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today’s episode 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 scaling up h2o.com Mastermind to see if the rising tide
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you 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 this awesome water treatment podcast so amazing we
are at episode 359 I am just so humbled by that number if today Trace could talk
to seven years ago trace and say that you would be doing episode 359 I don’t
think 7 year ago Trace would have believed that but here we are folks I
cannot think of anything I enjoy more than hosting this podcast for you and
it’s just amazing amazing when I get to hear from all of you when I get to hear
the ideas that you have the things that you want me to talk about so keep all of those things coming and of course it is
April 12th which means just around the corner in the United States we are
celebrating tax day April 15th I don’t know how much we’re actually celebrating
it but we are definitely enduring it together so why not I thought why not
have some fun IRS facts so the Internal Revenue
Service so here’s some fun facts about the IRS so fun fact number one the IRS
processes over 130 million returns every
year that is a lot of returns so if you
are getting a refund you definitely want to get that in early so you’re not on
the bottom of that stack also taxpayers spend about 4 billion hours annually
complying with all the federal tax laws imagine how much time you spent this
year contributing to that Collective 4 billion hours the revenue that the IRS
collects annually has increased by a factor of 30 since
1960 that’s $3 trillion collected presently verses $92 billion in
1960 well there you go now you know they’re over 1.5 billion tax exempt
organizations in the IRS the US tax code is over
3.7 million words in length that’s a lot of words and it takes
70,000 pages to contain that 3.7 million
words now we said that over 130 million Returns come in each and every year well
most people file those returns electronically so at least we’ve got
some trees that we’re saving there and of course it’s a good thing we’re filing those electronically because the IRS has
more than 800 forms and schedules so think about choosing which one you
need and you’ve got 800 different ones to choose from almost a 100,000 people
work for the Internal Revenue Service and here’s a fun fact in the
1940s the new tax code expanded to include every American so what was the
IRS at the time asked Disney to create cartoons to put the new tax system in a
favorable light they created two cartoons and both of them starred Donald
Duck there you go now keep in mind they did not star Scrooge McDuck I think he
has a better CPA than Donald did that small box at the very top of your tax
form that ask you to donate $3 to the presidential election fund that yields
over $1 billion every year to that fund so now
you know where your $3 goes nation in addition to celebrating tax day and why
not why not make it fun it’s something we all have to do it is actually considered a right to pay taxes so there
you go that might make you feel a little bit better in addition to tax day coming up next week I will personally be
celebrating being at the association of water Technologies East technical train
next week of course taking place in Cleveland Ohio and since we’re on the
topic of fun facts why not have a fun fact about Cleveland so Cleveland was
named after General Moses Cleveland and he was a brigadier general in the
Connecticut militia so if you’re coming to training that’s being held in the
city that’s named after the great General next week please make sure you
come find me I absolutely love it when we have those conversations at Live
Events where I get to hear about your experiences around this podcast and of course all your ideas sometimes people
give me some suggestions some people give me some criticism whatever you have I want to know what it is because all of
that makes sure that this show continuously improves and it continuously improves because you are
listening and letting me know how to improve it so please if you’re coming
come find me now I won’t be hard to miss because I will be standing up in front
and I’m teaching multiple classes so chances are if you’re going to be there I will be in front of you in one of
those courses so I get the pleasure of teaching the sales class that we do also
I teach the introduction to water treatment and of course I do water treatment math who does love math well
let me tell you tracon high school did not love math and in fact I had a
teacher that when we had to get our interim report cards filled out she put
an F down on my interim report card and then she called out everybody’s name to
come get those grades and she told me in front of the entire class as I stood up
to go get my interim report card that I was too stupid to do math yes folks that
actually happened and that actually inspired me to go get a lot of math when
I was in college so that was my minor I absolutely love math now so I guess if
you want to inspire me tell me I can’t do something and I I found some great
instructors some great professors when I was learning math obviously I was
inspired by that not so great teacher in high school but it got me to meet some
wonderful professors in college a lot of the ways that I teach are based on some
of the ways that I learned math proofs from this one professor and it really
allowed me to take something that embarrassed me to something I really enjoyed so I don’t know what motivates
you that seemed to motivate me and I absolutely love math and I love water
treatment math because there’s so much chaos that happens in our dayto day math
is really the only Axiom that we have within the water treatment industry and
I enjoy creating equations that didn’t exist if you’ve taken my math class
you’ve probably seen some of the equations that I created you might be using some of the equations that I
created so anyway Math is fun and I hope to instill that in everybody that is
sitting in my math class now maybe you’re not not registered and if that’s you that I’m speaking to don’t worry
there are still plenty of seats left you can go to our show page you can go over
to the notes in this episode or you can go over to our events page and we will
send you right where you need to go so you can have a seat next week in one of
those classes that I just mentioned and of course there going to be so many more
I cannot wait to be there next next week it’s one of my favorite things that I do each and every year and I hope that I
see you there another thing that I hope I see you at and of course this is a
virtual event so you don’t even have to go anywhere to do this this is the global 6K and the global 6K is coming up
on May 18th and this is so fun and we do this each and every year and it’s fun
and it’s serious it’s serious because you are supporting the end to the global
Water Crisis and the goal is that we are going to end that within our lifetime
one step at a time now you might have noticed I called it a 6K not a 5k why is
that well 6 kilm is the average distance that a person that does not have access
to clean drinking water walks in order to get their water now in doing so that
creates a whole host of problems one a lot of times kids have to go get this
water so they’re not in school they’re walking to go and bring back water this
also creates a very dangerous situation because along these paths people will
actually kidnap these kids and do horrible things with them I don’t
understand people sometimes but if we can get water to where they are it eliminates that so there’s so many
wonderful things that team vision is doing and we of course support them each
and every year and what they do is they use your donation for signing up for the
global 6K towards bringing water to these Villages where they have better
qualities of Life they can stay in school they don’t have to endanger themselves by walking far all these
things help everybody and they don’t just build Wells and leave they build a
well or whatever the infrastructure is and they teach the people how to take care of it they are creating a culture
of self-support and sufficiency and it is just amazing all the things that they
do and you can read all about that by going to scaling up h2o.com
6K and while you’re there you can sign up for the race you can join our team or
you can create your own team it is something that you can do right in your hometown at your favorite Park you can
do it with your company talk about a great team building exercise so however you choose to do it we’ve been doing
this for several years now and we always make sure that we use social media to
connect with each other and show that even though we’re in different cities maybe we’re in different countries we
are all out there doing the same thing for the same cause and it is just a great way to unite and help us end the
