The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music] foreign [Music]
is sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the rising tide Mastermind is
where people just like you get together every week to help each other with
issues let’s face it issues are hard so why start from square one when somebody
can tell you what they’ve done with a similar issue if this sounds like something that’s interesting to you go
to scalinguph2o.com forward slash Mastermind to see if the rising tide
Mastermind is right for you [Music] foreign
up H2O the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems my name is Trace Blackmore I get
to host this fantastic podcast and come to you each and every week with great
information with great guests with ideas that you the scaling up Nation sin to me
and my team thank you so much for allowing me to have such a fantastic job
I can’t tell you how much I enjoy what I do each and every week on this podcast
and Nation something that I also enjoy so much is when we have the Hang we just
had the Hang yesterday and thank you for everybody that came to the Hang so if
you want to learn about the next hang go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash hang
will have all the information about that it will give a calendar invite to you
you will put that not in your calendar so you can guard that time and even tell
others about it I hope to see you on future hangs it’s one of the best things
that I think we do in the scaling up H2O Community just allows us to meet each other and enjoy the fact that we all
understand what our jobs are so again that’s scaling up h2o.com forward slash
hang another thing I’ll mention last week I mentioned that we did have the
cwt course all ready to go again of course it’s the cwt practice exam course
so if this is something that you have been putting off what a great goal for
the new year for you to take your certified water technologist examination
I would be so incredibly delighted if we just had record number of people take
their cwt and pass their cwt and get their cwt in 2023 so to help you with
that if you go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash Academy you will see that
there is a cwt practice exam course for you there is a free version of that
course where it’s us going through the cwt handbook and then we’ve created our
own practice test so to get access to that there is a fee but it will allow
you to build confidence and know what you know what you need to study and give
you some test taking techniques so you can derive a more plausible answer when
you have no idea which one of the four possible answers it could be so we’re
going to teach you some tips and logic thinking techniques I’m even going to
show you how to stay calm if you start to panic during a test so all of those things are within the course and you can
find that at scalingup h2o.com forward slash Academy
Nation last week we interviewed James McDonald and he introduced us to the new
section that we are doing each and every week called periodic water with James
and here is a brand new installment hello and welcome to the periodic water
table with James where we think and learn about water chemistry drop by drop please use your week to search online
ask your colleagues or even pick up a book to learn more about each week’s
periodic water table topic if you do at the end of the year you’ll be 52 water
chemistry smarter so let’s raise the water table of knowledge together and get started
today’s topic is PTSA with the right lighting this
molecule has a certain glow about it why is PTSA used can PTSA be used in
both cooling towers and boilers why or why not how about closed Loops what does PTSA
stand for what is a typical dosage of PTSA how is the concentration of PTSA
measured what can cause PTSA to degrade is PTSA compatible with all biocides
why did PTSA come into more widespread use within the last decade or so
should other parameters be measured regularly in addition to PTSA or can one
rely solely upon the PTSA reading when monitoring product dosage
remember knowledge is power and taking the time to learn more about water chemistry each week will help make you a
force to be reckoned with be sure to post what you learn to social media and tag it with hashtag
watertable23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look forward to learning more from you
as always thank you James and I’m just going to go straight into the conclusion
of the interview with James McDonald ladies and gentlemen here’s the conclusion of last week’s interview
what are we doing this year give us a little hint of course there’s no hint
we’ve revealed it last week but we’re talking about it this week so what what is going on this year
well this year we have the periodic water table with James and so the the
periodic water table with James we’re focusing on the chemistry of what we do all year round and so there are
certainly far more than 52 atoms or water molecules we deal with in our job but if if you focus on each of these
each week by the time this year comes to an end you will be a 52 water chemistry
smarter than you were when you first started and what I’m hoping people do with the periodic table or periodic
