Why 99% of Women Over 40 Can't Find Their Purpose (And The Simple Fix) - with Jim Marshall

0:00 Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Thrive After 45. I'm Denise Drink, heart whisperer, midlife mirror and mentor. Every week I am honored to share energy and space with inspiring guests whose stories reflect so many possibilities of thriving beyond 45. Together we'll uncover the whispers of the heart, the power of midlife transformation, and the wisdom that fuels expansion. Have you ever wished there was a map for human behavior, a way to actually see where you are in your own growth, and what steps could move you higher?

0:46 Today's guest, Jim Marshall, has spent more than 40 years as a human development engineer studying the complexities of human consciousness, motivation, and transformation. He's the author of sems, a groundbreaking system that identifies seven levels, the seven levels of human phenomena from emotional patterns. To personal and spiritual evolution. For over three decades, Jim has refined and taught this system impacting thousands of lives and helping people solve quite literally, and anything from relationships and decision making to leadership and personal mastery.

1:37 His work reveals how every challenge and every triumph fits within a larger scale of human understanding. In our conversation today, we're going to explore how his work came to life, and how understanding where we are on these scales can help us unlock who we're meant to become. Welcome to our show today. Jim. Nice to have you here. Lovely. This good to see. we need to find out. How did you develop Ste? Okay. I'll, I'll tell you that, but I got a couple things I wanna say first. First of all, absolutely. You said if it's something like, uh, it applies to everything, uh, and it doesn't really apply to everything.

2:22 It only applies to things where people are involved. Ooh. Thank you for that clarification. Soxs Timx will not tell you how to fix your engine in your car if it's broken. You need a mechanic for that. It won't tell you how to fix your toaster if it's not working. But anything that has to do with people, which is most of what goes on with us in iden, in industrialized society, it's relevant too. So, perfect. Now I want to give one sentence by way of context. Yep. Before I tell you how I came to all of this. Perfect. I'm the discoverer. Of hither two unknown natural phenomenon, which greatly aid in the understanding of people from which I created a revolutionary, practical philosophic system called Emmic and published it in the book, Emmic Hierarchies of Human Phenomenon.

3:18 Okay. So the story really begins at age 16 when I was accepted into engineering school. Mm-hmm. Now, of course I thought at the time that I was going to be engineering physical things, as did all the other engineering students, air foils, motors, chemicals, electrons, whatever. But by the time I had my bachelor's degree, it was clear to me I wanted to engineer the human psyche because it is the area of greatest mystery, of greatest unknown. And more importantly, it is the area in which we as a race of failing miserably.

3:59 Hmm. 95% of the problems in industrialized society are because people don't understand, people don't understand the spouse, don't understand the, the child don't understand, the parent, don't understand the boss, et cetera, et cetera. This is a huge problem. It's so huge that I think a lot of people aren't even aware of this problem. Mm-hmm. They just think that's how things are. Right. Uh, and this book solves that problem across 35 axes. Now, when I say 35 axes, you talked about seven levels. Mm-hmm. The seven levels are within the 35 axes.

4:40 Okay. 35 schemic scales, each of which has seven levels. Okay. So, to make a long story short, I had a long career as a human development engineer. Yeah. Working one-on-one with hundreds of clients at every description, helping through obtain. Uh, higher levels of enlightenment, responsibility, ethics, insight, sensitivity, whatever the person wanted or needed is what he would get out of it. Okay. While this was going on, my clients were all improving. As a result of our interaction, I started to notice, incidentally that I could predict the outcome of the session.

5:24 Hmm. I never told that to anybody, but I made notes, copious notes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Many decades, there is no theory of systemics. It is based entirely on direct empirical observation. Okay? Now, coming from a hard science background, this is second nature to me, right? In the engineering world, opinion and belief have no place. They're not relevant. If you said to me, Jim, I want you to put a bridge over this stream. Mm-hmm. About 25 yards wide, I'd say, okay, I wouldn't accept that data from you.

6:07 I would throw a laser beam across it. Right. And it would tell me, I'd say, is this the exact point where you want it? Yes. Okay. This is 26.3 yards. That is the data I would use. Right, right. And that is how I created STE just that way. So I would simply observe what was going on and write it down. Now here's what would happen. Did you wanna say something? No, go ahead. Go ahead. So, so the client, you know, the clients had no idea whatsoever how I was doing, what I was doing, what I was thinking. They didn't know anything about engineering. They didn't know anything about biofeedback, which I use continuously in a very sophisticated way.

6:51 All they knew is they came to me with an unwanted condition or a problem situation and I fixed it for them. Right. I not truth, this is truthfully say I guided them to figuring it out for themselves. Fair. Yeah. cause I used Socratic dialogue aided by biofeedback. Now if, if you, for those of you who are not familiar with the Socratic dialogues, there are many of them, and they're written by Plato, who is this? Who is the student of Socrates. And in each of them it shows Socrates as conducting a conversation with, usually with one person, but sometimes more than one person.

7:32 And not telling the person anything, but asking the right question to bring the person to enlightenment. Mm. Mm-hmm. So he would say, for example, what is ethics? And the student would say, like, Jackie Gleason in the honeymoon, they didn't have an answer. And so eventually the, the student would come to something and then Socrates would say, but what about this? Right? Student would say, oh, I didn't think about that. See? Right. And that's how it proceeded. Now, I brought into this 20th century electronics.

8:16 Okay. Uh, which now is 21st century. Right. But, but, uh, using it all along and what it did is it sped it up, it sped up the process to a point where I could view the development of the person's psyche. In a short period of time, and let me tell you what I mean by that. Okay? A typical situation would be, let's say you have a guy and he can't get women to like him, so he goes into therapy, right? And he sees this psychologist once a week for a year, right?

