say uh another very inspiring one I already mentioned is the one from from Gary White and Matt Damon the worth of
water that’s really mind-blowing just if you have one figure to take out of that is that if you lend money to the poorest
people on Earth for them to have access to water they repay 99 of their loans which just gives you the sense of how
much value there is in having good good quality water in terms of the most
impressive overview on the water industry I read this year it’s the book of David Lord Owen the the name sleeps
out right now sorry David um just just lost the title but it’s I
mean it’s hard to read because it’s a book full of wisdom like every every
sentence is a wisdom so it’s not something that you read uh just before going to bed not possible
or you you sleep much too fast so it’s not it’s not a pleasant read but it’s the most thoughtful overview I got of
this industry ever and that was three let me sneak one more because those were
two ladies which I interviewed um on my podcast it’s uh Ali Schmidt and Claudia
Winkler and they wrote that book The sustainability puzzle so it’s not really a water book it’s more a zoom out and
looking at the full picture and as water treaters as water professionals it’s
really interesting to have that overview because it gives us a sense from where we are evolving within that word and
what are the challenges we can help solve and and that one is really easy to read and I think I read it in in two
days of train commute excellent we’ll make sure to get all those on our show notes page so people
can get those books when they make a movie about your life who do you want playing you Jean-Claude Van Damme right
no no no no because uh it’s an audio show so I can lie I have far more muscles than him so um uh no I guess I
would see some someone like um Andy Sandberg or Jesse Eisenberg
basically they are the same just because I I feel like a bit nerdy like they can
be um and I love how Andy Sandberg in Brooklyn 99 is portraying someone with
who’s making fun while being good at what he does and I think that’s the way I try to be I don’t know if I am but I
try to be fun and to be good at what I do well I’ve experienced a lot of fun being on your show and you being on mine
so I think you’re accomplishing that last question if you could talk to anybody throughout history who to be
with and why I think I would try to talk with before
sounds like like really really weird to to mention him no it’s just that I like
to understand how how blessed you have to be to just come up with what you did at the age of three four five uh how
much of a tortured mind you have to be in and maybe also to tell him that you know it’s fine he might not be very
successful at the time but he’s going to be recognized in in the next centuries
as the biggest musician ever so yeah that’s the from the top of my my
head right now that’s the one I’d like to meet so nothing to do with water well since you brought up music you also
brought up you were a musician what do you play I’m playing the keyboards so that was my
my basic instruments I’ve been in a boy’s core when I was a child which gave me the opportunity to travel the words
to be at many places to to give some concerts uh the keyboards bought me my first car
so I never was a rock star but still I got my first car because I was playing keyboard and nowadays the way I play
music is that one of my best friends is a choreographer and I’m blessed to have
the chance every once in a while to compose some music for him so that she can make some cool things on stage so
it’s really a fun place to to be it’s like making movie scores but for a live
movie so it’s really fascinating awesome well I really appreciate you coming on the scaling up H2O podcast a
lot of fun we had around the topic of podcasting don’t get to talk about that often on the show so uh if people want
to find out more about your podcast where do you want them to go so basically on all the pot catchers
you’ll find the The Show by typing don’t Wastewater It’s tricky because of my stupid pun because if you just type
don’t waste water you don’t always find it depending on your platforms you have to really put the brackets but the
easiest is just type you type my name and then you find it out and maybe the easiest place to to find all of that is
my website which is dww.show so like don’t Wastewater so dww and Dot show
because I’m a fancy guy and the.com wasn’t for me so I wanted it to be like
dot show but that’s the place where you find all the show notes all the interviews uh and a bit more like my
videos and my additional content excellent thanks so much for coming on scaling up H2O well thanks a lot for
having me trace it was a pleasure to be and was really honored to be among your impressive list of guests on the on that
microphone so thanks a lot for the opportunity [Music]
it was really fun for me to have Antoine on the scaling up H2O podcast Antoine is
very very gracious and we connected on LinkedIn I’ve listened to his podcast he’s listened to my podcast and he was
very gracious had me on his podcast not too long ago and if you want to listen
to that I will have that link on our website scalinguph2o.com and it was just a lot
of fun when people are interested in sharing information about something that they do and in this case it was the
podcast Antoine actually shared some of the tools that he uses to make his
podcast even better and there were tools that we were not using and we tried to return that favor in kind one of the
things that Antoine shared with me was a service called listen notes and it ranks
podcasts and uh so here was a really neat thing he actually told me this that
we had a global rank on listen notes in the top five percent of all podcasts
what does that mean it means that out of uh 2.8 million podcasts the scaling up
H2O podcast is ranked in the top five percent and oh my goodness what a
humbling fact that is just amazing the fact that uh we’ve got a microphone and
we record ourselves and we put up on the internet and you the scaling up Nation
have made this podcast what it is and shared it with each other and given us some ideas and allowed us to grow it
