So, hi, everyone. Thank you so much for being here in such a large group. So, today I'm going to talk to you about deception for pen testers. First, let me introduce myself. My name is Laura Nézouni. I'm the vice president of bridge detection and response at GoSecure. But first and foremost, I am a NordSec challenger designer. It's my eleventh year as a NordSec organizer, as well as a magician in pickpocket. So, today I'm going to talk to you about magic, as well as about pen testing. And the question you should ask yourself is why? Like, why am I here talking to you about pick a card or these type of things? And in truth, my magic improved my pen testing. What I found out was that once you understand how the mind works, how can you capture the attention of someone or make sure they don't look at something you'd like, then suddenly you're better at lying. You're better at deceiving. You're better at crafting the right phishing email that suggests just the right level of stress without being too noisy. So, basically, today I'm going to talk about you regarding magic and how it can make all of you better pen testers. And I kind of felt clever thinking about this. But turns out, other people had thought about it before. There is a Freedom of Information Act that you can request in the United States, where a famous magician coached the CIA in deception techniques. So, if it's good enough for the CIA, I figure it's good enough for us. But even further, Jean Robert Oudin, also known as Oudini during the Napoleon Wars, helped Napoleon trick the propaganda and do psyops using a trick called the heavy light chest. And that was used to convince the population that Europeans were better and that magic was real. So, if we look at these things, I mean, there's a background where deception and magic intersects. So, today I'm going to talk about a few things. I'm going to talk about convincers, suggestion, repeatability, repeatability, don't run if you're not being chased, managing attention, studious and accomplices. And while it's not exactly something that's about magic, about surveillance, surveillance detection, how to tell someone, how to surveil people, and common mistakes people do when they're doing, telling people. All right, so let's go. So, the first thing, the first principle you need to know about magic is that people doubt others but don't doubt themselves. What it means really is, if I tell you I'm a plumber, you might doubt. But if you look at me and you say, oh, he got this, he's got this suit, the car, there's a problem with my faucet, I called someone, then you're more than likely to believe that I am the right person. So, if I tell you something, you can doubt it. If you deduce it yourself, then you won't be as likely to doubt it. So, a convincer really is like a game where I want to give as many hints as possible that what I'm doing here, what I'd like you to do in these type of things without actually telling you. Because if I tell you, it doesn't work. So, that's called a convincer. Of course, if you tell your, if you talk about your convincer, it doesn't work. In magic, you'll never see someone say, look at my thumb, it's a totally normal thumb. I have two, there's two sides of a thumb, here's a thumb, it's a normal thumb, look at this thumb. Like, that doesn't work. I mean, they're gonna show their hand, but the moment they say it's a normal thumb, of course it's a normal thumb. Like, we all have two, well, most of us. So, it's the type of thing that, of course, if you need to say it, then it's not as good as a convincer. And if you had one rule to recall, that's the one. Like, people are better at lying at themselves than are better to, like, it's much easier to, people don't doubt themselves, but they're likely to doubt others. So, when you're crafting fishing, you are much better not to say something, but let them deduce it. Believe that they're smart, more than likely, and hint about things, but give as many hints as possible. Let me give you a few examples. This one I already talked about, the lanyard attack. So, if I had a lanyard of, say, EY, EY are famous auditors, and I wear my EY lanyard, it's when people will say, hmm, this guy must be an auditor. Of course.  So, of course, in that regard, by having this, I mean, nobody will never, ever only let me get in because I have a lanyard. That doesn't make sense. But it adds credibility and people build on it. But some things are even simpler, and the following attack my team did this year is the very fabled hot dog attack. So, some places, they have, like, favorite spots and favorite restaurants. So, we found where people ate, and in this case, we're hot dogs, and we purchased the same hot dogs at the same place, and we walked with them as they came back in the office. Now, of course, nobody will ever see, say, hmm, I trust this guy. He has the same hot dog brands as we do. Like, that never happens, right? But the thing is, they might say, hmm, I don't know this guy, but he works for us.  