8:57 Mm-hmm. And after the 50 sessions, he's doing better. Mm-hmm. I would get that result out of the guy in a half hour because of the way I use biofeedback. So I would see what the psychologist would see in a year, I'd see in 30 minutes. So it sped up the whole process for me of seeing what was happening. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. See? Mm-hmm. So, so. What I would find is the person would be, I would find the person was at a specific level on a specific scale that I had previously observed and recorded.

9:45 Right. And both of our interaction, he would go up to the next level on that scale. Now, that happened many thousands of times over 40 year period. I don't know how many Thousand, 8,000, 9,000, something like that. Right. Sometimes we have five or six times in the same session. So I just kept writing this down. They have to realize, after I would observe it in this session, I would go out to, let's say Walmart and I would look. Mm-hmm. And I would see exactly the same phenomena in people I wasn't even talking to.

10:25 Fascinating. Yeah. Even told me. Yeah. So this whole process. Yielded very reliable scientific information because, because of the clients had no idea what I was doing. Sure. There was no, no placebo effect. Right, right. And there was no power of suggestion because I wouldn't tell them anything. Right, right. I wouldn't ask them. So for example, uh, I would see from the biofeedback that this guy was upset with his mother. And I would say to him, are you upset with your mother?

11:05 He'd say, how did you know that Hmm and root were off? Right? And I could go right down into it, right down into the subconscious. 20 minutes later, he has a big epiphany. That's why I can't get along with my mother. Right. His relationship with her just got better. Right. But in essence is what happens with emx because I took all this diff information and recorded it and released it to the world, right? So you basically have all of this data to do essentially the same process by yourself. So now I do have a question that's coming through and I'm like, this has to be asked right now.

11:47 Somebody gets the book. Mm-hmm. Finds out where they are on a specific scale. Mm-hmm. Within the levels and reads it. How does one read it without interpreting that isn't there? Is that possible to do? Well, everybody is interpreting all the time when one is reading fair. Uh, there's always the issue. In education of the person duplicating the message. Yes. In other words, in other words, the teacher knows the subject, he tells you something, right?

12:32 You might miss duplicate it, but if you are smart and studious, you won't, you might say, well, what do you mean by that? See, and that gives, but I was very, very careful in the book, okay. To focus on making this clear to the good, the average reader of English. Now, I should tell you, I have been tutoring people since I was 14. I'm at school at the age of three and have been involved in education my entire life to this very day. Mm-hmm. So I have a very good idea about the process of learning, right?

13:14 And. One of the reasons for my success is it's never about me. Hmm. It's always about the other person. Perfect. Yeah. About the student, or it's about the client, or it's about the girlfriend or whatever it is. It's about, it's not about me. Right. Never about, so, mm-hmm. I'm always focused on the person and so I can always pick up, did this guy get it or did he not get it right? So sometimes I teach something to my student and he has a little paw. Oh no, I see what you mean.

13:55 Okay. He's got it. Yeah. It's not just that he said he sees what it's, that I can see in his eyes, in his face, in his physionomy that he got it. See. Yeah. And if I don't see that, then I persist. Right, right. So that is how I wrote this book. Now, I should tell you, this book was rewritten at least a half a dozen times because, uh, after the initial writing mm-hmm. I would release it, I would get feedback and I'd say, oh, I can see ways that I could make this clearer and I would write it, and then I would re it, release it. And so, so I know I succeeded at making this accessible because some version of this book has existed now for 30 years and I've been watching people get it Right.

14:42 Nice. You know, I'm not to have a college degree to understand this. Right. Because I made it very clear. Mm-hmm. But the big thing is the content of this book is natural law. It's not an opinion, it's not a belief, it's natural law. It's like when you look at the Pythagorean Theorem mm-hmm. You don't really have to be too bright to understand the Pythagorean theorem. You just have to have a teacher who shows it to you the right way. Right. And you Oh yeah. And then you've got it for life, right? So that's what this is like. Love that. Okay, love that. So several people have said to me, what book is your book? Like, and I have to tell them, in all candor, having gone to school for 28 years, I don't think there's ever been a book like this before.

15:27 Mm-hmm. At least on, but each one of these 35 scales is expressed in what you could call a spreadsheet or a table. Okay? Yep. That table is very similar to the periodic table of elements, but it is a periodic table for each of the corresponding 35 subjects that are covered in the book. Right? So, for example. First chapter is the scale of basic purposes. Every human has one of seven basic purposes. Just the fact that I can isolate that.

16:09 Mm-hmm. And express it in a way that people would get. And when you find your basic purpose, you are never the same again. It is a life-changing moment. 'cause you know what you're about. So what happens is willy-nilly, you throw out the other six levels. They're not for me. That's for those people. This is what I'm about, right? And then that clarifies your life to a great degree, and you'll have hundreds of realizations coming out of that. Love it when you realize what your basic purpose is.

16:49 Oh, now I understand why I couldn't get along with Gertrude was in high school. And so all of this stuff retroactively solves itself because you now understand it, right? There are 35 axes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Also, I should tell you, there are general scales and specific scales. Now, a general scale is one you use once and you're done like the scale of basic purposes. You have a basic purpose. You, Denise? Mm-hmm. It's on that list of seven. Now, once you find it mm-hmm. You are done as regards, Denise.

