The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
today’s episode is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the term
Mastermind was originally written in Napoleon Hills book Think and Grow Rich
before that the earliest documentation that we have of a mastermind group was
Ben Franklin’s group that he used to meet every single week in a Tavern that he called huness Nation there’s no doubt
about it life is too short to do it alone and it’s not very much fun to do
it alone in nation I urge you to go to scaling up h2o.com and find out if the
rising tide Mastermind is right for you I’d love to have a 15-minute call with
you to explain all things Rising tide Mastermind and see if this is a group
that’s right for you and you are right for the group go to scaling up h2o.com
slm
Mastermind welcome to scaling up H2O the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems I’m
Trace Blackmore the host of the scaling up H2O podcast I love saying that I tell
you one of my favorite things to do is to record this podcast and to meet so
many people out there in the scaling up Nation if this is the first time you have listened to this podcast the
scaling up nation is the term that we give to people that listen to the scaling up H2O podcast because we are a
nation we are a community we are a tribe we just get what is going on with each
other we understand our dayto day we understand our issues and we are not alone and I just can’t say how many
times being in the field and knowing that there is an army of industrial water treaters out there that are
experiencing the exact same things that I am experiencing makes that day just a
little bit better now something we did with this podcast was try to put those
people together because I can remember when I first started with my dad I knew
there were other people out there but I had no way of really contacting them
outside of maybe my own company that was the premise that I wanted to start this
podcast so many years ago and we came up with the term scaling up Nation because
we are a nation of industrial water treaters and we’ve allowed people to get
together to learn that hey I’m in the same industry as well and the common
starting talking point is I listen to the scaling up H2O podcast I can’t tell
you how many stories that I have heard where people met other people and the breaking ice question or conversation
that they had was over this podcast I am just so humbled by that and I am so
fortunate that that is happening because Nation as you know this is the best
industry in the world and why not share it with other people in this industry
but it’s hard to get to know those people so I am glad that that is
something that this podcast is allowing us to do and thank you for being a
member of the scaling up Nation now I am also very excited because this week I am
in Frisco Texas and I am teaching at the awt Technical Training seminar so maybe
you and I have already met but if you are here make sure that I get to shake
your hand and thank you for listening to this podcast and you might have heard me talk about different conferences that we
go to as a scaling up H2O podcast we have these buttons that we give out for
you to put on your name tag on your lanyard and that lets everybody in that
conference Hall know that you are a member of the scaling up nation and that
is an instant Icebreaker for you to meet new people for you to have a conversation with somebody else CU you
see that button on their lanyard so many people keep the buttons If you didn’t
keep yours don’t worry if you don’t have yours at this particular event don’t worry about that either because I have
plenty make sure you find me I will give you a button I just ask that you look
for other buttons and introduce yourself to them because they who are members of
the scaling up Nation now maybe you’re not here with me this week but you have another opportunity April 17th through
20th I’m going to be in Cleveland Ohio with all my awt friends so maybe you
want to attend that Technical Training to find out more about the awts Technical Training go to scaling up
h2o.com go over to our events page we’ll have all of that information for you
including the American Chemical Society Spring event and that’s going to be
taking place in New Orleans Louisiana March 17 through 21st and if you’re a
chemical professional this is something that you would want to check out all
about sharing your passion for chemistry connecting with all other people in the
world’s largest scientific society that is the American Chemical Society we’re
going to have that information for you on our events page along with the Canadian mechanical plumbers Exposition
that’s going to be March 20th through 22nd in Toronto Ontario and this is where over 500 exhibitors represent all
equipment Innovations applications and information that Define all things
mechanical in the plumbing industry today this is hosted by the heating
refrigeration and air conditioning Institute of Canada as well as the Canadian Institute of plumbing and
heating also the Bulma Medical Office Buildings and healthc Care real estate conference is taking place on May 13th
through 15th in Orlando Florida who would not want to go to Orlando Florida
we’ll have all of that information for you on our events page and finally we
have the International Water association’s 18th World Conference on anerobic digestion that is taking place
in Istanbul Turkey I sure hope they ask me to be their keynote speaker I’ve
always wanted to go to Turkey that’s going to be June 2nd through 6th and we
will have all of that information for you simply by going to scaling up
h2o.com you can do for/ events that takes you directly there or just type in
scaling up h2o.com hopefully you have that bookmarked as one of your favorites
and you can just click over there then go over on our menu bar go over to our events page and it is amazing what our
amazing team here at scaling up H2O has put up there if you can think of a water