And it really worked.  So, keep in mind, convincers doesn't need to be fancy or complex. All they need to do is reduce the risk about somebody doubting you because you gave a hint that you're part of the in-group. So, lanyards, uniform, way to walk, way to talk are all things that are common as convincers.   But what if instead you wanted a person to perform something? If you recall the principle, if I tell you to do something, you can doubt. Whereas, if you convince yourself, you're more than likely to do it without understanding that I told you about it. And of course, there's ethics here. But, you know, if I say, gee, the dishes are due and we may have a visit anytime, I'm not telling anyone to do the dishes. All I'm saying is dishes are not done yet and we may have a visit. The person might be more inclined to do it without me telling that person to do it. You understand the difference? And since the desire or the understanding comes from them, comes from within, then suddenly, they're more than likely to do it. So, that's the first principle of magic. People are the best liars to themselves. Does that make sense? All right, I'm going a bit fast because we have plenty and plenty of examples. Repetition. That's a common thing in magic. First time is exciting. Second time is normal. Third time is routine.  Oh, it's empty. Why is that empty?  There's something happening, but nothing happens. I take it as coming back. And I put it again.  This time is right. But no, this time again was true. And third time, your brain was lulled into a sense of repetition and then coin is gone. And repetition is a way to build trust because it's normal. Like, you have a model of awareness and things that are repetitive are suddenly boring and your mind erases it. Of course, it's a mechanism to reduce suspicion, as I mentioned. For example, asking for information. You know, you're performing a social engineering attack. You need to know something since important. The first time is abnormal. So suddenly, that's not when you should ask your question. If you want somebody's password, the first time you call them, don't say, hey, what's your password? That won't work.  You know, the first time is where they have the most attention, is where you should be the most mundane. Second time, you reinforce that model. So again, you're none come at all, you're asking for something that has no impact. And the third time, then you go for the kill. And that's, by creating patterns of three, it's much, much easier. Let me give you an example. We had to perform a... I'm really happy by that example, so I'm gonna take like three minutes. We had to perform phone phishing. And phone phishing is super difficult. One, it can't be automated. Two, depending on the personality of the person, it's difficult. So we had to craft a scenario. Here's the following scenario. Hello, I'm calling regarding a survey or regarding your IT services. Do you have a minute for me? One, they will say yes. Two, it's boring. If you're having fun doing social engineering, you are failing.  If you're like, hey, I'm super happy to talk with you. Can I interest you in insurance? Like, it won't work.  So, be the same, do the same. So, I'm calling saying, hey, I'm here for a survey, first question. On a rate from one to 10, how IP about the IT support? This is non-committal, like they're gonna answer seven. Who cares? Question two, from a scale of one to 10, how IP are you about the material that you're being provided? And then I give an explanation saying, in time of COVID, any items that belong to you were not provided by the IT company. So, please disregard these. Whatever, they give you four, fine. Question three, from a scale of one to 10, how IP are you about your network speed? Whatever they say, huh, interesting. What's your speed? So, from the way it's made, the fourth question is not part, it looks like improvised, like, huh, what's your speed, interesting. And when people recall the discussion, they will recall the three question, not the, oh, by the way, it seems like an afterthought. So, what's your speed? I don't know, whatever. Oh, you don't know, no problem. Can you go on evol.don'tclickme.hackme.ca slash evol.exe? We are gonna run a speed test. And here are the ways it's worked, why it's so clever. Some people knew that this was wrong. They knew by then that this was a problem. But they had said yes three times.  