Call Summary: Spiritual Reunion After Four Months

Overview

First catch-up since August covering major life developments for both. Ien shared meeting his future wife Kathy (Boston University professor) through uncle with 100% marriage success rate, experiencing Pentecostal church, and running $500K stealth creative agency. Gary shared spiritual sabbatical, relationship with Liberty TX healing pastor, miraculous healings witnessed, and new "society engineering" opportunity. Deep discussion on trans-denominational unity, pride vs. confidence, and 2026 vision.

Key Topics Discussed

Gary's Spiritual Sabbatical (August-October)

• Lael Alexander Collapse: "Got so many verbal confirmations that he had the funding and that he was going to bring me on... Didn't happen. And so I found myself homeless in Austin, Texas"
• Hospitality Journey: Stayed with mentor for a week, then friend for two weeks, cycling through friends' hospitality August-October
• Spiritual Focus: "Just reading the Bible. And watching Christian videos and also developing a relationship with a pastor in Liberty, Texas"
• Prophetic Connection: Woman with prophetic gifts prayed, Gary came up, connected them through mutual friend: "Why did God orchestrate this?"

Liberty, Texas Healing Church

• Discovery: "Whatever's happening in Liberty, Texas, where there's this church that cancers are being healed. A blind man started seeing. All kinds of crazy things. Wheelchairs, all that stuff"
• Gary's Reaction: "I had not at all been familiar with that world at all. That even happened today... To hear that the Holy Spirit is still moving in that way was news to me"
• Service: "Put up their first modern website, got them listed on Google Maps. Just super low key, humble people"
• Personal Experience: "When he laid his hands on me for the first time, I feel like freaking Goku, bro. Charging up... I felt like I was being lit up and electrocuted at the same time"
• Eyesight Healing: "I lost my seeing glasses... I asked for him to pray over my eyes. And my eyesight improved. I haven't worn my prescription glasses since August"

Family Healings Witnessed

• Young Man: "Has been haunted by demonic spirits for his whole life. Got delivered from them... He used to be like someone that would never leave the house. And now he wants to leave the house all the time"
• Mother: "Her arthritis got cleared"
• Father: "He had spinal back injury, like, major back injury... his back got healed"

Ien's Future Wife - Kathy

• Introduction: Uncle in his 70s "introduced my mom and dad to each other. And he's also introduced 50 to 60 other couples. Everyone's gotten married. No one's gotten divorced. 100% success rate"
• Who She Is: "Professor of applied linguistics at Boston University... 38, I'm 34"
• Mystical Confirmation: "I had mystical, like bodily mystical sensations... heat in my chest, like melting ice in my heart. And I felt it, like, two days in a row"
• Guardian Angels: "We literally perceive each other as each other's guardian angels now"
• Perfect Match: "We cover for each other's strengths and weaknesses, but the important things are the same, sharing the same North Star of faith"
• Her Background: "She lost her mom early on and then doesn't talk with much her dad and has been in the States alone getting her PhD"
• Complementary Growth: "I'm learning discipline from her while she's learning freedom and joy from me"
• Moving Plans: "I might be moving to Boston, dude, in the new year... As early as January, I could be living there"

Pentecostal Church Experience & "Healthy Cult"

• First Exposure: "It's the first time I saw Pentecostal Charismatic tradition of pastor and people falling. Koreans, mind you. I've never seen this happen at a Korean church"
• Healings There Too: "Healings and stuff going on here, too, bro"
• Cult Assessment: "I basically became her guardian angel and freed her from a healthy cult, let's put it that way"
• Characteristics: "Everyone is super happy. Very healthy. One big family. The pastor and the pastor's wife are always telling people how they should live and what to do. And everyone tells each other everything. There's nothing private"
• Father's Wisdom: "There's a lot of codependency in these kind of churches where people aren't able to have the same potency of spirituality away from the church"
• Autonomy Teaching: Father departed to "nurture autonomy in people so they can make decisions for their own"

Ien's $500K Creative Agency

• Revenue: "I brought in half a million dollars this year. It's the most I've ever brought in. And I have no experience with sales in my life"
• No Marketing: "Without any marketing at all. $500,000 came in this year somehow"
• 100% Ownership: "I have 100% of the company now"
• Stealth Mode: "I haven't even made it public yet because I don't know if that's God's will"
• Origin Story: "10 years ago, I was living in a basement with no heat in the basement of Michigan, like a starving artist"
• Key Insight: "The only reason I've been able to bring in the half million dollars... is because this is the first year I've genuinely tried to orient myself to be of service to other people"
• Service Philosophy: "The more selfless we are, the more the money flows in"

Gary's "Society Engineering" Opportunity

• Meeting: "Today I had a three hour conversation with a guy in his 40s and a guy that's late 40s... professionals that I really love the way they conduct themselves"
• Invitation: "How do we pay you to find more Garys so we can build a kingdom?"
• Role: "They want me to create a society of society engineers"
• Gary's Skill: "My main skill set is rallying the troops and identifying interesting superhero people"
• Requirements: "It has to be measurable. It has to be, over time, self-sustaining"
• Ien's Advice: "Figure out how to make it completely your own and figure out how to do the work completely for others"
• Framework: "What the client says is just data, and then you take the data and output however you want to output"

Prenda/Alpha Update

• New Opportunity: "I might start working with an Alpha competitor... Joe's actually an investor in this"
• Founder Profile: "He's a believer. Founder's a Believer. We're chatting again tomorrow"
• Texas Push: "He's making a hard push into Texas... he has zero people hired in Texas. So I'd be the first"
• Kelly Smith: "Master's degree in physics from MIT... trained a lot of kids in after school programs with coding"