global Water Crisis once again all that information is going to be on scaling up
h2o.com 6K I mentioned that one specific link
but all of these events and even ones we haven’t talked about yet are all going to be on scaling up h2o.com just go over
to our event section and anything that we know about that pertains to the water industry well we’ve got that listed for
you we’ve got easy links that will take you to exactly where you want to go it
is an entire calendar of years of events so you can make sure that you are
guarding the time for the things that you want to do and Nation one of the things that I want to do is I want to
get to our interview I know you are going to enjoy this guest because you know this guest and you’re not going to
have to wait any longer because here it is my lab partner today is returning
guest and that doesn’t even equate to how many times this guest has been on
the show it’s James McDonald James welcome again to the scaling up H2O
podcast thank you trace I’m so glad to be back thank you for tolerating me all
these years tolerating you are you kidding so I know the scaling up Nation knows this story somebody told me you
should do a podcast I didn’t know if that was a good idea you were the first person that I called you have been our
big scaling up H2O fan since before we started when we had ideas we would come
to you and see what you thought and then not too long after we started you started doing segments on the show James
you are every bit a part of this podcast almost since day one thank you so much I
really enjoy being part of it and I do truly appreciate it and really my number one goal was to just be on this podcast
more than Mark Lewis that’s all I can so I it’s been a while since we had
my buddy mark on so we need to we need to remedy that James I get to announce
you each and every episode how long have we been doing segments on the scaling up
H2O podcast together well the first one we did was James’s Challenge and then we
did thinking on water with James and then we did periodic water table with James last year and so that’s been three
years and then we’re started our fourth year right now with drop by drop by James for some reason it seems like
we’ve been doing that for a longer time it does it does because I I spend a lot
of my Saturday mornings either at home in my office or in the public library in a room I reserve there just working on
these and it’s it’s a labor love I really have a lot of fun doing them does your library have a podcast Studio it
does not so I record them at home actually but but I I like to go to the library to work on the scripts and do
the research I need to do for it as well it’s just it’s just a different environment so that way I get my brain
wrapped around it if I’m working from home too much there’s a hundred other distractions in the way somebody was
showing me it wasn’t a public library but it was called like the makers lab
and it had 3D printers and all these other things laser engravers but also podcast Studios and this was available
to the population just for being a member of that Community I’ve been looking for a place like that I’ve recommended it to our library as well
and they said that they they would take it as a recommendation but I haven’t seen anything happen yet but it’s it’s a nice Library weide that besides that so
James one of my favorite things that you did was the flashback as we were teasing
what was coming up for this year’s segment last year and you you went through like a time travel device and
you that was just so much fun how didd you get the idea to put that together you know I always try to think of of
some creative way to to share what what we do audio wise and um I just was
thinking of of a radio really you know we don’t we’re not listening to radio what we listen to you but we used to
listen to people on the radio as we drive down the road and you’re the podcast is the next best thing and I was
thinking of the oldtime radio and the and your interference you get between stations so that that’s what I I tried
to mimic hopefully the audience got what I was trying to do I thought it was fantastic I enjoyed it at least I’m sure
I’m sure they did too you know speaking of feedback that I get from the audience
you never know how somebody is going to receive you once the podcast is out
there yeah you and I are are on microphones and and we hope we put out a good product but you never know one of
the my favorite things is going to places like the awt convention yeah and
then somebody will come up and they’ll say oh I really enjoy the podcast you know I felt alone driving from account
to account but now I feel like you’re sitting in that passenger seat with me and I also get comments how they love
all the segments that you do and how many people get disappointed if they
miss one and they’ve got to go back and catch up so 52 weeks a year you’re
making sure people are thinking about what they’re doing how they’re getting smarter I don’t know if I relay that
back to you but people are telling me how much they’re enjoying and getting out of that that’s very kind and when I
when I do any of the stuff I do it is wonderful if lots of people like it but
what gives me the the most satisfaction is if at least one person likes it because you never know know how that one
thing you do that may not matter to anyone else in the world can mean the world to that one person so that’s the
way I I view it at least have you ever gotten any negative feedback no which is
unusual in our world but but I think the industrial water treatment world is is a few notches above the everyday world we
deal with I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any negative feedback either the only thing I can think of and I shared this
on a earlier podcast was we had a problem with the the uh server that
releases our podcast and we do it at the same time on Friday I think it releases at 1:00 a.m. on Friday eastern time each
and every week and for some reason it didn’t release and we didn’t find out about it until maybe 12 hours later and
how we found out about it was I got an email and it said where the f is the
content so at least they’re listening yeah that that’s what we find out here at work um a part of my responsibility
is our our digital tools and how you find out if a certain part of a program
is actually being used is when it breaks and then you hear from from the audience
if it breaks you don’t don’t hear from anyone then do do really need that function but when it breaks and you hear
from people you know that’s one way to find out you can send out surveys all you want no one answers them you turn
something off you find out well that’s how the IT people do it as well we just change servers here and we thought
everybody was off of the old server onto the new server and he said well we’re going to find out real quick he just
turned it off and we didn’t get any complaints so we Prov you got lucky
James when we were at the awt convention this past year we happened to be at
connecting Gates so you were at the gate right next to mine as we were waiting for the planes to uh depart and Tom
Tenny was nice enough to take a photo of you and I under some Globe type lights
they had there it actually made a really good photograph I like phot I received so many positive comments about that and
I want to say that the views were in the 7, thousands that’s nice for the world
of industrial water treatment that is high that really is so I I think the
scaling up nation and the industrial Water Treatment Community enjoys that you and I have gotten together well good
I enjoy it so that makes two of us at least what other person who told you that so three of
us one of the things I love that we’re collaborating with and I feel so honored
that you asked me and I’ve done two now you asked me to do a voice on detective
H2O that was like at the top of my bucket list so thank you for that you’re
welcome that that’s so much fun and and you’ve done a great job with it and and and I know you stress over the accent
you’re going to use every time you you do it as well but it’s it’s fun I have to work on my next story line I have a
list of ideas but work on my next one for next year and we really established you know quite a few out there we have
the two you’ve done the other ones I’ve recorded and last year at the awt they
have their their auction for what’s their auction for pure water of the world or yes yes and so I I submitted
and and there’s only been one copy of this ever in existence I put all the detective H2O stories into a paperback
book and auctioned it off and um it got it got bought up to to help with the
charity so oh and it was autographed not just by by Yours Truly but Dr H2O who
happens to be modeled after my daughter and I begrudgingly got her to autograph it as well and she’s quite the artist oh
she is yes she she is amazing you’ve shared a couple of things that she’s done I know she’s done some work for
