So my name is Joe Bingham. I'm going to talk about some ICS vulnerabilities that we found. I'm on the zero-day research team at Tenable. There's only about five or six of us. And what we're going to talk about is in the last year or so we've been looking at a lot of ICS products, different SCADA targets for software and hardware. And we found about a dozen critical vulnerabilities just kind of scattered across the board. And they're critical vulnerabilities because they provide unauthenticated or pre-off remote code execution in the affected systems. So as we go through this talk here, I'll describe four of them in a little bit of detail and then we'll blow up a power plant. Alright, so the first one that we'll look at is in Siemens Step 7, which Step 7 has been around forever. They rebranded it as TIA Portal and its automation services. It's used in all aspects of ICS development and operation from design phase to implementation and all the way down to operations. So TIA Portal has a suite of simulation tools. It does diagnostics and telemetry. It does energy management. So they use it in operation in all sorts of different industries, like down on the plant floor, just for monitoring equipment. And it's built for use by engineers, built for the integrator, as well as built for the operator personnel. So the phone that we found in the software exists in the authentication package of the server. It has a Node.js server and TIA Portal implements functionality for authentication, for authenticating web users and administrators. After authentication, the SSL session is switched over to WebSockets, but they don't use the token that's validated in authentication in the WebSockets session. So of course, you can just skip HTTP authentication and start sending WebSockets commands directly to the server and it will process them. And of course, all administrator functionalities included in the WebSockets protocol. So what can you do with that? You can do a number of things. You can basically do anything that an administrator would want to do on the system. But the best thing that an attacker would want to do is just start a firmware update and you can specify the firmware update server, so basically you can just ask the server to execute any remote URL. You could also do a couple other things like modify permissions for users, create new users, or you could just change application proxy settings, collect system information. So we have a disastrous security hole in this Siemens software that's used on the plant floor in critical operations. And as we go through these phones, I'm going to have different POCs and those are all on our tenable GitHub repository. You can find exploits for all of these vulnerabilities. And I guess while we're talking about Siemens, earlier today at Black Hat, we had University of Tel Aviv. We're looking at the Sematic PLCs and they found some other crazy vulnerabilities in those that basically anyone can come and reprogram the PLCs if it's set up with the default permissions because they all share private keys. So Siemens, I don't know what to say about Siemens. Second one is in Schneider Electric that we'll talk about, Indasoft Web Studio. Earlier this year, we found that Indasoft has several vulnerabilities, including one that allows attacker to send unauthenticated commands to the application. And specifically this command 66 is used to configure the database connection for Indasoft. And in many of the code paths, the file name can actually be user supplied. So in this command 66 message an unauthenticated attacker can specify a database configuration file and ask the server to update from that file and then the Indasoft server parses the malicious update file and executes these rap brackets as WinExec. So an attacker could specify arbitrary commands inside of this database configuration file to run remote code on any Indasoft Web server studio. And here's, so our proof of concept for this was just basically to, in Python, sets up a local SMB server, requests the Indasoft Web Studio to trigger a database configuration update pointing to the controlled SMB server. The server requests the database configuration file and then runs a command based in it. And we just used it to pop a calculator application. And that's available on the GitHub. All of these will be. All right, so the third one, also in Schneider Electric but in hardware. So the Motocon Quantum PLC are kind of like a ubiquitous PLC hardware used all over the place, different industries. And they're favorites because they're modular. You can kind of plug and play them. They have all sorts of different modules in them. They're kind of interchangeable, slide them into the housing, depending on what the needs of your application are. So one of the vulnerabilities that we found in these PLCs, specifically in the communications PLC, is that there's authentication bypass in the communications module, which would allow an attacker to administer the device without credentials. And here's the exploit for that. There it is, pretty easy, right? So apparently zero days easy. This PLC uses just the hidden service API of the communications device to just change the administrator password without authentication. All right, last one. This vulnerability is in Rockwell Automation, RSLinks. And RSLinks Classical, it basically implements Ethernet IP and encapsulates the common industrial protocol SIP messages. So then in their implementation, the packet has a 24-byte header followed by some command-specific data. Now the header lists the command and the length of the command-specific data. So the vulnerability exists. It's a stack overflow caused by a malformed connection path where there's a function in the library engine, engine.dll library in RSLinks, which parses a connection path to extract a port path and stores it in a buffer on the stack. The length isn't verified, and so you can specify up to 256 bytes of the port path and overflow the stack address. And in 32-bit windows, I think the return address is like 200 bytes or so from the beginning of the buffer. So it's a pretty easy stack overflow. All right, that's it. I hope that wasn't too bad. So let's look at the fun part, which will be the application of these vulnerabilities, and I chose to kind of look at a nuclear power plant. So let's see. First things first, let me turn you guys into nuclear physicists in one minute. Nuclear fission, it's a process where a large nucleus splits into two smaller nuclei. So when it splits, it releases energy, right? And in the case of nuclear fission and these power plants, we use uranium-235. Uranium-235 splits into a krypton, and it splits into barium. And with that, it releases three more neutrons, and it releases heat. Each of those neutrons can start another chain reaction, and that's fission. That's it. So uranium-235 is a really nice isotope of uranium, where 238 is the naturally occurring one. So when you hear about people enriching uranium, they're adding more 235 to the 238 natural fuel. And that makes it more chain reactive. So remember the neutrons that are produced, those three neutrons in the reaction. Those are exactly how the fission reaction is controlled, and those are like the most important part of the chain reaction. So we know that the fission reaction creates heat, and the heat is used in these power plants to boil steam, to boil water, which creates steam, and then the steam turns a turbine. And that's it. That's how the power is created. So one minute, right, your experts? I don't know why they even teach this in school. You can just Google it. Like, I don't know, why is nuclear engineering a thing? Just kidding. So the key players in the nuclear reactor. For number one, we have the fuel. That's the basis of the fission chain reaction. In nuclear power, it's uranium in general, sometimes plutonium, but almost all the time uranium. That's the thing that releases heat. It's the key element of fission. We have the moderator. That guy's job is to just slow down the fission reaction by absorbing neutrons. Each of those three neutrons that came out when the nucleus splits, the moderator stops maybe two of those to continue the chain reaction. Now the coolant, its only job is just to take heat away from the core. That's it. The heat is the energy. And then the fourth guy is the control. That's the referee in the game. So you have, when the game starts getting too crazy, the fission reaction is getting out of control. You drop in the control elements. And so the control elements will generally be cadmium, hafnium, boron. All of those materials absorb massive amounts of neutrons, so they just completely stop the fission reaction in seconds or minutes, almost always within seconds. And we'll talk about those more in detail. But let's get into, first, some of the different designs in nuclear reactors. There's a lot of different designs. And I'll go through like four or five of them. The first one is the pressurized water reactor, or PWR. This is by far the most prevalent reactor that's in use in the entire world. Almost all of the power plants in the U.S. are these. They're used in France. They're also used in Japan, Russia, China. And as time goes on, more and more of them go online just because they're so stable. And then it's little brother is the boiling water reactor, which is basically the same as the pressurized water reactor, except that steam isn't created inside of the core. Steam is actually created in a separate heat exchanger, so the reactor is fully liquid. All right, now for the PWR, I'll talk a little bit about the safety systems. This is a diagram of an existing one in Japan, the Kashiwazaki Kariwa PWR in Japan. It came online like within the last decade or so. And the control systems and the instrumentation, they're all on the same network. Of course it's an air gap network separate from the corporate intranet and even one step further from the wide internet. And so you can see that in this diagram, the computers, the control systems are all fully automated, fully computer controlled. They have separate response systems and they have redundant safety systems in them. The emergency core cooling system, which is in the lower left, the ECCS. And then the scram control rod insertion, those are the two referees, the control elements to shut down the reaction. That's right below it to the right of the ECCS. Third type of reactor design is the pressurized heavy water reactor. And they call it, it's almost all of them are in Canada. They call it the Kandu. It's kind of a modification of the PWR. And it's a little bit of a different design because instead of light water, which they call are the PWR and the BWR, like light water reactors, it uses normal water, filtered water. These ones use heavy water, which is like deuterium, which is another hydrogen isotope. And deuterium already has the extra neutron that light hydrogen would have absorbed. So there's reduced neutron absorption, which makes it easier to sustain the chain reaction. And so that makes it so they can use a different kind of field. They don't have to use enriched uranium. So they can use naturally occurring uranium or lower concentration of enriched uranium. But the downside and the cost of that is that the fuel is cheaper. But on the other hand, the design is much less stable. So you end up with these circumstances where reactivity can increase as the water starts to boil in kind of these edge cases. And what that means is that an attacker that has modification access in this presumed attack scenario can actually control the safety systems to create a situation in the core where the fission reaction can occur in what they call a runaway fission reaction where reactivity increases and it's like a feedback loop as the temperature keeps going up, the fission reaction keeps going up and that's exactly what happened in Chernobyl if you're familiar with that. All right, so in the PWR, the PHWR, they can do nuclear power plant, because of those, you know, they're aware that they can have this reactivity runaway obviously so the safety systems are incredibly durable, so they say. This is a diagram here from the U.S. NRC. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission generally does studies on what they call diversification in the safety systems and diversification means that there are not common ways that they can fail, right? Like one vulnerability can't shut down both safety systems. So in this case, we have two referees, two of these safety systems, SES-1, which is the absorption rods which drop into the core and they're made of boron, they drop into the core and completely shut off the fission reaction. And SDS-2, which is boric acid injection where there's like several injectors on the side of the nuclear core where they just spray in boric acid to increase the level of boron inside of the liquid which also absorbs all the neutrons immediately stopping the fission reaction. So the point, I guess, is that the safety system relies on computer control through two of these redundant computers that manage information and alarms. They're all in the same network though, right? So you still have this same access vector. But the two critical safety systems use different operating systems. They use different architectures and processor hardware. They use different languages. They're not allowed to use the same languages or executables. So for example, you know, the absorption rods will run on windows and the boric acid injection runs on Linux. The, you know, SDS-1 runs with Fortran, for example, and SDS-2 runs with C++. So that's what they call diversification in nuclear power plants. So even so far, though, as being developed and coded by separate teams, like the software will have same design parameters but coded by different people and run by different teams. So in the end, you know, all it means to us is that you need, you know, one, maybe two more zero days to exploit the system, right? But don't worry. You can use some of the ones that we found. All right. The second to last reactor type is the AGR. I just have to mention it. It's, you know, like the fourth, the fourth most popular one used. The advanced gas reactor, they use these in the UK. It uses natural uranium and data, you know, to deal with, like, this problem of liquid boiling in the core and that causing a problem. These, what they call void coefficients, increasing reactivity, they just said, let's not use liquid. We'll just use gas. So they use carbon dioxide in there as a coolant and you don't have to worry with stuff boiling. So there's no such thing as, there's no such thing as void coefficient issues. And it's also pretty stable. You know, it's comparable to the PWRs and the BWRs. And there's, yeah, those are in the UK. Then the last thing that, obviously, we have to mention is the Russian RBMK, which is just this horribly unstable design. They still use, like, three of them. That's a typo. I think there's only three of them in Russia. They use natural uranium, which, you know, as temperature goes up, the uranium reactivity increases, which is a bad thing. It uses graphite as a moderator and water. It has a positive void coefficient, meaning that as the liquid in the core boils off and creates steam, you get steam between the fuel rods instead of liquid, which increases reactivity. So as heat goes up, reactivity goes up, which is basically, that's why Chernobyl exploded again.  They're trying to phase all of these out. Russia has started in the last decade or so pointing PWRs, but they still have some of these in action. Okay, so attack scenario. I think I have to start going a little faster here. So we've got about 10 minutes. So the attack scenario, right? The network is going to be an air gap network. You want to protect it. You have all this critical, very fragile equipment on this network. So we're going to have it air-gapped. So we need some kind of initial infection into some adjacent network. Could you be a corporate or employee network? And that's not too, it's fairly trivial, obviously. Once we're in the adjacent network, some kind of human interaction or other propagation, zero-day, would allow us into their control network. And we've seen this before. Well, I don't need to spend too much time on this. You know, Stux then use Windows Vuln over USB to jump the gap. And then there's a lot of different ways that we've seen in other malware like Triton that do this. So once we're in the network and we're running on an operator panel, for example, one of the, or one of the peripheral systems, we need to get onto a controller. That's where we actually have access to the PLCs, access to the control network, access to some of the safety systems. So what we do is we use another vulnerability. For example, the first one that I talked about, the one of Siemens, in general, you have these controllers on the operational floor which are interfacing with the PLCs for data collection, for telemetry, and in the development cycle for programming the PLCs. So we use that Siemens vulnerability immediately to jump from the operator interface, this peripheral device, onto the controller. And once you have access to the controller, you'll see logic becomes trivial. So in production environments, you can accomplish that in a number of different ways. The malware implant could wrap, for example, the communications through the controlling server to modify control flow for automatic function changes, which is similar to what we saw at Stuxnet. And then for our attack on the power plant, we just need to be able to stop the coolant pumps, number one, that reduces heat exchange out of the core. That's the most dangerous thing as the core temperature increases. It's going to start to melt down.  So we need to stop the coolant pumps. That's number one, stop heat transfer out of the core. And then secondly, we need to be able to withdraw control rods to increase fission. And then thirdly, we need to be able to stop these safety systems, the safety systems where the control rods are inserted and the core boric acid is sprayed in. And those are on different redundant systems, but they all go through some common logic collector, which ends up being the thing that decides whether or not to turn on the safety systems. So another integral part of creating a successful attack on one of these power plants is by providing false telemetry to the operators. So you provide them the illusion of control to the people that are monitoring the safety systems, that are monitoring the temperature controls and the pressure, the pressure displays. You tell them everything's okay inside of the core while in reality, you know, things are reaching some critical threshold. But during that time period, you don't want anyone to respond. So you buy yourself some time to create this awful situation where fission can go onto this runaway path. So it can happen, you can do that by simulating logic inside of the implant to send pre-calculated temperatures or even, you know, real-time simulated temperatures and pressure and power readings based on the operator's commands. And so as the plant operator attempts to move control rods, for example, to control the fission reaction, the implant sends back simulated signals to say, yes, the control rods are moving, even though we have control of them. All right, and then the last and other critical part of the attack is to disable the critical and redundant manual and automatic safety measures. So the malware can replace logic inside of the ECCS and as well as the scram control rod insertions, and those are the two independent and diverse safety systems that we talked about. That's an NRC regulation. All power plants do that. They have separate, but, you know, separate, not equals, just separate systems which are able to completely shut down the fission reaction. And by disabling the safety systems, we allow, you know, that extra five minutes or even an hour in some cases to provide the reactor core to set it onto this path where it's going to eventually melt down or explode. So worst case scenario, I'll talk about the RBMK, since there's still three of them in action. They're all in Russia, but they're extremely unstable. They have this design parameter where fission can end up on this thermal feedback loop, which makes fission just run out of control. They rely entirely on logical control systems inside of the control networks to maintain stability. So if an attacker achieves control of the safety and control system, they can very easily cause a catastrophic explosion. Another design power plant that would be vulnerable is the KANDU or the PHWR, which is that depressurized heavy water, which uses deuterium. And those are used in Canada and India. They're more stable than the RBMKs, but they're still less stable than the light water reactors we use in the U.S. Because they use unenriched uranium as fuel, the fission reactivity can increase and have a runaway fission reaction. And then the last case that we have to talk about is in the U.S. So while these power plants are much more stable, you know, you can't have this runaway fission reaction where you could have actually like some crazy fission explosion inside the core, but you can still melt them down. So Fukushima and Three Mile Islands, those were both light water reactors, and the only reason they melted down was because the coolant stopped. They use light water as a moderator, and so they're designed to make it impossible to create a circumstance where the fission reaction would grow uncontrolled. And as the conditions of fission increase, reactivity always decreases. As water pressure goes up, the fission reaction slows down. That's how they're designed.  So ending the talk, I guess I'll just say that, you know, the talk is kind of based on fear, uncertainty, but, you know, as I studied and looked through this, you know, I found nuclear power is good. It's clean energy. Almost one-fifth of all of the power in the U.S. is created through nuclear. So, you know, I just have to throw that in there. And I should also say that this type of attack, you know, using our vulnerabilities could have been used on, you know, our simulator. I could have chose any industry.  So it's not necessarily nuclear power that's bad, right? It's kind of like the vulnerabilities and keeping a reminder on these critical systems to say that basically everything is vulnerable. All right, so remember to check out our GitHub. We have all the POCs for these exploits on there. And you can ask me any questions you want. I'll be on Twitter available on there. And thank you guys very much.