So, they had involvement in the discussion. So, once they had their arm in, it was too late to say, oh, I don't feel comfortable downloading your EXE. So, we created trust, we created repeatability, and at some point, we did interviews and they said, I knew it was bad, I knew it shouldn't have downloaded that virus, but I did, because it would have been an awkward conversation otherwise. So, and I swear, this scenario is using repetition, is using trust, and is using what's called afterthought, or side thought, where the important part doesn't look important, and I'm gonna talk about it in a minute, that makes sense? All right, same thing used by politician and pollsters all the time, the three yes rules. If you want somebody to do something, ask three questions that will end by a yes. Are you using Windows? Yes, cool, do you work at this place? Yes, amazing, and are you having IT problems? You want a yes, but by creating a three rules that end by a yes, people are more likely to also start with a yes. Does it work all the time? Of course not, but it really, really works, and politicians and pollsters use it all the time. Some famous German politician in the 1940s was very famous for using this rule. Now, this is, so the whole reason why I started this talk was because of the following situation that I'm gonna share with you here. The magic principle is called don't run if you're not being chased, and what it means is this. So we're doing an intrusion at a site and we're saying we're a plumber, and we get caught. There's somebody like challenging us. If I say I am a fourth generation plumber, my mom was a plumber, she went to the International Plumbing Institute where my father is a copper plumber, I'm such a legit plumber that I named my kid, my dog Gasket, and my first kid is gonna be called T-trap. Well, you know, most people don't talk like that.  They're gonna say, yes, I am a plumber. That's it. They're gonna talk about, like, they're either kids or anything, but pen testers oftentimes feel guilt. Deep down, we're good people, and we're told that lying is bad. So, since we're feeling guilt and there's risk, we want to over-explain, and that's a common defense mechanism. We all want to be good person. So, people, of course, naming your kid Gasket is a bit of a stretch, but the idea is still this.  While just saying, I don't know, is such a powerful word. When you're being asked where you're doing here, I don't know. And oftentimes, the people will have to do the processing power on their end. It's like Judo. You're using their cognitive power against them. I don't know. Oh, you're here for this. Yes. You know, so, but you need to do a pause. Like, when you do, I don't know, stop. People will fill the blank. But these are the type of thing where if you run, if you're being chased, you're gonna look suspicious. If you're not being chased, you're gonna look suspicious. And I've seen this over and over in physical pen tests. So again, you must be comfortable and not feel guilt when you're lying. Now, how do you know? How can you avoid feeling guilt? It's easy, like everything else. Practice. Next time you're in a taxi, you don't have kids. Talk about your kids. Mine are two and four. Like, don't lie to people who are important or you're gonna see again. That's not gonna work. And like, don't invent things that don't make sense.  You know, it won't work. That's not gonna happen. So, but you know, be mundane. You work in an office. Talk about life at the factory was difficult.  Or, you know, find something and learn to lie and you'll find out that people don't care.   But you need to practice lying. You need to practice just the right level of information. So, you know, and lie. Taxis are wonderful because they meet people and you'll never meet them again. But you need to learn about lying and understanding that all this over-explaining comes from guilt. Yeah, keep things simple, I'll re-explain. Now, managing attention. There's this amazing book. It's difficult to find called Leading with Your Head that explains how the attention model works. Like, there are things that are called active versus passive positions. If I'm talking with you like this, you know I'm interested. You know I'm looking at you. Whereas if I'm like this, you know, I mean I might be listening or thinking about whatever I'm eating tonight, right? It's just my body language. So the idea is people will care when you care and people won't care when you don't. So if you need to copy a card or something, if you're like this, man, well of course there might feel something's worrying, right? Or if you're giving information and you want them to focus on something, look at them, like be active in your posture. Whereas if you want someone not to look at something, don't look at it. You know, I've often seen people copying cards and being like this and looking. Of course people are gonna look where you look. Like we're humans, we look at people's eyes. So if you wanna emphasize on something, look at it. If you want people not looking at it, don't look at it. It appears very obvious, but it's not so obvious after all. Then you need to take in mind what is called the bubble of attention. So quick question. What is more worrisome? Somebody in your back or somebody in front of you? In the back, yes. You can talk out loud, by the way, I see you, but just in case.   