conference it is up there it is a wealth of information and that’s because so
many people in the scaling up Nation have let us know about things that are going on so you can know where you want
to be in any given moment in any given area at any given conference Nation last
week I had the pleasure of introducing you to one of my friends Barry Higgins
and you learned he is not from the states he is from Ireland and he is all
things knowing about boilers we’re going to continue that conversation today so
here is part two with Barry Higgins Barry let’s move on to one of my
favorite subjects and that is pH so how do you look at pH in all these
systems again you in the steam berer itself pH you know it’s very interesting
the way it’s related to alkalinity the way it’s related to condensate it’s kind
of like a hockey stick uh when you get above 11 uh the way that it you need a
lot more CTIC to give you that pH and because it’s a logarithm scale people kind of forget this you know that it’s
you’re moving from 10.5 to 11 it’s not just going like on the doal so
everything exponentially increases so the more cost that you need to get from 11 to 12 exponentially goes up by 100
and so you need to kind of really home in on your skills of doing your PIN
testing your titration you need to understand the difference you know if you run a boiler at a pH 12 how much
more is going to add to your solids you definitely need to know that your pH of 11 is probably the ideal range to be
doing that and you kind of need to get to know then what what that relates in pity and practicing and doing the
testing and doing it hydration properly and like what kind of a book bear in mind is when you see um sites and
they’re calibrating their pH probe and you’re looking at the reagent and you’re going like when did you open that guys
and it’s oh that’s two two years old or it’s six months old and you’re thinking
to yourself guys this is out of date it’s even after a week it’s probably
lost most of it uh especially ph10 and sitting there anyless of a fully closed
and a lovely tight vacuum it’s still going to lose some things so you’re better off the single use uh cells that
you can put in your probe into your uh 12 mil liquids calibrates your probe and
I would probably advise people to have a special keep one probe for the high R PH range one for lower pH range so and then
have your Solutions at your PH range that way that you know that your your probes are what are the most
temperamental uh probes go on ph a clean and calibrated pH meter is a happy pH
meter a lot of people just simply do the 4710 calibration you’re saying maybe
even do another higher pH to do a calibration can you talk about that yeah
no I was talking more about C up to 10 um yeah so that would be I and I would try and keep a separate uh probe for the
higher pH range as opposed to having that pH probe being used in in your
pre-treatment water at seven and then expect it to go back up to the 11 11 12
range and back down to seven and back to TW 10 so I would always try and keep one as my high range um and calibrated as
the high range that’s a great tip I know a lot of meters go bad a lot of probes
go bad because they don’t stay properly hydrated I’m betting that across the
Atlantic that doesn’t change nope definitely not H you have to keep it in
the seal you have to keep it in your electrolyte solution especially we’re having kind of very cold weather in the
last couple of weeks you want to take them out of the cars bring them in keep them in room temperature you do not want
to let them freeze in the car because it’s going to be bad and you want to keep enough solution at the at the base
of that you want to keep them clean you know like anything else you’re thinking you’re using them in the lab
environments people are expecting you to give them an accurate pH result and if you not looking after your probes your
tips your Solutions you’re going to give probably wrong answers um and people are
going to take that as gospel that you’ve told them oh your condensat is 12 or nine and it could actually be four so
there can be a massive swing in the in the the two in two results if you don’t have a proper calibrated happy pH probes
we’re doing so many public service announcements today we are helping the entire water treatment industry you
mentioned alkalinity and we’ve been talking about pH if somebody wants more information about that recently I did a
show as episode 340 where I Revisited a previous show that I did but it’s all about alkalinity all about pH and I’m
pretty sure I talk about cleaning a meter in there so if you want to learn more about anything Barry and I are talking about out by all means check out
episode 340 next we go on to the blood on system
and we talk a bit about blow down system my understanding and maybe I’m wrong
about blow down system is the bottom blow down gets rid of your sludge and you need to do it in short bur so it
needs to be in a kind of a pulse system and if you think that you need to do a 12 seconds blow down that needs to be
done in I would say Max of 4 seconds so three intervals of 4 seconds short sharp
burst because if you leave it up for 12 seconds all is going to get is butter water coming out your um blow down
vessel and that’s not what you want you want to get rid of that sludge out of the boiler your top blow down uh on your
b is all for controll your TVs within the B so that’s the two differences that
uh I’ve been taught and I hope I’m right I think you’re right cuz I was taught the same thing so we’re both wrong if
you’re not I I remember my dad teaching me that you didn’t want the bottom blow open for too
long cuz it would create a Vortex and would funnel steam I later learned that
there were plates that are over that to avoid that channeling from happing and
sucking Steam down I guess it still could happen if you just left the thing open for a long amount of time but you
are exactly right the whole point of that is to get the sludge off the bottom