Live from Las Vegas, Nevada, it's The Cube, covering EMC World 2015. Brought to you by EMC, Brocade and VCE. Welcome back everyone, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching The Cube and we're at EMC World 2015. I think this is the sixth year we've been at EMC World. We love coming to the show and got so much to mean. We actually have two cubes. So I'm excited for this next segment to really talk about a special program that EMC's been doing for a while. It's called The Women of the World. And we're joining this next segment by Bev Crair, VP and GM data center storage from Intel. Welcome, first time. And welcoming back Andrea Nelson for product marketing at Intel. Thank you. From Portland, which we talked about. So I saw you about a year ago. First time for Bev, so first up, welcome. Thank you so much. So Women of World, you guys are both in the program tomorrow. So you get a little bit of a chance to give it a plug before it actually happens for people that don't know what it is. What is the Women of World program? So the EMC Women of the World program is an opportunity for women who are here at EMC World to get together, network, meet each other, see what's going on. And I attended last year and of course this year again, they have great speakers, usually folks from the outside coming in to talk about what's happening with women in technology. And I'm really excited because this year I'm actually speaking on behalf of Intel. So I'm excited to do that as well. So what is your topic here on the panel? I think there's a panel of three. There's a panel, right? Right, right. But what is your kind of very focused? So the focus for this year's discussion is really about the science behind bias and the science behind diversity and what we can do to actually understand that science and understand the science behind bias. And then from my perspective, it's really about the practical applications of the ideas that we're learning about the science behind bias. Interesting. Some of the stuff you're going to talk about tomorrow. What is some of the science behind bias? You have to come to see us. I have to come to see you, all right. So where is it exactly for the people that still have an opportunity to show? It is the EMC Women in the World event. I'm actually not sure what room it's located in, but it's certainly on the calendar. I can check it out. Venetian Ballroom G12 to 230. That's right. Excellent. So Andrea, talk a little bit about Intel and Intel's role with diversity and why this is important to Intel. So Intel's made a commitment to reach diverse representation at all levels by 2020. It is making investments towards those ends. We're working with partners across the industry to drive programs focused on building a diverse pipeline of candidates up and coming, programs like STEM, Girls Who Code, Girls in Technology. And EMC also has significant involvement in those programs. So they're a critical partner with us as we move forward. And we talked a little bit before we came on about why having diversity and incorporating a wider set of diversity actually leads to better decision making, better product portfolios, real fundamental good business things. I wonder if you could dive into that a little bit. So there's practical examples, but there's also the data. The data is really showing us that diverse organizations from the top down make better decisions. Diverse teams make better decisions, but diverse organizations. When we look at board participation, for instance, board participate, boards that are diverse are 35% more effective. They get better ROI. That's a huge number. So as a company, boards that are diverse have a 35% higher ROI. Wow. So catalyst data, it's a report that catalyst put out a number of years ago. So when you start taking a look at your own diversity data, you start to understand why. Here's a really silly, it's not a silly example. It's a good example. Intel is developing the mica. That's our intelligent bracelet. And the team was really struggling to figure out how to power it because they didn't want to change the form factor. It was a closed form factor and they didn't want to change the form factor. A woman actually ended up being added to the team just because she just joined the team. And they were struggling with this effort. She came in and she looked at them and she said, well, stop trying to plug something in. Why don't, she just used her own experience of taking her jewelry off at the end of the day and throwing it in a bowl on her dresser. She said, why not just power the bowl? And so the mica is actually powered by a bowl, right? Rather than a plug that would break the form factor. And that's led us to other uses of that technology like a power plate, right? So all different kinds of new ideas just based on our own experience. Right. And it's just an interesting example that we all bring our own biases. We all bring our own point of view. We all bring our own experiences to everything that we do. The whole non-bias and no such thing, right? We all have a lifetime of experience that we apply. And that is a great example.  That's terrific. So let's talk a little bit about how things have changed because we do a lot of conferences and it seems like a lot of people have kind of women's tracks or women's networking events or maybe it's an evening event. And you've been in the business for a little while, worked at some big companies, seen probably a lot of change. I wonder if you could speak a little bit how the role of diversity and kind of the embracing of diversity has changed the technology, not just for women, but diversity in general. Over these last, I don't know, a lot of you guys can get a few records of that. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I think that the role of diversity and our understanding of how diverse teams are effective and how they can affect our products has definitely changed over the last 30 years. I think in the beginning it was just all about how do we do this? What are we doing and how do we do it? And we weren't really paying attention to diversity that much. I will say that I think I've gone back and forth in my own participation in women's organizations. In the beginning it was like, okay, why bother? And then it was, no, I really need to lean in. And then it was, I don't have the time. And then it was leaning in. I think now what we're finding is that it's important for senior diverse leaders to actually reach out and grab and reach out and engage. We call it pay it forward. Right, right. And we have a program that enables us to reach out and bring forward diverse team members to make sure that their voices are being heard and that their skills are being leveraged in our organizations. You know, in our industry, women actually buy or make 89% of the consumer electronics decisions. 89%? 89% of the consumer electronics decisions are either made or influenced by women. We're influenced by, okay. Everything but the big screen, probably. We spend $55 billion on consumer electronics in comparison to men who only spend $41 billion. So if you're in the consumer electronics business, it actually behooves you to look at women as a market, right? Very specifically. And I think that what we're going to find over time is that same kind of diverse thinking actually matters in making our products better. Right. Let's talk a little bit about where DMC world and kind of the Intel EMC connection and how does that tie specifically into this initiative? Well, I think if we talked about it earlier, Intel and EMC have a partnership, obviously going back on architectural and product collaborations for about 20 years. Right. This is a natural evolution as we try and move the industry forward and bring in more diversity towards collaboration on these types of programs. And this is what year? You said that you were in the women of the world last year. Do you know? Yeah, because we had a few ladies on last year as well, which was terrific. Former treasurer of the United States and Tina was on with the crazy bioscience stuff that she's working on. How many years has it been going on? I honestly don't know. I don't know. It's only three or four. Is that right? It's not that many. Okay. And again, it's tomorrow, May 6th. Venetian Ballroom G, noon to 2.30. So it should be a great program. Well, thanks for taking a few minutes to stop by the Cube. Nice to meet you for the first time. Andrea, great to have you back again. Hopefully we'll see you again. All right, thank you. So I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching the Cube at EMC World 2015. We'll be right back with our next guest after this short break.


