Things Hidden #2 - God In My Life

Welcome to the second post of Things Hidden! Episode #2 of the Things Hidden podcast is out now!

You can watch the YouTube by clicking the link here-

The script I wrote for Episode #2 can be found below. This episode is about how I’ve experienced God in my life. It is, frankly, the most personal public speaking I’ve ever done.

If you want to follow along on socials too, they’re all linked here - https://linktr.ee/thingshidden

Be well.

- Travis

We ready? Let’s do this.

Welcome to Episode 2 of Things Hidden. Things Hidden is an exploration of the intersection of Faith and six factors that surround faith - Religion; Physics; Evolution; Consciousness; Philosophy; and Technological Innovation. The purpose of Things Hidden is to bring people into a closer relationship with God, and through that process I come into a closer relationship with God as well.

The first Episode was just the very beginning of setting the stage for Things Hidden. I told you a bit about me, my background, some of my beliefs, what Things Hidden is, what Things Hidden is not, how Things Hidden happened, why Things Hidden happened and what to expect next.

If you haven’t listened to that first episode, I would strongly encourage you to listen to that episode before this one. We’re still at the very very beginning of Things Hidden, and Episode 1 is definitely the best place to start.

Today I am going to talk to you some about my relationship with God throughout my life. 

This is a topic that could be expounded upon for hours, which I’m not going to do. So I’ve tried to tighten it up and hit the high points to give you a good sense of the shape of my Faith. This hopefully will provide some helpful context for my perspectives with Things Hidden.

Before we get started, I want to share one overarching point. For many years, and more explicitly over the last three years with Things Hidden, I have contemplated my faith from both a top down and a bottoms up approach. Much of Things Hidden I consider a “top down” approach to Faith - it’s an examination of the existence and nature of God from these really big picture perspectives - what does Physics say about God? What does Evolution say about God? Even reading the Bible in some ways I would consider a top down approach to Faith - you’re studying the most impactful book in human history to better understand the nature of God. These are all good things. Much of Things Hidden will be a top down approach to Faith.

But I want to be crystal clear up front. There is a bottoms up approach to Faith as well, and it is the most important. By bottoms up, I mean that I experience God first hand in my own life. I won’t pretend to know exactly how that works - Christians would call this the Holy Spirit. I think that’s a good name for it.

But regardless of what you want to call it, I have experienced God in my life. Many of you listening to this have also experienced God first hand in your lives. Many of you listening perhaps have not experienced God first hand in your lives. And that’s ok. But you can call on God to show up in your life and in my experience, God will show up. Perhaps not exactly how you were expecting or perhaps not on your preferred timeline. And I don’t want you to think that every prayer ever earnestly prayed gets granted because that’s just not how this deal works. I won’t pretend to understand exactly how it works but in my experience God is not a blue genie that grants wishes. But God IS an entity that exists outside of this universe, outside of spacetime, and you can have a relationship with that entity. It won’t be like any other relationship you’ve ever had, nor should it be. It’s a cosmic metaphysical relationship with our Creator.

And the top down approach, in my estimation, exists to strengthen the bottoms up approach. The top down approach exists to strengthen the bottoms up approach. So Things Hidden will have a lot of top down, logical, analytical perspectives in it. It is, at its core, an intellectual approach to Faith. Running the ramp of reason before taking the leap of Faith. It’s that leap of Faith where the bottoms up approach comes in - experiencing God first hand. Entering into a relationship with our Creator. That is available to each and every one of us and it is the most incredible gift.

OK. So I was raised in the Southern Baptist religion from birth. Southern Baptists are the most literal, most fundamental major denomination of Christianity in the United States. Growing up, I was in church every Sunday and most Wednesdays. I went to a lot of church camps and retreats. Church was a major piece of scaffolding that formed the structure of my life as a kid. In 4th grade, at church camp, I prayed to ask God to come into my heart, and accept Jesus as my lord and savior, as is tradition in the Baptist faith. I was Baptized in a pool of water at my church a few weeks later.