water table James isn’t quite rolling off on my lips yet out of my mouth yet but what I’m hoping people would do with
the periodic water table James will be to take this each week maybe have that molecule have that atom stick in their
minds so that when they’re at the next account and they’re waiting at the guard shack for someone to approve them to
drive on a bike or walk on back they’re pulling out their cell phone and they’re looking up pbtc or PTSA or what have you
they’re learning a bit more about it when they’re standing in line that at a fast food restaurant or Walmart or
something they’re bringing out their cell phone and they’re learning more about it when they’re at home they’re pulling out their books and they’re
looking it up and learning more about it or maybe they’re hopping on their phone and calling their technical manager and
asking questions about it but I’m hoping each week it sticks in their minds and
it fuels a reason for them to focus on that molecule that atom that week to
learn just a little bit more and I’m going to be doing the same thing because I certainly don’t know everything about everything I’ll be sharing each week so
I’ll be on my phone I’ll be in my books and I’ll be asking those around me more about each of the molecules in each of
the atoms can you give us an example of what we can expect yes I was thinking you know one week
coming up the topic actually is going to be nitrite so here’s a spoiler for you but anyway nitrite and what all can I
learn about nitrite and I was wondering Trace perhaps you and I can bounce back and forth you you ask a question and
I’ll try and answer it nitrate okay so in Rapid Fire Style rapid firestock yep all right are you
ready I am ready here we go so uh how about what is the chemical formula well
nitrite is NO2 but a common form of nitrite is sodium nitrite which is nano2
so there is a difference and nitrate is NO3 so don’t confuse your nitrites and
nitrates please you never want to do that how about the molecular weight
well for nitrite NO2 is 46 but sodium nitrite is 69. what is nitrite used for
it is used as an anodic Cruise inhibitor for mild Steel Cast iron can also be used for a galvanized steel and
reportedly has a positive corrosion influence on aluminum and Tin as well
wow what’s its functionality functionality well if it forms an
impervious oxide film to protect the metal from further attack and the layers
formed by a bind action of both nitrite and dissolved oxygen and then kept and repaired by nitrite alone and I found
one interesting fact as I was reading it where they were talking about how nitrite itself is not consumed largely
from the water you know you don’t see large drops as it’s forming as passivated layer because it’s such a
thinned film as well so that that kind of made me think about the mechanism of
what was happening at the surface and you know how thick or thin it might be James how do you test for it that’s a
question you should always ask because not everything has a test in the field you can run and luckily as we probably
know nitrite can be tested in the field whether it be a Colorimeter or a spectrophotometer or drop test a
potassium permanganate test perhaps but it can be field tested not everything is when you test for something you have to
have a range what’s the dosage range well quite often times you’ll see out
there in literature between 300 to 2000 PPM as nitrite NO2 but don’t forget it
can be expressed differently as well it can be expressed as sodium nitrite and
that’s important to know the difference because to convert from nitrite to sodium nitrite you multiply nitrite by
1.5 that’s a big multiplier so if you if you’re not talking apples to apples
you’re talking apples to oranges you may be out of range and not know it any issues of the nitrites too low in the
system that’s actually one of the most interesting things I think about nitrite because nitrite is an anodic corrosion
inhibitor and so the anode in a battery is where the metal loss is occurring and
if your nitrite levels are too low and that passivated film that oxide film gets any breaks in it and you localize
those anodes that’s where you’re going to lose metal that’s where you’re going to get pits forming and I’ve heard
nitrite referred to as a dangerous Cruise inhibitor because having two low
levels of nitrate can be worse than having no nitrite because of the pitting that can occur now we’re not protecting
the cathode at all and all those cathodes are fighting over the anodes we’re finding all the animals exactly
well are there any issues if there’s too high a level of nitrite in the system
in one way you want to say no because it’s a waste of chemical going there high you’re not gaining anything more
but digging deeper it is yes there certainly can be issues depending upon how high you go I know nitrite I’ve seen
it happen myself at high concentrations can actually start to damage mechanical seals gaskets hosing nitrite itself
can’t behave as a mild oxidant so it can damage those things and even on the mechanical seals as little bit of
amounts of water get past those mechanical seals when you have high levels of dissolved solids which if you