and after about four or 5 Seconds you’re not on the bottom anymore you’re you’re now cleared that area and just boiler
water is coming out yeah so again like it goes back to having clean surfaces running your boilers
efficiently you want to get you know like if you think about as big Kettle you want to make sure that you’re putting nice clean water in I describe
steam as fluffy white adorable uh Steam and if you have dirty water or hard
water you’re not going to get that lovely white fluffy steam that we see in the movies so when you tell a customer
how they should be blowing their boiler down what instructions do you give them on the bottom below again so I asked
them to do their their weekly test or daily test depends on the side and to
look at the number and to see you know the TDs is going to take care of itself
hopefully if it’s working right and then to do maybe a 10 seconds interval so you
divide it into three seconds so you give a three blast because you got these half second turn and you know if it’s manual
if it’s automatic then Happy Days it’s even easier put into program and walk away but we still have a few sides that
are manual or that they’re automatically broken and they haven’t got run to getting it fixed so you still have to go
back to the old school way of getting them to turn the key and to make sure that they close it and to feel the pipe
after making sure that it’s not piping hot so Barry I have learned when I tell
somebody 2 seconds 5 Seconds 10 seconds depending on who’s counting the seconds that’s all
different times oh yeah so I have learned to teach people to count
mississippily and I’m sure that that probably doesn’t translate over into
Ireland so people would go one Mississippi 2 Mississippi three Mississippi what do you guys use over
there yeah no it’ be something similar is actually it is a universal counter for seconds uh we would Mississippi as
well you’re using Mississippi and Ireland really who knew there we
go yeah I could you not we have more in common than we do different folks that’s
with everybody I love that they’re counting mississippily now here’s something I find interesting when I talk
to people over in the UK and I talk about the btu the British thermal unit
they say yeah I know what it is but we don’t use it do you guys use BTUs over there again no uh we know about but yeah
it’s not like it wouldn’t be your everyday day-to-day language of bers there there has to be a reason for all
these terms out there that we use but no nobody knows Barry what about safety equipment we talked a little bit about
the sample cooler of course I would count that as safety equipment but there’s all sorts of safety devices on a
boiler what are you looking at you’re looking at your low-level probes looking at your high level probes in in the
boiler and you want to make sure that they’re working and in Ireland we as a
legislation as an insurance inspection every week the customer must take the butter down drop the B until it reaches
the low level and the very low level and make sure them alarms are working and that way then they know that potentially
if there is an issue with foaming priming in the B that the B will cut
itself out and protect itself and we look after itself um in the safety I was
in I think it was about my second year with aqua cam I was looking after site
and there was a fatality on the side something had gone wrong that morning the guy had tried to start the B for the
factory something wasn’t happening something short they managed to short
the start of the B and the other there two of the B guys one of them was in the
B house with him behind the B and whatever happened the back BW off the
but and one one guy was killed and the other guy was severely injured because they tried to shortcut getting the but
up to speed properly doing it incrementally and like that they press the turbo button get me to steam in two
minutes as opposed to get me to steam in one hour properly so it’s kind of
definitely it’s an insurance risk here in irland that’s you have to do check all your levels and check all your
probes and make sure all these extra alarms are working for you yeah a lot of accidents happen when we don’t think we
have time to do it right and U it’s unfortunate there was a fatality with
that luckily I’ve never experienced anything like that just damaged equipment and as you were speaking with
that I was thinking I had a boiler inspection and the gentleman forgot that
the boiler inspector was coming so he quickly uh got all the water out of the
boiler and of course it was too hot for the inspector to get there so he got a water hose and started just uh trying to
cool the boiler down as quickly as possible well I can’t tell you how many tubes that he cracked and uh that boiler
had to be retubed so he didn’t have time to wait for it to cool down but then they had to wait for a replacement
rental boiler to get the plant back up so luckily nobody died on that one but
folks uh it’s all about safety it’s all about keeping the equipment working the next day there’s a reason that we we do
things a proper way yeah that’s it like you have to do it right do one still right um and not try and put your own
life or other people’s lives at risk is there anything you look for when you go
into a boiler room that you want to make sure is working everything looks right just to make sure that there’s no
present danger I would say your fee pumps probably like again listening for
noises listening for cavitational pumps listening for stuff that’s loose
hammering uh you know if if you’re in a live a Boer house with massive pipes and
steam coming back and condensate come back and leaks and just anything that does that doesn’t look safe um call
somebody’s attention and get them to repair it or get them to shut down if it’s looking like it’s dodgy it’s
definitely going to be dodgy something I like to do especially during blowdown
bottom blowdowns when you’re either doing it or you’re teaching somebody how to do it is always teach them to listen
for that feed water pump cuz if water’s leaving it should be coming back in yeah