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Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Johnathan Assey of johnathanassey.com. I'm so excited to be doing this short video for you today. Our topic, why men can't open up emotionally until you do this, you gotta do this. All right, really quickly, if you're brand new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if anytime during this video, the content resonates with you, please hit that like button so I can be seen in the YouTube algorithms.  It's direct, little tough love and a lot of heart. And occasionally I use expletives to enhance the sentence. And if a few F-bombs aren't your cup of tea, I suggest logging off right now. Also, these are my perceptions and my opinions by no means do I suggest that this is the truth. And what I mean to say is you have to decide the truth for you. So if my content resonates with you, great. If it doesn't, that's okay too. You've just got to decide what works for you. All right, let's talk about men opening up emotionally. And this is probably one of the predominant things I hear from women consistently, how they're in relationships with men who don't open up emotionally. And let's face it, how do we really bond with another person if we don't open up on our emotional side? Now, while many people can have conventional relationships in many cases, I mean, throughout history, relationships have been predominantly a one up, one down type of relationship. The man is the provider protector, the woman is the homemaker and that sort of thing.  We've certainly changed in the last 50 or 60 years predominantly because women are no longer are dependent upon men for their survival. So we have now shifted to more of an opportunity where we can be more of an egalitarian type relationship instead of those traditional one up, one down type relationships. And what I mean to say is throughout history, women quite frankly weren't treated very well. Women were treated much like property in many cases, certainly versus today, although many of you probably feel like you're treated that way, especially these days in the dating realm where men come on strong to get sex and to discard you once they've had sex. So it's not property, they're almost treating it like prostitution.  Well, this just happens to be the perspective and the narrative that it seems to be from what I'm witnessing today. So why is it that men can't open up emotionally? There's a fantastic short video. I'm gonna post it here. For those who are listening to the live stream in the chat box, I'm gonna post this. Certainly if you're listening to the recording on my podcast, you'll have to write this down. And if you're coming back and watching this later, click on this link. But the video I'd like you to watch is called The Mask We Live In, The Mask We Live In. I'm just gonna share it right now is the link right here, The Mask We Live In. And why I'd like to invite everybody to check this out, to check this out because it's a great illustration of what young boys go through when we are being raised, especially for those of you who are mothers of sons, you definitely may wanna watch this because most boys are raised, taught to their emotions, stuff their feelings, be a man, don't show your emotions. Masculinity is based on violence, bros before hoes. It's not cool to show emotion. This is what most boys have been raised in. And while the video is predominantly, it feels like it's a lot of inner city children, I can tell you, I grew up middle class and I felt the exact same way. If you're part of the Baby Boom generation or even in the Gen X generation, I can tell you most boys were taught to stuff our emotions. We were taught to, actually, in fact, we were taught to use violence as a way to express ourselves. Football, hockey, very violent sports. In fact, if you didn't play any of those sports, you were ridiculed by many of the boys that did play those sports. So this is what we had to contend with. Now, I also wanna say women or little girls had to contend with something different. In fact, most little girls have had to contend with the objectification of girls. In fact, I think there's a Netflix movie or movie called Cuties that's all an illustration of this little girl's pageants and that sort of thing. So men, we were taught to stuff our emotions and our feelings, and girls were predominantly paraded around based on their looks. And so what do you think this does to children? What do you think this does to children as they grow into adults? The reality is, is most men oftentimes adopt a more avoidant personality and avoid it, even love attachment style which makes it very difficult to actually connect with them. And sadly, because of the narrative on the girl's side, it's all based on looks. So I'm just here to draw attention to what has happened in our past and what happens when men and women reach midlife which there seems to be right around age 35, 40, 45 or 50 where there's an unraveling of our childhood armor that we've been adopted with. There's this unraveling. And in the case of boys, we are like deer in the headlights because all of a sudden our testosterone levels drop and actually our estrogen levels increase and we become more and more, not in touch with our emotions but we start feeling our emotions in a way that we were never taught to when we were growing up. Girls were certainly more allowed to be more expressive when they were younger but at the same time, girls were also to some degree repressed in their emotions because the reality is, is if we were, you know, it's funny by the way, this is a picture of my mother and father behind me, but my mother couldn't handle my ADD my mother couldn't handle it. So when we did play dates, I was stuck in a play pan while everybody else was running around and how I know this is I watched an old eight millimeter film of a family gathering and I was in jail because she didn't even know how to parent a child that was rather chaotic with their emotions. And basically I was told to, you know, behave and you know, by my father, I said be a man by my mother it was by the way, both my parents gave corporal punishment and that's another thing for us baby boomers and even Gen Xers is that we received corporal punishment. So I said this earlier, what happens to us in adults? It makes it very difficult to actually open up and lean into our feelings. And as I said before, when we reach this midlife all of a sudden for us men, our emotions are chaotic and that's why we can be so unpredictable in the dating realm because we are confused about our emotions. We don't know how we actually feel and it makes it confusing because we don't even know what to say to you. And this is one of the reasons why men ghost why they disappear, why they pull back and such. So I want you to watch this video it's called The Mask We Live In. Can someone write that in the chat box and I'll also post this in the comment section as well. I really want to invite everyone to watch this so you can get an understanding of what boys go through and especially for those of your parents to boys even if you have adult boys in your life you might have a different appreciation. And as I said before, we men should be watching the videos about young girls and the objectification so we can have a more compassionate way of looking at the genders instead of the expectation way we look at genders. I'm gonna repeat that the expectation way of looking at genders. This is why the book The Rules is very expectation egoic way of looking at relationships and it's not a heart centered way of looking at relationships like the book if the Buddha dated, if the Buddha dated. So you might be wondering, well, Jonathan how do we switch this? How do we get a man to open up? Ladies, it starts by leading by example. I can tell you, I didn't become the man I am today if it wasn't for a woman who helped me tap into my emotions. In fact, I'm very grateful I dated an amazing woman who was a therapist and she really helped me during our relationship to really become more expressive with my emotions, to be more demonstrative with my emotions, to be a little bit more effusive with my emotions. And she started by what I always recommend to you in every video and that's starting by leading by example. Leading by example, I got something on my face. So starts by leading by example. In other words, you share how you are feeling about something in your life and then you invite the man to also as express his feelings in whatever it is that's going on in your life or in his life as well. I want, by the way, if you're not familiar with my book What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? Chapter one is speak your truth, do it with kindness. This is how you get the ball rolling to begin conversation to help someone lean into their feelings. One of my dearest friends was in a relationship some years ago and I love my best, you know, my dear friend, but he's not the most expressive person with his feelings. In other words, he doesn't initiate conversation.  And now when he and I connect and certainly with his current relationships he's far more expressive than he ever was before. So it starts by leading by example. What I also have is a couple other things I wrote on my trusty notes for you here is to also share is that if you're going to express your feelings and invite him to share his feelings then you better start listening. You better start listening because ladies oftentimes you're thinking about what's going on for you and then you're not actually listening to what he's sharing. You're more focused on your feelings and not his feelings. So if you're going to lead by example with your feelings and then invite him to express his feelings then I highly recommend you listen to his feelings because oftentimes what men experience from women is a dismissal of their feelings. So just like us little boys were taught to be a man stuff our feelings in when you dismiss our feelings we're less likely to be more emote in the relationship to actually share how we feel in the relationship if you dismiss our feelings.  This is why again coming back to my book what the heck is self love anyway. Chapter nine says if it's sincere and from the heart you can't say the wrong thing to the right person.  