Jim Marshall

Jim Marshall discovered an unknown natural phenomena, which greatly aid in the understanding of people, from which he created a revolutionary practical philosophic system and published it in a very well received book called Septemics: Hierarchies of Human Phenomena. You can find his content via his website septemics.com.

Transcript

Intro Song

Rob Valincius: We are live on a very cold, snowy day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Uh, my name is Rob Valincius. I am the host of the Drink O'Clock podcast, and I have the pleasure of having with me Jim Marshall. Now, Jim, I would list all the things that you have, you know, specialties in, but, you know, that's probably a whole other podcast.

Um, but you know, I guess the short story is, is you discovered an unknown natural phenomenon. You did a ton of, which, uh, greatly would aid in understanding people, which obviously is, as a human, we're always, I think, trying to understand each other. Um, and then from that, you created a philosophic system, um, and you published a book, um, and it's well received.

I saw some of your reviews. I read your, you know, your couple intros and stuff on your website called, um, Septemics, Hierarchies of Human Phenomena. Welcome to the podcast.

Jim Marshall: Thanks Rob. Glad to be here.

Rob Valincius: So I guess, um, my, my initial, uh, question to people that I interview to give us a bit of a background is, can you, can you talk to me a little bit about growing up, you know, what, um, what led you into that, that question mark of what are. What is a person outside of what we see, right? It seems like that's a lot of what your, um, beliefs in a lot of the stuff that you have out is, is kind of like under the shell of people.

And, and, you know, I guess they're, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? They're, uh, predictability. To do certain things and all that. So talk to me about growing up a little bit and you don't have to go to specifics, but tell me what got you to where you were.

Jim Marshall: Okay, so first I want to say I have no beliefs of any kind.

Rob Valincius: Okay.

Jim Marshall: Uh, beliefs are only necessary when knowledge is absent. Either I have knowledge of something or I don't. So none of this is about beliefs. Um, the acceleration of gravity near the surface of the earth is 9. 8 meters per second per second.

That is a fact. It's not an opinion. It's not a belief. Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant. That is what it is. That is called science and we engineers Walk on a floor of science and then we use mathematics to make calculations So that we can devise things that actually work, which is what my whole career has been about So to answer your question I have no memory of a time when I was not intensely interested in learning everything taught in every university Now, of course, that's impossible because we don't live that long, but I did go to, but I did go to school for 28 years and was an honor and scholarship student the whole way.

Uh, and if I thought I was going to live another 30 or 40 years, I probably would go back to school. Uh, and it almost wouldn't matter what the subject is. Uh, because, yeah, because as a, as a polymath, to me, it's all one big blob. Uh, you know, I know a couple of dozen subjects at an expert level, and to me in my mind now, they're all integrated.

That's why I was able to discover septemics, because of my polymathic perception of reality, and also because of my unusual career as a human development engineer. So, growing up, uh, I can still remember the exact moment at age 10 when I first found out that some children didn't like school. I was shocked! How could that be? That was like a dramatically new concept to me. I loved school. I was excited every day to take my briefcase and go in and learn about trigonometry or a blink in or geography or whatever it was. And I did very well with all of it because I was intensely interested. Uh, so that's sort of who I am as a person.

I was one of those irritating little kids who wants to know how everything works. So as like at three, I wanted to know how does the refrigerator work? How does the air conditioner work? How does the car work? How does the furnace work? And now at that time, of course, I didn't understand. Now I understand all those things.

But you know, I, I always want and I'm still like that. I still want to know how does it work? Uh, and that drove me to spend most of my life creating What now is known as septemics.

Rob Valincius: So can you, can you break, can you just kind of explain to my listeners? Cause I, I, um, I have seen the word before, but I honestly didn't know really much about it until I, uh, was doing research on you. What is at, at its base, what is polymathic mean?

Jim Marshall: Okay, a polymath means literally, uh, many knowledge. So, a polymath is a person who is astute in multiple disparate subjects. There aren't too many.

Rob Valincius: So. So, so, so you found that there was not one subject in school that you gravitated towards? It was just, you just loved everything?

Jim Marshall: That's right. Uh

Rob Valincius: That, that's, that's why, see, I, I, I, I I'm definitely not polymathic and like, uh, there's, there's, um, subjects I grabbed like psychology was, I wanted to be a psychologist and I probably would have if I, if I had different financial situations when I was younger, cause I paid for all my own schooling.

So I was like, all right, I'm going to get my degree, but I can't continue to go. I got to make money. So, um, I probably would have continued that because for me, I just love. I love the psychological aspect of the human being. I love learning about why people do what they do. I'm fascinated with, um, sociopaths and psychopaths.

I mean, it's, obviously I know a lot of people are, but I like, I really like to learn about, well, why, why do you think? And that, I was always good with those, I'll never forget this, but My psychology classes, I guess a lot of psychology classes in college where you didn't have a lot of, you know, ABCD, right?

It was like, all right, this person has this going on and this going on. Diagnose them. What do you think it is? And it was a paragraph answer and I loved those questions.

Jim Marshall: huh.

Rob Valincius: Because I would always get, I would always get those right because I, I knew the subject really well, especially if I liked it, you know, um, and in, in, um, Western civilization, I was big in it to that type of history.

And, um, you know, so there were certain topics I gravitate towards and those were always the classes that I did really, really well. And because I just, I let you, when you love what you're learning, it's, it's easy to, to remember when you're taking a test, you know,

Jim Marshall: Right.

Rob Valincius: um, now, you know, Do you, do you find that it's, it's easy or hard to know, to be an expert in, in all of those things?

Like, did you find out that it was just easy growing up and that it was, you didn't understand why it was harder for other people?