I said you’re you’re making up what you’re putting out and the same thing again when you’re going in you know into
a border house you be going around and you be physically you know trying to make sure that there’s nothing passing
on your your valves as well like that be kind of tip that you want to be kind of going around and especially if somebody
is saying to you oh trace my conductivity or my TVs of my B is not Rising and you’re going okay let me just
do a quick investigate and then you put your hands down beside the uh load on
and you’re going whoa this this pipe is hot so it’s definitely leaking and somebody just hasn’t seen it properly or
theyve just left it crack open like so yes some little tips like that as well
well talking about all that let’s talk about boiler water levels so what should we be monitoring and I think it’s
important for everybody to know that there’s a a high operating level and a low operating level and we’re normally
somewhere in between that for a new water treater that maybe hasn’t experienced that what are those limits
and what should they be looking for okay my again this is my vision and my thing
looking at water is going to be denser than the steam that’s going to be inside it so it’s always going to show when the
but is under pressure it’s always going to show that it’s a bit little bit lower but you should know like that it’s not
going to be down at the very bottom and it’s not going to be you know at the top me looking for that it’s steady kind of
and to stop moving and another thing what I would do when I’m in the B as so Flash the side glasses and just get even
though the operators are meant to come in month to day and and do it some of them kind of forget or they’re so busy
doing other things that uh we go by and they might actually get cleared out of it so I think it’s a good tip to do when
you come in to do your services to the first thing is to check your side glasses to make sure sure they’re
they’re operating and just watch the levels of the water the way it’s bouncing back up and does it settle very
quickly and does it go to a level that you think that it should be at so again it’s more probably experience you’re not
going to know the first time you walk in the second time you walk in it’s really just kind of looking at the gauge pressure in the B and then kind of
guessing between where the mean and the max is where the water levels are sitting there bear if you walk in you
see a site glass that’s really rusty looking what goes in your mind we have a
problem and you you would probably go and you would uh you would flash that that glass get all the water exchanged
out new water and if it clears up you’re probably not that worried anymore I would imagine yeah no you know that just
something happening on the steam side of it so you know then that you’re definitely having a problem uh with it
so again yeah it’s like you want to kind of obviously check and as you said if you’re seeing even small little dribbles
coming back down uh from the steam side or it’s flashing up from the water side but it’s just kind of to see where that
corrosion or where that sludge is coming from and it’s kind of yeah like if you see water dribbling back down the whole
time from the steam side then you know that your water is too high even though the side class might be shown it so
again could come back to ales is your P too crazy is potentially getting foam
starting in the Border or is it happening as it is like so again it’s really just kind of looking for these
little Clues when you’re doing investing Barry I’m curious what was
your first aha moment with boilers because when we’re first getting in this industry everything’s brand new we think
oh my gosh we’re never going to get all of this stuff figured out and then there’s that one key piece of
information that just makes other things click do you remember what yours was I
do and it was actually my third day with aquam I was brought out to site uh with
a big pharmaceutical I was we were setting up I was with the boss he was doing all the testing I had my little
kid with me all brand new shiny he got a phone call there was a problem on on another site and he says bar I have to
dash will you just do do the test and go and meet Tom after and just kind of
explain to him I did a test not really understanding you know I got my three
days training I was out in the fields I kind of understood a bit of chemistry a bit of science I was down expect to Tom
and Tom was like what are you talking about like that does not help that does not help and then I was like oh my God I
have to come up with an answer here to Tom so I looked at the sheets and I could see right okay I could see like
the TDS was off and I could see the controls and I was trying to okay right
now Tom deep breaths Barry you need to explain to Tom how he needs to get these
controls back into to you know so he had a problem is too high and then needed to
take action to get the control the blowdown into control so the the red
hering was obviously the suite was crazy high but that was because the blow Downs weren’t working and I think like from
there like I was my kind of brain then switched on and I was able to kind of go wow I love water treatments I can see
problems and I can now solved them with very little uh kind of understanding of
what I was actually doing but it was kind of just seeing a problem and able to fix it um and obviously having a bit
of Science in the background was obviously a big bonus like it wasn’t coming in completely green to the uh to
the work the industry so I knew like kind science I knew like how chemistry should work interor but really seeing it
on paper and seeing that problem then it was definitely yeah that was my AA moment as a trainer that’s one of my
favorite moments when I see somebody figure out that Keystone that allows all
the other information to fit in and they’re like oh it’s not all separate it actually does work together I see it now