where we’re in the top five percent of all podcasts not just podcasts and the
water treatment space but all podcast I just think that is amazing and Antoine
was the one that shared that news with me and it was just so great to share that with my team that that all the hard
work that they do hey it’s proof that it’s working and thank you so much for
taking the scaling up H2O podcast and making it what it is today sharing that
information getting us information so we can make future shows letting people know how to download a podcast it’s kind
of funny for certain people in our industry they’ve never listened to a podcast before and now they’re listening
to podcasts because you help them download their first podcast player and set them up so each and every week when
a new episode of scaling up H2O happens they get it automatically so that was
all of you and I want you to celebrate with me that statistic of being in the
top five percent of all podcasts so Antoine thank you for sharing those
metric sites with us I try not to pay attention too much to metrics because uh
as Antoine and I were were talking about that is a vanity metric and um as we
were also talking about it is and it isn’t it allows us to know if we’re doing what we need to do to reach the
Right audience and then however the audience responds and downloads and shares we’re able to see if what we’re
doing is working but I struggle just like Antoine with the fact that it’s
hard for me to take a compliment because I feel like you know I’m not really doing anything special and I don’t want
to diminish somebody else because I’m doing something that they aren’t doing and I it’s just hard for me to take
credit I I get exactly where Antoine was coming from and I mentioned that to a
good friend of mine and he’s been on the show you guys have met him Tim Fulton he he told me he said Trace why are you
being so selfish and I looked at Tim like he was nuts how how am I being hum how is my being humble being selfish and
I think I said just those very words and he said well you’re in your head and you’re not trying to get into theirs
which is the whole point of communication I’m trying to understand where the other person is coming from so
I can ultimately build them up according to their needs well I was worried about
my needs I wasn’t worried about their needs so he really snapped me into a
different mindset so if you come up and thank me for the show I really do appreciate that but it’s it’s weird for
me to accept so I’ve had to learn how to do that and I’m betting there are a lot of people out there maybe it’s not a
podcast but it’s something else and you don’t know how to accept praise or compliments if you get out of your own
head and you do accept it for the person not yourself it really gives a gift to
that person that needed to communicate that with you whoever said Thank you needed to say thank you and
acknowledging that you receive that thank you is actually giving them a gift
so that’s how I’m able to react better to that if this is helpful to you I hope
you use this I’m very grateful for that phrase that Tim gave me and by the way
Tim is great at doing that he will ask me questions and give me these little
one-line questions that just totally changes the way that I think I have the
privilege of leading several Mastermind groups and I coach some of the people on The Mastermind and a lot of the things
that I’ve learned are me being coached myself and it’s not about what I know to
advise people to do it’s about encouraging them to Think Through what
they’re dealing with and coming up with Solutions on themselves and of course you do that by asking better questions
and Antoine touched on that too the better questions you ask the better solutions that you get to so it’s all
about questions it’s all about making sure that you’re listening to people and
the intent is to build them up according to their needs and just imagine if we
did that how much better the world would be if we were less worried about
ourselves more worried about others more worried about making everything we touch
better that’s a world that I want to live in and I believe that we can all
get there I believe we’re not very far from that with that somebody that is
helping everything that he touches get a little bit better is our friend James
McDonald [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 how water quality varies within your area how do parameters such as hardness
alkalinity silica and connectivity vary around your area how do they change between surface water
and groundwater sources does the city water quality vary according to the water source that may be using at the
time how does this impact water treatment programs you’re managing how can it impact the pre-treatment
chemistry and water efficiency is the end user aware these potential impacts
take this week to think about how water quality varies within your area and the impacts it may have
be sure to follow hashtag tow 22 and hashtag scalingup H2O to share your
thoughts on each week’s thinking on water I’m James McDonald and I look forward to learning more from you
well thanks James and thanks to all of you for wanting to know more about
podcasting more about what it means to make the scaling up H2O podcast we’re
going to continue that with next week’s episode and of course that’s going to be Halloween one of my favorite holidays so
until then take care of yourselves take care of each other and I’ll see you next week folks
[Music] Nation almost two years ago I started
the rising tide Mastermind we have over four groups and a waiting list for a new
group folks it is wildly successful and what I mean by that is that we are able
to process issues together and get new ideas about how we solve the issues that
we all face day to day in ways that we might not have come up with on our own
folks look into the rising tide Mastermind to see if it is right for you by going to scalingup h2o.com forward
slash Mastermind if what you see looks interesting schedule an appointment with
me and we will see if the group is right for you and you are right for the group