A Single Drop of Water

After graduating college with an engineering degree in 2003, I specialized in civil engineering – the practice of designing the infrastructure for new land development. I’m the guy who plans the roads, water, sewage, drainage and more.

Initially, I was the head of planning and engineering for the Morden Manitoba Municipality, about an hour and a half south of Winnipeg, Canada. I worked hard, got plenty of experience and learned to think, plan and strategize using topographic maps, which show contours of the ground surface. In those days I was talented but “normal.” I worried about a lot of things: when starting a project, I’d think about all the ways I could fail. I’d complain to myself about who I was working with or the circumstances I didn’t like about the project. Or, I’d be hard on myself even if I made only a small mistake. Like I said, normal.

Then a friend of mine introduced me to Ariel and Shya Kane and their transformational approach. As I grew personally, so did my engineering abilities. Soon I realized that I was spending a lot less time thinking about myself (and the limitations that I thought I had) and a lot more time just doing the work and whatever else needed to be done. In 2019, I started my own business and it is now a thriving practice with eight employees.

Recently, on a new project, I shocked myself at how intuitive and simple my approach was. Of course, all my knowledge and experience fed into this, but I had an epiphany as I looked at the maps of the site. Here is what happened:

I’d been hired to work on a new land development north of Winnipeg. The area was 160 acres – large enough so that it would take about 20 minutes to walk across it. It included supportive housing, community gathering facilities, a training center, and several recreational buildings. My job was to design the services to all the facilities planned on the site, including water and the sewer system.

This site was especially challenging because the soil conditions contained bedrock very close to the surface. A previous engineering consultant had proposed a sewer service strategy that involved tanks, pumping systems, and deep piping. This would be considered a normal, perfectly reasonable approach. However, it would require costly blasting through the rock to install the tanks and piping systems.

As I approached the project, I sat at my desk, relaxed. In front of me was the topographic map of the ground contours, which included the elevations of the site. I started to look at it, my eyes roaming, exploring the map features.

As I followed the contours, I could suddenly imagine a single drop of water flowing from the top end of the development all the way down to the location of the sewage treatment system. I could see a path for a gravity-based sewer network appear before my eyes.

Eagerly, I started to engineer my design, testing out the idea to see if it would work structurally. It did – perfectly. I was able to plan the entire sewer network to flow by gravity, around the contours of the land itself. Sitting back, I realized that this design would save our client millions of dollars in construction costs.

This is one example of the fun and ease I am having with my transformational approach to work. With each project that I take on, I look and see what needs to be done. Having learned to disengage from those “normal” self-limiting, worries and thoughts, I’m receptive to possibilities I never would have seen before; often, the solution seems to present itself to me before I actually start drawing anything. My business continues to grow and my work has become a fun and fulfilling journey of discovery.