E135 Casey Fenton: CEO @ Upstock & Founder @ Couchsurfing

Episode 135 November 25, 2021 01:10:30
E135 Casey Fenton: CEO @ Upstock & Founder @ Couchsurfing
NoCode Wealth
E135 Casey Fenton: CEO @ Upstock & Founder @ Couchsurfing

Nov 25 2021 | 01:10:30

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Show Notes

After more than a decade of launching & running Couchsurfing, the largest trust experiment of all time with 20M+ users, Casey Fenton is now the CEO of Upstock making it easy for small- and medium-sized businesses to offer Fortune 1000-level equity to their workers without expensive and time-consuming lawyers.

Website: https://www.upstock.io/

 

Casey Fenton is also the Author of the upcoming book on Ego Hacking: a neuroscience-based method that relies on a robust scientific body of knowledge, generates increased cooperation and collaboration at scale. Ego hacking involves using specific communication patterns to activate people’s most positive qualities, so they can cooperate effectively with others and build big things together.

Website: https://www.caseyfenton.com/

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Episode Transcript

Casey Fenton 0:00 And then you don't fall into some of those ego traps as easily and there are 10 different ego traps Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 0:22 once upon a time, there were 10s of 1000s of makers struggling every day they built for hours and hours but didn't ship and didn't earn enough income. One day, the no code wealth podcast came to help them find the way because of this. Makers became founders and have clarity out of confusion. Because of this. Founders can have the life they deserve. Clarity is what I'm really all about. And this journey has been full of ups and downs for me. Hello, my name is Abdulaziz and from being a poor boy born to a single mother in North Africa with no money, no connections, only hard work, persistence and even more hard work to a European Ivy League business graduate, and an expert on seven different psychological therapies with a great corporate job. Still, I've lost everything twice, but I refuse to give up. So now I'm rebuilding my life one more time. 1% a day. On this podcast. I'm privileged and honored to interview hundreds of amazing people from members of the Forbes Technology Council, Google executive, Amazon, Microsoft, LinkedIn C suite executives to Fortune 102 Financial Times reporters and people from Harvard University Cambridge, Stanford, even from the Vatican church, congressional candidates and decorated veterans or just beginners wishing to make a difference in this world All are welcome, here. And thank you all so much for the support. After all this hard work. This podcast is now ranking highly on Apple in the entrepreneurship category top 200 in San Francisco top 100 in Australia, top 100 in Singapore top 60 in Germany top 50 in Canada top 50 In the United Kingdom and top in many other places. This podcast is really about having clarity conversations, which is what I am known for clarity of where you are now, clarity on the right next step to take clarity out of confusion and hesitation and clarity of business whenever that might be necessary. So let's begin. My guest today is Casey Fenton from beginning as a legislative aide at the Alaska State House of Representatives to being the original co founder and founding chairman of the board at couchsurfing International, and now the CEO and founder at up stock. Casey speaks extensively on trust, collaboration and hacking human ego to produce enhanced cooperation. He has spoken at Stanford Business School and TEDx bologna as well as keynoted at slosh, Startup Grind, DLD startup extreme and dozens more events. Up stock allows teams of all sizes to easily issue and manage worker equity with up stock business owners can set up a worker equity system in minutes instead of months at a price point up to 40x. more affordable than lawyers. Sounds cool. And Casey, how are you today? Casey Fenton 4:03 Wow, that's great, a great intro Abdulaziz, I appreciate that. I am having a great day. I'm here in Alaska with my wife, and we are just doing my work. And I'm getting ready to go on a hike later. And I'm really excited to talk with you because like you said, you'd like to dig deep into different topics and really get to the heart of the matter. So I couldn't be more thrilled to be here on the show with you. This is where I've wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the world right now. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 4:27 Thank you so much. And so I would like to begin with something, which is my favorite question. Currently and is this these days, these periods? What seems to be something new or something deeper, that you seem to be thinking about a lot because it demands your attention? Or it's time to change it? Or if the right time to move on to this next level in your life? Casey Fenton 4:55 Great question. I think right now what's really a lot you know, really President really prevalent in my mind kind of going through my mind, I'm trying to lay in bed at night and just trying to get to sleep and trying to think about trying to think about this world and just keep coming back to this idea of cooperation. I mean, I've always been about cooperation in my life, but now I'm really looking at all the different forces, all the things coming together, and and trying to think, How can this world cooperate? And how can we overcome the real big challenges? Or are we going to go splat? You know, is this a, is this a good world? And are we going to make it or not? So that's, I think that's kind of the the biggest the biggest topic on my mind. And then the the related topic is, how can I add to the cooperation? How can I up the cooperation quotient, so to speak, and, and make sure that we can all succeed together? Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 5:44 Thank you, reminds me of the Einstein thing, where he said, the most important question for humanity is the answer to is this world a friendly place? And you said, you know, whether the world will move on into more cooperation, or will splice together? And so, okay, what is stopping cooperation? Casey Fenton 6:11 Well, I think there's plenty of things that are stuff in cooperation. But one of the things that's really on my mind, when I'm thinking about that is human ego, and human identity. And there is kind of built into us, there's this desire to cooperate. But there's also some challenges regarding the way the human ego or the the biological function of human ego, how it is built, and how it expresses itself, and how it makes people not necessarily want to cooperate, how they want to maybe look good, avoid looking bad, you know, get more for themselves at the cost of others. So this is kind of, you know, really on my mind, and I'm seeing evidence of it everywhere. And, you know, maybe it's confirmation bias, because I'm writing a book upon about such a topic right now, my wife, but it seems to be real, as you know, just a huge factor. And then we've got all kinds of problems in the world. But this one seems to kind of be a part of all of the problems and affect all of the different issues that we're going through. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 7:11 Thank you. So our world is at a critical junction, and we need cooperation to survive, basically. But what is standing in the way or at least a big thing? Is the human ego, how it's built, and people trying to look good, or whatever, that might stop them from cooperating. Is this correct? Casey Fenton 7:33 That's absolutely correct. There's, there's a lot to it, of course, but I think you've got a great job of summing it up. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 7:39 Thank you. And you mentioned something interesting, you said how the ego is built. And that word will not be used in that context by any person. So you said it in a way that is more unique. So how is the ego built? Yes, Casey Fenton 7:57 I think if you ask different people, you'll get different answers on this. If you walk down the street and ask people, oh, well, how does your ego function, you'll probably just get all kinds of random answers. But I think that the way that the ego functions is it's basically something trying to get our needs met. And that could mean anything from our most basic of needs, like air, food, oxygen, you know, social connection, but then as you kind of get higher up Maslow's hierarchy, so to speak, and out of Maslow's basement. It you have the needs of personal you have this kind of like how do I come across to other people self esteem, related and maybe eventually, you have these these things of self actualization. But I guess, mostly where, where I'm focused, and especially where this book we're writing is focused, is more on the the software elements of you know, the things you can solve with software with the information. A lot of the basic needs, you have to move molecules from here over to there, whether it's food or water, or even human connection, in many ways, although that can be done more and more online these days. But the idea is that, that with human ego, it's all software, it's all information based. It's all what do I think about you? What do you like, what do I imagine you're thinking about me, and so on. So this is, this is this is where we're, we're when I when I talked about human ego and how it functions? This is where we're focusing the book puppet. And when we get a little bit back to that question of how does it function, I there's a whole bunch of pieces to it. One of the major prevalent pieces is something I like to call ego debt or a almost like an ego ledger, where we have inputs coming into into our body, you know, inputs and outputs, of course, and you know, I'm a computer programmer. So by trades, I tend to think in these kinds of systems. We have these inputs are coming in and we can make meaning of them. The meaning could be something positive or negative can be in something about me about something that other people and the tendency is to want to create answers that make me feel feel good. But also maybe don't get me closer to reality, at the same time, maybe they're getting a little bit further away from the average reality everyone else is experiencing. So that's just one kind of ego trap, you could, you could say, the book is kind of filled with these ego traps, and then the ego hacks to overcome the ego traps. So the human ego is functioning such that we have a tendency to fall into these ego traps based on the the biological way in which it functions. You know, we're, we've got these feedback ratios in the world. And if we go too low, if the feedback ratio is too negative with those people around us in our environment, we tend to want to rationalize why those other people are wrong. And we're okay. And if the feedback ratio goes too high, things start to feel meaningless. So there's some there's somewhere in the middle of this a good healthy feedback ratio, some people say it's like five to one, five positive to one negative, some research out there said that everybody's different, every culture is different. But when you can really take a look at the feedback ratio, and make sure you're getting a healthy feedback ratio, then people can actually hear each other, especially when they're trying to talk about challenging topics. And then you don't fall into some of those ego traps as easily. And there are you know, that we in the book, about 10 Different ego traps. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 11:16 Thank you so much. And I will play the devil's advocate a little bit. So I have questions that are related to that. If okay, you spoke about confirmation bias. And that is one of the cognitive biases. Well, if cane man and many of the people who won Nobel Prizes and experts on cognitive biases still say that in till this day, they fall into them frequently, although they're the foremost experts on them. How is it that just some information or additional information can make us avoid ego traps? If we weren't even thinking about it in a Buddhist way, it takes people like 40 years in order to liberate themselves from that, like staff looking at the wall like meditate 24 hour, so how can some more or information? How can it be the solution to something that is ingrained into the psyche that divorce? Casey Fenton 12:21 A brilliant, brilliant question. And to answer that, I would say this, I would say that there are better and maybe worse strategies for reprogramming ourselves. Yes, we have confirmation bias. Yes, I'd like to call them almost like ego snowballs, like, whatever our identity is we've already identified with when we're in the world. And you know, we have these big identities that we've learned over time that we've had reinforced and reinforced ourselves and that our friends and the people around us and our culture reinforce in us. Now, if you know, if you're trying to overcome these large snowballs of ego, let's call them because it gets rolling downhill and picking up more material all the time. That can be challenging, and I think that's what you're getting at. But how do you reprogram these things? Well, once you understand how the ego functions, that makes a lot easier, it's easier to hack a system that you understand, right? So you know, we, in the book, we're talking and we're trying to show the research and show how, you know, we become what other people say we are for social cohesion, like we have to be because about, you know, somewhere around 92% of people are pretty cooperative, they have an act of oxytocin running around in their bloodstream, and they really want to care about what other people think. And, and that's a good thing. Because the more we care about what other people think the more cohesive, we have a society. And so one of the things we talked about in the book is that it's, it's it we become when other people say we are what we imagined that they want us to be for social cohesion. So that goes to follow that if we can figure out how we were programmed, and understand that if we can figure out who we'd like to be, we can also get our friends to help us program ourselves in that direction, and we can get there faster. So there's again, there's like strategies that are not very good at reprogramming identity and other strategies that are much better at reprogramming. And ideally, there's certain words that are better to use and certain words that are not as good for instance, that word better be and you can you can look at Carol Dweck as examples. She has some great ego hacks like around growth mindset, that's one of the best one of the better you hacks out there, as Carol Dweck talks, you know, making sure that you're speaking growth language. In that case, you would talk about, you know, the identity that you have that you want to get away from, right that you want to put down and suppress talking about that as being in the past. But if you have an identity that you'd like to move toward, let's talk about how you're becoming that or what is the examples of an evidence of of you being that already, because whatever your identity is, you have that confirmation bias is going to reinforce it. So let's make sure that you're programmed with the identities that you like to reinforce and have the right language to suppress the identities that you would not like to have expressed enough that it helps give a little more color to your question. Oh, yes, Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 15:00 sir. Thank you, I have like a million question. Okay. How is that different from affirmations? And people have developed something called affirmations, which is good. Because anytime you say to yourself like, I am so great or I am so smart, or I am so rich, there is an inner resistant voice that criticizes that. And therefore, someone evolved that into asking a question, why am I so rich or whatever, so that your brain will look for answers instead of criticizing it? Well, the question is, how like, because the fundamental assumption there is that humans can program themselves. And they did a lot of studies, or even books about it, that people who have heart conditions, for example, from smoking, or getting their illness to a critical level, will still kill themselves by not stopping that, even like, they will stop maybe for three months or four, but they will die from returning to that much more, like 92% or whatever, then the people who stopped because the momentum of the identity, if we might say, that way, is moving, it's like a huge boulder, and you're using sand like grains, trying to stop a boulder with them. So that idea of us programming ourselves, I got a hint that you're using, like the peer pressure or the environment, which is in systems theory, which is that when people say things about you, then it's something stronger than you saying to yourself. I understood. That's what you said, your friends come, and they will program you. But this is my question. What brought you to the belief that actually people can reprogram themselves? If because the assumption is you said you're a computer programmer. So it's a computer, which means you just erase and change. But this is not like that. This is like a train going at 1000 miles per hour, and you're trying to reprogram it, but it's not exactly because the momentum of old habits, old ways of beings, whatever it is, is ingrained. So can you comment on this place Casey Fenton 17:19 100%. So I think like you said, there's a boulder you have, you're rolling a boulder Snowball or something downhill, you have that