Now what's more worrisome? Somebody in front of you or somebody next to you? Next to you is less worrisome than in front, in theory. And what's worse? Somebody going toward you or you going toward them? Well, somebody, if I am going toward someone, it's less threatening that if that person is going towards me. So when you take that in mind, then if you need to clone a card or pick a pocket, you are much better if you understand that model to be in the right place. My favorite spot are escalators. Cause when you're at an escalator in a non-active position like this, cloning a card, you're not a threat. You're on the side, you're not moving toward them, they are moving toward you. And the fun part about an escalator is they can't go back. So it's pretty nice. Elevators work as well, doorways, but we've all seen the TV series where there's a cloner that hides behind a guy like this trying to clone a card. And everybody finds it's really weird. Try to avoid these things. When you know how people perceive what's around them, by knowing this, just take care of know the bubble of attention and know where to, when to attack. Yeah, so yes, I worked super hard to find a sonsu quote cause it's obvious that all cybersecurity conferences should have a sonsu quote. And this one is the hand concealing the object should be dead to you. So really, if you have something important in your hand, like you have a rubber ducky and real thing, I got into a high security place where they patted you down and I had a rubber ducky in my hand. And they did pat me down, I was like, sure, pat me down. And it felt like, I felt like such a spy, but in the end I just stopped looking at it and they didn't care. Oh, by the way, if you're breaking into a high security place, they're gonna look for cell phones and cameras. You know you're allowed to have decoys, right? And they never think about it. You know, they're gonna say, do you have a laptop? Say yes, you're allowed to have two laptops. They don't know about it. And decoys work very, very, very well, by the way. And if you have cheap laptops, cause oftentimes they're gonna expect you to come back to get it. So like find the most broken super dated laptop. I'm a market place guy. And like leave that laptop. And they'll know you will come back to get it cause it's an expensive item. And then you're free to roam. So when you're breaking into things, think about having decoys. Anyway, that's a side note. Active versus a relaxed state. I just wanna explain again that if it's important to you, you should be active.  And use this, use the attention model to exactly know when to attack. Actually you should be the opposite. You're doing something at that point. Well, then you should be in a relaxed state of mind. You should be in a relaxed body.  And it's more about position, words, tone of voice and all these things. This is amazing book called Psychological Sortilties by Benacek, who is, you can read all about this or the leading with your mind by Gary Curitz that are. Like it's only this. As a side note, Gary Curitz was a dancer for being a magician. So he's an expert at the body. And he has, it's like a 300 pages book about all the sortilties of position and how to use your hand to look, convey some things. It's really nice. Stooges and accomplices. So spoiler, in magic sometimes we have things called stooges, accomplices. And within accomplices is somebody who's with your team and that whoever you're trying to con doesn't know. The first thing you should, in magic, they always do is say, we've never met. We've never seen one another. Of course the accomplice is expected to say no, but the thing is, why are they all saying we've never met where we didn't know one another? Well cause two people build trust. So if you're able to have an accomplice then it's amazing, but accomplices only work as long as it's not obvious you know one another. So if you say, hey how are you, a nice meeting you, then suddenly you're not two team of one but one team of two and then you can't leverage accomplices. Now in what kind of pen testing you use accomplices, because of course if your client lets you in it's easy. But say you're able to get in once using one person then you can privilege escalate by suddenly becoming an internal employee and then opening the door for somebody else saying, hey you're a new person by all means register. So