so scaling up Nation hopefully you’ve had that moment or if you’re training somebody try to train towards that
moment and make sure that people understand why you’re training a certain way and why something matters that you
know something before you teach something else cuz a lot of that will will help with that Keystone moment yeah
definitely yeah it’s like it’s all about yeah matching it you’ve seen on paper but in your brain connecting the
dots bear we have a lot of people that will give this podcast out to people
that are thinking about going to work in this industry what words of advice do
you have for somebody that’s thinking about becoming an industrial water Trader don’t think just act jump in you
love it you will not regret a day of it it’s just it’s consuming you’re you know
you’re dealing with people you’re dealing with water you’re dealing with problems you know if you like to to
solve problems if you like to use your brain uh to think about stuff it’s definitely it’s a job for life and it’s
something that two days a row will never be the same you will never ever in your life have two days that will be the
exact same I love that Barry I I wouldn’t be doing Justice if we didn’t
talk about the Mastermind a little bit because you and I would not have met without the Mastermind uh you found the Mastermind
through this podcast I’m curious what made you contact us and
say I want to learn more about the rising tide Mastermind I think the key for me was one day I was listening and
you were doing a brilliant job explaining that you’re not alone not man is an islands that other people are
there to help and the people in the masterminds are able may have been at your problem on level five and now that
if you’re there they will be able to take you and give you the blocks that that they have got to get them to level
six or seven of that problem so that kind of awoke my my kind of Suspicion
curiosity so I said right I’ll make the call and then I got talking to yourself trace and we kind of I was like yes
definitely this sounds like a group for me because sometimes you feel like you’re on your own you feel like that
you you can only get so much from a book and by meet M people and meeting with
some Geniuses and some really like everybody is completely different in their way of thinking and nobody will
ask the same question uh like we do this in the middle and people have to ask
clarifying questions and so it took me a while to get my brain around asking clarifying question because my initial
thing would be to jump in with an answer offer a solution and it kind of like it’s a way of training your brain to
actually think about their problem and you know think about in their shoes and
then seeing how you can you know not offer Solutions St away but ask a question about their problem and that
kind of stuff like I use it all the in my day today stuff like you’re asking questions more and more of of things is
this right does this look right you know so you kind of bring it into your life as well so it’s not just something that you use for an hour a week you’re
actually using it every day with your life as well one of the most surprising things that has happened to me since I
started the Mastermind I think we’re going on our fifth year is when spouses
come up to me at an event like the association of water Technologies and
they thank me and it’s not me it’s the group but I’ll of course take credit for it why not uh but let’s say your spouse
comes up and Jennifer says we are having so much better conversations now because
instead of Barry jumping to conclusions he’s now trying to understand what I’m
processing what I’m going through and we’re getting to an end that’s so much
better for both of us definitely yeah and I think like even I would never been I would have always read articles and
stuff on LinkedIn and you know one pages and I think getting into the process of reading books and he said that she heard
that I got that obviously wrong um but Kathleen Elan uh you got it close enough
I said this you heard that but you got it close enough I said yeah exactly so like that kind of even training your brain to to to kind of put yourself into
somebody else’s shoes and to understands the the ticks and the colors and how every how everybody’s completely
different and you know kind of I wasn’t surprised when I was doing the colors go I’m red I kind of knew stra away when I
seen the colors definitely will be red just from my own way of going on um but it was kind of yeah it was funny when we
did a work uh for for a sales thing and we kind of different people had greens I
wouldn’t have thought them as a green or a blue definitely would have thought them as a blue but it’s only when you get into to listen to why a blue needs
or you know what’s their way of carrying on the you kind of identify more with different
people and you know it’s it’s all about the differences and trying to find common language between both of you that
is one of my favorite things that we do in The Mastermind is we choose books to read together and we don’t just read
them we talk about them and process them with each other and it’s my favorite
part because you get something out of it that I just skipped over and vice versa
and it and because you just said something I’m thinking oh wow that makes all this other things that we we just
talked about make sense and now I can do something from the book I read and put it into my day-to-day life yeah for sure
it’s definitely it’s gas because like you I will uh read pick up on something on page three or page four and as you
said you might have picked up up and we were having them discussions people go oh I didn’t actually realize or now that
makes sense why I’m coming to this conclusion about the books and you know
it’s all bit trying to explore your mind and get your mind in a different way of thinking because you become in the rot
like you’re doing your dayto day every day you’re not kind of experiencing new things um so it’s it’s brilliant to read