Now again if it's sincere and from the heart you really can't say the wrong thing to the right person and that's what I want you to begin to lean into today. In addition, make it conversational not confrontational. Let me repeat that make it conversational and not confrontational. Oftentimes one of the reasons why men shut down and by the way ladies you shut down too anytime we feel confronted we have to defend ourselves and if we have to defend ourselves there's really no way to connect and actually listen to one another so don't force it. By the way a great way to get a guy to open up is ask questions about his passions. Ask questions about his passions. I happen to be a people watcher. I happen to be fascinated with human behavior. When a woman asks me questions about my passion which happens to be my coaching, my YouTube channel all the things that I do too and I've got something to share with you in a minute to illustrate this but ask a man questions about his passions that's a great way to get a man to open up. There's no better way to get someone to open up when we can start expressing our passions with one another and also be curious do something called drilling down so if he shares something with you then find another thing about that and ask him another question and another question and then he's more apt to feel safer to open up because the reality is as most men don't open up because they don't feel safe. If we weren't safe as boys to open up just because we're adults that doesn't change things. So drill down, ask him about his passions, drill down because that's gonna create an opportunity for him to open up. Okay, oh and don't stare him down. This is kind of the same thing about don't forcing it and lastly, this is one last one I'm gonna share before we take Q and A. A great place to talk to a guy is when you're driving in the car. You've got an audience there, you know what I mean? You're kind of stuck together. I know I was driving on a trip with a girlfriend of mine some years back and it was great how we were able to but she was just very calm, cool, collected. We were talking about the trip and then she started to ask me some personal questions and it created an opportunity because in a way because I was driving and I was kind of focused on the road I wasn't so defensive to actually lean into the conversation she wanted to talk about. Now I'm not saying that this is a guarantee gonna work but this is a great place. You have a, what's the word? What's the word, a viable audience? It's not that but a captive audience when you're in the car especially if you've got quite a bit of a drive. So that's a great place to get a guy to open up is those times when you have a long drive and maybe you can start expressing yourself again in that calm, cool, collected, conversational, not confrontational way. So just to repeat a couple things. First, speak your truth with kindness meaning start leading by example. This creates an opportunity for a man to open up and invite him to open up as well. In addition, be ready to listen. Be ready to listen, okay? Next, don't force the issue. Make it conversational, not confrontational. Ask him questions about his passions. Don't stare him down. Don't make it feel confrontational. And lastly, try it in the car. You've got a captive audience. Why not see what happens when you're driving the car to start talking a little bit more emotional about your relationship to see if you're actually a good fit for one another because here's the bottom line. When you're in a relationship with a person who's cold, avoidant, dismissive of feelings, it's not a very juicy, delicious, happy relationship and let's face it, we can have a relationship based on need or we can have a relationship based on desire and my invitation for everyone is to choose relationship based on desire, not based on need. So desire means having a partner in your life that's be able to give and receive, receive and give and that's the makings of a better relationship than those ones where it's just based out on need. And my hope is you don't choose a relationship based on need. So that's it for the content portion.  If you have a question, post the word question and write the question there after or put a Q and then the question so I can find it easier in the chat box. Also you can purchase a super sticker and super chat. All the funds from a super sticker and super chat goes to a scholarship fund to defray the cost of personal development. The scholarship is in the name of my son, Connor Asley. For those who know, he passed away a few years ago so I started this fund and I have already started giving to charity such as the Hoffman Process Insight Institute. I just gave some money to a girls foundation. I can't remember what it was. Not the girl scouts but something along those lines. So again, purchase a super sticker, super chat to show that you appreciate my content. Before we jump into the Q and A I have two things I wanna share with you. So again, if you wanna post a question just get ready in a minute. But I wanna share with you because I wanna say something about my audience. I'm not speaking to the mass general public. I'm not speaking to the mass general public. My message is for those and I wrote this down so let me read this. My message is for those who wanna break free from fear, judgment, comparisons, guilt, regret and most importantly, victim consciousness. Sadly, here in the United States we're suckling on the nipple of victim consciousness and my message isn't for those who are in victim consciousness. My message isn't about landing the right guy. My message is about becoming the best version of yourself because when you operate from a place of love when you operate from a place of self love then you can attract a healthy love in your life that juicy delicious healthy relationship I often talk about. So my advice isn't for everyone only those ready to break free from mediocrity. We live in a totally different world from the past and since the internet plus we no longer live in a world where women are dependent upon men. In addition, most dating advice is attraction based and not based on shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. This is why I'm an advocate of seeing the bigger picture of the dating process and to be more intentional believing that the old way of doing things versus believing that the old way of doing things works. And lastly, work on yourself and maybe just maybe you might become a healthier human being. That's who my audience is. If you feel like you fit into my audience say amen right now in the chat box. Oh, and one last thing we're ready to take questions in a second. I wanna share something that I just received. Well, I'll share this in a little bit but we're ready to take questions. So if you have a question purchase the Super Sticker Super Chat write the word question so I can find it easily. Here we go. We Jen, one of my favorites here. What does it mean when someone strings you along? How do you define it and why? What does it mean? Okay, so the meaning of stringing you along is basically is someone who wants you in their life at their beck and call someone who wants you in their life at their beck and call. However, they have no intention of actually pursuing a fully committed relationship.  When we're in midlife we come to the table with a lot of luggage we come to the table with a lot of baggage and we're not on the hunt for a spouse in the same way. And what happens is I said earlier in the video is that as our testosterone levels drop and our estrogen levels increase we desire connection, female connection we desire sex we even desire a little bit of companionship although we may not necessarily desire a fully committed relationship that leads to partnership. In fact, if you're not familiar with the work of Esther Perrell I highly recommend checking out her book mating in captivity, mating in captivity. By the way, there's a link to all my books below Jonathan recommend books. One thing Esther Perrell talks about is something called stable ambiguity, stable ambiguity. Think about that word ambiguity as it relates to stringing along. The stable part is that you might have some connection you might have sex, but the ambiguous place is where's this relationship going? Are we leading towards a partnership or are we just spending time with one another? And sadly, most women today or most relationships today are known as situationships or casual relationships and very few actually are intentional from a serious way. This is one of the reasons why ladies there's two things I wanna impart upon you right now. I know how much you like the idea that men are the leaders of the relationship and certainly men do the leading in the dating process at least to the point where you get to the first two or three or four dates but ultimately here's the problem. What's the number one search term for women out in the dating world? Why are men commitment phobic? Why can't men commit? Why do men goes? Why do men disappear? If that's the number one search term why would you wanna give the job of the leader of the relationship to the guy? You are in charge of your relationship destiny. This is why I'm a big proponent of setting healthy boundaries or first knowing your standards and then setting healthy boundaries. And this is why you must learn true compatibility. And if you're not familiar with my relationship iceberg my relationship iceberg, here it is. As you can see in the top above the water line is attraction and the tip of the iceberg is chemistry. Below the water, the compatibility piece is shared values blendable lifestyle and emotional maturity. And that's not a V that's a U for those that believe that's a V. That's my penmanship. And my point bringing this up is is if you don't know how to vet for shared values emotional maturity and blendable lifestyles then I highly recommend scheduling a discovery call with me because my private coaching is all teaching you how to become your own matchmaker. Let me repeat that. Teaching you how to become your own matchmaker. And what I mean to say is if you hired a $20,000 matchmaker their job is to find somebody who's compatible with you. They vetted this person out. Now I will tell you most matchmaking services don't do that because they don't have enough of a database to do this. They basically, they focus on the chemistry piece hoping that magic fairy dust will fill in the blank on everything else. I teach you how to become your own matchmaker based on your personality and teach you how to ask the right questions. So I want you to check out the link below. So going back to the idea of being stringed along the reason why this happens it's because most of the time you really didn't vet him properly in the beginning but you got hooked the minute there was attachment to him or you had sex with him. Let me repeat that.  Now attachment if you're not familiar with love attachment style I highly recommend reading this book attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. So you can learn about love attachment style. I also recommend reading the book getting the love you want by Harvelle Hendricks and Helen Hunt. This is why you oftentimes choose part of the bad boy or the emotionally unavailable men because there was a good chance your father was emotionally unavailable. So how do you avoid this? You have to learn how to ask better questions in the early stages before you give your heart and or if you have sex the problem there is you might get attached to a guy because there's a chemical that gets released in our bodies known as oxytocin that mostly bonds women to men and it makes it very difficult to end the relationship. So stringing along, it's basically they like you but they have no real intention to be in relationship.  