My children’s minister helped lead me in that prayer kneeling by a tree outside of the church camp worship service. About a decade later, that minister was sentenced to 20 years in prison for multiple counts of sexual assault of minors. By the grace of God, he never touched me, but those terrible crimes he committed against other children did leave an impact on me as an adult.

In junior high I participated in See You At The Pole - where Christian teenagers gather at the flagpole of schools to pray. I also participated in True Love Waits - a program where teenagers make a public, collective oath to God to abstain from sex until marriage. In high school, I drifted away from my faith - I was more focused on football, working, partying and generally being a pretty rambunctious teenager.

In college, I didn’t go to church much at all. I never lost my faith entirely. I never stopped believing in the existence of God. I just didn’t make my relationship with God a priority. I prayed some but not a lot. I rarely picked up the Bible. I was pretty self-absorbed in living my life as a college student - making good grades, working and partying.

When I graduated college in 2008, I got a job in investment banking. I moved to Houston and lived with my older brother Justin. My brother is very strong in his Christian faith, and has been a major positive example for, and influence on, my own faith throughout my life. We went to church together once or twice a month and had some memorable in-depth conversations about faith during the 2 ½ years we lived together.

When I moved to Chicago in January 2011, I went to church once or twice a month for the first couple years I lived there. In April 2013, my dad had a major stroke while my parents were going through a divorce. The stroke left my father permanently, significantly mentally and physically handicapped. He was never even close to the same person after the stroke as he was before. In the aftermath of the stroke, my family discovered my dad’s mistress, who was trying to get money from my dad in his impaired state, and there were all kinds of legal battles my family got wrapped up in. It was an incredibly stressful time in my life. I drifted away from my faith during this period. Again, I never stopped believing in a God, I just wasn’t really in the mood to talk to Him much.

My belief in the existence of a higher power has been reinforced by what I consider personal encounters with God throughout my life. I have felt watched over by a higher power from an early age.

One of my earliest first-hand encounters with God was on a church ski trip in junior high. Some friends and I decided to go under a rope to ski out of bounds. We trekked laterally across the mountain for some time before arriving at a run that was drastically above our abilities. Very steep and very rocky. We were honestly frightened to be there, but it was too far and too uphill to go back the way we came. Before we began skiing down, I (completely uncharacteristically) stopped and led our group in a short prayer, praying for safety down this dangerous ski run.

We began slowly making our way down the mountain, when above us, we saw ski patrol skiing aggressively down the run towards us. The ski patrol quickly caught up to us and immediately started yelling at us. We were skiing illegally out of bounds. The run was closed off because they were detonating dynamite immediately overhead to cause a controlled avalanche on that very run. We could actually hear and feel the rumble of explosions that were growing increasingly louder. The ski patrol said we had to get off the run immediately but we needed to ski down further before we could cross over to a parallel run that was safe. They led us down the run for 5-10 minutes before cutting over and stopping at a safe place.

We weren’t stopped for two minutes before we felt the loudest explosion yet, and heard a voice come over the radio attached to the ski patrol’s jacket saying the snow pack had just collapsed on the run we were just on. It was a harrowing moment and I felt the presence of God to an undeniable degree. There was just a very still voice in my head that didn’t sound like any other voice. And that voice said something like “did you see what I just did there?”

Throughout high school and college, I was pretty reckless. I drove drunk constantly, sometimes incredibly drunk. I did dangerous things often. I embodied the phrase - “but for the grace of God, there go I”. And I felt watched over the entire time. I didn’t even know why. It certainly wasn’t because I deserved some kind of special treatment. Far from it. But I just felt it strongly - God was with me. Even when I acted like I didn’t care.