have high nitrite it is a dissolved solid under the heat of that mechanical seal the water can evaporate away and
you end up with basically sandpaper left all those to soft solids are braiding away your seal and I’ve certainly seen
damaged seals because of this too not often but it’s been seen that was the same metaphor my father used sandpaper
sandpaper good see I’m in good company there do microbiological activity have impact
on nitrite levels yes they certainly can the nitrite is bug food it can be and
nitrifying and denying bacteria are nourished by it that they can convert them to nitrates and ammonia and
nitrogen all depending upon the species and which way they’re going you know you want to use non-oxidizing biocytes to
control the microbiological effects and if you’re in a system you have a closed
system using nitride on and you’re losing your nitrite but your conductivity is the same you’re you
don’t see any water makeup coming in you’re watching your water meters and everything else is the same you probably
have some microbiological activity in there consuming your nitrate converting into other things and I actually did an
industrial water treatment comic based upon nitrite and microbes being within within the closed system and um I show
in the comic it’s a two panel comic and on the left I have all kinds of little nitrite molecules floating around in
there and these microbes are in there and one of them is holding his staff and he says this is the Land of Plenty of
our that our ancestors spoke of all the nitrite you can eat and then one of the little uh microbes in the corner has a
thought bubble saying I feel like I’m being watched and then on the right panel you have an industrial water
treatment professional standing there talking to his customer telling him your nitrite has dropped while connectivity
has remained the same with zero makeup Water recorded I suspect unwanted microbiological activity in your closed
loop let’s run some tests and start making plans to add in antimicrobial if
results are positive I love that and if I recall Mr Charlie Baxter had a problem
with that as well you’re exactly right Mr Charlie Vector did and they solved it
in the end that’s right so uh I had to practice to get up high when I said oh what I can’t do it right now but uh so
many people commented on that all right James I I the only other question I can think of are there any
incompatibilities that we should know about well you’re using nitrite probably
usually in a closed loop and if you have microbes growing in there you may want
to add in the biocide well typically oxidizing bioscience are not recommended to be used with nitrite because there
there is a reaction that will occur you can oxidize it and at the same time there are still people who may at times
treat a closed loop with adjusting the ph and removing the oxygen with this a sulfite-based chemistry and sulfites
also don’t combine well in oxygen scavengers reducers don’t combine well with nitride either and you might want
to think as well you know increased levels of chlorides increases connectivity increased corrosivity and
so there are other factors that may increase the required concentration Pro
corrosion as well so different ways of thinking about incompatibilities I’m tapped out I cannot think of any
other questions to ask you wow you know quite a bit about our favorite polyatomic ion nitrite there you go but
that’s what you should do each week as you’re out there thinking about each of these with these challenges with the
periodic water table with James think about all the different things what happens if I’m too high what happens if
I’m too low how do I test for it can I test for it in the field or only in the lab it’s incompatible with anything does
temperature affect it pH affected how soluble is it what are the dosages is
there Synergy between it and something else and what are the forms it exists in what is its molecular weight how do I
convert between this and another form there’s so many questions you can ask and so many answers you can find
we are all going to be so smart by the year end yes we are I love it well James
several times you’ve brought up the cartoons that you create how did you become inspired to do those
cartoons well it all started with the pandemic and I was um I guess lucky enough when
the pandemic started before I’m primarily in the office now I don’t get out in the field as much as I used to and so my work shifted from the office
to my home office and at the same time my kids also shifted from school to home
when that started at the beginning of 2020 and I was looking for a project for my kids and I found YouTube video on how
to draw a superhero so my kids and I did that and we had lots of fun doing it and I really enjoyed that experience then
about the same time my daughter who is 15 now but was about 12 at the time is a
fantastic artist she had gotten this app on her iPad it’s procreate it’s the name
of the app it’s a great drawing app it really is very very powerful she was showing me how to use it and I was
thinking about my experience of drawing a superhero then I started thinking about my water experience and drawing a