17:31 You then can use it on your husband, your son, your grandmother, your nephew. Sure. Mm-hmm. But for you, it's done. Right. It's not about context, but most of the skills are specific scales, meaning they have a context. Okay? Yeah. The scale of motivation. Okay. There's what's your husband's motivation toward you? That's one context. What's your daughter's motivation toward you? That's another context. Mm mm-hmm. Answer's motivation toward you. That's a third context. Mm-hmm. So everybody, you go to a different person. It's a different context. So you can use this hundreds and hundreds of times in different contexts.

18:14 Right. Right. This gets very big. Right, I bet. Yeah. So let me give an example. If you were to take the scale of motivation mm-hmm. Because you're only choosing from a menu of seven, it's not a hard choice. Mm-hmm. You know the person, right. You've been hanging around with your husband for let's say 10 years. Right? Right. Right. You know him pretty well. Right? Right. When you study that chapter, if you understand the chapter, you're gonna spot him. Right. You. I see what level he's at. He's at level two. And then you'll have a That explains why when I said, and that explains why when I do A, he does B.

18:57 Right? Yeah. Okay. So, but you can do that for everybody you know, right. Who have ever known. Sure, sure. Mrs. Smith in the third grade didn't like me. What was that all about? See, and you can go back'cause you spent a year being disliked by Mrs. Smith and you can find where she is on every one of these scales, right? Every time you do, you'll have a realization. Now I understand why Mrs. Smith didn't like me. And so that little bit of baggage is gone. Gone. Yeah. cause it's not a mystery. It doesn't stick to you anymore. It's you let go of it.

19:37 See, and when you, when you do that, Jim, and you release it because you get a deeper understanding of what was really going on in that moment in time over that year with the grade three situation. Um, does that do anything beyond that? Does it carry into any other, or is it motivation that's, that's that scale. You just stay with that? Well, that varies. Okay. Realize each of these scales is unique. Mm-hmm. You cannot, for anything about scale A, by studying scale B fair, these are completely different.

20:22 Okay. Because of that, they span the spectrum of human experience. Gotcha. Because you're covering 35 completely different subjects of life. Okay. So. Yeah. Also, also, very often what will happen with a person is he spots a certain level, either himself or maybe his mother or his boyfriend or whatever it is. Sure. And he has a realization. Mm-hmm. He might continue to have realizations on that, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And next day he talks to this person, but now he knows what level this person is at.

21:04 Ah. Now I see what's going on here. See? Sure. Yeah. Not that you just have one realization. You could have a whole sequence of realizations. Right. This one finding out. Right. Right. Okay. So let me get back to your initial question. We got off on a long tangent how I discovered this. So I had this long career as human development engineer, and I started seeing that there was something in this that was predictable. Mm-hmm. I didn't know what it was and I wasn't particularly looking for it, but it was there because I could The outcome of the session, right? Yeah. Yeah. Meaning, needless to say, that only made me better at what I did because I knew how the session was gonna come out.

21:49 I didn't say it, I didn't suggest it, I didn't imply it. I let the person discover it and he did exactly what I thought he was gonna do with it. Right, right. Because I knew what the next level up is. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So by 1995, I had accrued just by direct observation, about 32 scales that varied in length between three and seven. Mm-hmm. Now, I was around that same time, partnering a client that was difficult. Mm-hmm. And I had this six level scale that I had been using for decades that I knew was correct, and I was trying to assess this client on this.

22:34 Scale. Right? When I was having trouble, I couldn't do it. Huh? What's going on here? Until I realized, ah, this scale has a seventh level. I had never seen this level before. Interesting. This is the first. And there are specific reasons for that that I explained in the book, that particular level, why I hadn't seen it before. Okay. And as soon as I saw it, I understood the client brought it up just like that. And I knew where it fitted into the sixth level scale. It was not a question. And as soon as I inserted the seventh level into the sixth level scale, at that exact moment, it went from being a line, which is what a scale is to a plane, meaning a whole body of data.

23:24 Hmm. Data jumped out at me. Now for those of us who studied a lot of math, that is a distinctly mathematical phenomenon. The whole point of math is you start with a formula or an equation and you coax data out of it. Right? And at the end you get to something useful. Oh, that's what the area is of this. Right? Oh, I see. And you got it right. Or that's how Einstein found e equals mc squared. Just like that. Mm-hmm. He just followed the math and all of a sudden he got E equals mc squared. Whoa. That's a conversion factor for math, for for matter to energy by a factor of C squared.

24:08 That's earth shaking. See? Right. Right. And so when I saw all this data jump out at me suddenly without my searching for them, there were all of these intersecting interacting, uh, data. That contributed to this. In other words, it wasn't just a scale anymore, right? It was a body of data in which all of these mathematical factors reinforced one another. Wow. If you remember from geometry, one of the things in geometry, really the, the highest level of geometry is to prove something, prove a theorem.

24:51 Right? So that's about getting all of these intersecting interlocking factors. Well, we know two sides of an is size is triangle equal, see? Right. We know that this side is 27, that means this other side must be 27. See, this is interlocking. Mm-hmm. And at the end, you are able to prove the thing. Right. Right. Which is, that's the holy grail of geometry to be able to do that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So when I saw this, I said. Whatever the hell this is. It has to be natural law because it's got math embedded in it. Mm.

25:31 Now I took 26 semesters of math and loved every minute of it. And so when math appears, I recognize it. My mind thinks in math. Right. So when I'm doing normal things, listening to music mm-hmm. Watch the rabbit run across my patio, math is going through my mind. Mm-hmm. See, I know the, these formula Right. They're there. You don't have to convince me, uh, of the validity of the formula for the volume of a sphere. I know, right? It's, yeah.