now you're able to bring your own team inside the premise because you're now an insider and you're enforcing the rules of having people sign in and since you're there you can even request for a badge. So by being an accomplice it only works if it's obvious that you're not working with the person. So that's called an accomplice, it's very used in magic. But there's something much more cool and magic that is not well known called stuges. And stuges are accomplices who don't know they are accomplices and this is really nice. And let me give you an example and I'll talk about the next few slides. I came into a pen test and say I'm here for the audit. Now the first person expected me to be an auditor. So that person brought me to the auditors. And now that person said he's here, he wanted to tell that I was here for the audit. But the auditors really knows that I'm not, that they don't have an ongoing audit, right? So I'm kind of stuck, what do you do in these cases? There's this amazing magic principle that you can use called double talk. And what double talk is, is when you're saying something and both sides understand something different. When I'm saying I'm here for the audit, the person at the reception hears, I'm here as an auditor. Whereas the auditor believes that I'm here to be audited. I'm using the same words. I'm saying I'm here for the audit, but both sides of the people hearing hears something different or they understand something different. Does that make sense? And it's an amazingly powerful tool. I'm giving you a very, very simple example about audits. But when you can have somebody on the inside understand something and that person can now be your messenger about your throat to somebody else, then you're leveraging their trust in order to get in. So that's something super useful and it's called double talk. Now, unless you're exceedingly witty, it's very rare that we see people being able to do double talk like this. It requires some practice, but it's a very, very nice tool in that regard. Now, I have like four more minutes and I wanna talk to you about surveillance. Cause recently I've been privy to people doing surveillance or tailing people and I wanna give you a very, very good example. What is wrong with this picture? No one? Well, first, yes, people's doing this. Now, if you ever have to do surveillance, please know that you don't need to do this. In movies they do cause they want them to see it, but you don't need to do this. Oftentimes you can just talk and it'll work. So, and it's very obvious. When you see people being trained at surveillance, they will all have the reflex of doing this. There's not a problem with this picture, what is it? Yes, exactly, there's this little, but earpiece. You don't need an earpiece. Now the earpiece is so small it goes inside the ear and there's an induction loop in your collar so there's no wire, it's just like radio. But more than this, again, in movies they use cell phones and so on, but you can't always use your cell phone. If you need to talk to someone in surveillance, there's something called a press cell or a PCT switch. Press to touch. And the way it works roughly is, since you can't talk, you need to have an operator asking questions. So oftentimes three beeps will ask me a question. So I have the press cell in my hand, it's like a little beige-shaped button, basically. And one day I'm gonna press three times to say ask me a question. And the operator will say, is the target moving? I'll press one for yes. Is the target going west? I'm gonna press twice for no. Then east twice for no. Then north, yes, and all these things. So it's not like in the movies and people need to be super worried about surveillance. The way they're doing it is really bad and you're gonna see pros doing something like this. But it still is about magic. If you care about it and if you look at it, people will look at it. So now, if ever you're lucky enough to do surveillance, it's really boring work, by the way. Just relax and don't touch your earpiece and behave like normal. There's lots of things I'm out of time so I'm not gonna talk about clothing and techniques and counter-surveillance. Talk to me around the beer if you'd like. But it's something you shouldn't need to know. In the movies, it's totally wrong. Yeah, I said this. And references, finally. The CIA manual to deception. This is something the CIA wrote. Well, with magicians living with their mind, they talked about it before. Psychological subtleties. A sleight of mind, it's amazing. It's like neuroscientists looking at deception and the book Influenced by Robert B. Cialdini, who was a psychologist who wrote about how influence works. It's a really, really good book. Thank you so much for your time. You've been great. Have a nice day.