um and a duster water superhero of course that would pop into my head and um I started drawing and playing around
and my very first comic that came out in May of 2020 and the very first one I was
thinking about how lucky I was to be sitting at home in the safety of my home
as this pandemic was going on and I was thinking about all those field around
apps out there in duster water treatment professionals facing the customers
facing the world each and every day giving me the luxury of sitting in my home office and they were my heroes they
really were I have not forgotten that I will not forget that and so my very first industrial water treatment cartoon
is just two simple panels and the first one has a guy and a tie looking at you
that the reader and the and the narration says they get caught in Machinery twisted around pump shafts and
smashed in Gears they get chemicals on them they get ripped and then the second
panel you see a boiler you see an industrial water treatment professional looking at the boiler with his back to
you and he’s holding a briefcase and he’s wearing a cape and it’s ripped and
it has H2O on it and it’s in tatters and the narration ends with that’s why not
all heroes wear capes so my very first in dust water treatment comic was in
homage to the industrial water treatment professionals on the front lines every
day facing the world and from there it just expanded because being taught in
duster water treatment and then over the years as I’ve taught others and experienced very things there’s a lot of
humor in what we do we may not recognize it every single day but there’s humor in
the way we flick our graduated cylinders and the way we stir our casserole dishes and in the way we talk to our customers
and the way we train each other and when when interferences pop up and we don’t
quite understand them there could be humor in there as as well when we leave caps on our pH probes there’s humor in
that you know so that’s where it started from it started from a project with my
kids it started from thinking about what allowed me to set it home and be safe while other people were on the front
lines how many have there been there have been a hundred and eleven
which I found amazing 111 of them over the years and there’s
more to come I have a little list of those as well so as I’m thinking in the back of my mind throughout the day if an
idea pops up I open up the list on my phone and stick it in there if somebody is scrolling through their
LinkedIn and they can’t find all of them is there one place that they can go and just see all of them
yes absolutely I store them all on the industrialwaterscience.com webpage and
you can go to www.industrialwaterscience.com forward slash fun f-u-n if you wish to go to
them directly and like uh like Trace like you mentioned if you’re on LinkedIn you can follow
iwtfun and it’ll bring up all of them as well or most of them so James you’ve
mentioned a couple of your favorites are there some more there are and I was thinking about this before we started
the show and I came up with my 15 favorite and I won’t go through all 15 on on your show here but probably one of
my top favorites aside from the very first one which I already described was my third one and that was the one about
the congratulated cylinder and the levels of industrial water mastering and
when I first started as a newbie when I would try to pour out my or get 50 mls
in a graduated cylinder I’d pour my sample in there and you know I’d pour 51 or 52 MLS and I remember those first few
days I try to pour out 1ml or half an ml or 2 MLS and I’d overshoot and I’d have
48 MLS and then I would repeat and that was not fun but then my mentors around
me my trainers around me and they exposed me to the flick where you can flick that graduated cylinder in just a
few drops come out and after a flick or two or three you got your 50 ml spot on and so comic number three is about the
Newbie who pours too much adds more sample or refills empties too much and repeats the experienced person the flick
and getting a perfect was experienced one and then I had a third level there and that was a Chuck Norris level where
even though it shows 51 MLS if Chuck Norris says that’s 50 MLS that’s 50 ml
so that was that was one of my favorites another one out there I really like before is called the extreme Room
Makeover imagine this two panels on the left you have a drum of our treatment
chemicals graveland floor green avocado green ugly wall behind it and a
receptacle but the after shot it is it is amazing the after shot shows a water
treatment pest kit open on top of the drum it has a bucket to the right that
that says sink on the side of it and it is absolutely amazing how that room has been transformed it gives us a certain
jealous you can say who that room is absolutely amazing you’ve got to see it to believe it and that’s comic number
23. so please look it up and um I mentioned the one we had on nitrite I
mentioned the one we have on on Rising Thai and they’re amongst my favorites as well but I have a few reoccurring
characters in there too I have newbie and I have boss man and newbie in some
ways as me when I was new in some ways is other people I’ve trained over the years who are new as well and newbie has