some other water treatment companies and doing some some ad campaigns for them it’s impressive what she’s doing yeah
she has so she you know whether or not her her future career has anything to to do with that directly I’ve told her
it’ll serve her in many ways regardless of what she does being able to to communicate her ideas in multiple ways
and art is one way James we’re on the six seventh industrial water week I
think this is going to be our seventh because I think last year was number six yeah yeah who who would have thought but
people across the world trace and you know you I share with with with my connection you share with your
connections you have an entire week which which I’m so grateful to all the time you but into that for doing it and
just like I I dreamt the holiday has has grown Beyond just hey this is something James did because now this is something
we did and my name doesn’t have to be mentioned with it anymore and that’s wonderful I I host the website for it
and Industrial waterer week.com but I saw so much attention last year people were really posting and I’m just curious
well this year what would be but I’m I’m so proud of what we do and I’m sure if I
had been anything else other than an industrial water treater if I had been a garbage man a shoe salesman a doctor or
whatever else I would have been just as proud of what I do and you would would have probably seen an industrial trash
week or whatever else as well you know just so we can celebrate what we do well lucky for us you found this profession
and we have industrial water week there we go I I’ve just been impressed with how many
people will send something on social media they’ll hashtag a post and and how
many people are doing cakes now on Friday how cool is that yeah that is
cool having a a physical treat along with it to to help help make that memory
stick in your brain hey I remember when when we had the water cake you know on this on this industrial whatever we you
know I’ve done Bunt Cakes before from from Nothing Bunt Cakes on there as well so because they’re nice and round you
can get a nice big round one you get two smaller round ones and arrange them like a water molecule there you go it’s nice
picture now you mentioned the water cake and we’re going to go ahead and put the recipe up for this episode it is the
most vile tasting cake of all time now some people like it uh it’s been rumored
to be George Washington’s favorite cake now I guess there was no Refrigeration back then so that’s why this was a cake
that they would I guess bake around the campfire or something because there was no Refrigeration we have refrigeration
now so bake a cake that tastes good but if you want to try a water cake we will
put that up on this show notes page and there was a company that their
initiation for new people is the new person has to eat a water cake wow and
hopefully the new person stays after they eat the water cake but no when when we made it my my my wife went a step
further and made it chocolate so actually it was pretty good it was kind of dense but it was still good yeah maybe that’s what it needs I think
it needs a little bit more than than that but anyway I don’t want to you might love the water cake so if you’re one of the people in the scaleup nation
that enjoys a delicious water cake please I hope I did not offend James we started out talking
about the different segments that you did and we all love them you’re now doing drop by drop how did you come up
with that idea what do you have in store for us this year yes you know I like to
mix up some so that each year is a bit of a different theme so it you know it doesn’t become too dry and and and
rigorous or or what have you know boring but um this year I came up with drop by drop and and that’s that’s kind of Full
Circle because anyone who knows anything about me knows that one of my taglines is drop by drop of course and so as I
thought about what I was doing and I was thinking about sticking with the exact same theme all throughout a year 52
times or or some years 53 weekends even there it it kind of stifles the creativity
throughout the year so drop by drop is more of a variety show and you’re going to see lots of different types of of
segments um I think there was a challenge that just came up there there are some where it’s like an imagine this
there’s other ones where you know let’s think about this so you’re you’re going to see a wider variety also I’m taking a
bit more time with with production and I don’t know if I’ve crossed the cheesy threshold yet or not please listeners
let me know if I have but I’m throwing a few more sound effects here and there just going spice things up we’ll see if
I I cross that I don’t want to be that guy from the 90s with a PowerPoint with every animation PowerPoint ever made in
his animation I don’t want that to be my segment you know but you know if it can enhance things like if I go into let’s
think about this or imagine this you know just having a dream sequence kind of sound coming in there to to help you
know illustrate verbally audibly what I’m talking about so that’s the plan of
variety show well James we messed you up last year and the members of the scale
Nation may not realize this we realized it later but we packed so much into
industrial water week production side said you know what let’s not do a
segment with James this week because we’re doing all this other stuff but we weren’t able to make those 52 weeks so
you and all your Brilliance made up for that on the very last episode of last
year yes I did and and that’s fine you know I’m flexible I I go with these things I don’t get B on the shape too
often on things so etty work out yeah and and it was it was a nice surprise as
well at the end of the year and of course I had to end on H2O of all the water treatment chemistries we deal with
I didn’t make it the first one I made it the last one because last but not least water James one of the things that I
love everything that you do but one of the things I’m so envious of is that you’re able to draw and you help people
laugh at what we do each and every day and how many different Comics do you have now um it’s it’s over 100 it’s like
maybe 32 or 34 I think i’ I’ve drawn I I haven’t drawn any here lately because
they have to have to be inspired and I find that if I force it they aren’t as funny or popular or observant or or what
have you so and and the inspiration sometimes it’s a steady stream other times it comes and splurts but I will
find my muse again and draw more don’t you worry I loved it when you wrote
about the sale for industrial water treatment decorations I always say that
after the last podcast and and you actually turned that into a cartoon it was amazing you inspired that the after
holiday sale for industrial water treatment you could find coffee mugs and everything in that sale and by the way
Nation if you don’t know you can go to the industrial waterweek website and James actually has swag that you can get
just like the mug that he spoke about yep I have a collection of mugs for every year I forgot to buy one last year
but I need to get one because I’m building a wall of mugs for each year James on our very first installment of
drop by drop our first episode this year you took us through an R device and you
basically shrunk us down and Visually told us about all the different
components of the RO system how important when you’re training people when you’re trying to get people to
understand all the different things that we have to know to to work on things to
visualize I think a lot of the people who work on our industry in particular the engineers but a lot more that just
Engineers are very visual folks I know I am yep I am too and any way you can help
them picture it besides just telling them about it that’s that’s one thing but if they can can see it imagine it
even if they can’t actually physically see it if you can help them imagine it it’s going to help them so much more
down the road and problem solving and understanding what’s happening and understanding the impacts of what they’re doing and helping answer
questions for their clients so it’s it’s a great learning tool it’s a great problem solving tool to be able to
visualize what’s happening and I find that anytime within my job I’m our director of technology and marketing so
marketing is is half that and anytime on the marketing side I can our team can
come up with a video our team can come up with an animation that’s quite a popular piece of content that that we
share on social media on our website and what have you our most popular video ever with 100 I think 180,000 views
which is absolutely insane for indust water treatment is how does the cooling tower work and it’s very visual it steps
through each step along the way our second most popular video has just over a 100,000 views and that is water softer
regeneration but not just an animation we had it originally was a cylinder that