new books to to push the horizons on it you started out by saying you know
life’s kind of lonely in this industry especially when you’re in management when you’re when you’re getting towards
the top just when you’re out serviceing accounts day by day a lot of times you
feel like you’re alone and having a place where you can come each and every
week and know that you’re not alone know that the other people know what you’re
going through because they’re going through that as well and you can just say what’s going on without having to
preface with all this common knowledge that most people just don’t understand oh you’re an industrial water treater so
you work at the sewer plant how many times do you get that oh this time mine is I’m a water treatment I’m not a
magician go deal with that there you go there you go well
Barry I I love having you on the Mastermind calls each and every week and
uh and I love having you on this podcast so thank you so much for uh sharing the document that you so graciously shared
with the world on social media but then going through it line by line so everybody in the scaling up Nation can
understand boilers just a little bit better but I’m not done with you yet I’ve got some lightning round questions
for you if you’re ready okay hit me up all right my first lightning round
question so you’re going to go back to your very first day as a water treater
and if you could talk with yourself on that very first day what advice would you give I would say be bold take the
decisions make all the hard decisions that come your way don’t scare from them
you’re going to have a roller Co coaster it’s going to be up it’s going to be down but just go with the flow and learn
like and take you know if you get a knock get back up again um and learn learn from why you failed and just keep
going um and I think that’s my advice to myself on day one I’d love to have heard
that I think that’s great advice for everybody listening what are the last few books that you’ve read again it’s
more un audible um physically I don’t read books but I listen to them again when I’m in the car and would be
traction drive by Daniel pink and one I’m reading at the moment is by an Irish
arer Michael Harding it’s all the things left on side and he narrates it himself
and he’s got this lovely silky kind of soft Irish dust tones and it’s kind of a
heartwarming kind of tragedy kind of about his life and about people have died and he’s trying to talk
him yeah so it’s kind of very interesting and nearly finished it so I listen to a audible as well and I had a
guest right around this time last year challenging me to listen to audible
faster than I was listening do you do that do you listen to more yeah I’ve
trained my year now I think I’m on 2 Tre uh is the highest I can go without
losing everything you know so kind of 2.3 is the kind of highest I can get at the moment but I want to try andly push
that a bit further the gentleman that I was talking with on the podcast he was at 3.5 and I don’t know if I’ll ever get
there but I was at 1 and a half when he challenged me and now uh depending on the author I can go up to about 2 to 2.5
just depending on how the author is speaking Yeah that’s it it depends on on the way it starts off but yeah it’s like
I’d say 3.5 W my bra it was amazing he said he said uh pull up one of the books
that you have and play it for me and he could tell me every single word so he could do it yeah yeah crazy when
somebody makes a movie about Barry Higgins who plays Barry Oh my god um who
plays Barry uh there’s an Irish actor Aiden Gillan um I think I would love him
to play me he’s in Game of Thrones and he’s in May of Kingston uh so he’s
definitely one I would like to see play all right now I’m familiar with Game of Thrones which act which character was he
he was little finger got it last question if you could talk with anybody
throughout history who would it be with and why uh this is a kind of a strange one yeah we were in holidays in Ireland
St Waterford about six years ago and we’re in this war castle it’s a really big kind of fancy old castle and on the
walls there was a guy Robert Bo who was born there in the house and he was born
in the 1600s and he was credited with Bo’s law uh he came up with Bo’s law but the pressure in gas it’s inversely
proportional and also in the 1600s a guy inent to the pneumatic air pump but it
was kind of a big Contraption and robbert B is attributed with making that better and becoming what we all know as
pneumatic air pumps now and he was one of the first modern scientists a chemistry people and Alchemist of his
time so it’s definitely somebody I would wouldn’t mind going having a pointy beer with and shatting the breeze and I
assume that that beer would be Guinness hopefully yeah yeah Guinness every single day
while we were over there we got to tour the facility and uh we we don’t serve it
right over here in the states I learned the the proper way and I’m not going to say it because I’m going to I’m going to insult you so what’s the proper way to
enjoy a Guinness so it’s too poor so you do three quers of the glass you let that
settle for about till till it’s fully goes nice and kind of brown on the
bottom and then you top up uh with the the tops you get the creamy uh nice on on the top and then you just drink it
down and you see the lines on the glass and then you know you had a really good point I love the story about Guinness
they actually burnt the Hops and they didn’t want to throw it away so they took it out to the Dock Workers they
loved it and that became their new formula yeah it’s crazy it’s it’s crazy to think like that it’s growing into
such a worldwide phenomenon and for it being an accident Barry we are bringing
are two Nations together and we are learning all things water treatment thanks for coming on the show no problem
Trac is an absolute pleasure thank [Music] you Nation Barry is just a delight to
work with to know to have on The Mastermind to process issues with and I