on a multi-colored hat with a propeller on top of it you know he’s new in the game and boss man he has gray hair he’s
been in this for for a while and the very first one I did it’s a newbie came back to boss man and he says hey boss I
finished the Water Analysis and the boss man says great job you know it’s very reassuring great job newbie there’s just
one thing all the pH readings are the same did you remove the pH probe cap and
newbie has red cheeks and his eyebrows are up he’s like what cat because he’s red he read all those pH samples with a
cap on the pH probe so they’re all the same so you know there’s there’s so many there and as I was looking through them
this morning you know I was making myself laugh too and that’s my goal if I make one person laugh I have reached my
goal and even if that one person’s only me hey I’m not I’m not too picky but
probably one more I want to mention because if you’re a parent and a regular parent when you’re driving down the road
you see a horse you’re like look kids a horse but in this comic I show in two
panels on the left side car driving down the road father’s arm or mother’s arm poking out pointing at the horse saying
look kids horse but the second panel I stuck a cooling tower behind that horse and an industrial water treatment parent
is going to say look kids cooling tower I love it so that that was a very
popular one but yeah look on industrialwaterscience.com forward slash fun you’ll see all 111 and I’m certainly
am not done yet and I have another one in the back of my mind I’m working on which will be out soon so have fun look
at it James it’s one of my favorite things to see what have you come up with because it just brings so much fun to
our industry I’ll tell you my favorite one I was flattered to see it was the rising tide one I absolutely love that
one I remember when I did that one I reached out to you to show you first just to make sure I didn’t offend you by
bringing in a rising tide into that and showing reasons why it’s not always true but I I think it worked it absolutely
worked I thought it was fantastic you know I was going through my memory and I
remember my wife and I were sitting on the couch and I don’t she was probably reading something and I was scrolling
through Linkedin and I came across one of your cartoons and it was the one with
the Mona Lisa and um I’m going to scroll through in a second and see if I can find that one
and there’s a bunch of people looking at it and I think one says oh it’s amazing
oh the the smile and they’re looking at the Mona Lisa on one side and then right next to it is a picture where they
painted of a water molecule with a smile and they’re commenting on how how wonderful the smile is and then one of
the characters says Ah the artist was just going through a phase yes a good phase I just thought that was so funny
and and I showed it to my wife and she goes what’s wrong with you
well I personally that’s and that’s comic number 80. I have it here in front of me right now and I personally think
the Mona Lisa created a few hundred years ago I have brought it to its Pinnacle by including it within the
industrial water treatment comic here it was painted all those hundreds years ago just so I could include it in this
fantastic it was uh then definitely you have it has definitely uplifted the the
art community James I don’t think it’s right for you and I to get together and
not talk about the association of water Technologies now we’ve already mentioned it a couple of dozen times on this show
but uh specifically I wanted to talk about the awt technical committee so uh
what exactly is the awt technical committee yes well I and Chuck Hamrick
are co-chairs of the technical committee and the the purpose really is to support
the awt membership and awt’s vision is the awt will be the standard and boy
voice of the water treatment industry with the mission to support our members viability growth and development and
that’s what we do as a technical committee we support the technical side of that by giving them the tools the
Articles the videos that we work on as well to kind of explain give ways to
teach give ways to help people use the technical side of what we do and we do
that with various subcommittees so the technical committee has five subcommittees and they are the
pre-treatment subcommittee the boiler subcommittee cooling Wastewater and
special projects and I assume there’s a waiting list for people to serve on all of these
subcommittees and it’s first come first serve and there’s dozens of people ahead of them so there’s no reason for anybody
to volunteer is that what you’re going to tell us wouldn’t that be nice that that would be
so nice to be able to turn anyone away but no we we don’t they’re all volunteers we get paid zero we get a
raise every year so you know a five percent raise on zero still zero but we would love to have more volunteers and
what we want people who are going to come in and participate but at the same time you don’t have to be an expert you
don’t have to be a pre-trub and expert boiler cooling Wastewater or what have you expert you have to be someone who