momentum, you have all these neurons in your in your brain and your whole body. And everything that's kind of, like you said, has a lot of momentum in one direction. This is I don't think it's possible to very easily erase any of your existing programming, I think all you can do is create more programming and try to have your body choose that or fire down those neurons as a precedence. You know, it's like you want to, and that takes that can, that can take that can take a whole lot can take a whole bunch of work. To do that. It's not, it's not so easy. It's not as easy as having your friend just having your friends say some magic words at all. I mean, the deeper the programming, the harder the work generally is to, to, to change it to replace it, let's say or to it, not that you can delete it again, it's that you want to create other ego snowballs, I like to call them that start rolling. You know, and you can give the pet somebody this gift by saying I see you as somebody who really doesn't want to smoke. I see you as somebody who's oh my god, look at the evidence just the other day, you you weren't smoking and you went for a run and you know, all of these things that are evidence of somebody not doing that as as a friend might do if they see this kind of evidence. And that starts to build this. It's either start that little ego snowball, and you might even ask that person, like you said, Why do you think that is, and then they start inventing in their mind and start to own the identity more and more of that identity, why they're not smoking, or why they're moving toward one identity and maybe not another, which is another powerful Eaglehawk I think that's the Byron Katie was one that really pushed that one in her work that she said great work in in creating the work and then very impressed by her work there. Yeah, so there's, there's really, there's all kinds of ways in which you can try to create these larger snowballs but again, you're not erasing old ones, you're just trying to make the new snowballs larger and so that they become more naturally expressed and the other ones are more likely to not be expressed. Does that make sense? Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 19:26 Yes. And I will go to another thing you mentioned before you said something, you said that these ego traps are whatever they make us deviate from the reality that is agreed upon, or for the by most people or the average person, etc. Right? Casey Fenton 19:47 That is one of the ego traps. Yes. I call it optimizing for what feels good over what's real. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 19:55 Okay. This is a huge can of worms but even if you look in the field was a fear of science. And you said that there are a data that comes to us and we use it as instruments in order to judge how to react and an ego way. And all that, actually, in many ways, there is no reality. And there is not even like, a lot of agreed upon reality, there's like, 8 billion realities, because each person in the world is living in that reality, and they believe nobody else is everybody else's crazy. They don't. So first two things. One, when you say to people, the agreed upon reality, the selfish ego needs to come, because the only way they will agree to an agreed upon reality is for practical reasons. But if you ask them deep down, the truth will be well, I believe in my reality, and everybody else is wrong. That's what will come out. Right? The second you said the data comes? Well, I remember the Rational Emotive behavioral therapy, which is Dr. Albert Ellis, he was speaking about some studies he did that even when parents are perfect, like amazing. Still kids will find ways to mess themselves up. Like if the father or the mother is like, on the phone, and then daughter says, Oh, Daddy, or whatever is like one second sweetie, she will think Oh, my God, He loves the phone more than me. So I'm less than the phone, and therefore, you know what I mean? Which means that anything coming, there is not really a standardized way to think about it, about how the data will translate into ego reaction or ego trap or whatever it is. Which means well, what is your comment on these two things agreed upon reality, that's not really something that would exist in a non ego place. If you have the ego, there is no agreed reality, because nobody has an incentive to agree to an agreed reality. The second, which is that actually the what comes is not really the same for each person, whatever data that is coming, we're just aggregating a lot. But it's like saying all models are totally wrong, but they're very useful. Casey Fenton 22:17 Right? Yeah. So I 100% agree that this, you can't have a perfect reality. I mean, it's so subjective, like you said, there's a billions of realities, right. But at some point, when you're coming, you're trying to live your life and you're trying to move through it interact with other people and interact with the environment around you, there are going to be some things that most that more people will generally agree on. Now, if you're, you know, and science is a good example, a lot of these lots of science out there that people generally agree on. And if you agree with the gravity works in a certain way, and that's, you know, maybe different people have different ideas about it. But if you don't want to go so far off in your stories about and understanding about how that works, I mean, that grab is a very simple example. But I think more complex examples, and more common examples would be, you know, you're in a social setting. And there's a whole bunch of people trying to make sense of each other. And there's a whole bunch of people trying to, you know, tell stories that you could make themselves look good and avoid looking bad, you could have all kinds of different events happen that somebody could be feeling good about or not feeling good about. And then they can try to create stories and then try to perpetrate those stories or get other people to believe their stories. Now, the the more that your stories can kind of line up with, quote unquote, reality, the average reality everybody else is kind of experiencing, that's what I'm saying is, that's a bit safer to do that than creating your own reality that is pretty far off from the reality everybody else is experiencing, it's going to be harder for you to connect with other people, if your reality is that far off. So you know, as far as you know, being able to connect, being able to cooperate, the more that you can check your stories with the average reality everyone else is experiencing, I think that's a good thing. I think that's helpful. That's a trap, you're avoiding that trap of just being so far off. You know, you can have mass delusions, of course, but at least in the time that those people were, you know, together thinking about it, maybe the world is flat, they're thinking, you know, the world is flat, and that helps them all connect, and it helps people see in power, whatever. But in the long term, you know, maybe things get changed as the reality starts to become better understood. Your next question, can you remind me of the next question, I apologize. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 24:30 No problem. I have another question, which is even more, like appropriate because I was hearing us speak about cooperation. And it's wonderful. And I remember one of the biggest fund managers in the world was asked this question, and I would like to relay his answer because it's actually my observation as well. People who are smart, actually are way too aware of risks. They're way too aware of their weaknesses and limitations, and therefore they don't take much risk in life. And if they cooperate, it's within their comfort zone, they don't really go above and beyond, while people who are either too stupid to realize they're stupid, which is the Dunning Kruger effect, or they're delusional, those are the people who reach to the top through a Russian Roulette situation, where they keep on winning just by sheer Good luck. But it increases their confidence and all that which leads them to the top, which in many ways there is a selection, bias or survivorship bias, or whatever it is, that the people who end up at the top are delusional in many ways and have big egos, because they believe in themselves, in spite of any contradicting information coming through, as well as they're willing to take risks, because, well, they believe in themselves in a delusional way. And therefore, delusional ego is really a source of getting to a lot of positions of power and decision making. While 92%, you said or whatever the number of people who are nice and have a lot of oxytocin and cooperate, well, those people don't break the mold. They're not creative. They don't become the next Steve Jobs with his like, gravity