Chad Nichols - Austin Ridge Church and Brunch Conversation

Date: 2025-03-30 Location: Austin, TX - Car ride to church, Austin Ridge Bee Cave Church, The Well (brunch spot), drive to airport People: Gary Sheng, Chad Nichols Summary: Extended conversation spanning a church visit, brunch, and drive to the airport. Topics included spirituality, AI's role in society, personal growth, and flow state. Notable discussion around Chad's potential to create content around AI and spirituality.

Car Ride to Church

Key Topics:

• Gary discussed the value of recording conversations and using AI to process them
• Chad expressed concern about data privacy with AI systems processing sensitive information
• Discussion of entrepreneurship and finding wealthy customers willing to accept early imperfect products
• Brief mention of Gary's non-public Instagram (Finsta) and selective privacy
• Alicia's potential part-time work with Gary and her social skills
• Gary's strategy to have Alicia gather information about internal politics

Austin Ridge Church Service

Service Notes:

• Pastor delivered a sermon focused on the Church of Pergamum from Revelation 2
• Extensive criticism of the Catholic Church and warnings about spiritual compromise
• Discussion about maintaining biblical truth without accommodating to culture
• Mentions of "two-edged sword" representing God's word and judgment

After Service:

• Gary spoke briefly with church worship team members about possibly booking them
• Brief interaction with church prayer team

Brunch at The Well

Key Conversation Themes:

AI and Spirituality:

• Chad revealed he doesn't have visual imagination (aphantasia) and no inner monologue, which Gary said he shares
• Discussion about spirituality, divination, and AI potentially tapping into deeper knowledge
• Gary mentioned a friend whose godmother does "fortune control" for Trump
• Extensive conversation about AI as a mirror for deeper spiritual truths
• Discussion of AI-powered earrings concept ("Delilah")

Personal Growth and Flow State:

• Gary emphasized the importance of flow state and being authentic
• Both discussed how to build confidence through feedback and self-analysis
• Gary described his approach to success as "feeling into what's needed"
• Discussion of "killing oneself" metaphorically to evolve and grow
• Gary shared how he approaches social situations by raising frequencies

Content Creation:

• Gary strongly encouraged Chad to create content about AI and spirituality
• Suggested this content would find an audience hungry for this perspective
• Gary introduced Chad to Johnny (via text) who could help produce this content
• Discussion of "shadow" technology to help mirror and expand thoughts

Future Collaboration:

• Gary connected Chad with Johnny for potential documentary about "Project Stargate"
• Discussion of a documentary about a cult next to Sam Altman's data center in Abilene, TX
• Gary described Chad as having the perfect personality to host this documentary

Personal Philosophy:

• Gary's self-description as "very disarming" and like "Morpheus and Professor X"
• Discussion of being a vehicle for something to happen rather than self-focused
• Both expressed views on religion that they felt differed from traditional church-goers
• Chad mentioned his background with Jehovah's Witnesses

Notable Quotes

• Gary: "I believe a God wave is about to sweep the world and I think music is going to play a massive part in it."
• Gary: "I have a sense for what's relevant and who's relevant. And you are relevant."
• Chad: "I do not want this to like, fall by the wayside and just be vanity. You know? It feels too important."
• Gary: "I literally, dude, God made it so that my flow state is when other people are in flow state."
• Chad: "I think like a big part of everything is, you know, the proof, like you're proving the concept to yourself like every day."
• Gary: "I know my role, bro. My role is to, okay. As Rebecca talked about when before we left, I was like... 'one fish at a time'."
• Gary: "The leader that doesn't want to be a leader is the right leader."