wants to learn more though a great way to learn more about boilers is to join
the boiler subcommittee you can come in there you can listen you can learn and you can offer to help on things even if
you don’t have that experience because you can then learn that experience and actually you’re kind of the best person
if you don’t have the experience to help us out because we’re trying to communicate this oftentimes one or one
of our audiences is people who don’t have the experience so you can tell us are we explaining this properly is it
too high level is it too basic or is it just right so we need experienced folks we need inexperienced folks but overall
we need people who want to participate people who want to give back I’m not
someone who wants to come in and just have their name on the list as being a member someone who joins our monthly
calls and someone if you’re lucky enough to come to our convention who joins our meetings there and someone who who
contributes whether it be with their advice or with their elbow grease whichever it is we need that in our
committees so the idea of volunteer looks just like you but maybe you want
some examples of what we do as well on our committees and the pre-treatment committee they’ve done things from
writing articles in the analyst to uh making Excel worksheets to help do the
the software calculations de-ocalyzer calculations Ro calculations right now
they’re working on videos for water softeners just imagine having videos helping you understand a water water
softener helping you troubleshoot a water softener helping you do it in Lucid study on the water softener they’re working on those right now in
the pre-treatment subcommittee boiler they’re working on on some boiler guidelines for lower pressure boilers
the asme guidelines have a range of 0 to 300 PSIG well what you do for a 20 PSIG
boiler can be quite different than what you’re dealing with for 300 PSIG boilers so they’re they’re kind of looking to
see should those guidelines be different for lower pressure boilers so they’re looking at those things cooling they’re
writing articles for for the analyst on on cooling Target cleaning and disinfection they’ve done some analysis
and a survey on Legionella in municipal Water Supplies they’re working on putting that into an article they do
webinars Wastewater is working on on videos on various Wastewater topics they’re working on analyst articles
troubleshooting guides webinars they help with the trainings each year which I know you’re involved in as well trace
and then special projects they’re working on a deposit analysis cheat sheet and videos to go along with it and
they’re even being pulled into a special project to rewrite the raw materials handbook too so there’s a lot of work
happening there a lot of different venues and media and whatever so if you
have an interest in in those projects you have an interest in those topics and unfortunately you have to be a member of
the awt but if you’re a member of the awt you know reach out to me reach out to Angela Pike and we will help get you
on the rank committee I love it and awt recently passed even if your company is
not a member but you want to be a member you can be an individual member now exactly you can be an individual member
and I believe that allows you to join a committee you can’t share a committee but I think that may allow you to join a
committee which is exactly what we want we need more people our cooling committee probably has the highest
membership out there but we could certainly use more people in pre-treatment boiler Wastewater and special projects as well I started out
because somebody told me I needed to get involved in a committee and I remember I
thought I had nothing to offer I was young I didn’t have any experience what
was I possibly going to offer when I saw all these water treatment Jedi that
we’re serving on that committee so I think everybody goes through that I’m sure glad that I listened to the person
that told me to serve and I fought through that fear that I had we all had this imposter syndrome and if we can get
past that there’s wonderful things on the other side and the wonderful things were on the other side were all the
people that I met James you and I would not have known each other if it wasn’t for the awt we would not yep you were
right and it is the people I started off my first thing I volunteered for was in
the pre-treatment subcommittee and then I met some wonderful people there and then I got asked to be chair of that
committee I was nervous about that I didn’t know how to have cherry committee but I figure if they could do it so could I so so I stumbled my way through
it I chaired that committee actually for 12 years too long the chair a committee but 12 years then from there I was asked
to chair our certification committee for rcwd and then back again to being the
technical chair co-chair with Chuck Hamrick and you know all of this and the
person who asked me to do some of these things was Al Bassett he said why don’t
you be chair of the pre-treatment committee and he kind of helped light fire of being able to contribute to the
awt so I can never talk about my experience with awt without talking about and thinking Al Bassett as well