was a fish tank but we turned it into water softener so it was clear it was acrylic so you can now see physically
what’s happening inside that water softener I’d always visualized it in my head but little did I know what it
really looked like when you fluffed up that resin and the most shocking part of it all of all of it was the density
difference between the brine and the water that was in there the regular water was in there as it slowly pushed
its way through in your slow Rin in the Illusion part of it and then slow rinse because we put a red dye in the Brine
and all of a sudden you saw this Stark Stark line between the the pink water
really and the clear water down below when I came back and showed that to our Engineers we were all like salivating
over it because we’d visualize that but we never seen it and so being able to
visualize is important because we don’t see a lot of what we do Wastewater gets to see what they do but for us we don’t
see inside boilers we don’t see inside piping so our next best thing is to use our imagination when I was 19 someone
gave me the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and within that book habit 2 says you’re writing the
plan for your life and he says you can see it before you’re actually creating
it and you can see if that’s really something that you want to do and I’ve used that mindset to do exactly what you
just described if I’m getting ready to do anything in water treatment before I open my test kit before I do anything I
try to in my mind’s eye visualize what it is that I’m trying to do and a lot of
times I’ll find a mistake that I could have made oh I shouldn’t do that let me let me redo that and I didn’t have to
suffer the mistake because I did it through my mind so I’ve got an idea for
this podcast so Scout up Nation be patient with us but as you know James
and I think many members of the scaling up Nation know that I’m a huge Back to the Future fan and Dr EMT Brown of
course invented the flux capacitor and I have several flux capacitors around my office I don’t know if you can see over
my shoulder there’s there’s one right there in a little miniature DeLorean what a few people do not know maybe a
lot of people don’t know is Dr Brown also invented a shrinkr and you and I
are going to take it advantage of that shrink ray and we’re going to shrink ourselves down and we’re going to go
inside the cooling tower are you game I’m game let’s do it I can’t
wait wow James we’re pretty small we are pretty small I didn’t expect that to tickle quite as much as it did oh I
think the tingling means it’s working so we’re just going to go with it hopefully U hopefully there’s no long-term side
effects with that we didn’t quite make to the cooling tower we’re in the makeup line yes and there’s a wall here I
believe it’s the makeup valve what do we need to know about this makeup valve yeah where we are we’re right here in
front of this valve and so we’re in the makeup water line and so this makeup water can be lots of different types of
makeup water can it City water well water recycled water gray water what
have you but looking at the quality of this water we’re in right now with the the conductivity the chlorides in there
the silica oh and and I I see some phosphate in here as well I’m thinking we’re probably a city water coming in
probably and it looks like there might be some Biologicals present as well
absolutely so many people think that they open up that tap from the city and it is completely microb free and that’s
not exactly the case that could be a source of microbiological contamination coming into your cooling tower as well
in various forms including leella everybody’s favorite L word and of course if we don’t treat that properly
if we don’t work with the customer properly that can be an issue and we’ve got many shows about that yeah we do
other things to think about in this makeup water as we’re looking around here is are the changes in pressure you
know different pumps come on through throughout the city different usage rates and whatever the pressure can
fluctuate which of course is going to affect the rate of makeup going into into your Tower and temperature also can
change which may impact on a tower having cooler water is a positive thing
on an R other thing it could be a detriment to the quality of the water coming out or the performance of the AR
but right now we’re in a cooling tower so lots of things to think about with this city water we’re in right now and
we’re surrounded by a copper pipe as well but we really want to get past this makeup water valve I really want to see
the rest of the cooling tower and what’s going to trigger this makeup water valve what’s going to make it open do you
think well I would think that evaporation is going to reduce the water level and this valve is going to open
open so it’s G to open but there’s got to be something else whether it’s magic elves or something out there that that’s
going to trigger this valve whether it’s a motorized valve so something has to tell that motor to activate or whether
it’s a mechanical valve and where I like doing this thought exercise of us being
in in this makeup water line is sometimes it’ll identify weaknesses and before I started this call I realized I
don’t know a whole lot about all the different methods of level control on the cooling tire so it prompted me to do
a little bit of digging now we’re shrunk down in here and we still have our cell phones so we could certainly Google on our cell phones as well good thing
they’re waterproof exactly yep and and I’m using my flashlight on mine right now because it’s kind of dark in this
pipe but I was thinking about the the level controllers out there one that lots of people think about is like the
one in the back of your toilet perhaps it’s a big float out there floating around and it’s it’s attached to a
mechanical valve and when the float drops low enough the valve opens up and and we start Flo that’s one way it is a
mechanical valve we’ve certainly seen times when these valves have failed and the float has come unscrewed and
everything else you know out there and it’s it’s just dumping in water but there’s also ultrasonic as well an
ultrasonic level controller you know a valve to open it up and there’s even um
probes I think it was called where it’ll detect the water level with various length probes out there and I believe
you’re you’re conducting electricity across those probes but those are three I can think of and I really hope that as
people are listening to us shrunk down in this gooling Tower or out there screaming you forgot this or you forgot
that because if they’re screaming it they’re thinking and please let me know what I forgotten as well because the
whole point of this thought exercise is to learn well James it looks like that valve is getting ready to open we’re
getting ready to go for a ride yep hang on I have my raft here so here we are
and it’s it’s a freef fall in this case it is a freef fall we are falling right right out through the atmosphere into
the the sump itself now there depending upon the the level controller you have
there are various advantages and disadvantages to different ones and luckily I’m not falling down into foam
because I’ve certainly had a cooling tire that I foamed up one time accidentally by unplugging and checking
my pumps and plugging the pumps into to the opposite Outlet so I was feeding bias side when I I should have fed
inhibitor and I foamed up my basin and it had an ultrasonic flow meter and the foam confused the ultrasonic flow meter
thinking it was higher but luckily here I’m not falling through foam at all I am falling free fall into the water down
below into the cooling tower Basin so kind of cool literally kind of cool yeah
this is where all the cool water is in the cooling tower so uh it is pretty enjoyable right now yeah now I noticed
that when I was on the other side of that valve and even when I was falling down through the atmosphere I was
different than the water I just fell into I was anywhere near as concentrated as the water I just fell into this water
I I fell into it’s about four times as concentrated I’m seeing four times as many people I guess whatever you know in
in this thing is what I saw in that makeup water so there’s there’s something happening here to make that
happen but also as I look around one thing I noticed that I don’t see trace and I’m so happy that that I don’t see
it are those fish you have mentioned in previous episode yes the fish I can’t remember what episode it was that I
mentioned it uh it it was right when I first started working with my dad and I got dropped off to a uh an engineer
dropped me off with a janitor and he kept saying don’t hurt my babies and I thought he was talking about the kids
but no we went up on the roof and he opened up the cooling tower and they were the most beautiful Koi fish you
have ever seen they they were they were probably 14 in at least and he was not
happy with me when I told him to relocate his babies Oh my goodness well I’m so glad I don’t see fish but it
