In this episode we talk with Casey Fenton, Co-Founder of Couchsurfing.com as well as CEO and Founder of Upstock. Credited with kicking off the sharing economy, Casey has a 21-year history of ground-breaking entrepreneurship. Casey joins us today to discuss ego hacking, creating trust, and leadership styles.

Currently, Casey and his wife are working on a new platform and book about how to hack your ego to overcome the self-fulfilling prophecy that it can create. As a biological function, ego keeps track of how you and others feel about what you have identified with.

There are many ego traps that you can fall into. One of the biggest is optimizing for being right instead of optimizing for connection. Often, people are afraid of looking wrong but what you really need is to work on connections and authenticity. Another common trap is trying to choose your own narrative instead of the truth. Identify with the truth of situations and treat things as data to learn from.

When building Couchsurfing.com, Casey found himself challenged with taking on the role of leadership. He needed to change into more of a visionary and coach type of leader over the affiliate style he was used to. It’s also important to build trust, both outwardly and internally, in your business.

Think about ways that you can show trust to potential clients. Find commonalities and build relationships based on them. If you and your team and clients are aligned, it’s much easier to build the trust that gives you momentum.