Jim Marshall: Well, let me try to parse your question

Rob Valincius: Okay.

Jim Marshall: now that I am an expert in these subjects. It's very easy for me. Garnering the knowledge is a lot of work. So through most of my life, while other people were playing video games, something I've never done, playing golf, something I've never done, uh, going on cruises, something I've never done, et cetera, et cetera.

I was studying or researching or meditating. That's what I was doing most of my life. So, for example, uh, when I was in college, I took the maximum load, which was 18 credits, but then evenings, the weekends, I would study other things outside the college with, with other educational organizations. So, uh, now, of course, it's work, you know, learning is work, uh, and the more detail you want in it, the more depth you want in it, the harder the work is.

So it wasn't easy getting there, but it's very easy being here,

Rob Valincius: That makes sense. I mean, that makes sense when you cut out a lot of these, it's the same thing with being an entrepreneur, right? It's like your business can be very successful, but it dictates. How much time and effort you put into it, you know, um, when you water a plant every day and you do stick with it Eventually it grows, you know, sometimes it's not a excuse me.

It's not a fast thing either So I appreciate you know people that put the time in the working, you know

Jim Marshall: right?

Rob Valincius: So, let's talk about Septemics. Can you, can you break down the, the basics of what that is and kind of how that came to be?

Jim Marshall: Sure, well, Septemics is, you realize there's several questions there, and I'll get to all of them. Septemics is a philosophical science. based on the fact that many phenomena related to humans occur in a sequence of seven levels. Literally, the word Septimus means of or pertaining to seven. Septimus comprises a collection of scales or sequences, each of which breaks down various human phenomena into a hierarchy of seven steps.

There are 35 such scales, each of which is unique, and together they span the spectrum of human experience. By which I mean any problem, dilemma, difficulty, situation that any person has and that has anything to do with people can successfully be analyzed by one or more of these scales, usually more than one.

Rob Valincius: Interesting, okay.

Jim Marshall: Now, as far as how I, how I got to it, that's a longer story. The story really begins. Uh, when I was accepted into engineering school at the age of 16 now, I thought, of course, at the time that I was going to be engineering physical things, as did all the other students, airfoils, motors, electrons and such.

But by the time I had my bachelor's degree, it was clear to me that 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 are failing miserably, 95 percent of the difficulties. In industrialized society are because people don't understand, people don't understand the wife, don't understand, the boyfriend, don't understand the next door neighbor, don't understand the boss, don't understand the employee, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

This is vast. It goes in all directions, and Semex solves that problem across 35 axes. In other words, there's 35 different ways of slicing it. So if you can't get at with can't at it with this one, you get at it with this one.

Rob Valincius: Okay.

Jim Marshall: Uh, so the, there are 24 scales, which I call individual scales that apply primarily to an individual and 11 scales, which I call group scales, which apply primarily to a group.

If I may, I'd like to tell you the names of those scales. It only takes about a minute, and then you'll know exactly what subject matter is in the book.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, hit me.

Jim Marshall: Okay, these are the individual scales. The scale of base of 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, 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 skills by itself could dramatically improve the life of the person. And let me give you an example of how that could work.

Rob Valincius: I was gonna ask you to, to, to provide an example. I think that would help.

Jim Marshall: Right. So I mentioned the scale of motivation. One of the most important things to know about a person is motivation. That's how the police solve crimes. They look for someone with a motive. You know, like, this guy is killed, they say, well, this guy stands to gain nothing at all from this, so we're not going to investigate him.

But wait a minute, there's a half million dollar life insurance policy, and the wife is the beneficiary, who becomes a suspect. Now, she might not have done it, but that's how they proceed. And that's how they solve crimes, they look for, they start with the motive, and they go from there. Now, when you're dealing with somebody, one of the most important things to know is why is this person doing this?

Why is he behaving it this way? What is his motivation? So, you could take this one scale, and you could ask yourself, What is my motivation toward my mother? What is my motivation toward my father? What is my motivation toward my brother? What is my motivation toward my sister? Et cetera, et cetera. You could do this on everyone, you know, and everyone you have ever known.

So you could use it the specific way, three, four or 500 times, depending on how many people, you know, then you could reverse the vector and say, what is my boss's motivation toward me? What is my pastor's motivation toward me? What is my girlfriend's motivation toward me, et cetera, et cetera. and use it another two or three or four hundred different ways. So, you have to realize, and this goes into one of the axioms of the subject, every time you correctly spot any person, be it yourself or another, on any scale, you have a realization. So you say, what is my mother's motivation toward me? So, you look at it and say, ah, I see, it's level four. That explains a lot.

And you'll have a realization. You'll say, That's why she said that. See, that's like a little realization. Then you go to your father. And you'll have a realization. So, if you just did this one exercise I just described, every time you did it, you would have a realization. So your mind, just from doing this, would be greatly clarified.

Because you would know your motivation toward everybody you've ever known, and their motivation toward you. And that is a big thing to know. So, but you have to realize, there has to be, there are 35 different scales. And so, which one you choose to use, tells you a lot.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: Okay, so, so for example, uh, after you spot your mother's motivation, I'm sorry my computer is telling me to do some things here, which I'm not interested in, uh, after you find that.

Oh. That's where she is in the scale of motivation. Then you might say, hmm, I wonder where she is on the scale of control. So you look it up, and you go through the same thing. You spot her on the scale of control. See, because you've been hanging around with her your whole life, you know her. So once you've studied the materials, it's not hard to get. It's like if I ask you, what color is the apple you have? You look at it, you say, well, it's red. See, you know it because you have it. If I say to you, what color is an apple? You can't answer that because you don't know which apple I mean.