26:12 It axiomatic. Mm-hmm. And it was that way before humans existed and that way no longer exist. Yeah. Because. That is what it is. Yeah. And that is what these scales are like. They're mathematical. Mm-hmm. Now, I went through a lot of trouble to make this presentation not seem mathematical to the reader. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. There were a few spots where it was necessary for me to explain Okay. Something about math. Yep. Which I was able to do easily'cause I have a lot of experience in that. I started tutoring algebra when I was 18.

26:55 Right. Okay. So I, so my next thought was, I wonder how many of these other scales that I have are actually seven level scales that had not been developed all the way. Right. And I have to seven go Oof. Like that. Wait a minute. Maybe some of these others are like this too. Mm-hmm. So knowing what I was looking for, which is the key. Mm-hmm. I studied all these other skills and in a short period of time, each of them went to seven levels. And when it did, it manifested mathematically. Wow. So now I had 32 7 level scales each defining a certain area of human phenomena.

27:43 Mm-hmm. All of which had math embedded in them. Right. And again, being a well-educated person, I said to myself, I never saw anything like this. This looks like a new subject for me. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. But beyond that, this could help people Yeah. On go. From helping people by the hundreds, which is what I had been doing as human development engineer. Right. To helping them with the millions if I put this in a book and get it out. Right. So people take and use it. Yeah, exactly. So I have to write a book. So the first draft was finished in December of 95. Okay. And I immediately sent it to colleagues of mine, all of whom had graduate degrees in a variety of subjects.

28:30 Yep. And they all responded very positively. Mm-hmm. There was no subtlety about this. Right. They had differing responses, but distinctly positive responses. And that told me,'cause I knew how smart these people were. 'cause I had known'em for years. Right. Yeah. That told me, this is exactly what I think it is, which is a new subject that people would get. Mm-hmm. The reason it is it's natural law. Right. Now you have, remember the first time you saw the periodic table of elements, you 13 or 14 or something, right?

29:13 Mm-hmm. And you looked at it, it's a little bit overwhelming. It's on the wall. It's kind of big. It's got a lot of data embedded in it, right? But it doesn't take too much time to see this thing makes a lot of sense. Hydrogen is one, healing is two, lithium is three goes down across, right? Right. Then when you start to find out about it, you see all these things in this period, they all behave the same way. Right? So that is what you get when you look at these tables that I have put in the book. You see the periodic table for motivation. You see the periodic table for spiritual identity, et et cetera.

29:57 There's mm-hmm. It's all in there. Yeah. So, so. I then spent, when I got this, I got this response from my colleagues. Mm-hmm. I then spent the next 25 years of my life working on this book. Because you have to realize, I had a first discover the phenomena, and I pretty much explained already how I did that. Right. I find three more scales while I was doing the writing. Yeah. Then I had to take this data and I had to use it to craft a workable philosophic system. Simply having the scales is not enough. Right? Yep. This is the work. Now I should explain, for those of you who don't know, uh, the successful product of a scientist is a theory, like the theory of evolution or the theory of Yep.

30:53 Whatever. It's right. But for an engineer, the product is a thing that works. Right. Has to work right. That is who we are. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That is why we are very different from scientists. Right. Right. I had a very good friend of mine who I went through prep school with. He was a wiz in math and everything related to science. And he went on to become a physicist. Yep. Uh, and to me he was a weirdo. He was a very strange person. Mm-hmm. And I liked him. Uh, we did things together, but he was, we were not alike. Mm-hmm. You know, I was on the football team, the baseball team.

31:36 I went out with girls. I played in the rock play. Yeah. We didn't do any of that stuff. Yeah. So engineers are a distinct type of person. Mm-hmm. I, I went to a, a top engineering school and there were 2000 students and we were all very much alike. Mm-hmm. When you get past the superficial things, you know, this guy's a mustache and this guy doesn't. Right. Right. We're all very much Right. So what it is, is about we wanna know the facts. So what an engineer does is he takes known data, established data, not guess, sta Right. Not like, for example, the acceleration of gravity near the surface of the earth is 9.8 meters per second, per second.

32:23 That is an established fact. You don't have to take my word for it. You can calculate it yourself if you want. I'll give you the formula. Right. Okay. Now that's what we call one G. Yeah. That is grist for our mill. We walk on that as like the floor, you see? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we make calculations. How much voltage do we really need going into this capacitor? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Is this gonna be too much and burn it out? Not enough to do the job. See, and we have to test it. Right. We establish it. That's another fact. That's how, that is what I did with this for all these years.

33:06 Yeah. So, so you have these 35 scales. Now what I should do now is to tell you the names of the 35 scales. I was just gonna ask Yeah. Exactly what subject matter is addressed. Mm-hmm. Perfect. And I think they will agree after I've read them all, that I've covered it all. Mm-hmm. cause many readers have come to me and said, you covered everything, you know? Uh. And I'll tell you what they are now, of the 35 scales, 24 of them are individual scales and 11 of them are group scales. These are the individual scales.

33:47 Okay? The scale, basic purposes, the scale of personal influence, the scale of choice, the scale of permeation, the scale of thought, the scale of identity, the scale of evaluation, the scale of motivation, the scale of control, the scale of stopping, the scale of scholarship, the scale of literacy, the scale of human ability, the scale of memory, the scale of spiritual identity, the scale of mental deletion, the scale of aberration, the scale of physical fitness, the scale of justification, the scale of belief, the scale of equanimity, the scale of attack, the scale of conflict, and the scale of reaction. And these are the group scales, the scale of relationships, the scale of life spheres.