know after hearing him over the last two episodes you know exactly what I’m talking about just an amazing guy and I
want to tell you when I was in Grand Rapids last year at the association of water Technologies conference my wife my
son and I went to a real quirky restaurant for breakfast and I can’t
even remember what I got but it came with uh Squid Ink rice and I’m not a big
rice eater but I saw that and it had like homemade spam it wasn’t really spam
they called it something else but I’m from the south it was spam it was homemade though and it was the most
interesting thing on the menu I would have never ordered it which is the reason that I ordered it and the
waitress was great she was an experience in herself in the restaurant the
restaurant had all this quirky stuff on the wall and it was just a really neat
place so we were having a great time just enjoying my family’s company and
being in the restaurant and by the way some of the best salese I have ever met
work as servers in restaurants and she could probably sell you anything that
you may not want to buy or maybe that you do she was just fantastic because
she told stories everything on that menu she had a story about and you can just
Envision what she was saying as she was telling the story that’s what sales is
and that’s what I remember about that restaurant but the reason I’m telling you this story scaling up nation is
right after we paid the bill right after we got up and we decided to take a walk through the city I heard the
same voice you just heard a couple of minutes ago he yelled out trace and it
was Barry Higgins here on American soil in Grand Rapids and uh as I mentioned I
had no idea how tall Barry was I’m 6’4 Barry was at least 6’4 the way I
remember him and I got to meet Barry in person and that’s one of the cool things about
the Mastermind group I know bar very well we share some great details about
each other on the Mastermind call each and every week but we never got to see
each other in person now we do this thing called a live event where
everybody in the Mastermind once a year gets together and we get to meet in
person unfortunately Barry wasn’t able to make last year he says he’s going to be able to make this coming year I can’t
wait to see him in person again but isn’t that interesting when you meet somebody you know pretty well but you’ve
never met them in person so that was the experience that I had right on the streets of downtown Grand Rapids I got
to meet in person my friend Barry Higgins I know this is going to be an
episode that you’re probably going to share with some other people so we’re going to have the graphic and everything
that we mentioned on this show and part one last week’s show all for
you on our show note so all of that will be there a couple of other things that
we mentioned on this show we talked about the alkalinity show that we did
and this is a reprisal of a previous show that we did it was one of the first
shows we did I just started talking about alkalinity and a member said hey we would really like if you redid that
show so I went ahead and wrote an entire new episode for that show here’s a little behind the scenes for everybody
in the scaling up Nation I might write a script I very rarely use the script but
at least I have all my thoughts around me if you ever want to confuse me tell
me to stand in one place and read a script you will not like the trace Blackmore that is in front of you during
that situation but I do like to have all my thoughts organized to know what I’m going to talk about and what order I’m
going going to talk about it but I have to tell you until I start talking about it I could not tell you what’s going to
come out of my mouth and you all in the scal andup nation get to be a part of that each and every week I’m so glad you
guys enjoy that because I got to tell you that’s the only mode that I have so some of the things we talked about was
episode 340 which was that new alkalinity episode but Barry also brought up the book I said this you
heard that and of course if you’ve listened to this podcast you’ve heard heard me talk about Kathleen Edelman she
has been on the podcast officially three times the most recent was episode 281 we
had her on world kindness day and that’s pretty much what she does she teaches
people how to understand themselves so well that they can be kind at all times
to all people and she teaches that through temperaments and temperaments is
how we are are wired how we see the world how we react to things what we
need in order to react one way or another she teaches all of that and
ultimately she teaches us how to be the best self that we can be because we are
self-aware of who we are I know that’s a lot of generalities but if you have read
the book you know I’m explaining it right and if you haven’t you’ve got three different books that you can read
so one is a workbook it’s called I said this you heard that and it is a workbook
that you work through she has also come out with a workbook part two which is the book version if you want to do a
book club and read the book and do that with some people that is what I would recommend and then everything she has
ever put together on temperaments is in the last book I’m going to mention which
is the adults guy to kids wiring and on episode 281 I asked her why didn’t she
just write a book for adults and she said I’m sorry Trace were you never a child she actually says that to me folks
so you were a child everybody has been a child and she decided to look at kids
because they are unfiltered when it comes to how they are because they
haven’t had all the world experiences where people told them time and time
again don’t do that don’t act this way act this way so she explores kids and
you will learn more about yourself and everybody every relationship that you
have in that book I have all three I teach all three I recommend all three if
you’re just starting out maybe get workbook one and two uh if you just want to read it and see what it’s about get
workbook number two if you want the entire Library get that as well folks I