doesn’t mean that we don’t see other slightly higher life forms out here as well because I’m certainly seeing
bacteria floating around in here unfortunately I’m certainly seeing deposits on the floor of this Basin as
well some brown deposits because the cooling tire sucks in dirt as well in there and perhaps some rusty deposits
down there as well and of course living down in that biofilm we’re seeing there could be amoeba paramia whatever else
I’m not a biologist so you tell tell me if if you recognize anything you know there Trace I think you name most of the
things I remember from my biology classes I know so there we are in this Basin here and the water is cooler than
what we just came from and we’re floating around and we also another difference in what we’re seeing other
than the concentration is there is new chemistry in here as well I’m seeing some polymers in here I’m seeing some
some phosphates and phosphinates in here as well I’m seeing a bright young lad who’s name is PTSA in here as well he is
pretty bright yep he is pretty bright so lots going on in this Basin and this Basin is kind of I mean parts of it are
really turbulent then parts of it are a bit slower as well and I think that’s that that’s by Design having a slower
place a fatter place in the pipes so that things can settle out because you don’t want solids to settle out your
suspended solids in your heat exchangers because it’s only going to inhibit heat exchange we don’t want it to settle out
with within our fill we want it to to settle out if it has to someplace we’d rather not not any place it has to
someplace perhaps in our sump but hopefully there’s a filter on here as well to help get these doop sols out
well James if you look right over there there’s some sweeper jets that are trying to keep everything in solution oh
man that looks like fun yes they are they they’re trying to keep this stuff
from settling on the bottom that’s fantastic there’s few design issues Corrections we can do with it because
it’s not quite getting the entire floor I don’t think but we we can work on that later now it’s it’s too high to look
outside we can’t reach that door but if we could I’m willing to bet that we’ll see a sand filter or something that uh
is filtering all of that associated with that too fantastic I love it so now
we’re in here and we’re spinning around and we’re seeing all of our buddies and I’ll tell you our our fellow water
companions they’re they’re quite they’re quite a sticky lot because of hydrogen bonding if if you know that is it’s my
my favorite kind of bonding in the chemical world is hydrogen bonding out there so we’re all sticking together so
I think it’s time we move on to the next journey in this process in this exercise
where we’re passing through the screens at the bottom or side of the sump and
we’re passing through the piping and we’re looking at the piping as we go and
this piping doesn’t look pristine it has it has some little rust on it but it
does look like before the tire was was set up that they did do an exercise of pre- cleaning and passivation I hope as
we go through here and now we’re at the pump and this pump is quite the story
quite active where we are are CH the pressure is really beginning to increase
as we go across it but I’ve noticed some some leaking around the seal and as we
know the point of the seal is to help push back and form a barrier against the water escaping so that the rotating
Parts can can actually rotate and just a little bit of of leakage past them with
all those dissolved solids in the cooling tire eventually as that water evaporates away can become very abrasive
to seal as well so I think we we should note that down in our phones here of something to to look at later on with
our customer so here we are I’m quite dizzy now after this pump we’re moving past it now and we’re moving on down and
we’re seeing some takeoffs as well now if we were to go left we would take off through the o cooling tower control
scheme or control line where they have a controller online there are various probes there I would expect I would hope
so but I’m not turning left I’m going straight but if we turn left we’re going to see what that the connectivity probe
we’re going to see perhaps a pH probe maybe maybe we’ll see what a an orp
probe going across there but also potentially these may also be where the
the chemical feeds are located as well where we’re feeding in our Inhibitors we’re feeding in our oxidizers we’re
feeding in our non oxidizers in there as well I am curious what order they’re feeding them in because it seems
everyone has their own preference between what order is best and we could probably argue about that if we wanted
to but for arm wrestle but right now as a move on past that takeoff to our left way James before we mooved too far uh
luckily our phones are waterproof there’s remote moderate on here so we can see everything that you just said
right here on this phone and would you imagine that everything I just said actually exists on there wow the magic
of of audio on podcast so now let’s move on down the pipe and we’re getting to
the the chiller and we are not going to see every side of the chiller because the water we’re in right now doesn’t see
every side of the chiller itself we’re only on one side of the chiller we’re on the condenser side of the chiller James
I wanted to add something there because when I talk with people they never understand why it’s called the condenser side or why the evaporator side and it’s
because we’re water treaters we’re thinking about the water well they named it after the refrigerant and what the
refrigerant is actually doing so as we do this visualization exercise that maybe helps people understand why they
name things the way they do it does you’re right because we we are condensing helping to condense the
refrigerant on that side with our cooler water or cooling tire water but this is
usually like a shell and Tube heat exchanger and there’s something is on the shell side of the heat exchanger
something else is on on the tube side of the heat exchanger and in all the designs I know the water is on the on
the tube side of of this heat exchanger so we are passing into the um the heat
exchanger past the in bells and turning to our right here and deciding which of
these tubes probably copper tubes we’re going to travel down but also I noticed something on my left as I make a turn
and I noticed something it was like rectangular it was like attached to the incap it’s looking kind of fuzzy and
crusty looking right now but the closer I look at it I realize that someone has installed a sacrificial anode inside
this Chiller as well you can even see some speckling around that anode that’s neat you certainly can yes you can and
so as as that magnesium because that’s that’s what this one’s made out of as it corrodes away you can see that the
speckling there that there’s a localized highp right around where that happens as well but that’s helping protect the tube
sheet helping to protect corrosion for this Chiller because we have the highly
conductive copper tubes fitted into a typically a carbon steel tube sheet and
that’s a recipe for a battery or or ganic corrosion and between the two of
those which is going to corrode first is going to be the carbon steel and the tube sheet so um it’s very thick to help
compensate for that but if we can help control that as well with our chemistry but chemistry only gets you so far for
galvanic corrosion that’s a big Force to fight against but having a sacrificial anode can be a solution if applied
properly well J let’s go ahead and go into the chiller tube and I don’t know if you noticed but look how that copper
pipe is protruding from the tube sheet and all the debris and stuff that’s collecting all of that it is it really
is and so I’m wondering about our performance of our our side stream filter or maybe what what’s happening
outside the cooling tire right now maybe it’s a seasonal thing and you know crops are being harvested who knows out there
but something is happening here and that that’s a great observation because we don’t want the under deposit corrosion
to happen there we don’t don’t want microbes to be growing there that’s something to note some Chiller tubes are
cut flush and these aren’t I think that’s an option people have to request when they get chillers these days but I
think that’s a really good reason why they should get them cut flush there you go I had no idea that was even an option
I think everything is an option today for Value engineering I think so because
it takes more labor to cut those off so yeah fantastic so see all the things you can learn by by doing this thought
exercise with someone else or walking through it in your head on your own so but we’re we’re swimming down the tubes
now and um these tubes can also have different designs within them can’t they they can have um rifling within the