Trans-Denominational Vision

• Rome Experience: "I was at a Faith in AI conference a month ago in Rome... in awe of a lot of the Catholic architecture"
• Humility: "My role cannot be like nondenominational Holy Spirit healing tradition is way better than Catholic"
• Data Points: "God has given me a lot of data points that there's so much beauty in different ways of worshiping Christ"
• Mormon Question: "I keep meeting great Mormons. I don't know what to do about that"
• Holy Spirit Everywhere: "The Holy Spirit lives in so many places... Being humble about that and trying to be collaborative across people that are faith filled is what I want to do"
• Ien's Affirmation: "They're all windows into the same house with different styles and peculiarities and nuances"
• Gary as Uniter: Ien: "I think you can be a uniter in many ways of all the diversity, man"

Pride vs. Confidence Discussion

• Gary's Acknowledgment: "What I texted you about the pride thing... I did have blind spot. I was feeling myself. When I get into flow, I'm very... things happen"
• Overcorrection: "I overcorrected. I was like, is any of my intuition correct?"
• New Level: "I'm getting into a new level of flow that's not rooted in just hype pride"
• Ien's Framework: "As long as you have a posture of seeking truth, it helps to neutralize pride. Because it doesn't matter whether it was your idea or not"
• Stewardship: Gary: "Almost like a steward of divine principles versus permanent characterization of who you are"

Spiritual Principles Shared

• Ien on Surrender: "I realized... Everything's perfect all the time. God even uses our shortcomings, mistakes, failures, heaviness, darkness in a way that ultimately serves as good"
• Ien on Peace: "I have so much more deeper, average level of peace with whatever's going on, even amidst the storm, because I know God's got this"
• Gary on Grifts: "The grifts can be very long con... make it about yourself at the end of the day"
• Gary on Gifts: "God gives gifts without repentance... Even if you're in rebellion, being in rebellion does not make it so that God takes away the gifts"
• Ien on Prayer: "Live your life like a prayer. Like when we pray, we're just trying to get connected to God and listen"

Austin January Meetup

• Ien's Dates: "I'm going to be in Austin from at least January 23rd to 28th"
• Gary's Event: "I'm launching an Applied AI Society... the first event is going to be 29th"
• Plan: "Let's get like a lunch at least. I'll plan on being there a couple of days more after the 28th"

Year-End Reflections

• Gary: "The year is wrapping up in a pretty beautiful way... even a month ago I was like, how am I going to make money. I got rejected from every company I applied to"
• Gary's Reframe: "What I've been forced into is being like a founder that is sponsored by multiple genius level people that get me and want to just put money into me"
• Ien: "2026 feels like it's going to have some big things in store somehow... Wild deconstruction and instability. But as long as we stay the course, some amazing things will happen"
• Ien on God's Way: "I'm more and more convinced that God's way is one that always leads to more peace. And is effortless. More joyful and more powerful. Absurd abundance, basically"

Key Quotes

On Mystical Experiences:

• Ien: "I felt things I didn't even know was possible to feel where I was like, I literally the first day, not even talking, being next to her, feeling the sensations... Is this person like my guardian angel?"
• Gary: "I felt like I was being lit up and electrocuted at the same time. It was so amazing"

On Service and Success:

• Ien: "The more selfless we are, the more the money flows in"
• Ien: "It's less about doing things and more about listening... Lean into flow and effortless ease. Let go of exertion and force and willpower"

On Seeking Truth:

• Ien: "As long as you have a posture of seeking truth, it helps to neutralize pride"
• Gary: "Nothing is ours, not even our mistakes or our successes"

On Trans-Denominational Unity:

• Ien: "They're all windows into the same house with different styles and peculiarities and nuances"
• Gary: "The Holy Spirit lives in so many places. Being humble about that and trying to be collaborative across people that are faith filled is what I want to do"

On Divine Orchestration:

• Gary: "The limitations of our will is so obvious, like all grace. That allows us to just stay in the game"
• Ien: "I just can't believe how perfect God orchestrates things. Where the tiniest single hair on our head is all accounted for"

On 2026:

• Ien: "Wild deconstruction and instability. But as long as we stay the course, some amazing things will happen amidst the chaos of the world"

Action Items / Takeaways

• Ien to send branding positioning workshop materials to Gary
• Ien to send book recommendation through chat
• Austin meetup planned: Ien in town January 23-28, Gary's Applied AI event January 29
• Potential collaboration on filmmaking for healing documentation
• Ien offered referrals to filmmakers and potential rev sharing on client referrals
• Gary to keep Ien posted on "society engineering" developments
• Both committed to prayer for each other's future spouses

Special Context

Four-Month Gap

Last conversation was August 2025 when Gary was with Lael Alexander's family in Florida. Since then, Gary went through homelessness, spiritual sabbatical, and discovered healing ministry, while Ien met his future wife and grew his agency to $500K.

Pride Accountability Continuation

This conversation continued the accountability thread from July 2025 when Ien confronted Gary about pride. Gary acknowledged the feedback was important and shared his journey of overcorrection and finding new confidence rooted in truth-seeking rather than hype.

Parallel Spiritual Awakenings

Both independently discovered charismatic/Pentecostal healing traditions this year - Gary through Liberty TX pastor, Ien through Kathy's Korean church. Both wrestling with same questions about scalability, codependency, and grifters vs. genuine anointing.