My paternal grandmother passed away shortly after I graduated college. I was in the room with my brother, father, uncle and grandfather at the moment of passing. Maybe some people listening to this right now have experienced a similar type of situation. These events are where supernatural spiritual moments are experienced more frequently than any other life event. There are books written with interviews of hospice nurses that have been caring for end of life patients for decades and they all have stories of supernatural spiritual experiences. Mine was no different with my paternal grandmother’s passing. It was an incredibly powerful moment where I felt the presence of God to an undeniable degree. 

My maternal grandmother passed away not long after. She had been battling dementia for years and about six weeks before she passed I went to go visit her in the nursing home she had just moved into. By this point, the dementia had taken almost everything from her. She didn’t really know who I was, or my mom was, or even who she was. My grandmother had an organ in her living room that she played Baptist hymns on for decades. My mom had the organ shipped down to her nursing home room so she could have it with her in her last days.

When I went to visit her, she had lost her entire mind, but somehow could still remember the words and how to play her favorite hymns. We sat in her room and sang Baptist hymns with her for a while. I walked outside and sat down on the sidewalk and sobbed uncontrollably. It was an incredibly powerful moment where I felt the presence of God to an undeniable degree.

In late 2010 when I was interviewing for a dream job with Magnetar Capital in Chicago, my one major concern was that I would be leaving my grandfather in Texas. I was close to my grandfather throughout my life and he was a major positive influence on me. He was 91 at the time. I knew that if I moved to Chicago, I would see him much less often and I knew I didn’t have much time left with him. I put this to God, praying for guidance in this matter. I flew to Chicago for an office visit after multiple rounds of phone interviews. The Friday office visit went so well that one of the interviewers (who later became my boss) invited me to a friendly brunch the next day to watch football after I told him I was staying in town for the weekend. The next day, I had been at the bar for 15 minutes when my dad called and told me my grandfather had passed away that night from a brain aneurysm. It was an incredibly powerful moment where I felt the presence of God to an undeniable degree.

I had a career in hedge fund investing but had always actively avoided moving to New York City. I had visited New York many times. And I always felt like it was a place I didn’t want to live. Too many people. Too rough of an existence. Too expensive. I felt a palpable “Godlessness” in my time in New York. I felt a presence of dark energy there and I was repelled by the idea of living in that. I decided to leave Magnetar in Chicago and was interviewing for other jobs. I was deep in the interview process for a portfolio manager position at Point 72 in New York.

Point 72 is a pretty famous place. The TV show Billions is based on Point 72. The job I was interviewing for was more or less the NFL of finance jobs. I went through many rounds of remote interviews, case studies, and formalized testing. Eventually Point 72 flew me out for an office visit. The first day went exceedingly well, and I sensed I was getting close to receiving an offer. I had an interview with the billionaire founder Steve Cohen the morning of the second day. That morning in the hotel room, I got down on my knees in a suit and tie and prayed to God. I prayed, “God, I don’t know why you would want me to go to New York. It’s a dark place. There’s no Christians there. But this job seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. If you don’t want me to take this job and move to New York, that’s totally fine. I don’t want to live outside of your will for my life. So just have this interview not go well, and I won’t get the offer and I’ll go do whatever you want me to do. That’s fine.”

I got off my knees and felt good about the situation. 90 minutes later I walked into Steve Cohen’s office and an hour after that he gave me a job offer on the spot. It was an incredibly powerful moment where I felt the presence of God to an undeniable degree.

My faith took a major turn when I moved to New York. Somewhat counterintuitively, I found that the lack of “the light” in New York immediately strengthened my belief in the existence of that light. I don’t know if that makes sense when you hear me say it, but it profoundly strengthened my faith. I tried out several different churches and eventually began attending Hillsong regularly. There were things about Hillsong that bothered me, but they packed out the Hammerstein Ballroom four times every Sunday with a couple thousand people in each service. It felt good to show up somewhere in New York, which felt so Godless, and have a couple thousand people there to worship God, even if it did kinda feel like a Justin Bieber concert.

Immediately after moving to New York, I started praying regularly for the first time since junior high. I started a Bible study for the first time since junior high. It’s not like I was perfect. Far from it. I’m still far from it. But my words and my actions began changing. I became less selfish. Less hedonistic. More empathetic. The strength of my personal relationship with God grew demonstrably stronger.