Rob Valincius: It's true.

Jim Marshall: Okay, so, so, see, then you might say, ah, that explains why she's a control freak.

She's a level five in the scale of control. Oh, I wonder where she is in the scale of attack. And then you look at the scale of, Oh, she's at level five on the scale of attack. That explains why she does X, Y, and Z. Every time you spot it, you have a realization. That's one of the ways you know you found the right level. If you don't have a realization, it means you didn't find the right level. So that's very helpful to you in getting the right answer.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: Yeah. So that's kind of how this works. That's like a very,

Rob Valincius: Top down overview.

Jim Marshall: tiny, very tiny sliver of what this is about.

Rob Valincius: Now, how did you I'd imagine there was a lot of Thought process put into this. So how did you, uh, come up with those, those 35 scales and this, the seven levels? Was this something that just kind of, you just kind of kept adding and then you're like, you know what? Okay. There's, there's no more scales because I feel like the, this encompasses the

Jim Marshall: I'll tell you. I actually already started answering that question. Because when I told you that, when I, I realized I wanted to engineer the human psyche. So I had a long, successful career as a human development engineer, working one on one with hundreds of clients of every description for cumulatively many thousands of hours.

All of my clients improved as a result of our interaction. Incidentally, I started to notice I could predict the outcome of the session. I never told this to anyone, but I made notes. And as the decades rolled by, I came to be aware that the client Without his realizing it would be at a specific level on a specific scale that I had previously observed and as a result of our interaction, he would go to the next level up. Now that happened thousands and thousands of times. I don't know how many thousands of times over a 40 year period. Sometimes it would happen 8 or 10 times in the same session.

Rob Valincius: Wow.

Jim Marshall: Well, so every time that happened, it verified my hypothesis because the clients knew nothing about this. They didn't know how I was doing what I was doing, what I was thinking, what I was writing down, what I was observing.

All they knew was they came to me with something they wanted handled and I handled it. Guy comes to me, says, Jim, you know, I have this drinking problem. Can you help me with that? I say, sure. So we get in the session and we work on it, you know. And then. After a certain period of time, he says, Ah, now I see why I drink.

It's because of bop a da bop a da bop a da bop a. See, now he has a handle on it. That's all they knew. They were getting better.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: All this other stuff behind it, all the stuff that I knew and the engineering techniques and everything, they didn't know anything about that. I was there to help the person. And because the person had a problem or a difficulty or an unwanted condition, he was very interested in telling me about it.

And I could guide him right into a solution for it and resolve it. So, I was just writing down these observations that I had. See, Joe, oh, he's at this level, and we worked together and he went up to that level. And then I would find Fred, and he would be at that same level and go up to the same level. So after a while, I realized this was a pattern.

I wrote these down. Now, by 1995, I had about 32 scales of varying lengths. They varied between 3 and 7. And, again, I had never discussed this with anybody. It was just direct observation. There's no theory of septemics. This is just me seeing what's there and writing it down. So one day I had, I had a six level scale that by then I absolutely knew was correct.

And I was pondering a difficult client and I realized that that client was at a level on that scale that I had not previously observed. In other words, that six level scale actually had a seventh level. And when I saw that I had a big realization and I, as soon as I saw it, it was, I knew immediately where it fit in the scale.

And when I inserted that seventh level into the sixth level scale, that scale then manifested mathematically. Now let me tell you what I mean by that. I took 26 semesters of math and loved every minute of it. Math is a very real thing to me. It's not vague. It's not an abstract thing that you just do with a pencil and paper.

I see it in, in front of me all the time. And anybody who really understands math, You know, they say math is the handmaiden of science. So those of us in science and engineering were covered with math all the time. See whether or not we're, we're running formulas or not, it's there. And when you're thinking about how am I going to construct this?

See, you're thinking about that ahead of time. How am I going to fix this? It's embedded with math. So I saw this. And what happened was these data jumped out at me, and at that moment, it went from being a scale, which is a line, to a plane, meaning a whole body of data. In other words, it now had depth to it.

And there were all of these interlocking, intersecting mathematical factors. That just presented themselves and I looked at this and I said, whoa, I found something here I don't know what this is. But whatever the hell it is, it has to be natural law

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: it's got mathematics embedded in it like for example the Fibonacci sequence So then I thought hmm I wonder how many of these other scales that I have are actually seven level scales that had not been developed all the way, because you have to realize I wasn't developing anything. I was just helping my clients and making notes for my own illumination. So, knowing what I was looking for, I then studied all these other scales. And to make a long story short, they all developed into seven level scales, and as each one did, it manifested mathematically. So now I have 32 seven level scales all around human phenomena, each of which had mathematics embedded in them. And I said, this looks like a new subject to me, because I went to school for 28 years and I never saw anything like this.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: So then I thought, wait a minute. I could go from helping people by the hundreds, which is what I had been doing as you were a development engineer, to helping people by the millions, if I put this in a book and get it out so people can have it, so I'm going to have to write a book, so the first draft was finished in December of 95.

And I sent it out in a transcript form to colleagues of mine, all of whom had graduate degrees in a variety of subjects. And they all responded very positively, very enthusiastically, and that told me that this was exactly what I thought it was, which is a new subject that could really help people. Because it's natural law, it's not counterintuitive. This is easy to get. You look at it and say, yeah, I get this. This makes sense. So, a few people have asked me, what book is your book like? And I have to tell them in all candor, being a well read person, I don't think there's ever been a book like this before, at least on earth.

But, each one of these 35 scales is expressed in what you'd call a table, or a spreadsheet. And each one of those tables is comparable to the periodic table of elements. Now, before Dostoevsky invented the periodic table of elements, there was chemistry, but he revolutionized it. Making it easier to learn, easier to teach, easier to understand.