34:32 The scale of government, the scale of civilization, the scale of survival, the scale of management, the scale of exchange, the scale of communication, the scale of allegiance, the scale of sexuality, and the scale of politics. Any one of these scales by itself could dramatically improve the life of the reader. Mm-hmm. But of course you have 35 of them to use when it's appropriate. Right. So now we talked before about motivation. Right? So lemme give you an example how the average person could use this. Right? I was gonna, yeah, perfect. You, Denise, have dating some guy for three years, right? And you're thinking about getting married.

35:14 Well that's a big step. Wouldn't it make sense to ask why does this guy wanna marry me? Isn't that a reasonable question? Mm-hmm. I'm not saying to ask the guy, you don't know what you're gonna get. You might get. Of course I'm saying open the book. Yeah. There are only seven levels. 'cause I've gotten it down to Sure. Levels of human motivation. Right Now you can say, wait a minute, there are thousands of motivations. Those are subsets of these. Hmm. Okay. Yep, yep. So when you understand the essence of that level, you realize there's lots of stuff that fits in there.

35:57 Of course, yeah. So you know the guy, you study the chapter and you say, oh, I can see. He wants to remind me because he loves me. That's level one. The highest motivation of all, let's set the date. Right. Yeah. Maybe that doesn't happen. Maybe. Maybe what happens is you say, you know, now that I think about this. I think this guy wants to marry me because I drive a Maserati. That's good. I a 60 foot yacht. I fly my own Lear Jet. I live in a$15 million condo at$5 million in the bank. See, that's a different motivation. Totally. I good. Or it's bad.

36:37 It's level four on the scale of motivation money. Right? Yeah. So now what you do with that, that's up to you. That has nothing to do with me. You might say, well, okay, this is not the first guy who wanted to marry me for my money, but this guy is handsome. Mm-hmm. He's, he's intelligent, he's educated, he has a good job. He's articulate, so I'm gonna marry him anyway. Exactly. Yeah. And you might live happily live or after. Thank you for saying that because what I think is real, one of the nuggets of many is that you take the information that you've so brilliantly over so many years made sure it's where it needs to be based on everything you've put into it.

37:29 At the end of the day, you make the decision based on what it is you are uncovering in whatever area you are looking at in the moment. And so I love what you're saying because what you said near the very beginning, I don't give the opinion, I don't guide people. I give them the question based on what I know, and so they come up with what's gonna happen. Right. Which is brilliant because a lot of people put information together and give it, here's the way you need to do this. You don't do that. You're giving them the laws that are natural and absolutely part of human, and now you can understand it at a level you would not have ever been able to access prior to this brilliant work you've got.

38:26 Thank you. It's just like Newton's three laws of motion. Mm-hmm. Okay. You know that that rocket scientists and astrophysicists are still using them to this day to predict the motion of celestial bodies and rockets and satellites. You know why they work. Yeah. It's natural law. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly his opinion. Yeah. He's speaking it out. You know, there's this famous story about, he saw the apple fall from the tree, and he said, wait a minute. That's the same force that keeps the moon going around the earth.

39:10 Yeah. How was his eureka moment? And that led him to the three laws of motion, and then he created calculus so that we could calculate it. Right. Yeah. And that's very much like what I did. Yeah. So a a another good way is the Fibonacci sequence. You know, there are these numbers that exist in nature. There are living creatures that construct themselves according to these numbers. Hmm. Now these creatures don't know anything about numbers. They don't even have brains. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, but if you take a sunflower.

39:51 You count the seeds one way, you'll get one Fibonacci number, you count them another way, you'll get another Fibonacci number. Well how does that work? Same thing with a pine cone. You count it one way. Mm-hmm. The one Fibonacci number, you count another way, you different Fibonacci. So Fibonacci looked at this and said, you know, there's something to this, right? I dunno what it is, but I'm gonna find out. And what he did is he reverse engineered the formula out of the numbers themselves. He said, well, we got this number and this number right, this number, what formula would give us these numbers? Mm-hmm. And he figured it out and he gave it to us.

40:32 And we call it the phonology sequence. Yeah. That's very much like what I did here and it never fails. Right. It, I can tell you axiomatic, that these scales are correct. Now, having said that, you might quibble with the words that I used because writing is an art. Sure. Fair. And in many cases, many cases, I spent many years trying to find out what is the right word for this. For example, if you look at the scale of equanimity and you don't know the name of it, you might think it's a scale of maturity because it tracks maturity in people, what we call maturity.

41:18 Okay. I thought it was a scale of maturity, but after many years of working with it, I realized, oh, there's something behind that. And the thing behind that is equanimity. Very good. Yeah. Maturity, which is why you can have an 8-year-old who's much more mature than a 25-year-old because he has equanimity. That's between perhaps. Right, right. Not really love that. It just looks like, and that type of thing went through my mind for 25 years. Oh, I'm, yeah. Yeah. So my, the most time consuming part of my labor mm-hmm.

42:02 Was figuring out how to say this in a way that would communicate to the average reader of English. Mm-hmm. And I know I succeeded at that because I've been watching people respond to this now for 30 years. Right. Yeah. They get it. Yeah. You don't have to have a college degree to understand this. Right. Yeah. You don't have to have 125 IQ to understand this. Some guy will like be in a bookstore and he sees, what's the septe stuff? Takes the book down. Mm-hmm. And you know what he's gonna say? He's gonna look at it randomly and say, oh, this makes sense. Mm-hmm. Know it makes sense. It's natural. Natural law.