tubes as well I’ve even seen tubes with um see I don’t even know the terminology so I’m going to have to note this down
so I can learn it later but aren’t there tubes a special inserts to help increase the turbidity as the water flows down
through the the tube as well there are and that name is escaping me as well yes see one thing we can learn and and
hopefully have someone out there in the audience who can send us what that’s called too but flowing down through here
and this is really our entire reason for being here water’s entire reason for being in this entire process right here
on this side is for this one thing and that is heat exchange because this
Chiller is doing something it may be being used to air condition a building so that heat that comes out of that
person’s body goes into the air air goes into the chilled water goes into the refrigerant and now it’s our job right
here on the condenser side to take that heat out of the refrigerant now we’re making a phase change happen on the
refrigerant side of things but not here on this side we’re still liquid in this
example after all the processes we go through I’m going to say we’re picking up 10 degrees Fahrenheit of temperature
it’s definitely warmer here than when we first entered it really is so we’re looking at these walls of the seat
exchanger and any that gets on this wall this heat exchanger if I lay my body up against the wall of this heat exchanger
I’m going to inhibit heat transfer and we don’t want to do that so I’m looking through here and it looks really good
actually I don’t see any scale I don’t see any deposits in here but you could and you do going across there but
hopefully the heat exchange is going pretty well and there’s lots of readings and things you can look at as well on the chiller to see how things are going
but it’s I I think it’s looking pretty good I don’t I don’t see you know a large bofilm there’s always bofilm someplace but you know I don’t see an
uncontrolled one in here is there anything in here you see that that I’m not noticing Trace I don’t and we’re
running out of space we’re getting ready to come out of that tube so I think we’ve seen what we can see I think
you’re right so now we’re coming out of that tube and we may have passed through another time but we’re coming out of the chiller now we’re still looking at this
piping going through and we’re about to make it back to the the cooling tower and this is where we’re going to spray
out and this ought to be a a lot of fun for spray out over the top of the distribution deck of this cooling tower
Tower it happens to be an induced draft cross flow cooling tower we are are
spraying our ourselves into and as we spray out of these nozzles and we’re spinning and we’re spraying and we’re
landing on top of of the fill and we’re beginning to find a path to to drip and
drizzle and fall down through the The Fill there this is the second most important thing that’s happening in this
whole process the first most important thing was the heat transfer in the chiller the second most important thing
is what’s happening right now because me in this gallon of water and I’m I’m going to say a gallon of water I know
that’s not metric but but it’s a gallon of water this gallon of water I’m in is slowly getting smaller because some of
this water is evaporating and the beauty of this evaporation is that it’s taking a lot of energy with it a lot of heat
energy with it so that 10 degrees I picked up in the water in that Chiller I’m going to lose the 10 degrees here
because the phase change of water and just for argument sake I’m going to say 100% cooling that’s happening here is
because of evaporation you get some sensible cooling cooler days whatever all based upon the humidity you know
there’s a lot of of determining factors but I’m going to say 100% of the cooling happening around me right now is because
of evaporation now we’re following down through the fill here trace and also I
noticed a few small deposits in here as well we saw some around that the tubes protruding out we’re seeing a few
deposits in near as well because that can happen you suspended solids can find areas to stick to on the fill as we fall
down I’ve seen a few of my of my water buddies here try to escape out with the
air but luckily we have the drift eliminators on there to help eliminate any water escaping out of there anything
else in here Trace you see in the in the fill which I’m missing I’m shining my light everywhere well James if you
notice on the very outside of the field you really got to look far cuz it’s hard to see uh if we were on the other side
it’d be really easy to see you notice that there’s some evaporative salts that are drying on there and I know I’ve
heard people say that my program is not working because look at all that scale what’s really going on with that yeah
you’re right evaporative salts the Nemesis of the industrial water treatment guy because everyone says it
looks bad and that’s tough you know number one The Fill is mechanically designed to help eliminate that as much
as possible but but it does happen when it’s out there I really don’t know of any water treatment that can possibly
prevent that because the water is evaporating away and leaving everything else behind in that you know it becomes
a cosmetic thing as well but they’re evap of salts often times they’re they’re easily are redissolved by
spraying it down but you also have to be very careful with spraying it off because you don’t want to damage the fill as well that’s my opinion on that
one I think it’s a good opinion and and a lot of people I I think will not let customers know really what that is and
then that leads to a bad conversation so I’m glad we had that conversation thank you for that and so we’re falling down
through here as well and we’re falling out the bottom of of the fill and we’re ending up back into the sump of water
almost where we started we started in the makeup water line but and but the valve opened up and here we are in this
Basin again and cooling towers were actually designed the way I understand it as a water saving measure from back
in the days where water was plentiful and they and they would run water through once to do the cooling and to be
out in the Stream or whatever after that but cooling tires save a tremendous amount of water and was wondering how
many times does this gallon of water I’m surrounded by how many times does this one unit of water get reused over
cooling tower so of course I resorted to math to figure out what that is I love math math Excel I derived the equation
i’ I proved it in Excel so I mentioned earlier that this water I’m in right now is concentrated four times more than the
makeup water so we’re at four Cycles concentration or as you like to say a trace our concentration ratio is four as
well I think it’s a more selfix explaining term which is why I use that so we’re we’re cycled up four times four
times more concentrated and some people I’ve heard out there say oh four Cycles means you reuse the water four times and
I’m here to tell you no that is not true you reused the water far more than four
times because just imagine this so I come in as a gallon running four cycles
that means that blow down I’m blowing down a quarter of a gallon if I bring in a gallon I had to to blow down a quarter
of a gallon 0.25 to achieve my four Cycles how do I achieve that by evaporating this water over the tower
rule of thumb every time this gallon of water goes over the top of the tower for a delta T of 10 degrees Fahrenheit I
have to evaporate 1% of that water so every time I go over 1% evaporated every time I go over 1% evaporated how many
times do I have to evaporate away 1% of my gallon that keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller to finally achieve a
quarter of a gallon one g gallon evaporated down to a quarter of a gallon so I have my four Cycles well I’ve done
the math and that water has go over that Tower about 138 times so instead of me using that
water one time to cool down that Chiller I could use it 138 times before it
finally is concentrated four times and I send it down the drain in this example I
have never thought about that before James and I can’t wait to see that math equation I will share it with you abs
absolutely I stay up at night thinking about things like this and you’re you’re like well that’s great 100% evaporation
but in my area the average evaporation rate of cooling tire is 85% that’s got to be better it is at 85% you are
recycling that water about 162 times so if someone out there thinks my math is
wrong or knows my math is wrong please teach me better because this this is all part of the thought exercise go through
asking questions thinking about every little bit of what the water sees as it goes through the entire process learning
the parts you don’t know about like the level control maybe as an example and making a note of that so that then you
can ask that you can learn later you can research it you can make it a question for the podcast as well Trace you’re