Because he took all the elements and put them in the right order, horizontally and vertically. Hydrogen is first, helium comes second, lithium is third, et cetera, et cetera. It goes down horizontally and vertically. It all makes perfect sense. I think he had 79 elements at the time. Now we have well over 100.

And it works, we just keep fitting them in there. Now every science classroom and textbook on earth has the periodic table in it because it's It's manifestly true, it's inescapable, and I can absolutely guarantee you, when we get to advanced planets, we're going to find that they have the periodic table of elements, because you cannot advance without it, they're going to have the three laws of motion that Newton gave us.

They'll have it in a different language, but they'll have it, and that will be an entree for us immediately to start translating our languages to their language. Because we'll look at the periodic table, and we say hydrogen, and they say shurig be bob.

Rob Valincius: Yep.

Jim Marshall: Well, we have a translation. See? You go through the whole periodic table.

And then it will be very easy to get to the idea of atomic number. They'll have something that says atomic number. You see? Oh, okay. See, and now we can, so this book is natural law. It's based on natural law. Now, if it weren't based on natural law, I wouldn't have released the book. I wouldn't have even written the book.

Now, let me tell you something. This book has been out. In some form or another for 29 years, so I have been watching people respond to it for 29 years. People get it. They get it. You don't have to have a college degree to understand this because it's natural law. It's like, you remember the first time you saw the Pythagorean theorem, you were maybe 12 or 13, right?

And this, okay, and you're, oh, yeah, I see this. This makes sense. A squared plus b squared equals c squared, you know, and, and you can express it in other ways, and you've got it for life,

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: and, you know, it fits in geometry, it fits in algebra, it's very useful to you,

Rob Valincius: Algebra was my favorite. Like, I wasn't a mathematician, I'll tell you that. But algebra was the one math that clicked for me. And I was very, very good at it. Very good at it. Sucked at geometry. Couldn't do Like, there was certain math I just was not good at. But for some reason, algebra, I just got it, and I was very good at it.

Jim Marshall: must have had a good teacher,

Rob Valincius: I don't know about now. Uh, I haven't done algebra in many years. But

Jim Marshall: you'll get right back

Rob Valincius: It just, it's, yeah, it's, it's one of those, uh, there was a couple, um, of those in high school that I remember. And I, I did have a couple pretty good teachers throughout the way. And I think teachers are so important. They really are.

Because at the end of the day, like, if you, you know, I'm 30, I'll be 39 this year. Um, if, if I'm still remembering you from 25 years ago. teach me something. You had a vast, you were good at your job. You had a vast amount of, um, you were just better than the rest of my damn teachers. Cause some of them were not, not great at what they did for sure. And some of the harder teachers, although I didn't like them because they were harder, sometimes I tended to learn a little bit better from them as well because of the way that they presented the knowledge. It's just some teachers back then just didn't, maybe they were, you know. Working for the school for 20 years, and they're just like I'll fuck this man You know like they're they're like here with their they're just waiting to get there You know and retire at that point, but I had a Spanish teacher.

His name was dr. Watt and He was like the coolest. He was one of the coolest. He was probably at the time In his, like, late 60s, early 70s. And the guy just loved Spanish. Just loved it. And he made you like Spanish. He would, he would play, um, uh, hip hop, well not hip hop, but like R& B songs. Like, but it was in the Spanish version.

Jim Marshall: Huh?

Rob Valincius: it would just, it would get us, like, into it, because we would know something, like, popular, um, Spanish songs that people knew, you know, but they didn't know what those words meant. And, uh, He would even test us on, on that stuff. And I still know some of that stuff now because he was a great teacher, man.

And, um, hopefully I wish we had more of that. I don't think you get it as much. Maybe it's different now because you haven't been in, been in school in a little while, but, uh, you

Jim Marshall: Oh, it's worse now. So it's, school system has been deteriorating steadily.

Rob Valincius: That bad, you know, um, I finished my degree online, um, because I, I, it got to a point where I wasn't getting more aid and I just had to, I was working like 50 hours, 60 hours a week when I was 23. So, um, it was difficult for me to work. I was basically working full time and then on the two days off I had, I was, I was going to school.

For eight hours each day. So like I, it was, I was getting burnout. So I eventually I finished my degree when I turned 30, I went back. Uh, I got my degree in it cause I was, I'm a, I'm a computer guy, man. I, for me. There's something about building a computer. I don't like the, I don't like the software side of it.

I hate it. I hate all of it. I hate Java. I hate all that stuff. But building a computer, I could do it for hours and not even realize it. It just, you know, you know where things are supposed to go. It just clicks, you know, and you can always Guarantee that if you build it right, it's going to work. It's going to turn on, you know, and there's something to that for me.

I don't know what it is, but I, I love it. I could do it if I can. I'm sure I can make it a job, but if I can make it a job, I probably would do that and be so happy doing it.

Jim Marshall: live in a world built by engineers now. These devices that we're talking through came from engineers. The refrigerator, the air conditioner, the water softener, the engineers created all of that. Uh, that is the world we live in now. Now, if you go back 400 years, wasn't true. Most of life was not.

Created by engineers. It was organic. It was trees and dirt and cows and, and fences made from logs, you know? So that's, so I just took all of this and focused it toward human affairs. Let me tell you how this is beneficial to people

Rob Valincius: Yeah. Hit me.

Jim Marshall: in general way, without getting into specifics. I wrote this book to help people.

I've had a lifetime of helping people. Each of these 35 scales provides the user with an infallible way of determining the salutariness or beneficialness of any group individual activity. If the group individual activity moves Persons up the scales, it's beneficial or positive. If it moves them down, it's detrimental or negative.