42:44 And there's the full circle moment, Jim, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. When he actually studies it in depth. 'cause there's a lot of stuff in the book. Oh, for sure. Studies it and starts to use it and see how it affects his mind and affects his relationships. At some point he's gonna say, wow, this is big. Yeah. Yeah. And it's big. Yeah. Uh, I don't try to convince anybody. It's big. I just let people read the book. Yeah. Tell me how big it is. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. But, um, once you have something like this, it changes the whole way you think.

43:28 Now I should tell you now three ways in which this is valuable to anybody who takes advantage of it. Number one, I. Each of these 35 scales provides the reader with an infallible way of determining the salut ness or the beneficial ness of any group, individual or activity. If the group individual activity moves persons up the scale mm-hmm. It's crucial or positive. If it moves them down, it's detrimental or negative. Mm-hmm. So I'm giving you a yardstick by which to measure human phenomena, which is an early new thing.

44:09 Mm-hmm. More importantly, second thing. Mm-hmm. When you spot the level correctly, spot the level, whether it's on you or another person, right. You have a realization, right? 100% of the time. That's one of the ways that, you know, you spotted it correctly. Right? So you have a guy, his mother-in-law's driving him nuts. He gets this book, he says, you know, she's always trying to control us. Mm-hmm. What we should buy, what we should cook. Right. I'm gonna look at the scale of control and see.

44:49 Right. So he knows this woman because she's been a burden team for five years, and when he studies the chapter, he says, whoa, she's at level six on the scale of control. That explains her perfectly. Right. He may not be able to do anything about that in her. Right. But he understands her now. Right. Yeah. A new, yeah, a new level of understanding. Yeah. It's, it's just like cats and dogs, cat. Many people have cats, many people have dogs, many people have both. They're not the same. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you treat a cat the same way that you treat a, that cat will not like you.

45:35 Mm-hmm. You have to understand cats. Yeah. Yeah. Now, of course, every cat is unique and people who have cats will know that this cat, this cat is a little more this way, but still they have this thing in common. They're very different from dogs, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you can't expect a dog to behave like a cat. So when you are dealing with someone, is this person a cat or a dog? Mm-hmm. What are you dealing with, right? That is the question that gets answered by this book. So let me give you an analogy to tell you how clearly this makes sense.

46:19 Let's say you invite me to see your garden in Ottawa. I don't even know if you have a garden in Ottawa, but I'm into gardening. So you might say, Jim, come and look at my garden. Mm-hmm. So I go to Denise's house, right? And I walk in the garden and I'm going to say, oh, Denise has hydrangeas, irises, tulips, boons. Forget me. Nuts, roses. Now, the reason I can analyze it this way is I know a lot about flowers, right? Because I've been involved with them since I was a small boy. Mm-hmm. Now, if you want, I could advise you, I could say, these need a lot of sun and the people don't, these need a lot of water, but these don't, et cetera, et cetera.

47:06 Right? Because I know the subject. Now, if you bring some 5-year-old girl into your garden mm-hmm. She's going to see and smell exactly what I saw and smell. All she can say is, these are pretty, and they smell nice. Yeah. Love that. Yep. That's all she knows. Yeah. She doesn't know the, uh, the word hydrangea or scent. Right. Most adults are like that little girl regarding people they don't know what they're looking at. Very good. I love that. Thank you. And so, for example, a guy Friday night right.

47:49 He goes out to a bar to meet a girl. Right. So he goes to this bar and there he meets this young lady and he observes that she's nicely dressed. She's pretty. Mm-hmm. He talks to her, right, right. He notices, she smells nice and he thinks to himself, you know, this girl is pretty and she smells nice. I'm gonna get her. Right. Right, right. That's the same thing the little girl just said in your heart. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He has no idea what he's getting himself into. Yeah. She, he doesn't know if she's a gold digger. Mm-hmm. He doesn't know she's, uh, yeah. A drug dealer. He doesn't know if she's got bipolar disorder, doesn't Yep.

48:31 Knows nothing. Yep. For sure. Yeah. So, lemme tell you, when I was a young man, this data didn't exist because I hadn't even figured it out yet. Right. So I've made the same stupid mistakes that everybody else makes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And in retrospect, I look back, yeah. I never should have knew on, but I didn't know. Of course, now I know. So psychologically I let it all go. I don't even think about it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because it's not a mystery. Right, right. You know? I know, I know. I didn't get along with Gertrude. Right. And, and the good part about having this.

49:15 I'm not even gonna call it a book'cause it's way more than a book. Having this information in your life through STE allows you to be knowledgeable. Not like the little girl, but like the person who's been studying and loves flowers and does the gardening. You will get that when you access the information in the book that is available for you now. So thank you for that. Thank you for this conversation. I know. Our listeners, especially, I notice in our time of life in our midlife years, new things are cropping up with our physicality, life changes, children leaving the home.

50:09 What are we all about now as a result? All that stuff, what a great time to access this. Incredible, I don't even know what I wanna call it. A book doesn't give it enough emphasis as to what it really is. You know what I'm saying? System. Yeah. It's so. Make sure those listeners, make sure you check the show notes because we have access to how to find it, how to gather the information right, and it's all at your fingertips, all available for you, and you will open up new ways and new realizations that will change your life forever.

50:55 Right. Thank you. I wanna you, the thought that I was on before, of course, there were three things. I got to the second one. Oh, fair. Thank you. You have a realization every time you find you get smarter, once you know the correct level, either for yourself or another, you can improve that person by not one level on the scale. This is probably more significant than most people will realize. Mm-hmm. I have solved the gradient problem that has beveled mankind for 6,000 years, and let me tell you what I mean by that.