always asking people to give you a question to answer there so there you go but here we are setting in in the sump
bobbing around waiting for our next trip around the roller coaster so we can evaporate another 1% So eventually we
end up going down the drain going down the blowdown now that’s another part of
this journey though isn’t it I almost forgot that part so now we’re waiting we’re at four Cycles we’re like man it
is time for I need to be controlled because anymore and it’s scale’s going to form whatever blow down okay blow
down the controller activates the valve on on the blow down valve or the acor on
the blowdown valve water starts to pour out I am sent down the drain but I think
there is going to be or the may have already been a drop by drop segment asking about exactly this when does the
conductivity when does the concentration of that sump water actually start to change is it when the blowdown valve
opens or is there a delay and something else has to happen first before that but
may maybe I’ll save that for that episode for that segment all right I think I know the answer but I’ll save it
too so that’s the journey Trace I like doing this because it teaches me the
gaps in my knowledge and when I’m driving down the road I’ll think of things like this and people ask
me where I get my ideas for my cartoons and for for my segments and things and it comes from doing thought exercises
exactly like this I visualize driving up to a plant I visualize walking into a
plant I visualize that water flowing into a water softer past the resin
through the resin I visualize the water inside an RO around the membrane through
the membrane the pressures how the pressures change as it travel down the membrane housing how the concentrations
change what are dissolved gases doing all these thought exercises you can do
all right James well uh before we get too far and have to go around this cooling tower circuit again why don’t we
go ahead and get back to our original size yes let’s do that all right well hold on there’s a firmware update I need
to update the it’s almost there 80%
95% all right here we go
all right James we are now back to our regular size I know that was kind of corny but I think it proves a point that
in your mind’s eye you can explore things and figure out exactly what you said what are the gaps that I don’t know
about the equipment that I am charged with treating yes what about when I’m testing I don’t have to be in in front
of a lab bench or in a mechanical room in order to test I can do that in my mind’s eye and I can think about oh wow
what’s that what’s that other reagent I need to go to the next step how many minutes does it take for that and I can
then look it up and I’m starting to memorize that and let me tell you if you’re having to look at directions or
procedures when you’re running tests it’s probably taking you way too long with that so there are just so many
avenues that you can use this visualization technique with yep it has served me very well and hopefully well
for our members as well if I Inspire them to do it as they driving you on the road just please keep your eyes on the road and hands on the wheels at all
times yeah I always have to remind people of that because there is so much content of the scaling up Podcast that
gets consumed on the road so 10 and two people 10 and two actually I think it’s
three and nine now isn’t it didn’t they retach that and some places yes uh my daughter right now I’m going through all
of that and I think she’s being taught here in Texas 10 and two so all right so wherever you are and whatever your hand
placement is just be safe yes James it’s always fun to have you on the podcast
and you’re always challenging people not to just know something but to truly
understand it and figure out what the why is and you’ve got so many fun ways of doing that of course we shared a fun
way just now with visualization and I love that’s how you get all your ideas for the segments that you do in the
cartoons so thank you for sharing that oh you’re welcome James you’ve been on the podcast so many times I’m running
running out of lightning round questions for you I don’t know how many different batches that you’ve you’ve answered so
we came up with a brand new one for you today are you ready for the lightning round I am ready as ready as I could
ever be all right in one sentence what’s the most underestimated aspect of
industrial water treatment that professionals Overlook I think something that we do
Overlook is our creativity the creativity of of what we do we’re always
told that the artists are the creatives the graphic artists the graphic designers are are the creatives the
sculptures are the creatives but I tell you as an engineer I know that we are a
creative lot as well the only difference is you got to be a little extra smart to
see our creativity then perhaps theirs you know I’m kind of biased to end that statement but we come up with solutions
that when you look at them sometimes they’re absolutely a beautiful balance of the customer’s needs versus physical
re reality versus what what we can do beautiful things out there and putting it in into words is very creative as
well putting it into a cartoon is creative as well you know so I think something we miss is our creativity out
there I think it opens up our minds and just doing this thought exercise we just did is a version of being creative in
what you do I love that answer our service manager here teaches our team to
be the voice of the equipment and he loves to tell people chillers can’t talk you you have to be the faithful
translator of this piece of equipment so the customer knows what it needs I love
that that’s creative love it all right another creative question since you like those so uh I’m going to say it real
quick whatever comes to mind you answer name your all-time favorite water
related movie and why does it top your list shark NATO oh my goodness no one
thought I’d say that but that that whole series is the dumbest stupidest most one
awesome series ever and maybe part part of the reason why I like it because my daughter and I we got really into it and
we watched the first five binge watching and then then we’re like wi number six coming out and it came out the very next
day you know kind of thing so it was it was perfect but if you watch shark NATO
and you watch those tornadoes flying over top the cities throwing sharks everywhere they land beside cooling
towers and some of the scenes so I’ve taken pictures of that off my TV before and posted it on LinkedIn saying there’s
cooling towers shark NATO so yeah other than the obvious water themes of being
sharks sucked out of the sea I don’t know I just think it’s hilarious James true or false Die Hard is a Christmas
movie oh people are gonna fight me on this one but I say false well I will fight you that is our
quintessential Christmas movie my lovely bride and I watch that every single year
and we pause when our character John mlan and Hans are right there at the
cooling tower best scen in the whole movie in fact you can even see a Lakewood controller there you can I’ve
heard that that story I need to stop of that scene as well it is a fun show but
I’m a traditional guy and and to me it occurs at Christmas and it would be
hilarious where I see the decorations of someone leaving snacks out for for the guy at the air vent you know over
Christmas as as part of a tradition but sorry that’s one thing we actually disagree on Trace all right well you’re
wrong just as long as you know you’re you’re okay with that all right last question what are you binge watching
right now Criminal Minds we never watched it when it was live and we came
across it and there’s like 16 seasons and it may like 400 shows a season and
we’re only like on season 10 of it right now but but for some reason my wife and I we really like the crime shows and we
the thought that goes behind that so that’s that’s what we’re Bene watching right now Criminal Mind that’s a good
show I will tell you I had to stop watching it because it started showing up in my dream so just be careful with
that one yes all right Jay we’ve never done this before and you don’t know we’re getting ready to do this but you
are going to announce your drop by drop I’m GNA announce my drop by drop that’s
right that’s the next segment coming up and you’re going to lead us in oh I see what you mean oh okay well oh my
goodness let me get my thoughts here so the very next drop by drop by James all
ego aside of putting my name on it because I like to have a name you guys can associate to having a friend in the
seat beside you um whether it’s trace or whether it’s James the very next drop by
drop from James is [Music]
this welcome to drop by drop with James the podcast segment where we wonder
explore think about imagine and learn industrial water treatment you guessed
it drop by drop together today we’re thinking about