So I'm giving you a yardstick by which to measure human affairs, which is an entirely new thing. More importantly, as I suggested before, just finding out what level you or another person is at on any scale is by itself inherently beneficial and enlightening. Every time you spot it correctly, you have a little epiphany or a realization or an insight.

And therefore, this is really powerful, because it absolutely undercuts depression and anxiety. And I could go into that more later, how that works. The specificity of it dispels those things, because you understand. So let's say you have a guy who's having big problems with his wife, right? So he gets this book, he analyzes her across all 35 axes.

He knows where she is now on every scale. He now understands her better than she understands herself. depression or anxiety he had about her is gone. Now, he understands this. And again, I could break this down on a granular level as to exactly how that works, but let me get back to the subject. Once you know the actual level of a person, on any scale, you can then improve that person by moving them up one level. This is monumentally significant. I have solved the gradient problem that has bedeviled mankind for 6, 000 years. And let me tell you what I mean by that. Most people have problems, dilemmas, situations, difficulties, et cetera, and they can't resolve them.

Rob Valincius: Yep.

Jim Marshall: the reason for that, the reason for that. More than 99 percent of the time is they don't know the gradient. All good teachers, therapists, coaches, facilitators, etc. know that human development must be done on a gradient. So you talked about algebra, right? So a good algebra teacher, he knows the gradients for teaching algebra.

That's his area of expertise. He knows, first he has to tell you what a variable is. See, we have this quantity, but we don't know what it is, and so it can vary, so we're going to call it x. It's called a variable. Oh, see, that's lesson number one. Then it goes to two. Then we have an equation. That means we have something on one side and an equal sign and something on the other side, and they both have the same value, see, and we can manipulate those.

That's what algebra is about. See? That's gradients. So, I've been involved in education from the age of three to this very day. And I've learned an awful lot about how to learn and how to teach. It's all about gradients. So, I still have students, and I focus absolutely on the student. Not on the subject matter, not on me, on the student. What does he understand, what does he not understand? I watch him like a hawk. Has he got this? Okay, you didn't do that right, let's go back and do it again. Then I look at it, okay, the reason you're not doing this right is you're not executing this thing over here. Oh, I see, see, so it's very analytical.

Finding the gradient for the student. So that's what I did for my clients for 40 years. I would find the gradient and then move the guy up to the next level. So for example, I've worked as a physical trainer. If a guy comes to me and says, Jim, I'm a hundred pounds overweight. I can't figure out how to take care of this.

Will you train me? I say, okay, I'll train you. So I'm not going to just tell this guy, here's a hundred pound barbell, go lift this, or go out on five miles. That's malpractice. First, I would interview the guy, try to size him up, and try to estimate what I thought he might be able to do. Right? So I make a guess.

This guy looks like he can curl 15 pounds. So I give him 15 pounds and say, let's see you curl this, show him what I will curl this. Right? So he's curling it now. Right? All right. So. And as he's doing it, I'm saying, how are you doing? He says, this is very easy for me. I could do this all day. OK, fine, stop.

Let's try 20 pounds. Give him 20 pounds. He says, all right, now I'm feeling it. Yeah, I can do about 12 or 13 of these. OK, good, stop. I want you to do 12 on each arm, three sets every day. And at the end of the week, we'll talk again. And at the end of the week, I'd say to him, how did you do? Now, if he says to me.

Oh, I'm sore. This is tough. I'm having a tough, I say, fine. Just keep doing it. If he said, you know, I think I could do more than 12 reps. Fine. All right, let's try 15. See, I'm finding the gradient for the guy. So he's moving forward. And I've done this as a coach and as a facilitator, as a human development engineer.

You have to find the gradient. So that is what these scales are. They are the gradients for those 35 areas that I explained. So I talked about the periodic table. Each one of these scales is expressed in what you could call a table. And each of those tables is the periodic table for the corresponding subject.

So the scale of basic purposes has a periodic table and it all fits together horizontally and vertically, and it's all natural law. So when you look at it, it makes sense. So that's what this is about. So find the person's at, let's say, level 5. And you target him for level 4. Now, if he tries to get to level 1 or 2 or 3 from level 5, he will fail, because it's too steep a gradient. But if he tries to get to level 4, he will get there, because it's the next thing up. So if a guy's on the third, if a guy's on the third floor, I say, go to the fourth floor. He can do that. You know why? He's on the third floor.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: Now, if I'm going to tell him to go to the fifth floor, he has to go through the fourth floor to get there.

See? So I'm giving you, I'm giving you the gradients. So each one of these scales is a roadmap for success in the corresponding area. And what I found is these areas are major areas for people, like, uh, the scale of equanimity. Nothing is more important in a person than equanimity. When people get in trouble, it's because they lack equanimity.

You know, a guy says to you, you're an idiot. You say, oh, yeah, you punch him in the nose. You're manifesting a lack of equanimity. See, if you had more equanimity, you would say, Okay, why do you say that? And he goes, Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion. See, you're maintaining your equanimity because you're at a high level on that scale.

If you're at a low level, you react. That's how you get in trouble.

Rob Valincius: So, so, now, this is, obviously, this is all mathematics, right? Um, so, there would not be any sort of subjectiveness to this,

Jim Marshall: That's right.

Rob Valincius: Um, so, how would, um, if I'm doing this on my own, and I buy your book, and I, I look at the scale of equanimity, how would I grade myself based on, on what you outlined?

Jim Marshall: Okay, so first of all, let me tell you how this works. You would look at it, right? You would look at it and you say, I'm not sure I know what equanimity is. Well, I give you the definition right there.