51:38 We all have problems and dilemmas in situations and that we can't resolve. Right. Right. More than 99% of the time is because we don't know the gradient. All experts in human development mm-hmm. Coaches, therapists, uh, facilitators, uh, understand teachers, they understand human development must be done on a gradient. Mm-hmm. Okay. You cannot make a couch potato into an Olympic athlete.

52:19 It cannot be done. There are eight or 10 intervening levels. Absolutely. Through Right. So I'm giving you the gradients. Yeah. I'm handing you the gradients on a silver platter across 35 axes. So each one of these scales is a formula for success. Love it. You find out where you are. Mm-hmm. You target yourself for the next level up and I can assure you, yeah. If you make a serious effort, you don't know how long it's gonna take, what you're gonna have to do. But if you make a serious effort, you will get to the next level up. You know why? It's the next level next. True.

53:01 That's how it works. If you are on the fourth floor, it's hard to get to the fifth floor. You up one by the stairs, you're there. Yeah. You take the elevator. Yeah. Right. So, so what you do is when you find your level, you target yourself for the next level up. You forget the rest of it. The other five levels are not relevant. Right. Dispose of them for now. Yep. Yep. Okay. Yep. And when you get to that next level, you will be an improved person and enhanced person. Mm-hmm. You'll be closer to where you want to be. Love that. And then you, once you are stabilized at that level, you can then target yourself for the next level next.

53:45 Mm-hmm. The reason why crash diets and crash exercise programs fail is they do not respect gradients. So a guy says, yeah, I'm, I gotta get in shape, I'm overweight, you know, and he goes, he joins the gym and he says he is all sore. And after two weeks he gives up do Steve gradient. Of course. Yeah. So I've worked as a personal trainer. When a guy comes to me, I have a long conversation with him. I, I watch him. Mm-hmm. I slowly moves and I make a guess. I say, alright, let's see if you can curl 15 pounds.

54:25 And I give him 15 pounds and I see him. Mm-hmm. Curl it right? I say, mm-hmm. Alright. So he's doing it. I say, well, how does that seem to you? He says, oh, this is easy. I can do this all day. Okay, fine. Stop. Right. 20 pounds, right? Mm-hmm. Right. How's that going? Oh, I can feel this. I, I can do maybe 13 of these. Okay. Stop. Mm-hmm. I want you to do 13 reps. Exactly. He sets on each arm every day, and at the end of the week we'll talk again. Right. Yeah. Love it. And I would say to him at the end of the week, how did you do with the curls? Mm-hmm. Says.

55:05 You know, this is pretty tough. I'm sore. And I said, all right, just keep doing it. Yeah, exactly. cause yeah, he's Okay, I can do this all day. Now I say, fine, let's go to 25 pounds. Finding the gradient. Right? Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That is what I did with my clients for 40 years. Mm-hmm. Comes in, he's at some level, right. He doesn't know what level he's at, but I find the gradient and I move him up to the next level. Yeah, yeah. And he'll get there because it's the next level, right? Exactly. Yeah. So, perfect. This is a revolutionary breakthrough in how you approach anything having to do with people.

55:49 Mm-hmm. Uh, and I have to tell you, this is very user friendly. 'cause I went through a lot of trouble. Right. Make this clear, for example. There is a glossary in front of not only every chapter, even in front of the introduction, there's a glossary. So I'm telling you, this is the specific definition of this word that I'm using in this context. Perfect. Yeah. No vagueness about this, right? As an engineer, I have a precise mark, and I'm making this precise. Sure. You know, scale of communication, honest about, I'm not exaggerating.

56:32 Just that one scale will completely change your whole life because you become a master of communication, right? Ronald Reagan was astonishingly successful. He was called the Great Communicator. That was his nickname. He was reelected in a landslide in 19 84, 49 states on the basis of his communication. Right? So. Somebody can say, well, alright, if you look up the word communication in dictionary, it's got like 35 different definitions. Which one are you using? Good question. I give you the specific one line definition.

57:15 This is what I mean. Okay, perfect. It means that. Mm-hmm. Good. And the whole book is like that. Then everything makes sense because everybody who's using this information is coming at it from that definition, not something they're thinking is different or so follow what is in black and white in the book and you will succeed in human. Interactions, human development knowledge for yourself and for those around you. Whether it's, like you said, it'd be even interesting to watch people IE, Walmart, target, wherever.

57:57 Mm-hmm. And just see, play with it and see what you learn through the opportunity to grow. Thank you so much, Jim, for this conversation. I know you've enriched my thinking and now I need to go and find the book. I will get the book and if I have questions, I might be tapping you on the keyboard. Hello, Jim. Okay. Help me clarify this one. I wanna say one good thing because I mentioned earlier that when I was a young man, I made the same stupid mistakes that everybody else makes. You know? Now I cannot convey to you how smooth my life is.

58:41 Hmm. My life is just like glass. 'cause I have no trouble with people. Mm-hmm. I open to somebody I see he's at or near the bottom of a certain scale. We are done. Right. I'm not, I just say, thank you very much. Have a nice day. Goodbye. Exactly. Yeah. And the exact opposite happens where I'll meet somebody, oh, this is an upscale person. This person is high in this scale, high in this scale. This is somebody I want in my life. This person is going to be an asset to me. Right. I use this all the time. So I'm sort of in this permanent state of surrounding myself with upscale people who I see are high on these scales.