By the time I moved to Los Angeles in March of 2018, my faith was a major priority in my life. I strongly believed that God had a will for my life, as He does for all people. I strongly desired to live in alignment with that will, and I believed I could never feel content and at peace if I was living outside of that will. While I didn’t pretend to entirely understand exactly how that worked, it was a framework that I felt connected to.

The move to LA was predicated on my decision to leave Point 72 and traditional markets to launch my own hedge fund that focused on investing in crypto. And that move felt clearly guided by God. I didn’t totally understand it at the time, but with just a small bit of hindsight, it became clear to me that crypto was in alignment with my highest purpose.

Good and evil are undoubtedly wrapped up in crypto - it’s more apparent in crypto than most any other industry. Crypto provides an incredibly raw and unique vantage point on the concept of morality. Crypto has the potential to make the world a better place and it can do it quickly - in a single generation. Whether or not crypto delivers on its potential will be a function of the individuals working towards that end goal of making the world a better place. This is a fight worth fighting and I felt God guiding me in this direction.

In February of 2018 I named my fund Ikigai Asset Management. Ikigai is an ancient Japanese concept that means “reason for being”. Perhaps you’ve seen the Venn Diagram (graphic) - what you’re good at, what you like to do, what the world needs and what you deserve to be paid for. They say if you find those four things, you find your Ikigai. Well for me, Ikigai was a sort of backdoor approach to Faith - because that third circle - what the world needs. Well, how do you decide what the world needs? For people of Faith, God’s will often steps in to guide this process. At least that’s how it was for me.

During the first few years of launching Ikigai, it was incredibly challenging. The most challenging experience of my professional career. Crypto was in a deep bear market. We weren’t raising enough money. My business partner and I were blowing through our life savings and we still hadn’t scaled up the business to a point where it was cash flowing. The fate of the entire business was completely uncertain for nearly three years. These were stressful, pressure-filled, anxiety-ridden times. My faith was my main bedrock throughout this period. My relationship with God was a firm foundation.

I prayed regularly. Attended church regularly. Did Bible study regularly. I lived in Venice Beach, right on the sand. And I would wake up in the morning and go to the beach and do my Bible study and meditate and pray and jump in the Pacific Ocean like a cold plunge.

I constantly prayed “God, I give you Ikigai. If you don’t want me to do this. That’s fine. I don’t want to do it if it’s not what you want me to do. Just pick me up off this path and put me on whatever path you want me to be on. Your will, not mine.” And then I’d go work for 12 or 15 hours. And I did this over and over again. The weeks turned into months turned into quarters turned into years. And I prayed and grinded and prayed and grinded and eventually had a lot of success. I felt strongly connected to God throughout this period and felt like I was living my life in alignment with God’s will for my life.

Those years of grinding took a toll on me. I got really burned out. Transcendentally burned out. I got so burned out I sort of broke through to this weird spot on the other side of burned out. Eventually I was diagnosed with something called HPA axis dysfunction in early 2022. In short, if you have chronically high cortisol for long enough, your body will stop producing much cortisol and then you have low cortisol and knock-on issues from low cortisol.

I spent the first part of 2022 fixing this with medical help, getting better. And I was making changes in our business at Ikigai over that time as well. The very large majority of Ikigai’s activities over the years were a product of my brain and that was overwhelming and I was trying to change that. Hiring more people, evolving investment strategies, these sorts of things. With the goal of getting Ikigai into a more sustainable place, less reliant on my incessant grinding.

All of that hit a big pothole in November 2022 when the FTX exchange collapsed. We had $65mm on the exchange at the time of collapse, which was the large majority of our total assets. It was a catastrophic event - the worst day of my career and one of the worst days of my life. In the initial aftermath of that event I didn’t know what else to do other than give it to God. I was cripplingly anxious. Wracked with guilt. Shame. Embarrassment. We had to lay off the large majority of our employees. That felt terrible. There was a ton of uncertainty about the future. I had lost millions of dollars personally and had lost many millions more of other peoples money. Money those people entrusted to me. And I let them down by not doing my job and managing risk effectively.