Another quick fragrance moment. All right, Roja Dove, love this one. Gotta tell you I love that fragrance. More on that one later. This one is gonna have its own fragrance moment. Dolce and Gabbana, one of the hardest fragrances to get in the world, Velvet Oriental Musk. Been wearing this one all day and it is incredible. Still not the subject of this video. And of course, people in the fragrance community know about this one. One of the most difficult fragrances to get on the planet, Valiant. And we gotta talk about this one too. And the price point even made me say, but wow, that's just what I wanted to do. See, that's why I wanted to do this fragrance moment because a lot of these fragrances really shouldn't have a standalone video. I mean, why do I need to make a full video review for this when 99.9% of people would never spend that much money on a fragrance?  But I do wanna talk about this one right here and lots of things from Cartier. Cartier, in my opinion, is one of the most criminally underrated fragrance lines in the fragrance community. Now look, many people know about the designer stuff. Cartier, Pasha, Parfum, I reviewed that one. Declaration, Declaration, that's war. The designer stuff gets a lot more love, but this right here is probably one of the best Oud fragrances out to date. This one is Cartier Oud Oud. And guys, you know, I love Rose, Amber, and Oud. This one right here, there's just something very, very different about this one. When the first one, I mean, you first smell it. It almost has this olive-like, olive or pimento. But don't let that dissuade you. You have to put it on your hand and let the magic happen. They have several things in the Oud collection over there. They have Oud Musk, Oud Santal, Oud, Rady, something that's like an Oud ginger fragrance. Oud Rose, I have that one. Several other Oud, this, Oud, that, but the two best ones in my opinion are Oud, Oud, and then Oud Absolute. And I own them both with this one. What makes this so special? Well, because it really has a throwback to like that Middle Eastern attire kind of thing. I mean, it's unpretentious. It's not trying to be anything that's not, it is just straight in your face, Oud, done well. You can smell the class, the sophistication, the Cartier kind of elegance in this fragrance.  It doesn't go, it goes more Oud-y than more Wood-y. And guys, if you go to Saks, your local Saks may actually have this. Or if you're lucky enough to have a actual Cartier boutique by, they should have these in there as well. Do not be afraid to go into the Cartier boutique, the store and head straight back for the fragrances. Go right past the jewelry and the watches and all other kinds of stuff.  Nope, go in there just to smell fragrance. I do, and I enjoy it. This one though, I will say, if you love Oud, if you dig Oud, you need to check this one out. One of the best, most underrated Oods on the planet in my opinion. And probably the reason it doesn't get a lot of love is because it's Cartier. And Cartier is not in wide circulation, but if this one were out a little bit more, I think this would be a hit with most people. Here's another thing, on the gray market, it's difficult to find. You don't find many of the resellers or third party people who leave and stock this stuff. So you may have to take your chances on eBay again. I recommend only buying from highly rated, credible sellers that have a track record of performance because again, it's eBay, it's the Wild Wild West, but I know some guys over there that I trust very much. And I just love this stuff. I love it, I love it, I love it. That's the reason it kind of made it to a fragrance moment instead of a full on fragrance review because like I said, just like many of these, a lot of you guys won't get a chance to even smell it, much less buy it and wear it. But I did want you to know about it, what I think of it, and how I like to wear it. This is really one of my favorite go-to fragrances on the planet. And the only one I like from the line more than this one is Ood Absolute, but the problem is, it's only a 45 ml bottle and it's like almost 400 bucks. Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just telling you. And trying to find that at a discount, good luck with that one. I wanna also try Ood Amber from the line, but let's see if we can get a hold of that one. So guys, that's another one of the fragrance moments in the books. What's this? Dunhill Icon Absolute. This one will get a standalone review because for less than 50 bucks, this should be in your collection, guys. If you like time for it, Ood Wood, you will dig this one for the price point, you can't go wrong. This just looks good sitting in your, on your desk or on your bathroom counter or wherever you keep your fragrances. This is a classy looking bottle. So do me a favor, let me know down in the description. Have you had any experience with the Cartier Ood line? If you have, let us know what you thought about them. What was your favorite? Which one did you like more? I really don't wanna know what you hate about it. I'm more along the line of, hey, I like these. Or if you'd like to try them, if you know how to find them, if you actually sell them. Inquiring minds I'd like to know. Until the next time, peace out. Your Godfather will see you later.