distortion field. And therefore, in many ways, yes, ego, we should kill it and whatever. But is it just sacrificing ego at the altar of the oxytocin lovers, while reality is telling us that delusional people and people with huge egos are ruling the world and therefore, in many ways, it's, it could be interesting, the thing that is leading them to success, because really, like, if you are self aware, you're aware of your limitations, you will not do something that is totally stupid, which means you will be risk averse, while someone who just believes he's like a God on this earth because of his ego. And his competitive you remember, like, I don't know whether you watched a documentary with Michael Jordan, he used to motivate himself with delusion, like someone from the other team will look at him, he'll imagine that person was like, said something bad about his mother, or told him you'll never win or whatever. And then he says, that's all I needed. And he will have food, like he will destroy people's careers over things they didn't even do just to motivate himself doing out of ego, what is yours? Unfortunately, that's why it became even a meme. Like, that's all I needed, if you want to, because he will do that he will invent like, some something like a flight to his ego, that will push him to become the best player in the world. Casey Fenton 27:56 Yeah. Well, I would say that there certainly are groups of people out there. And I think we're talking about those kind of sociopaths are the narcissists that don't care about other people as much don't care about the cooperation, but there's care about themselves succeeding at all costs, right. So there's a certainly a percentage. But I think that there's even more people out there that are succeeding because of cooperation. I mean, to to climb a ladder or hierarchy in an organization, I think a book, the book, the book, tribe leadership, even talks about this, where it's, there's almost like a glass ceiling, if people believe that you are looking out for their interests, the interests of the group, they want to exalt you, they want to promote you, they want to push you along, if they believe that you're looking out for themselves, well, then they don't want to do that. So you kind of it's just harder, harder to go along, it's harder to get it high. So you get you know, go higher up this hierarchy, so to speak, or social hierarchies or whatever. So I, from my experience, that people can kind of get ahead in multiple ways. There's all kinds of strategies, some that work better than others in different contexts and whatever. Certainly, like you said, maybe some people are less risk, they're less of a risk taker. So they're just not even get there statistically, there's never going to be fewer people that are going to go there, compared to like some people that are really driven and driven for personal gain. But I really do think that there's just so many great examples of people out there that I don't I don't see it as just being driven for personal gain. I think that they're literally being exalted by the people around them that are like this person is a good person, they're looking out for all of us. And we want them to succeed, because when they succeed, we all succeed. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 29:30 Thank you. When they succeed, we all succeed, who determined that vision for the group. And it has been shown in many ways that whenever there is a Commission decided on anything, it's a compromise and a totally broken vision that ends up being created. Because if it's not, nobody really is happy with it, but everybody compromised so nobody is satisfied in a group where there is that cooperate. Mission? Well, where does the vision come from? Especially that if you speak about people who are into oxytocin, each one will delegated or relegate the decision of the vision to the other person like you remember, I don't know whether in some movies or whatever someone asks, their friends are, what do you eat? What do you want to eat tonight? They'll say whatever you want. And then they'll be like, Yeah, okay, but what do you want? Anything you want, I'll be happy with it. And everybody's just going back and forth, saying whatever you want, whatever you want. Because you mentioned you began with this premise. You didn't say anybody but you said the people with high oxytocin? Well, those in particular will get satisfaction from serving the group. And therefore they will not have the initiative. And where does that come from? Probably go. And I'm playing the devil's advocate. Tell me more? Casey Fenton 30:51 Sure. I've heard a couple of questions here. One was. So I think what was the first question, just want to make sure I understand because you are really good at asking questions. I wanna make sure I understand your question. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 31:03 No problem. Thank you for being very kind. You're stroking my ego. But I said whenever there is a group when there is cooperation, and we are know that you know, Commission's if they make a decision to compromise, but where would the initiative come from if everybody's oxytocin filled, and therefore, based on that, oxytocin is not the same as having like that drive for serotonin, which is what drives you out of the comfort zone. Oxytocin is more about comfort staying within that. Casey Fenton 31:40 Okay. I think I heard something about that. If first, it was something about cooperation, and who decides what the group's vision is. And just to that one real quick to get back to that, when I think I heard, I think that yes, you could have it more or less articulated in any group, it could be that there's you have a certain organization, and the organization has either articulated or less articulated values. But ultimately, it's the feeling that's in the mind of all the people that are that are part of that organization, any organization can be a country, it could be literally like a corporation could be a nonprofit, it could be really any any collection of people. And so it's important, especially where there's maybe something at stake where they're trying to achieve something. Yeah, they're, it's more or it can be more loose, it could be more articulated. I think, either way can work. You know, how those things come to be articulated? Yeah, there's a whole big topic, I guess. I've gone through those kinds of mission and vision and articulations before and all the pros and cons of trying to make everybody satisfied and try to get what are the goals of the organization and on and on and on. This this next key asset, next question again, and because you there are two questions. Two other questions there. There's a new one. And then there's the the other one, you asked before that, and apologize, because I can't if I can't keep them all in my mind at the same time. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 32:59 No problem, I will ask questions one by one. And so you mentioned right now that it's in the heart of the people the feeling or the vision, etc. It seems to me, that is not really exactly how life works. Those are as Henry David Thoreau said that people are living a life of quiet desperation. And they die with their songs and their hearts, which is really unfortunate. But it seems to or even if you read books, like true believer, where he it's the on the origins of mass movement, that actually people buying into a vision isn't really that way, that idealistic, utopian way, but more that a lot of people are bored, they have no excitement in their lives. And therefore a big bold vision is something that adds that excitement into their lives rather than something they feel towards. It's something that they need, otherwise, they're feeling like emptiness, and therefore, it doesn't originate from them. Because you cannot ask somebody to contribute what they don't have, if they're living a life of quiet desperation, they cannot, you know, create the opposite what I am saying, Okay, in this way, should we eliminate ego 100%? Is this the premise of the book? Or is it a premise of eliminating only ego traps, but then grow in ego and other ways? Or how does it go? Because even in spirituality or in Buddhism, they will go in this way, they say before you let go of ego, you should have an ego first that is strong enough, you know that you have things to let go of, but if you only have nothing, you have no reason to have like an ego about anything. You have no reason to think that you should look good, then it's not the right time to begin letting go of ego Go for I think, as Jack Welch put it in this way, that a lot of people they're like in, in at university, and they want to give to the world and all that, but their heart is empty, they have nothing to give, build something first to give, and then you can let go of the ego afterwards. But tell me about those because maybe I'm assuming, and it's totally wrong, that your premise is to let go totally off ego, which would be absolutely perfect and great premise to go. But then I'm thinking about practically, how would it work in a world where Casey Fenton 35:34 it's not really completely not not into that that's or that the opposite of the the message of the book, the fact, the message of the book is that we all don't understand how our egos are affecting us. And we're told by the world to, you know, look away from them, or just suppress them or kill them. And that will, I think the result of that is often that you go controls us. So the premise of the book is that if you can understand how go works, how it came to be, what the benefits are, of ego, but also how it's controlling us, and how the how the world around us is controlling us through our identities. And through that programming, you can reprogram yourself, and especially with the help of your friends, because that can really, that can really accelerate your programming. So instead of killing the ego, it's better to understand it and use it for good. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 36:18 Thank you how to use the ego for good. Casey Fenton 36:21 Hmm. Yeah, so to use the ego for good, you could ask yourself very simply, are the things I'm going for in life? Do those things benefit myself? Or do they benefit? The greater good? Are they great benefiting that greater group of people, you know, at least my friends are maybe even larger than that, you know, you could even go up to society as a whole, or, you know, the world in general. There's various layers and shades and levels of, you know, cooperation, and who are you who's your weak, right, you could include all kinds of different people in your Wi Fi at any time, usually, the more that you have your basic needs satisfied, and you believe that in the future, your basic needs reset will be satisfied, the larger your kind of intuitive we seems to be. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 37:07 Thank you. And who determines that bigger? Good, I will ask, I'll tell you this, because in marketing, one of the deepest premises or things that people need to open their eyes to, is that people don't buy what they need. They buy what they want, which is often not at all what they need. Or, like, often you can tell people, well, you need delayed gratification. And they'll say, of course, of course, and then they go rushing to fast food, and Netflix, like watching some reality TV or whatever. And so in marketing, they say, like, give them a fully enough ratio, hotdog, or, like, sell them what they want, but including it whatever they need. So that it's like a Trojan horse, where you give them that tasty, shiny thing, while within it, there is a lot of goodness, if you're working towards the bigger good weather stories, you can look about them in the religion or in methodology. It's an unwelcomed profit that gets don't get killed. That's more the realities and the idealistic. If you told me, yes, let's go find like people at that yellow level awareness. And like, we're all great people, and we understand the red and the green and the blue and all those levels of consciousness, I will say, Yes, I agree with you and 100%, but to speak in a way about ego, where we're dealing with so many people, and so many of them are at so many stages of awareness that there is no one, like you cannot take perfect acceptance of the greater good. Casey Fenton 38:58 There's, there's always going to have to agree on that. Nope. Yeah. Nobody will agree on what a greater good is. But I think that you could, you know, there are probably what some examples that are more obviously, less greater good or more greater good. And some they're really hard to really figure out there's so many gray areas, maybe don't even involve kind of neutral or don't even involve greater anything or less anything. I think of the example is the climbing example we have, you know, and we work in organizations or companies with other people. You could ask yourself judges this decision I'm making, does this benefit all of the workers in the organization equally? I mean, is this kind of more egalitarian? Is this something that's benefiting management or just myself? Is this decision I'm making benefiting myself or the people you know, management or something, but at the expense of other people who are working hard every day? You could? Indeed sometimes these decisions are can be a little easier. I don't think there's any perfect there's no perfect way to discover this everybody, like you said, like we agreed earlier everybody has a different perspective. have on the world. But to the degree that you can be be making decisions that you believe in your heart that you think are helping more people. That that is me and more cooperative. Again, there's, it's this is one of those really tricky and challenging things to determine. You know, a lot of people would say that being more sustainable having a more sustainable world, reducing global warming, you know, climate change, all of that stuff is, you know, more cooperative that we should, we should be working towards that, because that helps everybody in the world. So there's some of these concepts that more and more and larger groups of people agree with, not everybody does. And sometimes there's groups of people that don't agree with that. But you can certainly start to think it, when you start to think about these things, I think that it's easy to intuitively say that this thing seems to be more cooperative and less, but you're not always going to be right on these things. And there's no like, ultimate reality of, and way to know for sure, any of these things, but what the answers are here, so it's, it's, um, you know, there's some personal choice here, and up personal. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 41:03 Thank you. Yeah, so if there is no ultimate reality? First, let's define in your, from your own perspective, what is the ego? And if there is no ultimate reality, what benefits can people expect from reining in and managing or I don't know, whatever the word that you prefer to use are related to ego. So what is ego? And what are the benefits of not fallen into ego traps? Because, well, there could be a lot of benefit, by definition, because humans only do things that benefit them falling into the ego traps has some benefits. Casey Fenton 41:46 Right? So I like to think that for me, ego traps are often in the short term strategies, instead of like longer term strategies that people just are not as aware of the benefits, but once they start to figure out what those benefits are, then they start to get they start to want to use these kind of long term. These long term strategies. I mean, I could think of, you know, there's lots of different ego, you know, ego traps, that sometimes people will just kind of react in their, their situation, instead of kind of responding instead of thinking about what's going on, how do I want to respond, they're just kind of reacting, whatever they're feeling at that moment. They can be either what I think one of the opposite, the opposite, one of the really big ones that I see. And in my life, and I've experienced this, myself, and lots of people, and I've experienced this is, you know, optimizing for being right over the expensive connection. So I see that those are kind of often play off of each other, the more I'm trying to be right, and assert my ego, and assert of trying to look good and feel good about myself, because I want to be more right, or winning or something, the less connected I am. And so that there's, you know, I'm losing out on that kind of long term connection over just one moment of being right. You know, I think I mean, there's, there's a lot of, there's plenty of that, but like, put you up putting other people down, to make your ego feel better. That's kind of that's an ego trap. And wouldn't it be better if you could, you know, cooperate and help help each other evolve, instead of, instead of just going straight to that, you know, the guess it's a short term strategy to make yourself your ego feel a little better, but it's not a great long term strategy for feeling connected, and, and having a better life. So there's just, I think another another important one is just to recognize by by identifying as somebody who sees your ego as a feature and not a bug, I think that helps a lot too, because you're not just trying to look away from your ego, and avoid it, and kill it, or trying to work with it. Because it's going to be with us for our life. And it's, it can be a great and powerful and beautiful thing, and help us get our older needs met. And if programmed properly, it can help us get closer to a better life and the people we care about have a better life altogether. Or it can run our lives and create a lot of, you know, havoc, and and pain. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 44:12 Thank you. And if I understood you correctly, because I'm trying to define ego. It's like there is a book by it's called a mammal by Loretta Graziano. It's about I think she speaks there about something she calls junk status, or something that humans use to get the neuro chemicals in their brain, or especially serotonin, like you said, being right, rather than connection and all that is that they're wrong ways or hacks or shortcuts, like junk food, it's junk status, or ways to get the neuro chemicals and to our brain because otherwise the brain is not optimized, it has been evolved for millions of years, in order to push us to do more to have hedonistic adaptation, to not allow us to, like it will push us to cortisol for us to get more status by any means necessary because as mammals evolved, they couldn't save money, they couldn't say anything, the only way that increased survival is higher status, because it means first you will be more inside the group. And therefore, you will be protected by the lower status people around you as a shield from everybody else, you'll get food first before anybody else. And therefore getting higher status is survival. Like, it's the brain doesn't care. All it cares about is anything you get accolades for as a little boy or girl that thinks, Okay, this increases my status, I want more of it always. And forever, enter the workforce, create deep grooves for it. So is this that junk status, which is the wrong or misguided ways that the brain is pushing humans to get serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, in ways that don't serve them? Is that the ego? Or what is the ego? Casey Fenton 46:24 I think there's a lot of probably a lot of correlation there. Absolutely. So to get back to this thing, what is ego? I think you can define it in a few different ways. If you go to an academic and you look at like, you look at the amygdala, and you think, okay, there's all of these, the amygdala has these different inputs, whether it's, you know, food, air, shelter, water, the basic needs, and if there's one of these basic needs, it's not doing well, you're gonna get a pain signal. For instance, if you're not, I guess Matthew Lieberman at UCLA said, showed that with fMRI, if you don't have enough social connection, you start to get a pain signal, and then you can you take ibuprofen, and that like, lowers the signal. So the way I imagine it, is you have the amygdala, you have all of these different inputs for all of your basic needs. And if your basic needs, or any of your basic needs are not being satisfied, like you don't have enough air at this moment, you're gonna get a strong signal saying, Ah, something's wrong, solve this problem. And, you know, some of those are really straightforward, do I have the food do I not, but some of them are more complex, whereas you get up to your human identity, self worth, you know, self esteem, then you can be programmed by the world around you to Oh, hey, buy this fragrance, and you'll be loved. You know, here's, here's a solution for your whatever, fill in the blank. And that's why, you know, modern marketing, I think tries to do is to say, the only way you can solve your ego or identity problem, or that pain, from lack of human connection, or lack of self esteem is to buy this product. And that's, you know, the world kind of programming us, instead of us actively understanding what how we want to be programmed and programming ourselves and with the help of our friends. So back to the, again, the definition of ego, you can have a more kind of medical definition where it's the pain in the amygdala, you could use you could, you could, in a lot of common common vernacular people, some people will say that the ego is more self esteem related, that I want my self esteem to feel better, and you know, at what cost and that usually it's at the cost of others. That's how ego tends to be thought of, therefore, the you know, the natural thing, the natural answer in any you know, most of life is if something's bad, avoid it, just go away from it. But the problem with ego is it follows us around every second of our life, and it's not something we can just turn off very easily. And I don't know if we even want to, I think that imagine a world where everybody everyone was born, they didn't care about what other people thought of them. I don't think we would have modern society, the anxiety that comes from people worrying about what other people thinking and becoming a little bit more cooperative, because they want to make sure that other people see them in a good light, and that they're, yeah, and vice versa. is a great thing that keeps society together. It keeps people together, keep so social stuff working. Imagine the opposite, where everybody is born, and they don't care about what other people think they have to spend a lifetime trying to learn that, to do that logically, if we're trying to build it in biologically, I just don't think that would be a good world. I'd rather everybody spend a lifetime trying to, you know, overcome that, that pain. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 49:24 Thank you. And ask you about this. You said the world is programming us and that is a perspective. But there is for example, a book which is called marketing to the brain. who argues that actually Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs isn't even correct. That two things. One, the world isn't programming us but companies who try to be nice and not use what you call like programming the ego or link into ego they fail, and therefore they're giving people what they want and it's actually just a reflection of Have the human desires that weren't fulfilled before. And if you're going to history to kings who could live like consumers now? Well, they lived in that way anyway, or nobody was marketing or selling to them in any other way. But the deeper thing, they argue that no self actualization, or they defined it in a way where being all you can be is actually the first and deepest human need, but in a way where people would die and lose everything for a good reputation, or for their name, to live on forever, or whatever. And they argued that well, if people who are willing to die, which is like sacrificing all the needs, just for to be recognized by others, or, for others to remember that name as someone great or dying for a cause, or for a value that is self transcendent. That means that is not really the law, like the highest thing, because you will lose shelter, you will lose family, you will lose everything, for self transcendence, or self actualization, and therefore, according to them, actually, you should flip it on its head of these were, and it was marketing to the brain. And therefore there's a ways to market to people's market to self transcendence first, and then take care of anything because someone could be, like dying from hunger or whatever. But they can still fight for their country or for something bigger than themselves, and they're willing to die for it. What are your thoughts about this Casey Fenton 51:42 lesson? The biggest side is Maslow's hierarchy doesn't make any doesn't make much sense to me as a hierarchy. It's more like again, giving activating the pain signals into the amygdala, these things could all be coming and not they're certainly not coming in a hierarchy, but they would be different amounts of pain, perhaps the signals would be at different intensities, different people, different intensities. Different biologies, of course, but if you don't have area, now that one's gonna be really loud. And if you don't have you know, human connection, and where one person, they might not really, that might not affect them as much based on their biology, somebody else that might be really powerful pain. So I see it as all of these things. Anything that could be, quote, unquote, a need, could be, you know, creating a pain signal into this entity or Megillah. And if you don't have it satisfied, you're going to be distracted, you can't really self actualize. And you figure out right now that I don't have my, you know, now that I have all of my needs met, well, now what am I gonna do with my time I see self actualization is that I've got all my needs met, I don't have anything screaming at me saying solve this problem. Now, what do I do with my time? How would I like to live my life? Or how do I like to explore the world or whatever you whatever you want to do, really. So I don't see it as a hierarchy, I don't necessarily see it as in to be able to invert it, I think there's infinite number of examples and situations you could come up with which you would, you know, just prove a hierarchy, of course, or even an inversion, I think they're all just signals, and they all can influence us in different ways. And each person is different. So they're going to have different, different experiences. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 53:13 Thank you. So is that freedom from the pains and the pain signals? Is that freedom from the ego? Or how is that related to the ego? Casey Fenton 53:24 Yeah, I think it's, it's definitely some there's, I would say, so you could definitely define it like that, you could say, when you have all of your basic needs met, and you don't have these pain signals into your amygdala, you are free from your ego. Now, that's if you want to have a much larger, more maybe more medical definition of what ego is where it's encompassing all basic needs. But if you don't do that, and it's more about self esteem, and self, you know, self image and things like that, then maybe it's, you know, more restricted, there's a more restricted definition. And again, you can still, you know, get, you know, solve that kind of pain problem, but it's still missing the piece, which is kind of the point of the book has said, if your ego is what is driving you so strongly to do things in life, why not program it toward the directions that you'd like to go that are more cooperative and help the world? Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 54:14 Thank you, sometimes, okay. I will give a devil's advocate answer and I heard it actually from David Deida, who wrote The Way of the Superior Man, etc. He said, actually, to program the ego for cooperation, people will not value that until they satisfy all their needs, and then they get the existential crisis about that, because they otherwise there will be always thinking what if you know what I mean? Which means let's say someone who is lower and it's not okay, they don't have all their needs met, and they in their head, because there are many utilise sending pains that something is missing their head, they understand, okay, cooperation is the end goal? Well, they cannot be ready until it's like Fight Club, where only when you lose everything that you're free to be who you are or to be anything. Casey Fenton 55:22 Yes, I think that's one path. Absolutely. And that can be a real powerful path that you feel like you've got first principles behind you, and you understand why you're cooperating. And absolutely, that's a great way to get to know about putting cooperation first order, you know, making sure that it's it's one of the core goals. But not everybody follows that path. I think people get there in all kinds of different ways can be trial and error could be, you know, looking out for themselves only. And then seeing that destruction causes, it could be that somebody is literally just programmed by their parents to become, you know, somebody who's more cooperative. I know, my wife, she's from Scandinavia, and she talks about how it's just, it's really interesting how everybody trusts each other there. But also, there's just huge pressure to do things right and to cooperate. And if you don't, that, you know, you'll get some negative, you'll get some negative. I don't know social pressure, that looks, you know, weird tone, tonality and people's responses in this just interesting to hear for talking about this, that that, you know, there's all different ways to get the cooperation for sure. But I would rather have people going, you know, either program for that going toward cooperation than everybody, every person for themselves, I think that you take a look at Game Theory, you know, in when you can generally when you have more when you have more cooperation, more people get more fewer defectors, or cooperators equals a better world. For more people. That's what I've seen time to time again, in my life. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 56:49 Thank you. So do you think the Scandinavian model of somewhat like putting pressure to get to cooperation is is okay? I don't know. I'm just Casey Fenton 57:01 Yeah, I don't know. It's Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 57:06 Yes, it's Machiavelli anything, no, you know, that the ends justify the means that the greater good, it's utilitarian, that as long as we get to the greater good, then they caught. Casey Fenton 57:21 I'm okay with that. If long as I'm personal, you have the opportunity for somebody to be different, and express themselves differently, is and not have to conform. I think that I'm a little bit more okay with that concept. But if it includes, if that social pressure includes conformity and not, you know, I have the ability to express yourself in unique ways that are still collaborative. That's where I start to have a problem with it. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 57:45 Thank you, my thing, and please answer how this will work. It seems to me and maybe this is like the biggest devil's advocate question that such a system or everybody's cooperating? Well, it's everybody reacting to each other, it will need a benevolent dictator, who will set things into motion otherwise, it will be just like things that are not it needs a container for the water. You know, if we said that water is people cooperating together? Well, the thing is, the cooperation itself is not initiative, because it's the opposite. It's exactly the opposite. Like creation is the opposite. Okay. Okay. If we think about them by a youngin way, cooperation is the, what he called the feminine static, while initiative or like a breaking out of the mold is the penetrative, masculine, dynamic. And therefore, for if everybody was a two things, one, if you had cooperate cooperation all throughout the by the law of polarity, it will force individuality and people breaking out of the mold and become a rebel. By definition, that's like, it's like The Matrix. Like they created the perfect system, but they understand there will need to be anomalies, which is that cooperation, a system full of cooperation will create dissent, and rebel like attitudes by itself. It's just that inevitable. Yeah. They say a fool. Yes, or the opposite of everybody's too selfish. It's like a fool who persists in his foolishness becomes wise. Well, if everybody's individualistic, it will turn back and become a lot more cooperative, for whatever reasons. So I'm just asking because, yes, you said there needs to be a bigger answer about this. Like who will decide the direction of the place? How to deal with people who will actually He refused that will say I will not cooperate. Because I don't want to think like that. How would such a system deal with it? Casey Fenton 1:00:08 Well, I think that there's I think the great thing about the world is there's just a lot of systems out there, right? And it's not like, I think if this was the case in one particular system, then maybe you could maybe you could get some of this polarity or people refusing or rebelling? Absolutely, maybe the family unit is like that, I don't know. But I really think that it doesn't have to be so polarized. I don't think many systems would be like that. There's just so many different systems out there, different people trying to solve different problems, different systems, and different groups of people that exist for very different reasons. And of course, in a complex world world inevitably run into problems, hopefully, it will continue random problems forever. So we have something to do in this world, and everything's not perfect. And at least it's interesting. But I think that, that, um, that you did, you have the cooperation, and you know, some people, quote, unquote, falling in line. And I don't think that that has to say that everybody needs to be the same. I mean, there's, I think that cooperation is one thing, but people can still have a lot of diversity. You don't have to have conformity, to have cooperation. I think Burning Man is a great example of that you have really everybody radically doing things in very, very different ways and having different ideas. And of course, they run into any number of disagreements. But it's how they decide to cooperate and understand each other. They think that really matters and keeps bringing people back together. That's kind of a radical experiment, kind of interesting to look toward. But I think the easy answer is when you're trying to get to cooperation, you can say, well, I'll just have everybody just do things the same and think the same, and then we'll get there. But I don't think that's a good answer, either. I think that that reduces resilience, right? It reduces the diversity in which you have to solve these complex problems, and the problems just keep coming. So I think you want to maintain diversity, and cooperation simultaneously. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:01:59 Thank you, and how do you create ownership in order for cooperation to be actually something that works, because I just interviewed just before now, John Werner, who is the CEO of Korea, and he used to be an executive of Adidas. And he said that when he was in such big companies, he had the vision for something that he was like the ideation guy, and like the planning, and people will execute. But if he did not follow up, follow through, stay in charge, people will not do anything they will do whatever their projects that they came up with, they originated, and therefore, they had the ownership for him, he said that one of the lessons he learned that if he created the plans for the thing, even if he explained how it will radically transform the world, and the solutions it will solve, if he didn't like us, carrot and stick or stay behind those people until they implemented, nobody will do anything, because they will come up with their own ideas and feel passionate about them. And following through, and therefore, you know, like, I don't know, the 12 week year, which is one of my favorite books, and the authors are writing a book about the the real definition of accountability, and they say it's not consequences, it's ownership. So don't tell people Oh, there will be negative consequences, because you will get the lowest level of performance possible. While if people own the results, then they will go above and beyond and that, why you will find anyhow, so in a cooperative system, how is ownership created through intrinsic motivation? Because we know that's the only thing that actually works. Otherwise, it could be like communist Russia, where people are working like everybody's trying not to work. Because they will get the same anyway. And they're forced to do that labor. Casey Fenton 1:04:02 Yeah, great question. And I think you're probably setting us up a little bit for a little bit talk about upstox. The worker equity as a service company that we're building right now. Yeah, absolutely. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:04:12 Feel free to speak about AppStore. Now as well. Casey Fenton 1:04:16 Yeah. So the question is, I think is how do you get people to really want to do their best work in their life? Are they thinking about the problems of the company in the shower on the way to work, if that exists anymore, lay in bed at night? You know, how can we all cooperate together to create great outcomes? If everyone will get the same? Like you said, maybe there the incentive is just not there. And if I'm not really an owner, it's just it's just kind of happening to me, it's time for money, while maybe it's just a job, why should I spend any time trying to enhance it or improve it? But if I know that i If the company does well that I will do well, meaning that if the company is successful and maybe has is sells or is has some profits that it shares, and I will get my fair share that we will all get our fair share. Well, a couple of things. How Been there a, you know, I'm like, Okay, well, I'm aligned with the long term benefits. And I can say, Well, I would I would get more if I can do more if we can do more together, I could get more. But I think even more important than that is the task identity, I think is what they call it an HR nomenclature, some things where you can identify with the tasks that you're doing, the impact that it has in the world, and then also the impact that it has for the people that you care about. And so that's where, where when you give ownership of a company, when you and people can believe in the ownership, not just, Well, these these complex legal documents, I can't really understand them, I signed them, I put them in a drawer, and I forget about them. Not that kind of old school ownership. But more, you know, the direction where modern equity is heading, where you can see that you will own it, you own it. And you can see that you're owning more of it over time commensurate and in a fair way, with how much effort you're putting in or time and what kind of results you're bringing for the organization. That's, I think that is, that's like the whole, that's like the whole new world of, of ownership. And that is where when you have your identity, connected to the organization to the company, and then also you know that it's going to be fair, and you're going to be a full later if your management runs off with millions of dollars, and you're just left there with, you know, with no job or something. That would be you know, sad, that would be unfortunate. So we're here, what up stock is doing is we're trying to democratize ownership, make it so that anyone anywhere can share ownership in their companies, with anyone from around the world. And we'd like to see the solar system and beyond, we want to make ownership not something that's so complex, that only company and only 1% of companies can afford the the cash or the complexity to do this, we want everybody from any size company, just starting off. So people don't need napkin and handshake agreements anymore. They can have real legal documents and ownership all the way up through, you know, really any size companies and it's really about visualization, can people see and intuitively understand their the ownership there that they're being offered? And do they feel inspired to get give it their best? So that's off stock? Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:07:02 I agree with you, 100%. And if people want to learn more about upstart, what is the best place or website or anything to do that, as well as, tell me a bit more about writing your book? When do you expect it to be published? In which stages? Is it? And how is the process of writing it with your wife? Which I think you mentioned that so is it bringing you both closer together or lead into some argument? Not like three series ones, but like discovering more about each other? Tell me more? Casey Fenton 1:07:37 Oh my god. Okay, so real quick up, stock is up up sto ck.io? Up stock.io? Yeah, and we are we just raised a good round. So we're there and bringing on, you know, hundreds of companies, so happy to help to chat with anybody who wants to chat about equity. But over to the book, again, we are finishing it up, we are in 300 pages or so it's we just go into two different editors right now. Or they're advising us that we should go through literary agent go to publishers, so we're looking at that. Yes, it's the the book has actually brought us closer together. And I think it's because of a couple of couple of reasons. One is, well, when the past when I've worked with my significant other on a project, it's been it can be challenging, like if you're, you know, you you're working all day on a project, and then you come home or something just now you know, you have relationship together, that could just be like too much time together and just not give you some break to go off and have other experiences and come back. And then, you know, share those experiences together and makes it sometimes can make your relationship work sustainable. But the nature of the topic that we're tackling, has given us tools in which to deal with these challenges as they've come up, you know, people spend, you know, a couple of years straight together, because, you know, quarantine, and all of that stuff and also travels, I would say that we're doing we've we've really done pretty well, sure everybody has their challenges. But those challenges have been mostly short lived, and, and handled or talked about or continually talked about, you know, over and over. And with some of these tools, I think it's really helped us in our relationships. And then we've been sharing these tools with some other friends who have had some challenges, and it seems to help them as well. So we're still testing still early days for ego hacking. But if people want to find out more information about hacking, go to ego hackers.com You can sign up to become an ego hacker or just keep in touch. And we'll have early versions of the book and some blog posts available. Ultimately, it's going to be a platform, a social network where ego hackers can share their best ego hacks and learn from each other. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:09:41 Thank you so much, and I hope your next book will be a relationship ego hack book, as you probably are accumulating some methods and ways to do that. Casey, it was a privilege and honor, a blessed time and I thank you for every minute and And I thank you again and I wish you a great day. Casey Fenton 1:10:02 Thank you, Abdulaziz and I appreciate all of your insightful questions and your devil's advocate Anas. Just what a fun, fun experience and I look forward to more more conversations in the future with you. Thanks so much

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