It was a really tough period. And I didn’t know what else to do other than reach out to God. The Bible never promises us cupcakes and rainbows. That is not just not part of the deal. But Jesus promises us a peace that surpasses understanding. One of my all time favorite Bible verses. Philippians 4:6 -

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  

And in the immediate aftermath of FTX, my mom became very sick. She went into the hospital 5 days after FTX collapsed and spent 35 of the next 45 days in the hospital with a series of gastrointestinal issues, including two separate surgical errors. I spent Thanksgiving 2022 with her in the hospital in College Station. She was released that following Monday and was scheduled to go see a specialist in Austin a few days later, who could hopefully get her better medical care than she had been receiving in College Station.

A day after she was released from the hospital, the stitches from her surgical wound broke open while at home. A small part of her intestine was protruding from the open wound. She was understandably scared to go back to the hospital in College Station because the medical care there had been so poor. So we called the specialist in Austin, who told us to go to the hospital in Austin. So I drove my mom the two hours from College Station to Austin with part of her intestine protruding from her surgical wound. On the drive down, we listened to Alan Jackson’s album of Baptist hymns, because my mom wanted to pick out songs for her funeral. 

It was an incredibly powerful moment where I felt the presence of God to an undeniable degree. My mom got better, thank God. She had emergency surgery that night. And then had another serious complication a week later that put her back in the hospital. But she got better and made a full recovery.

Somewhere on that drive from College Station to Austin in November 2022, a phrase came to me. From God, no doubt. It just popped in my head. The acceptance of the peace, is the expression of the faith.  

The acceptance of the peace is the expression of the faith. 

That’s not a Bible verse. It sounds like a Bible verse. And there are many Bible verses that talk about peace and faith and the interplay between the two. And they are some of my all time favorite Bible verses. One of the most mentioned concepts in the entire Bible is the concept of Peace, and God as the bringer of peace.

So that phrase “the acceptance of the peace is the expression of faith” came to me in one of the toughest moments of my life and I will never forget it. 

And I share it as often as I get the chance. Because I think that is one God’s greatest gifts to us. There is a peace available to us. To all of us. Doesn’t matter what you did. Or didn’t do.

There is a peace available to us - a peace that surpasses understanding. Doesn’t mean there won’t be rough spots. And the spots might get really rough - John the Baptist, the guy that baptized Jesus, got his head served up on a platter. So it might get really rough. But God promises us a peace that surpasses understanding and in modern terms this is the most impactful “personal development framework” of ALL TIME. Seriously.

And I have experienced that in my life. The peace that surpasses understanding. They say there’s no atheists in a foxhole. And I have no doubt that there are plenty of people that have never spoken to God in their life, that find themselves in a very difficult situation, and they cry out to God - “GOD! HELP ME!” and they receive a peace that surpasses understanding.

But I honestly wonder what it feels like to talk to God for the first time EVER, when shit is really hitting the fan. How believable, how impactful, is it in that moment? I don’t know. But I can tell you from firsthand experience, you can start a relationship with God and you can experience tiny glimpses of God’s presence and then when shit hits the fan there is a peace that is available that surpasses understanding. And the acceptance of that peace IS the expression of the faith. And that’s the kind of thing that will change your whole life. And it’ll change the whole world. It already has.

Over the last few years I’ve found myself increasingly bringing up God in conversations whenever I get the chance. I can’t help it. It feels so much more important than talking about the weather or my weekend plans or whatever the crypto market is doing. And inevitably, when I find myself talking to people about God’s presence in my life, people ask how it is exactly that I experience God in my life. I get that question often. And I might share with them one of the stories I’ve already told you here today.