What is the greatest Air Jordan 4 of all time? So, as you know, I'm an OG head. So it's the bread 4, hands down. Because that's just iconic. Jordan literally wore that shoe, dog people in that shoe, and you can wear it up, wear it down, regardless, bread 4. Black laces or white laces? I'm going black. You got to go OG with it. I mean, blah, blah, blah, but I seen the wax white in them. Fired, though. So you might have to switch it up. You'll have to switch it up every now and then.


the guilt and the loss that are, they're the same. They're synonymous. And in order to be free of this world, if you are tortured by the world, if you feel that the world's done things to you, if you have memories from the past, or even fears about the future, what will happen, you have to start to see that these gods are just being represented in the world.  They are absolutely identical. And that's why we have to forgive them. That's why we have to release them. He says you have real thoughts, but they're covered over by these attack thoughts, right, these judgments, these grievances. And so it's like a, that's kind of like the work bubble in here. The work bubble is all of these unreal thoughts. And then there's the core of real thoughts. That's why the workbooks training you to see that the images you think you think, or think you see and the thoughts you think you think are the same. And then to go inward, inward, inward to your real thoughts, the thoughts that you think with God. And that's why we have lessons like my mind holds only what I think with God. Of course, that would have to be the escape, if I can just identify that only, the only real thoughts in my mind are the thoughts that I think with God. Everything else must be an illusion. And, and that's where the detachment comes in, you know, when people talk about meditation, sink down beneath your everyday stream of thoughts, everything you think you think to sink down deeper. Sometimes people do guided meditations where they say imagine yourself like laying in a stream and the leaves are falling from the trees and they're landing on the stream, but you're underneath those leaves. And just watch those leaves go by. Don't identify at all with those leaves. Those are not who you are. You know, it's, you know, those guided meditations are all designed for this at the same thing to, to disidentify from those thoughts. And we've talked before, if, if you think you're identifying with behaviors and images, even more of a close identification is with the thoughts you think. If you are thinking judgmental thoughts, and you identify yourself as the thinker of those thoughts, how could you not feel guilty? If, if the thoughts are guilt, and you identify yourself with the thinker of those thoughts, then of course, you would feel guilty. Of course, it couldn't really be who you really are, because God didn't create guilt. God didn't create a stream of guilty thoughts and say, oh, this is my beloved stream of guilt thoughts in whom I'm well pleased. God just doesn't work that way. No, that's not the teaching. This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. The Christ, God is pleased with the Christ. But the Christ is pure love, pure innocence, not a stream of guilt thoughts. So this is why the most important thing you will ever seem to do in this so-called lifetime is mind watching and mind training. And if you think really about all the things you put your energy into, or even if you look back at your so-called dream life and the past, and you think, well, what did I really, what did I value here? What did I put my investment in? What, what was I pouring my energy into?  It was pursuing a bunch of, of pipe dreams. It was, it was holding on to these kind of concepts and pursuing the concepts, believing that, oh, if I just reached such and such, then I'll be fulfilled. You know, Jesus says in the Course, he says, one thing you must learn about these ego goals, these goals that the ego has given you, is that when you have achieved them, they have not satisfied you. Think of all the goals we set. We actually were told the goal setting was good, right? What are you if you don't have any goals? A lazy, no-good rotten bum is what you are if you don't have any goals. And now we're working with the Course, and what is it asking us to do? Give up all of the goals.  It takes a while to practice that, because we're always associated goals with the future, right? But if now we've got to learn how to have present peace, it's a different kind of goal. That's why it seems to be a little difficult for us. When we're trying to, to attain this goal, we're just not used to present peace as a goal. It's like a strange, weird, awkward goal.   You could do something really productive and present peace. And, but you see, that's what you've got to face. And as long as you have that doubt thought like, yeah, yeah, right, what a goal, then guess what the world is going to act out for you? It could be your parents. It could be your neighbors. It could be your spouse. What? What's your goal? Your goal is present peace?  And if you have doubt thoughts about present peace, guess where they're going to show up? Everywhere. Everywhere you look. Everywhere in the world.