Everyone knows my shtick before the penis goes in the vagina buy the book eight by two copies of the book eight dates and read it together because then you'll know and by the way, a guy that will string you along will never, ever, ever, ever, ever read this book. In fact, most men won't read this book because they're not serious and I want you to start choosing men or a serious. If a man really likes you and you said let's read this book together he'll read it with you. If he's kind of iffy about you, he probably won't but that means he's iffy about relationship anyway. So do you want that guy? Probably not. Avoid being stringed along by asking better questions right from the get go. Weijin, thank you so much for that question. I really appreciate it. All right, let's go swimming. Purchase a super sticker, super chat. All right, let's scroll here. If you have a question, post the word question so I can easily find it. Here we go, Liana, Lorna, excuse me. What about a guy 40 who hasn't had kids neither been married? Is he still hunting for a wife and family? That's interesting. So if we're talking the specific age of 40 he may still be on the hunt for a wife. Here's the thing, roughly at about age 45, 75% of the single population in the dating realm roughly about 75% are divorced. Okay, there is some of the never married in that category and then there are the widowers but that's a very small percentage until you start getting into your 50s, 60s and 70s. So 40 years old is right on the cusp and a man still might be looking for a wife. He oftentimes will choose a woman 10 years younger. I'm not saying this is an absolute but most of the time if he's at that age and he's still on the hunt for a wife he's probably looking for someone five to 10 years younger. So they have their body because let's face it at age 40 it becomes more difficult. I'm not saying it can't happen becomes more difficult to make babies at that range. So most likely, but at age 40 but roughly at about age 45 it's they're either divorced and if they're never married the chances are they're not gonna have children. So you might just wanna ask the question if he's never been married, no children is that something you want and ask it right up front? And that would be a good way to avoid spending time with the wrong guy. Great question there, Lorna. Thank you so much. I also wanna thank Ouija for the 1999 Super Sticker. She says, thank you for answering. I really appreciate your dedication. I'm practicing planning for our second date and asking questions and expressing standards and commitment and I bought the book eight dates and he loves these things. Way to go. Back everyone, I wanna share with you something. I got an email this morning. I have to share with you all. So bear with me, I'll just take a moment. But why I'm sharing this is it really is an important message. This woman writes as Jonathan. I know your primary focus is helping others find their life partners. However, I wanna share with you that as a woman who's about to celebrate my 20 year anniversary your videos have helped my marriage grow closer than ever. We communicate in much more healthy positive way. We have been through some rocky patches but I feel more in love and loved by him now than I did when we first became engaged. Thanks to you, every day we make sure to give each other attention, affection, acknowledgement and acceptance. I sincerely hope you feel great sense of pride and satisfaction knowing that not only help people find love but also help those ready in a committed relationship grow stronger both as individuals and God pulls. God bless you. Alexandra, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. She's literally practicing what I talk about in the book by Barbara DeAngelis. How to make love all the time. How to make love all the time folks. When you're in a significant relationship the reason why I recommend these books is because most of us, once we're in a relationship, we're winging it. We're winging it.  This is why I recommend these books because it's, listen, you don't have enough time to wing it and most men don't buy these books. Women buy these books. So learn what's in the books and then invite it into your relationship. If he genuinely cares about you he's gonna wanna do the work with you. If he's not ready for a relationship or he's dismissive or avoid it he's gonna run away. But do you really want that guy? Look, folks, if you want casual and situationships I'm not the coach for you. I am not, you're not my audience. I'm, my audience are those that wanna break free from mediocrity and casual relationships and situationships to me or mediocrity.    We had that in our 20s and 30s. As you know, like I always talk about the movie Shawshank Redemption. Get busy living or get busy dying.  And by the way, the reason why I recommend my book over and over again is because it's a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. So we can have inner peace because when we love on ourselves and listen we never fully love on ourselves.    Now, I know there's a theory that great relationships don't need work. Here's, yes, 20% of couples, wait, happy couples that we're just perfect to begin with don't have this problem.   This is why I'm a big proponent of doing the work. This is why I continually talk about the Hoffman process, the Hoffman process. Check it out. I can't tell you how many emails I'm getting now. Thank you, thank you, thank you for recommending the book. Thank you, thank you, thank you for recommending the workshop because it's making a big difference in people's lives and that's what I wanna impart upon you. Thank you so much, Regent, for that super sticker. I really appreciate it. Leaf says, teaching us to become our own matchmaker, a transferable skill even with friends, colleagues, peers, that's very wise. Thank you, Leaf, I appreciate that.  Listen, I was married for 12 years, 12 and a half years. I buried my head in the sand from day one. Thinking, time will change things, it didn't. Communication changes things, opening up changes things.  Ladies, I know when you speak your truth, it might scare a lot of men away. In fact, your fear is to scare a guy away. But you're only scaring the wrong guy when you speak sincerely from your heart. And by the way, we men don't have a picnic with you women either.  There are entitled women, there are fearful women, there are women that are absolutely ambivalent to this. I can tell you as a man dating, I'm sharing with you your frustration with men.  There are avoidant women, there are women who are, that treat men with contempt, that treat men with criticism, that treat men with defensiveness, or treat men with stonewalling. And if you're not familiar with the four horsemen of the apocalypse by John Gottman, check that out. John Gottman plus four horsemen of the apocalypse. You women are no picnic either. You're not more emotionally mature than men. You might be more emotional than men, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're emotionally mature as men. So I'm an equal opportunity judge of both sexes. That's what I wanted to say. So thank you so much for that, Leif, I appreciate it. All right, do we have any questions? Doug says, amen, brother.   Leif says, love those videos. I'm enjoying volunteering, mentoring young girls that writing books. I help them edit them and let them bounce ideas off me. I love seeing them work on their ideas. Yes, if we can impart this to the younger generation, that would make a huge difference. Laurie says, we are all, wait a minute. We are all train wrecks. Pick your favorite and learn about from each other right now in my early 30s. And I love what you do. Got your book. Have the audio book of eight dates and the Untethered Soul. Yes, the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, another great book. Thank you for bringing that up, Laurie. All right, do we have any questions? Post the word question. I don't, we seem like to have a bashful group. I don't wanna end early, so you better give me some material to talk about, folks. Post a question below.  You all know my verbiage. All right, folks, if you don't ask a question, we're gonna be wrapping up early. It's Friday night. There's a big concert going on where I live. I might walk up. Actually, I'm going out with friends tonight, but that's the beach fest is going on in Redondo Beach. All right, looks like we have a bashful group tonight. Do we have any questions or maybe it's not working? Purchase a super sticker or a super chat. That would be so helpful as well. Doug, post a question. I'd really appreciate it. We need some content here. While I'm waiting for, oh, here we go. Oh, we got two. Okay. All right. I don't know how to pronounce your name, Ms. Siegel. Question, he's 49, I'm 40. We've been dating for three months. He has divorced second time with four kids altogether. I'm divorced with three. The connection was going very nice. He mentioned his mom and suddenly, and suddenly he started being busy so much and pulled away trying to get the true reason. He said, he has too much stuff on his mind. I'm in love, what to do? Okay, so great question. Now the question is, are you in love? Are you attached to him? There's a big difference. We oftentimes believe love attachment is love, but here's the bottom line. You're dealing with seven children. That might just be more than he can emotionally handle in the relationship, the children piece. He has his work piece. He has so much going on in his life. He just may not be in a position to actually go much deeper than a casual relationship. And the fact that he pulled away is an indication that he's not capable of going deeper. So what do you do? You try to have a heartfelt conversation with him, but recognize that it takes two to tango. It takes two to tango. If one wants to tango and the other doesn't, you can't tango. You can't tango. So ultimately, I invite you to have a serious conversation with him to determine where you're at in the relationship. And if he's unable to commit men any further, then you move on, you move on. You move on, you move on. Now what oftentimes happens is the rubber band effect.  I'm gonna change, I'm gonna change. But it's literal, not to say that's a guarantee, okay? But the only way to get, first you have that serious conversation. If you can't commit, you shut him out for your life for six to 12 weeks. He'll probably come back, but he hasn't really done any work to be any better to be in a relationship. But at least he might learn to appreciate you while you're gone, and he might revisit the relationship to see if it really makes sense for him or not. That's my invitation for you. I can't say that's a guarantee. But again, express yourself, then cut him off if he doesn't wanna go any further. That's my invitation for you. All right, I wanna thank you so much for your question, by the way. I wanna thank Marcy for her super, $10 Super Sticker from New Zealand. Thank you so much. All right, let's bear with me a second. I saw another one from Veronica. Question, what's the best way to get an avoidant man to open up?  