But then, if I say something about God calling me to do something. Calling me to move in my life. Sometimes move in a big way. How do you hear something like that? I get asked that a lot. So I wanted to share a couple things with you as it relates to hearing God.

To start off, you need to be willing to give the direction of your life over to God. I don’t know how you hear God guiding you in your life if you’re not willing to stop what you’re doing and do something else, or willing to push through and keep doing what you’re doing when things get really tough. The Bible is chocked full of stories of people WILLING to move for God. And these stories in the Bible are about people that are FAR from perfect. People that made all kinds of mistakes. Bad mistakes. Killing people. Worshipping idols. Turning away from God. But then they reconcile with God and then move in the direction that God is telling them to move and they are blessed for it. The Old Testament is filled with stories like that. So you need to be willing to pray to God “God if you do not want me to be on this path, pick me up off this path and put me on whatever path you want me to be on, and I’ll go do that. And if you want me to keep doing what I’m doing, give me strength. And give me peace.”

Once you’ve made that commitment to God. In my experience, the next step has an easy way and it has a complicated way. The easy way is I hear a voice that doesn’t sound like any other voice. It’s not the voice that’s normally narrating my thoughts. It’s not my wife’s voice or my friend’s voice. It’s the voice of God.

And it’s a voice that is surrounded by the most intense quiet I’ve ever heard. An incredible stillness. And then a voice coming out of that stillness that tells me to do something. And I don’t mean it’s the easy way because what I’m meant to do next is easy. That’s not always the case at all. It’s easy because the message is clear. Unambiguous. Sometimes it’s something I don’t want to do. And sometimes I ignore that voice that doesn’t sound like any other voice. And without exception. One hundred percent of the time. When I do the thing God is telling me to do, it works out well. And when I don’t. It works out poorly. Without exception. God moves in my life in this way.

The complicated way is when the clear voice of God doesn’t show up. And you’re left kind of flapping in the wind a bit. Maybe it’s a stressful time in life and you’re faced with multiple potential paths in a big, consequential decision. And you’re just not sure which way to go. Do I stay with this job or leave and try to get a better job? Do I stay in this relationship and work through this difficult time or do we break up? Do I move across the country for a raise or stay where I’m at? In my experience, sometimes there’s not a clear voice guiding my direction. So you’re stuck looking at three different doors wondering which door to open and walk through. In my experience, with fervent, sincere prayer. You can push on all three doors and see which one opens. And see which path progresses. And in the same way that water finds the lowest point, God’s will will just find its way to you. Some doors open. Other one’s close.

Which brings me to my closing thought. It goes back to the concept of Ikigai.

So I’ve been living within this concept of Ikigai for eight years. It’s in my email address. I see it every day. And I’ve come to really appreciate the profound usefulness of the concept. It is a lens through which you can build a fulfilling life.

Things Hidden is the culmination of my entire life. From my early upbringings in the Baptist church to being willing to examine my own faith. From my entire career in applied research with high stakes outcomes. To the exposure I’ve had through crypto to having nonconsensus views that turn out to be very correct. Being hyperlogical, hyperanalytical, but also a deep believer in a creator of this universe. And a believer that I can have a relationship with that creator. And the unexplainable cosmic metaphysical that surrounds that relationship. I’ve made enough money to know firsthand what people mean when they say money won’t make you happy. I’ve lost enough money to know firsthand what people mean when they say easy come, easy go. Big wins. Big losses. Times when I’ve been in complete alignment with God’s purpose for my life. And times when I’ve ignored that completely.

I’m bringing all of that with me into Things Hidden. What you see here will be a product of all that. I hope it’s helpful to you. I feel called to do it.

That’s it. In the next episode I’m going to present a non-traditional Christian apologetic. But first I wanted to talk about HOW my beliefs manifest in my life. 

If you enjoyed this, hit like and subscribe. If you want to sign up for the blog, it’s in the description. If you know someone that would be interested in Things Hidden, send this to them. I really appreciate your time, and I wish you the best.