there you go and James uh there were some changes in the bylaws this past year so you are now eligible to serve on
the board and I’m pretty sure you’re going to get a nomination from someone
if not many people so I look forward to seeing what comes from that it would be
an absolute honor it would be James this has been a fun episode every time you
come on I really look forward to it I want to thank you so much for all the things you do for the industrial Water
Treatment Community but especially you being part of the show it has become so
much more fun to collaborate on ideas with you and each and every year you
have another idea and then we figure out how we can really blow it up and bring it to the scaling up nation and we hear
so many people that enjoy it so I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you do for the
industrial Water Treatment Community and all you do for scaling up H2O you’re welcome Trace thank you for
including me allowing me to come along on the ride I really enjoy it and it’s from the heart it really is and thank
you for giving me a venue for what pours forth from my heart from my brain to be able to reach all the people in your
audience I really appreciate that and thank you for all you do as well Trace so James it sounds like we were getting
ready to say goodbye but I think with our love of Chuck Norris why don’t we
throw in a couple of Chuck Norris jokes I think everybody loves Chuck Norris
jokes don’t you agree I absolutely agree and who would possibly say no I mean
jeez you can’t say no to Chuck Norris there’s probably a joke in that all right I’ll get us started so uh Chuck
Norris doesn’t read books he just stares them down and gets the information he
wants time waits for no man unless that man is Chuck Norris if you spell Chuck Norris and Scrabble
you win forever Chuck Norris breathes air five times a
day in the beginning there was nothing then Chuck Norris roundhouse kick
nothing and told it to get a job when God said let there be light Chuck
Norris said say please oh no the dinosaurs looked at Chuck Norris the wrong way once you know what
happened to them Chuck Norris’s tears cure cancer too bad he’s never cried
all right we’re going to stop with that because we could go on forever so uh so
there we go Chuck Norris what’s your favorite Chuck Norris joke tell it to a friend today James this has been a fun
episode every time you come on I really look forward to it I want to thank you so much for all the things you do for
the industrial Water Treatment Community but especially you being part of the show it has become so much more fun to
collaborate on ideas with you and each and every year you have another idea and
then we figure out how we can really blow it up and bring it to the scaling up nation and we hear so many people
that enjoy it so I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all
that you do for the industrial Water Treatment Community and all you do for scaling up H2O
you’re welcome Trace thank you for including me allowing me to come along on the ride I really enjoy it and it’s
from the heart it really is and thank you for giving me a venue for what pours forth from my heart from my brain to be
able to reach all the people in your audience I really appreciate that and thank you for all you do as well Trace
[Music] really mean it when I say that is a
gentleman that I rely on so much he was one of the first people that I spoke to
when I thought about doing a podcast like this and we talked about imposter
syndrome I definitely had imposter syndrome who would listen to me talk
about industrial water treatment well I’m sure glad that I called James
because he told me and it was pretty much word for word if anybody can do this you can do this and I want to see
this podcast succeed James thank you for those words because you gave me support
we now have something like 20 000 listeners of the scaling up H2O podcast
last time I looked we were in 92 different countries we’re mostly in the
United States followed very closely by England then Australia then I want to
say Ireland and then Italy it’s really cool to see all of the different
cultures all the different countries that are listening to the scaling up H2O
podcast and I think that goes to show that our industry has no borders we
understand industrial water treatment we have similar issues so regardless of
where we live of what we do in a culture it doesn’t matter we are all industrial
water Traders and I think that’s why it’s so exciting to see industrial water week grow each and every year we’re
celebrating year six this year so I hope you have your calendars marked for
October 2nd that whole entire week we’re going to be celebrating that and as
James and I talked about earlier we are going to be at the Association of water
Technologies Conference during that week and I hope to do something special since
so many of you come to that conference to celebrate industrial water week with
you I don’t know what that is yet but we’ve got some things in the works but all of that to say James thank you for
all that you do for the nation for me for our community and I hope you have
somebody in your life like James and like I said last week life is too short