can’t think of another thing that I have done that has improved every single relationship in my life at the very
least listen to episode 281 and you can hear the latest time
that Kathleen was on the podcast again I can’t thank her enough for how she
helped myself make me the best Trace that I can be because I understand
myself a little bit better and I am able to be a better Trace to other people
that are in my life Nation I love it when we talk about previous podcasts
because we have a library out there of just about any topic you can think of
water treatment and business related that is out there of course we are
thinking of new things we are trying to come up with new things we have 350 plus episodes now we’re going to have 350
plus episodes more we can only do that with your help so what’s the next thing
you want to hear on this podcast maybe it’s a guest maybe it’s it’s an idea maybe it’s a book whatever it is don’t
keep that to yourself go to scaling up h2o.com and go over to our ideas page
where you can share all of that with us nation somebody that shares something
with us each and every week is our friend James McDonald here’s a brand new
drop by drop with [Music]
James welcome to drop by drop with James the podc segment where we wonder explore
think about imagine and learn in duster water treatment you guessed it drop by
drop together in today’s episode we’re going to talk about W water’s absolutely
amazing
properties we’re going to talk about hydrogen bonding one of my favorite types of binding in the atomic world
yeah I’m weird that way well that’s no surprise at all water is H2O or two
hydrogen atoms in one oxygen atom the two hydrogen atoms are not stuck to each
other but are stuck to the oxygen atom instead it’s how they are stuck to the
oxygen atom that makes all the difference in the universe they are not stuck directly
across from each other on the oxygen atom at 180° like the Buns on Princess Leia’s hair
nobody that would have been disastrous for Life as we know it we would have had no
hope instead they are stuck at an angle at approximately 104.5 degree angle
think Mickey Mouse with his two ears representing the hydrogen atoms and his head the oxygen atom that is water this
Kink of an angle leads to a very important superpower because the hydrogen atoms
are small and only have one measly electron they’re easy to push around and take their
electrons the much bigger oxygen atom only needs two more electrons to fill its outer shell and be in a state of
Nirvana and it gets these from the two hydrogen atoms because the water molecule looks like a Mickey Mouse with
the hydrogen atoms more on one side of the molecule than the other you end up with a partial positive charge on the
more hydrogen side and a partial negative charge on the more oxygen side
we’ve all heard that Opposites Attract and that’s true in the world of chemistry as well the The partially
positive side of one water molecule is attracted to the partially negative side of another water molecule making water
sticky this my friends is called hydrogen
binding it doesn’t just end with water molecules sticking to each other though water molecules will also be attracted
to other positively and negatively charged ions too for example this
explains my table salt or NAC sodium chloride dissolves so easily in water
the positive sodium ions are attracted to the partially negative oxygen side of the water molecule while the negative
chloride ions are attracted to the partially positive hydrogen side hydrogen binding leads to all kinds of
unique properties of water water is a liquid at room temperature this may sound like a duh comment but when one
considers that other molecules of similar or heavier weights are gases at room temperature such as methane propane
and butane it suddenly seems a little more amazing water has a high heat capacity
meaning it takes more heat to raise the temperature of water and especially to make it change phases from solid to
liquid to gas we use this property every day in a duster Water application such
as boilers cooling towers Etc and it’s all thanks to hydrogen bonding there are
more examples but it should suffice to say that hydrogen bonding is one of water’s primary superpowers that
influences our industrial water lives in so many ways every second every every minute of every
day I’m James McDonald and I want to encourage you to be like water by forming bonds with those around you
dissolving new knowledge and making worthy ripples drop by
drop thank you James and if you haven’t kept up with each drop by drop don’t worry we’ve got all of that on our
website so you can go to scaling up h2o.com and find every single drop by
drop there so you can keep up with jameses he takes us through a Learning
Journey each and every week so many people have stayed up to dat with James
James has been doing this for several years with us James thank you for doing that and so many people say that they
are 52 times Smarter on whatever topics he is covering each and every year
it’s just a great way to continue learning and make this job fun as Barry
said if you’re doing this job right as my dad said if you’re doing this job
right you are never bored you don’t see the same thing over and over again folks
if you’re in this industry congratulations I truly think it’s the best industry out there it’s my hope
that you treat it as such and make sure you are making the most out of of being
an industrial water Trader have a great week [Music]
folks scup Nation it is time for you to prove to the industry your boss your
peers and most importantly yourself that you are among the best in the industry
and the best way that I can think of to do that is to get your certified water technologist designation to help prepare
you to sign up for that cwt examination we prepared an entire course designed to
build your confidence so you can sit for the cwt examination go to scaling up
h2o.com cwt prep once again that’s scaling up h2o.com
cwt prep [Music]
today