That'll open him up. I'm kidding, that's not serious. Again, everything that I said in the first 20 minutes of this video, this audio, is all designed to help you learn how to get a man to open up. So just remember, lead by example. Have a conversation with not a confrontation. Ask him about his passions. Talk to him while you're in the car. Listen to his feelings. But again, you have to express yourself and invite him to express himself. And if he does, then you have the makings of building a relationship together. And if he doesn't, he just may not be your guy. But you have to decide that for yourself. And you also have to decide, do you want a conventional relationship where it's not, folks, probably 80% of the relationships have conventional relationships. It lacks intimacy. And isn't it fascinating that 80% of women file for divorce because there's a lack of intimacy? And I don't mean sex. I'm talking about emotional connection. So other than there might be infidelity or whatnot. So don't you want to solve this beforehand? Look, we're of the divorce crowd, most of us. Let's get it right the next time. And by the way, do you know, second and third marriages fail at a greater rate than first? So we better get it right by asking better questions and leaning into our feelings, allowing him to express his. Because if it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right guy. Veronica, thank you for your question. I really appreciate it. All right. AM says, I wish I was at the concert. Robin says, just stoned, okay. All right, let's see what else we have here. AM says, first time watching, thank you for your insights. I appreciate that. Sadly, Whitney thinks men are gay. Well, that's a perspective. How's that working for you, that perspective?  Anyway, that's just my invitation on that one. So Veronica says, the void of man I'm seeing will leave to another country to work for several months. What is the best way to connect him emotionally despite the distance? We are not yet exclusive. Well, your only chance why he's away is to do zoom and FaceTime, but that men don't bond through zoom and FaceTime. So there's not much you can do. You know, wait till he comes back. And in the meantime, I would be dating other people because if you're not an exclusive relationship, I would be dating other people. That's my invitation for you. Have a heartfelt conversation with them. If you guys do zoom and FaceTime, great. But if you're not exclusive, I would be dating other people. That's my invitation for you.  Gina says, question. Hello, my friend, long distance relationship, but should I hang on to him? Yes, it's emotionally available, but he has reservations like me. Folks, I, by the way, I feel like I talk about long distance relationships incessantly and I'm tired of it for this reason. Unless you have a plan to take the distance close together, it's, I mean, if you, by the way, here's the bottom line. If you want a day to day relationship where you see each other on a regular basis and you're partners with one another, in other words, you do social activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork, building skills in both in your personal and your professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy that leads to getting married or living together, then you have to have a plan of how it's gonna go from distance to close up. Now it's interesting, not too long ago, I dated a woman who lived about 30 miles, 35 miles away from me. In our first exchange, she had sent me a message saying, you have a great profile, Jonathan, but there's distance between us. How do you feel about that? And my response was, I don't plan on moving where I live because my life is here, my son is here, my family is here, so I don't plan on moving. And she said, well, ironically, she was actually thinking of moving to my exact city because she has friends here. At least we had a conversation about it. Now it didn't work out after the date, but we had a conversation before we ever met one another.  Folks, it's time to become a grown up.  Don't be afraid to ask the tougher questions before you meet someone. That's the best time to ask the tougher questions. But Jonathan, the rules say, I have to play games. Jonathan, the rules says, I have to play games. Folks, games temporarily work for about one second. And then what you're left with is a relationship based on games. Start asking more adult questions right from the beginning and you might find that that long distance guy isn't a really good fit for you. And by the way, I shot a video on this. This is gonna come out in the next few days. I think long distance dating has become the new hookup way of dating. I'll call it hookup way of dating. By the way, we communicate with someone who lives far away. We get all this enticement going on.  You travel over there.  And then they come back going, oh, I changed my mind. But why would a man travel to get laid?  By the way, we men pay for sex. So a plane ride is no different than a hooker. Folks, I think long distance dating is the new form of hookup. When I say new form of hookup because you're almost guaranteed to get laid when you first meet each other if the distance is a plane ride away or more than two or three hours away because basically no one's gonna wanna drive back home. And they all say, well, I'll get a hotel room or I'll sleep in the spare bedroom. Yeah, fat chance of that.  And then the guys will flake and disappear. Why? Because you know what? A relationship is built through social activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends. A relationship isn't built over the telephone. Men do not bond over the telephone. Ladies, I say this over and over again. Stop believing that. That's my opinion on long distance, Gina. Thank you. I'm very opinionated. All right, question from Sadie. Jonathan, when is the best time to tell a man my non-negotiables, for example, I don't want alcohol around me? So, oh, interesting. So great, we'll just talk about the alcohol piece. So I believe most dating apps have a little, little question centered around alcohol. So if yours says never drinks, then I would have that conversation with them right from the get-go. I'll be candid with you.  And I do spiritual journeys using plant-based medicine. I need someone that has an open mind with these things mostly because I wanna do wine tasting with my partner. And if they don't feel comfortable around alcohol, then I'm probably not a good fit for them. Nor are they necessarily a good fit for me. I think it's important to get that question before you ever meet on a date and then you don't have to worry about it.  Bum, bum, bum. Okay, Sadie, I think you get my point. Thanks for that question. Here, Claire said something interesting. Women, please grow a backbone and men grow a pair, grow a pair. Open up about your feelings. If they are present and if they are unsure, please set a timeframe for three months. And if they don't know their true intentions. Claire, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Ladies, please grow a backbone.   I highly recommend everybody reading this book. Really, how to be an adult in relationships? How to be an adult in relationships? How to be an adult in relationships? How to be an adult in relationships? In fact, I'm gonna piggyback on that.  Stop playing around. We don't have enough time to play around here. We don't have enough time to play around. It's time to be intentional in your life. You don't have enough time to play around. Stop being children, stop it. I'm yelling, so please forgive me. All right, thank you so much, Claire. I really appreciate that. I wanna thank Lorna for the super sticker of $20. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. If my content is resonating with you, please purchase a super sticker, super chat. I really wanna build that scholarship fund up. All right. Thank you so much. Doug says, great question, Tweety. I know the 3% guy you're referring to. I could go on and on. But Jonathan asked the floor. Thank you so much. I don't know where that was coming from. Okay. Here's a question. By the way, if you wanna ask me a personal question, this is the time to ask me a personal question. Write the word personal question and then ask. Right now we're gonna save the last 10 minutes for anything personal you wanna ask of me. But before that, we're gonna take Miss Rogers question. Question. I met someone who was on dialysis and I didn't wanna get attached and lose him. He has since had a transplant and then his mom had a stroke. I know he's interested, but has lots of distractions. Wow.  Or love, love, excuse me. Boy, to go through that dialysis and a transplant in his mother, he probably isn't capable for a fully committed relationship right now. So just recognize that he's, again, not a good candidate to be in relationship.  You can't be a friend. But most likely he's not a good candidate to be in relationship with. Now that doesn't mean you can't explore a friendship and can't explore a relationship with him. Just understand he has a lot on his plate and he may not be capable of going the distance at this moment in his life. Doesn't mean that can't change. So coming back to my relationship iceberg, find out if you share the same values, find out if your lifestyle is blendable, find out if he has emotional maturity. Cause if you have chemistry, then there might be a chance for relationship success. That's a great question, Ms. Rogers. Thank you so much. And I didn't know how to say your first name. That's why I said Ms. Rogers. Thank you so much. All right. Well, I'm gonna take this question before I take the personal question question. He says we're exclusive and he says he is committed. We've been seeing each other for one and a half years. His job is not stable. He isn't able to travel to see me. Money is a problem. Drop him. All right. See, what I don't like about these questions, it's a long distance relationship.  