59:24 Mm-hmm. And, and getting rid of the downscale people doesn't benefit you. Right. To keep those people in your sphere. Right. And so, and we don't know when our last breath is. So why spend our time and energy with something that doesn't bring us equilibrium or more, right? Yeah. I love it. So lemme tell you, I'm a single guy. About a year ago I met this gorgeous blonde statuesque. Mm-hmm. Glamorous, beautiful. Mm-hmm. Congen. And we were very interested in one another. Right?

1:00:05 So now we're going through the usual, getting to know you stuff. Sure. Movies, do you like what kind of music you listen to? What kind of restaurants? Mm-hmm. Right? And we had at least a half a dozen conversations along those lines, you know? Right. Early in the relationship. So we're having this conversation, I noticed, ah, she's low on this scale. Okay. Mm-hmm. Another conversation I was, ah, she's low on this other scale. We had another conversation and I was, ah, she's low in weight a minute. Wait a minute. The light bulb is going on over my head. If she, if I barely know her and I already found she's at or near the bottom of three, she's probably at or near the bottom of eight or 10 or 12 of these scales.

1:00:52 Right. Which means she's going to be a problem for me. Right. Not a match. Oh, look, we had no arguments. We had no disagreements. Mm-hmm. We had no bad words. Right. It was going along the way you wanted to go. Right, right, right. I know this material, and I said to her, of course, ass. Mm-hmm. No thanks. Yeah. She was shocked. Yeah. You know why she was so beautiful and glamorous. Mm-hmm. That I was probably the first girl I ever did, ever did that to her. Right. Yeah. I'm not talking about getting into a fight. I said, I'm talking about just Right.

1:01:33 Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she actually said to me, and I quote, who do you think you are? I did not say the perfect answer, which is, I'm the guy who knows sems. Yeah. You would've no idea what I was talking about. No, of course, of course. Yeah. But you see, I saved myself a lot of aggregate, a lot of Right. A lot of wasted time, a lot of right money, you know, a lot of pondering, you know? Yeah. She loves me, she loves me. Not, you know, all that. Right, of course. All of that. Yep.

1:02:13 And I do that all the time with people pro and con. Right? Of course. So, so it's very easy for me. Like, for example, my house was wrecked in a storm. Mm-hmm. And I found a lawyer. Okay. I could see that this lawyer was an upscale lawyer. You know, some lawyers are dopey and incompetent. I don't know if you know that, but this guy I could see, oh, this is, mm-hmm. Right. I signed up with him. We filed a lawsuit. I got all my money. Everything worked. Yeah. We both got our money, you know, and that's like typical of how things go for me now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because people tell you their levels.

1:02:57 Right, right. Not, mm-hmm. Just shut up and listen. Yeah. Yeah. Pay attention. The person will tell you, you know, like, I actually know somebody who gratuitously told me several different times. All men are beasts. Okay. That's level five. On the scale of thought, that's thinking and identities. Mm-hmm. Who's identifying all men with all other men? Okay. Right. Right. That tells me this person can't think that's a low level of thought. Right. Right. Yeah, for sure. That tells me, am I gonna try to have a conversation with this person about chau or a spangler?

1:03:46 Mm-hmm. No. Yeah. 'cause this person can't think, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you hear this stuff all the time, you know? Mm-hmm. All truths are bad. That's staffy. Yeah. Yeah. It's thinking in equality identity, right? Yeah. Yeah. That is no way to think. No, no. Somebody who's more upscale will say, will differentiate, will say, yeah, well maybe some Jews are bad, but I know some real good ones. Seems differentiating. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Higher level of thought. Mm-hmm. So. I just listen to people and they tell me these things Exactly.

1:04:26 Right away. Yeah. Somebody I'm gonna mess with. Now realize it depends on the context. Mm-hmm. For example, I have this guy who works on my vehicles who's like, what I would call a, a mechanical genius. Mm-hmm. He works on racing cars. Mm-hmm. Million dollar cars. Okay. Right, right. He, he is a true expert. He's the only person who touches my car. Mm-hmm. Anything with my car goes right over there. Right. Put me the bill and on top of that, I know he's honest because several times I went and I said, you know, my car is going.

1:05:06 Yeah, yeah. Thought that'll go away. Yeah. So I have no problem. Right. Take it right over there. He fixes it. Pay the bill, whatever it is. So that's like a whole area of stress that doesn't exist for me. Exactly. Yeah. Your life is more enriched because of it. People get in VD with crooked mechanics. Mm-hmm. You know, there are mechanics who will break your car and then tell you that was wrong with your car and it's gonna cost you$3,000 to Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There are such people. Mm-hmm. So, you know, that's just like one tiny iota of my life for sure. Yeah. And like my whole life is like that now.

1:05:48 Mm-hmm. Where I know, okay, do I want to have a conversation with this person about this thing or not? Like, like if someone Yeah. Works on my garden. Yeah. I want him to know, I wanna know this guy knows what he's doing, he's gonna do the job. I don't care how literate he is. That's a different scale. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So it's very useful, practical. Use it. That's why I don't use people, use it. Perfect. Jim, thank you so much for this time space, brilliance conversation. Um, like I say, I'm getting the book and we'll see what scale jumps out at me first and what I see is my starting point.

1:06:37 'cause there is no finish line in my opinion. It's always about learning and growing. So thank you for this opportunity. We really appreciate what you've put together and I appreciate the amount of time that it's taken because of your desire to ensure it is exactly the way it needs to be for us to be able to receive it and use it. So thank you so much. You are welcome, make, make sure that you check the show notes. We have all the information in there that you can find. Ste find where Jim is and if you liked this episode, you liked the show, please follow, share and give us those reviews.

1:07:27 Thank you again, Jim, for your time, energy, and brilliance. Have a wonderful rest of your day.