Rob Valincius: Okay.

Jim Marshall: Oh, okay. I get what it is. Right? Now when you look at it, it has components to it. Different parts that fit together. And those parts are going to make sense to you. Just like the Pythagorean theorem, or the formula for a circle. You know, once you see pi r squared, Ah, there's a value pi, 3. 14 blah blah blah, to infinity. We don't know what it is. But you can calculate using that to whatever number of decimal places you want.

If you want to calculate it to 40 decimal places. You can do that. Not many people do that, but you could do that if you want, because we have those, it's not hard to grasp. You see? So when you look at it, you know who you are, right? You've been living with yourself for however many decades. So you're going to look at it, right?

And you're going to read it. And here's what's going to happen. Within a matter of seconds, you will find a bracket bracket. You will say something, possibly saying it to yourself, like, Well, I can see that one or two don't apply to me. That's, that's way beyond me. I don't, I don't even get that. See, you got to count to five. Just at first blush. Then you go ahead and read the text. When you read the text, there's granular explication of what this is, how it works, what to look for, how it manifests. So you get to like level four. This guy is describing me. Yeah, that's how I am. So you go back and, yeah, I'm at level four. And when you spot that, you'll have a realization.

You'll say, that explains why. I can do this and this and these other people can't do it. Or that explains why, uh, I have trouble with this guy and this guy. You'll have realizations right away from that. And as you go forward, you'll have more and more of them. So then, you're getting a little bit smarter.

So then you decide, I'm gonna look at another scale. Let's say the scale of choice. Now, the wisdom that you garnered from the scale of equanimity comes with you when you go to the scale of choice. You know yourself a little better. So it's going to be easier and you'll go through that same process.

You'll find a bracket, you'll study it and you'll have a real, ah, I see. I'm at level three. That explains why about, but about, but about, but about, see, so the more you use this, the more insight you have, as you become more insightful, it becomes easier to use it because you bring that insight with you to the subsequent. So this is a virtuous cycle where the more you use it, the easier it is to use. The easier it is to use, the more you use it.

Rob Valincius: So, so, it's almost like a, um, it's basically a mathematical scale of It's almost like a mathematical personality scale to a certain degree. Right? It's almost like, um, you know, if I know I'm a level two, um, you can also say to yourself, well, how do I get myself to a level three? Right? So it gives you almost like a, a number goal to hit.

Jim Marshall: So let, so let, so let me, let me answer that, because you asked the first time. So, the highest level is 1, the lowest level is 7. So if you're at level three, you're going to want to move yourself up to level two.

Rob Valincius: Okay.

Jim Marshall: here's why it's not hard. As I said, it's the next thing. Because it's the next thing, it's not hard to get there.

You look at it and you say, Oh, I see what I have to do. Okay, let's get busy. And that is part and parcel of engineering. What is the next thing? You know, like if somebody gives me an amplifier, says, Fix my amplifier. Okay. So I check all the tubes. All the tubes work. Okay, let's check something else. Let's check the power supply.

Ah, there's a break in the power supply. Pull it out, put in a new power supply. Works perfectly. See,

Rob Valincius: Boom.

Jim Marshall: I'm going forward stepwise, finding the correct thing. So now, see, the first question I asked wasn't the right one, but you have to start somewhere. So then this amp is now fixed. So it's the next thing you see, if you got to the power supply, you fix the power supply and now it's still didn't work.

I said, let me check the condensers. See, you start testing, go, ah, it's got a bad condenser, pull it out, put it in, now it's fixed. See? So, you're, you're going to the next step. Now, this, people sort of do this naturally. The problem is they don't have these skills. So, you know, a guy, you say you meet some girl at a party, right, you're at a party and you start chatting, you say, oh, she's, he's an attractive person, we're getting along, you know.

So, well, the next step is, well. Why don't we get together for coffee? See, that's like the next step. She says, okay. Right? So now you meet for coffee and you chat, you know, and now you're sort of at the level of what do you like to do on your free time? See, it's like the next thing. And people sort of do

Rob Valincius: to dinner, you know, and yeah.

Jim Marshall: That's right. May I take you to dinner? Sure! Okay. One of your free. See, it's the next thing. So it's just that when, you know, these scales, see, I already know from a lifetime of study that these scales are correct, meaning they are accurate. They're precise and they're specific. There is no vagueness here.

And I want to assure your listeners, this is not like studying math. I went out of my way. to make the math as little present as possible. It's inherent in the material itself, but not in the way I present it. So the way you experience this when you study this, It's not like you're studying math. It's like you're looking at yourself in a mirror. You put on your glasses, or you pick up a lens like Sherlock Holmes. You know, he's going around with a lens all the time. Let me look at this. You look at yourself. Ah, I see. So you look at this photograph. Ah, this girl has blue eyes, I didn't realize that before, see, because you have this lens now. And that's what this does for you, so when you look at a person, you have this lens, so your perception is enhanced, and because your perception is enhanced, it's not hard to see what level they're at once you know the levels.

Now, you know the person is at this level. If you want to help them, you get them to go up to the next level. And that is monumentally important because it is the gradient. It's the next thing. See, just like that guy, you know, he's doing 12 reps three times, three sets of 12 reps. He says, this is getting easy.

I said, okay, let's try 15 reps. He says, oh, now this is, by the time I get to 15, this is tough. Okay. Just keep doing it. See, it's the next thing. So I'm giving you the next thing for these 35 areas of life. And you will find, if you study this material, that I have covered human phenomena.

Rob Valincius: Now, would you say that Septemics can apply to everybody?