to do it alone so if you are looking to make this year the year that you just
knock things out of the park that you are becoming a better you you are
helping others become a better them is that how you say that well anyway that’s what I’m going with if this sounds like
something you want to learn more about go to scalinguph2o.com
Mastermind to find out some more about the rising tide Mastermind we’ve got a
waiting list going for our next group perhaps that next group contains you I
would love to have a 15-minute conversation to discuss the Mastermind with you to see if it is right and if it
is see how we can get you started in that next group that’s getting ready to form Nation you might have noticed that
in the last couple of episodes I have not mentioned all of the different things that are coming up in the Water
Treatment Community and I do that because our staff has done such a great
job with our calendar I can only talk about so many things so I’m going to
start reminding you to go to the scaling up h2o.com website go over to events and
you will see absolutely everything that we know about that even touches the
Water Treatment Community it will all be curated in one place right there in our
event section and it will have a link to take you to the site of what you want to
know more about it will also have a link to put a calendar invite in your
calendar so you can guard that time our staff has done a great job with that and
I would love for you to check it out and make it part of your regular routine when you’re planning your quarter your
month your year whatever you go to that page and you figure out what is
something that I can go to that is going to enhance what I am doing right now and
trust me just as James and I spoke about you will find something that will
enhance what you are doing now it will allow you to meet other people it will
allow you to learn about topics that you you want to learn about and it will give
you friendships that will last for more than 20 years and that’s what James and I were talking about so go ahead go to
scalinguph2o.com go over to events and see if you can find some things that you
want to attend this year by the way if you are not the owner of your business and you’re thinking Trace I can never go
to the owner of the company and ask them to pay to go to whatever it is you’re
probably right the way you’re thinking and I as an owner would probably not
invest in you the way you’re thinking right now the way that you are
delivering the message so how do we deliver the message differently imagine if you went to the person that was in
charge of the financial decisions or giving you permission to go to one of
these conventions or Expos or whatever it is and you do give them a case of why
you want to go you also add to that case what you hope to bring back to the
company because they invested in you and then you say you are going to teach at
least one of the topics you learned about to your company that’s a different
conversation isn’t it so that’s now an investment not just in you that is an
investment in everybody that allows everybody to go to part of what you were
sent to with just the cost of you being sent to it that’s a return on investment
that’s just not spending money that’s investing money so that’s the mindset
whenever you ask for something to expand your education to make you better at
whatever you’re trying to be better at that’s what I want you to focus on how
do you make it an investment and not an expense what is the person that’s making
the investment going to get out of it and how does it turn into an investment
that pays dividends totally different conversation so let me know what you
decide that you want to go to and how that conversation goes nine times out of
ten most times people are so impressed to hear how well thought out your words
are because you have them in mind not just you in mind I’d love for you to try
it and I’d love for you to let me know about it Nation one more thing before we sign off James McDonald’s book we did
not talk about it it’s called drop by drop and it’s all of these technical writings that James has put together
over his years in water treatment it is a great water treatment resource to just
learn about all things water treatment if you ever wondered why do we do a certain thing chances are he wrote about
it and you can get that by going to our website and we will have an affiliate
link all ready for you to get his book so Nation never take your hands off ten
and two we always have show notes ready for you so you don’t have to take notes
we always have those links already for you so you can go directly and get the
materials that we are mentioning on this show and all the people that do that is
our fine staff here at scaling up H2O so thank you you to all the people that
help us make this podcast what it is we get so many compliments well let’s face it I get so many compliments on so many
things that our staff does you guys make me look good each and every week thank
you for what you do and stand up Nation thank you for listening we’re going to have a brand new episode for you next
week in the meantime have a great week folks
[Music]