safety working around steam hot water High pressures moving Parts confined
spaces hazardous chemicals pathogenic organisms extreme environments deep water and even people there are hundreds
of ways we could get hurt or worse every single day of course there are guidelines regulations laws safety
programs engineering controls training and so forth to help keep us safe but
the ultimate thing in charge of our safety dayto day is ourselves us if we
don’t follow the rules learn from the trainings are unaware of our surroundings or circumvent engineering
controls we are much likely to get hurt so be both smart and aware when you’re performing your industrial water
treatment duties you’re probably not the only one one out there relying upon you returning home safely a personal example
of when I encountered an unsafe condition is from when I was brand new in austal water treatment and was being
trained on boiler inspections my manager and I were just about to enter the mud drum of a water
tube boiler when steam started coming out of the manhole my manager and the plant manager both looked at each other
and were a little white in the face an operator had blown down one of the nearby boilers and steam had backed up
into the one we were literally just about to enter if we had climbed in just a little sooner we could have suffered
steam burns and worse neither lockout tagout nor proper communication had been
conducted lessons were learned quickly very early in my career I’ve heard
stories of people dying in confined spaces due to the space being filled with nitrogen or argon proper confined
space entry procedures had neither been established nor conducted I’ve heard stories about waterhammer blowing elbows
valves Etc apart and injuring people I once had a colleague who had live steam
blown inside his work boot never have I ever seen blisters that big in my life
I’m sure too many of you have scary stories to tell as well so please today and every day think about the safety of
yourself and those around you your safety matters to you your family your co-workers and your colleagues your
safety matters to both Trace and me as
well 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 James once again thank you for being on the scaling up H2O podcast
thank you for your series your weekly series drop by drop I thought it would be cool for names to do something he has
never done before and of course that was introduce his own segment and I really
hope that you enjoyed James and I’s attempt to visualize shrinking ourselves
down and being in a cooling tower now maybe that was a little campy but we
were trying to have some fun with it the whole point is that using that technique
of visualization is such an impactful way to increase your learning because if
you can see it you are able to use your mind’s eye to do things that you’re not
actually doing and your brain gives you credit for doing them I use
visualization all the time I use it to enhance skills that I’m trying to do uh
an example and I gave this when we were talking with James is I visualize when I
run my test and I will over and over again run test test and see hey if I run
this test after this test is that faster is there any benefit for me to change up
the series and I’ll do it visually before I do it for real and other people
in the company have done that so we have a specific Series in how we run our normal battery of test and we’ve gotten
that time frame down from step one to step two to step three and all the different tests that we run that we can
actually do them a little bit quicker now when people run the test we have
them visualize actually running the test so as you’re driving around maybe
visually open up your test kit and start running your test now if you are new to
this industry this is just as good as you actually running your test like I
mentioned there have been a bunch of studies that show the Mind does not
discriminate if you did it for real or if you did it in your imagination Nation
I might have told this story before indulge me if I had but there’s lots of
evidence of how visualization really helps and keeps our spirits up it also
improves our skill level major James Nesmith was a prisoner of war in Vietnam
and for 4 years he was imprisoned in a cage that was 4 and 1/2 ft long long by
5T tall imagine that and how he kept himself sane in this cage was he
visualized his hometown golf course and he played golf over and over and over
again he dug deep in his memory he remembered every hole he tried to
remember sense he tried to remember how things would change lightwise over the
day so he did this for four years and
then when he got healthy enough after he was liberated he played that golf course
and he shot the best game of his life now keep in mind he hadn’t played for
well over 4 years how amazing is that that’s what visualization can do and
that is a technique that we can use each and every day and driving around to our accounts we’ve got a lot of time to do
that of course course listen to this podcast first but after you did that maybe visualize some of the things that
you’re doing like I said I always visualize running my test if I’m installing new equipment I will
visualize installing that new equipment and I can’t tell you how many times I
would say oh wait I need to grab a tea or I need another elbow and folks you
know that elbow that cost about a dollar or whatever it is is going to cost you
about a hundred bucks if you forget it with all the things that you’ve got to do maybe a 100 bucks is cheap so
visualizing and drawing out all the things that you’ve got to do for an install I can’t tell you how much time
and money that has saved here’s another way I use visualization when I pack for
a trip I will actually envision myself utilizing it now here’s an example I’m a
scuba diver so I will visualize putting my equipment on as I’m packing it when I
pack my bags I will actually pack it in a certain order so I don’t have equipment all over the boat as I take it
out of my dive bag it’s going on me so I don’t have to worry about anybody kicking it off the side of the boat or
maybe putting a tank on it and breaking it I’ve seen that happen before and here’s the other thing I do I will make
checklists out of those things so I as I visualize I’ll make a checklist and then
for the first few times that I use that checklist I will scrutinize it to make
sure that it has exactly everything that I need and if you look at my diving
files depending on what dive site I go to I’ve got a checklist for each dive
site to make sure I don’t forget anything and I might not have been to that dive site for a couple of years
doesn’t matter I just pull up that packing list and I’ve got everything there well of course I’ve translated
that over to the water treatment business I’ve got checklist for so many things and it’s just I don’t want to
take up space in my mind to try to remember something that I already knew how to do and I want to make sure that
I’m giving myself credit that I knew how to do it for later when I forgot how to
do it checklists are fantastic and they all start with
visualization so Nation I hope James and I inspired you to use
visualization as a technique and for all of you that are training new water treaters out there please utilize
visualization that can start with a picture and you put a picture up and you say this is a cooling tower and use my
shrink ray if I’m not using it I’ll let you borrow it and you guys can shrink yourself down you can go into that
cooling tower and you can talk about what’s going on now I did this for real
I didn’t have the shrink ray of course but the very first team member that joined my team I remember we went inside
a cooling tower we made sure it was safe we made sure that we weren’t going to decapitate ourselves with a fan belt or
anything we were safe we knew how to get in we knew how to get out so all those safety things that we need to know we
did and we sat right there on the crosswalk over the Basin of the cooling
tower and we talked about what was happening and we talked about potential issues we were right there in that and
to this day that individual mentions that when he trains other people in fact
I know he actually takes people in cooling towers as well so that is taking visualization to a whole another level
but I think you can see what a powerful tool that is so don’t just learn it
visualize it and Nation don’t forget if you’re going to be in Cleveland next
week for training please come find me I would love to meet you I would love to
remat you if we’ve already met before and for all of you that are not going to be in Cleveland next week don’t worry
I’m going to have a brand new episode so we can meet next week of course we have a brand new episode each and every
Friday that’s my commitment to you to try to bring a little bit of extra joy
in your life as you were driving from account to account so until next week
take care everybody
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