Jim Marshall: Yes, and let me give you a caveat on that. If you can read English reasonably well, and you want to improve yourself or others, this book is for you. If you can't read English, you can't read this book, because it's in English. But also if you have no interest in improving yourself or others, this book is not for you.

So there's all kinds of categories of people who are not interested in either improving themselves or improving others. This would include psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, the insane, uh, serial murderers, war criminals, corrupt politicians, ignoramuses, morons, all kinds of categories of people who are not up to either self improvement or other improvement.

So if you meet some guy who's A gang member, you know, he's in some MS 13 or something, you know,

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: he has no education, he has no benevolence, he's interested in getting your money away from you. And if you give him a hard time, he'll stab you. That's what he's about, see? So he's not going to be motivated to read this book.

So look, Adolf Hitler was at level seven on the scale of basic purposes, which is, his basic purpose was to destroy.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: is not obvious, uh, and I can tell you from my studies when I figured this out, it really helped me understand World War II, because prior to understanding that, I would look at the things he did and I'd say, why did he do that? Why would he do that? This doesn't make any sense, but after I discovered that, now it all made sense. Because he wasn't just destructive to the Allies, he was destructive to the Wehrmacht. He was destructive to his own family. He was destructive to Germany. That's how those people are. Now fortunately, there aren't too many of them.

But

Rob Valincius: Fascinated. He's a fascinating human. Uh, I, I read a, I read a book called Blitz that talked about it on this podcast a couple of times, but, uh, just a, Wild phenomenon about drugs and the Third Reich and, uh, you know, I'm, I'm sure some of his, uh, aspirations were derailed with all the meth he was taking, uh, but I, I, I would agree with you there.

I think, uh, you know, he, his inner, um, uh, you know, whatever his scale would be, would be to destroy. And that was everything, including himself.

Jim Marshall: that's one scale. There's 34 other scales. You can analyze, of course, 34 other axes. Now,

Rob Valincius: Have you done that? Have you, have you taken historical figures and,

Jim Marshall: people in general.

Rob Valincius: just people in general? Like, like a historical figure?

Jim Marshall: Well, well, first of all, I haven't done it with historical figures, but I have done it with actual people that I know. If you look in the back of the book, there's an appendix in which I go through actual people that I knew very well over a long period of time.

And I did a complete septemic analysis of them, of course, 35 scales. So you can see how this works, what it's like when you analyze a person. These people, I give no names, I don't even give a gender. I just say subject 1, subject 2, subject 3. And I give you the exact data, okay? So it's, it's an exemplar. So, uh, the thing about this is, uh, a person, most people are high on some scales and low on other scales.

There are very few people who are high on all of the scales and low on all of the scales. Fewer than 1% of humans are at or near the top of all the scales. A larger proportion, I estimate about 4%, are at or near the bottom of all the scales. That 4 percent are the directors of society. So you find a guy, he's a professional criminal, he's a drug addict, uh, he's illiterate. know, and he beats up his girlfriend. That guy is at or near the bottom of most of those scales, if not all. That's why he's like that.

Rob Valincius: Now with the 1%, you said a lot of, the 1 percent are at the top, are those, are those people very successful?

Jim Marshall: Not necessarily, no. It depends on how you define success. Jesus is the best example of somebody who is at or near the top of all the scales. Uh, now, you, he was tortured to death as an enemy of the state. You want to call that success? Many people say, that's not success, you know.

Rob Valincius: It's true.

Jim Marshall: On the other hand, now, two thousand years later, two and a half billion people are still following him.

Rob Valincius: That's

Jim Marshall: like success, doesn't it?

Rob Valincius: That's success.

Jim Marshall: Well, you know, what is your standard for success? You see?

Rob Valincius: Okay.

Jim Marshall: So, so like, for example, I can look at a guy and say, yeah, this guy has a million dollars, but he's an ignorant fool. You know, there was that movie, it was Broderick Crawford did with Judy Holiday. Uh, in which he played a rich, vulgar magnate, crude, mean, and had millions of dollars, you know.

Uh, Bill Holden was also in that movie, I think it was called Born Yesterday. He was an example of a guy, well, he would say, I'm successful. I have my own corporation, I drive in a limousine, you know. I smoke 5 cigars, and well now maybe they're 20 cigars, I don't know. I don't smoke.

Rob Valincius: Inflation. Yeah. Probably five, five $20

Jim Marshall: But anyway, the point is Who's going to decide what's success or not? See, now if you, if you are a Christian and you study the Gospels, you would say Jesus was totally successful, you know, he, and if you read the, the Gospels with specificity carefully, it's pretty clear. He knew what he was doing.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: You know, that's,

Rob Valincius: I, I, I guess, uh, that part of it, I guess, could be a little subjective is, well, what do you deem success? It's, it is hard because that is a, I guess a very, that's a belief. I, I know we st kind of started the podcast that way. Right. It's a

Jim Marshall: That's not how we use this. Let me tell you how to use this. Let's say you invited me to your home to see your garden. Say Jim. You like flowers? Come and see my garden. I don't even know if you have a garden, but if you do, you might say, Jim, come and look at my garden. So I show up at Rob's house, and I see, Oh, Rob has hydrangeas, irises, tulips, chrysanthemums, forget me nots, and the reason I can analyze it like this is, I know a lot about flowers.

I've been gardening since I was a kid.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: And if you wanted me to, I could advise you, I could say, you know, these should be in the shade, but these need more sun. These need a lot of water, these need less water, etc, etc. So, if you bring a five year old kid into that garden, he is going to see and smell the exact same thing that I saw and smelled.