I have no idea what your relationship is about. Here's the thing. If he's having, if the ground underneath him is not solid, it's gonna be difficult to build a relationship. So you've got distance involved. Chances are you don't really have a solid relationship to begin with, nor did you have a plan of taking the distance close together. So why not talk about how you're gonna take the distance close together, find out if you're on the same page. And when you learn that you're not, then you can decide to move on. And I'm gonna say this with 97% certainty. I'd say 100% certainty. This relationship isn't gonna work out, but I know you guys don't like 100% certainty. So I'll tell you with 97% certainty, it won't work out. How do I know that? Because 90% of relationships don't work out anyway. Because most people aren't dating as adults. Find out how to take that distance close together before you invest any more time in him. That's my suggestion to you. Thank you so much. All right. Let's go swimming. Let's go swimming. Let's go. Harry Potter, personal question. What if you have a shy guy that you wanna be open up about their past? By the way, when I said personal question, if you have a personal question of Jonathan Asley, write the word personal question and post your question. So we're gonna save these last few minutes for questions for Jonathan. All right. What if you have a shy guy that won't open up about their past? It makes it difficult to pre-qualify him to see how legit he is. Chances are if he can't open up about his past, he's gonna have a hard time opening up in relationship. You have to assess that one for yourself. By the way, I won't date someone who doesn't open up about their past. If they're afraid, I'm not interested, but that's just me. You have to decide this for yourself, Harry. So my invitation, try, and if not, then you've gotta decide if it's worth investing. And I can't give you that advice with limited information. All right. Thank you so much for that question. Lisa Crocket says, Jonathan, are you an early riser or a night owl? Great questions. I am actually an early riser. I wake up at most mornings, 5 a.m. I love to have coffee out on my balcony. I do a little bit of meditation. I do a little reflection before I start doing my brainstorming. I do some of my best brainstorming for my work between 6 and 8 a.m. And then I tend to go to sleep around 10 o'clock. And I tend to pass out in my couch and then move to the bedroom. Which it kind of sucks because I seem to be meeting women who are all night owls and I wanna talk at 6 or 7 in the morning and they wanna talk at 8 or 9 or 10 o'clock at night. I'm already got a full day at work. So I prefer to date someone who is a early riser like me. That's my hope anyway. All right, thank you for that question, Lisa. I wanna thank Jackie for that $50 super sticker. Way to go, Jackie, for showing support. Hold on, that wasn't it. Where is it? Jackie, thank you, everybody. Thank you, Jackie. That's very sweet to donate to the Connor Fund. L.Y. says, personal question. What is your birthday?  My birthday is August 1st. I won't say the year, but I have four houses in Leo and I have one note in Leo. So I'm a true Leo. Oh, Claire Bear says, I was in a long distance relationship. We met every two weeks for three days, weekends, after one year or so, it was not easy. Thank you for sharing that. All right, if you have a personal question of me. Oops, that's not it. Have you, have you vetty? I don't know what vetty is. Have you vetty? I don't know what vetty is, Marcy. Thank you so much. I wanna thank Linda for the $10 super sticker. Thank you so much. And Amanda, Amira says, question, why do you wear a wedding ring? Folks, this is my right hand, not my left hand. The reason why I wear this. Hold on, everybody. Hang tight for a second. Hang tight, hang tight, hang tight. See if I can find the book. Where is the book? I can't find it. Oh, here it is. Friend of mine wrote a book called Ring Shwey, Ring Shwey.  This is my right hand, folks. This is my left hand. Marriage is left hand. This is my right hand. So Ring Shwey, my friend, Barbara Berg. I'll have to let her know I gave her some props today. Thank you so much for that question. I really appreciate it. All right. Clara says, you're welcome. Thank you so much. Lillian says, I'm a night owl. Okay. Personal question, have you experienced Mapicho? It's a tobacco medicine. No, I have not. But I am doing a psilocybin journey this weekend because I wanna connect with Connor. Oh, I had a dream about Connor last night. Folks, I probably go to bed crying most nights, thinking about Connor. And last night, I had an intense dream about him. And it makes me think we all have pain and suffering in our lives, but there really is no other pain like losing a child. Or you just cannot put that in any other category. And so I made a decision this morning to, I have a shaman that I know that's a host ceremony. So on a regular basis, I'll be doing a plant-based medicine journey using psilocybin. I'll let you look it up what the street name is, but it's amazing how these spiritual journeys open my heart up and allows me to connect with my son. I miss him dearly. I really do miss him. And I wonder oftentimes if my block or my resistance to falling in love is that I'm still in grief, I'm still in pain over him. And I'm having a hard time looking directly at the camera. I'll be candid with you. Folks, listen, I'm gonna stop here for a second. Anyway, I don't do that medicine, but I do cannabis, I do other plant-based medicines, and I like to have a glass of wine on a regular occasion. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Leap says hugs to you, Jonathan. Miss Gina says, I'm sorry about your pain. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you, I appreciate that. All right, folks. Oh, Marcy says, how long does it take for you to vet someone? Great question. So part of my coaching program, by the way, there's a link below to schedule a free discovery call with Jonathan to see if working with a coach is right for you. Part of my coaching program is about asking the right deal breaker questions early on. So I do a pre-vetting before I meet someone. So literally, let's say I get a dozen swipes a week. And through that, I try to narrow down a couple of those dozen swipes by asking some good questions a lot of times.  I've given two women my phone number to call me and they just totally disappeared. And then they come back weeks later going, I wonder what happened between us?  Sorry, I said the B word, by the way. But I do pre-qualifying before I meet them. So I'm hoping that when we meet that the chemistry can ignite us by doing some pre-qualifying, then the dating process is another pre-qualifying vetting process. But I can do all that in a very short period of time for me. Look, if I'm physically attracted to someone and we share the same values, our blendable lifestyles and she has emotional maturity, I'm ready for the races. Sadly, 90% of the women like men are emotionally immature. So there's a lot of question asking. Nine out of 10 times people's lifestyles don't blend with yours and a lot of times here in California where red state, half the people are blue, half the people are red, half the people are vaxed, half the people are not.  So not to say I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. And there's 40 million people so there's plenty to choose from. But I'm here to say I do a lot of vetting ahead of time so I don't waste time with the wrong person if I'm very attracted to them and I'm hoping the vice versa. So thank you so much for that question. All right, Anne says, grief is horrible, Jonathan. I wish you the best with your visit with Connor. I do too, folks. I can't tell you the, and I'll share this with you. The last time I did a journey, Connor said, stop bugging me. I'm having a great time in heaven. Connor's in experiencing love. He's in that space of love. And so from a spiritual perspective, I know he's doing great and I know he wants me to do great. I just miss the motherfucker. I just miss him a lot. He was a, he really was one of those he beat to his own drummer kind of kids. And I'm listening, I'm grateful. I have his brother, Colin. We have a great relationship. We've done some journeys together in fact. We have a great relationship together. We truly help each other out at this time. So I'm very blessed and I'm also very, very sad. Okay. Anyway, folks, I think this would be a great place to wrap up. It's Friday night. I want you to go out all have a good time. Get on the dating apps, meet someone today, bet them better and hopefully read these books. And I'm hoping, again, my audience is those people that don't want to settle for mediocrity. And my hope is that my work invites you to take your life to a whole new level, especially in the area of loving yourself. And again, I highly recommend checking out my book.  All right, we're going to wrap. I want to thank you all, but we're going to wrap up for tonight. I want to wrap up by giving myself a first off big gigantic Jonathan bear hug of self love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm going to ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear pillow and give enter them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye now. Bye.


Governor Abakabiri announced plans to enact a Digitisation Act to implement e-governance and articulate ICT policy. The move aims to ease government operations and develop the state's digital economy potential. The initiatives aim to ensure accuracy, efficiency and transparency in public financial management. It is a fulcrate plan to note that the Kernel State Development Plan has already taken steps to articulate an ICT policy, known as Kernel State Digital Economy and Strategy. The electronic management of the entire budget cycle will undoubtedly rate the level of transparency, stability in the discharge of our responsibilities. This will be actualised through Liberation specialised software and online platforms to automate and streamline many manual tasks in budget formulation as well as financial reporting.


Financial News Network. News Update. Good morning everyone, Basil Chappanier for the 9 o'clock Tiger Financial News Network Market Update. We're looking at the Dow down 280 in the futures at $32,546. Now what's really important as I see it, if the support from the 23rd at $32,400 is pierced, that's not going to be a good sign because we have to go all the way back to the 200 period moving average of $33,000 to test to see if that can hold yet again for the last month. It's been a fantastic springboard for a move up. Looking at the e-mini futures, the continuous contract down 43 points at $39.89. Here you've got $39.70 as a really important support to hold. It got stored right at the 200 period moving average. We've been talking about that for about a week. Once again it got stored but it did push out of the inside track repellent zone in the weekly chart. This is a very important end of week on Friday to see what happens. Looking at the QQQ, the NDX100 trading down 458 to 283. If I look at the NQ futures, right here at $11,709, the $11,670 to $11,560 three levels are absolutely imperative to hold over the next two days. If later in the day the VIX index, which is at 20.20, starts to pull back and I want to see the Dow in this particular instance lead a rally rather than the Qs just because it's really important chart wise for it to do that. Then the Dow only down 120 to minus or minus 90 after $145 this afternoon will be a good sign for Thursday but otherwise it could be very ugly close. Looking at the, this is the end Q, looking at the RTY which is the Russell 2000 sitting on resistance on support right now at $18.79 down 15. It's actually holding pretty nicely. So $18.45 to $18.37 already key supports to hold for the Russell 2000. Now let's go to gold. Gold was down, it's down 12 in 1923. This is what I've been talking about. This is a digestive phase in the higher level consolidation. So how it holds over the next few days because 1890 is really important to support on the short term. Looking at bonds, US bonds up a little bit, 8.32, looking at crude oil, crude oil is, well crude oil is in a range in the low range. Have a wonderful rest of the day. Stay tuned for Tommy for the market.