But all he can say is, these are pretty and they look nice, and they smell nice. That's all he wants. They smell nice and they're pretty. Now, most adults are like that kid as regards people. They don't know what they're looking at. They don't know, they don't know this guy is a hydrange, this guy is an iris, and this guy is a begonia.

They don't know that. And that is why, in the United States, more than 50 percent of the marriages end in divorce. Obviously, they did not correctly ascertain who this was. Who is this person? See? So, let me

Rob Valincius: time they did, it was a little too late.

Jim Marshall: what I said.

Rob Valincius: Well,

Jim Marshall: So, let me give you a, a, a, a, a, a contrast. So, about six months ago, I'm a single guy.

I met this gorgeous blonde. Beautiful, graceful, uh, glamorous woman. And we were very interested in one another. So now we're going through the usual preliminaries. Oh, what do you do for a living? What do you like to do on the weekend? You know, uh, do you like to go to movies? You know, all that stuff, right?

So we had six or eight conversations along those lines. You know, just you show me and I'll show you yours. I'll show you mine. So, so now as we're doing this, right, we're having these conversations. And I notice, huh, she's low on that scale. So we have another conversation. Oh, she's low on this other scale.

Oh, we had another conversation. Oh, she's low on this scale too. Now the light bulb is going on over my head. Wait a minute. This is a downscale person. Even if she looks like Rita Hayworth, she's still a downscale person.

Rob Valincius: Yeah,

Jim Marshall: Well, so, I dismissed her. I said, Just out of nowhere, I said, sorry, no thanks. Yes. She was shocked.

Shocked.

Rob Valincius: well, probably not used to it. Probably

Jim Marshall: That's right. I am probably the first guy who ever did that to her. We didn't have any argument or anything. I could just see where she was on these scales. And I know better than to get mixed up in that. So look, when I was a young man, this book didn't exist. I hadn't discovered these phenomena.

So I made the same stupid mistakes that everybody else makes. You know, getting involved with people I shouldn't have gotten involved with, you know, get involved with a woman. It's a train wreck, you know, so, so right. Now, for me, that absolutely cannot happen, does not happen, will not happen because I know what I'm dealing with.

So using these skills for me, because I know them, is as difficult as drinking water.

So I'll see, I'll see somebody like, like, let's say I'm at the bank, right? I'm waiting in line at the bank and I'm just watching two people over there talking. I'm spotting them on scales. This is not subtle. And I'll give you an example. I know the basic purpose of every president of the United States going back as far as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and many of the previous presidents who I studied, such as Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln. Now, as far as since Roosevelt, we have all this video. We have recordings. You can hear his voice. You can read his speeches. It's not hard to get. You just observe the person. That is how this is done. It's just like, I go into your garden and I say, Oh, this is a tulip and this is a rose. Now look, every tulip in existence is unique.

And every rose in existence is unique. But I can always tell the difference between a tulip and a rose. And you probably can too. Right? So that's how people are. Okay? This guy is a rose and this guy is a tulip. I'm not saying tulips are better than roses or roses are better than tulips. I'm just saying.

That's what they are. So

Rob Valincius: obvious.

Jim Marshall: if you're going, if you're going to pick roses, you better wear gloves because those thorns will chop you up.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Jim Marshall: if you're going to pick tulips, you don't need gloves. You just come clip, brilliant of us. See. So that's good to know, isn't it?

Rob Valincius: Look, man, um, we hit the hour mark, but you, you hit me with some interesting things to think about. I'm definitely going to check your book out. I typically, when, uh, whenever I have an author, someone that's been on my show that has content, I always check it out. So I'll buy your book. I'll check it out.

It's on Kindle, right? I

Jim Marshall: I'm not sure I think so. It

Rob Valincius: think I saw it when I was on

Jim Marshall: It exists as hardbound, softbound, and ebook. So probably it's on the window.

Rob Valincius: Um, so I'll definitely check it out. Um, can you, can you tell everybody where they could find your content, where they could find everything? And if you got anything going on, um, in the near future, I don't know if you've got a followup or if you're still working on anything else.

Jim Marshall: Okay. Well, I want to invite your viewers to my website, which is Septemics. S E P T E M I C S, where you can see what many readers have said about it, what many journalists have written about it, what the reviews are. You can even read sections of the book itself. And there's even a prerecorded introduction to Septemics that you could listen to that explains it to a new person in 15 minutes.

Rob Valincius: I saw that. I saw that. I didn't get a chance to listen to it, so I'll definitely check that out.

Jim Marshall: Yeah. If you, if you, if you go through all that, it's going to be just like what happened to you. By the time you finish all that, you're going to say, I'm going to get this book. That's what happens to people that say, Whoa, where have you been all my life? But I just want to say one thing in closing, okay?

To try to sort of bring this into focus for your listeners. The data in this book are vital for every person and can help you to achieve your goals faster and easier by explaining what might otherwise seem to be inexplicable or random.

Rob Valincius: We're mysterious. I like it.

Jim Marshall: This theory isn't inexplicable. Yeah, it's pretty much the

Rob Valincius: Close. Close, right? Uh, well look, my My podcast is Drink O'Clock Pod on all socials. Um, Drink O'Clock Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And, uh, look, it was a pleasure having you on and, uh, everyone listen, check out his book. Who knows maybe they'll you know at the end of the day the whole reason I do this podcast is to help people Um, and also to get to know the people that that do these things that incredible things that we might not even know So hopefully, uh, someone will buy your book and change.

It'll change your life

Jim Marshall: yes.

Rob Valincius: Awesome

Jim Marshall: If they read the book, it will change their lives.

Rob Valincius: Well, jim, it was a podcast buddy and uh, let's do this again soon

Jim Marshall: Thanks a lot.

Rob Valincius: Thank you

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