Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to Saintly CEO.

Today, I’m doing things a little different. I’m going to write a bit of a reminder as to why we do what we do. Not only us at Catholic Founders, but all of you… Catholic Founders.

We have a real purpose, and I want to remind you all — and myself.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events | Feature Content: Why We Are Here

[read time: ~10 min | word count 2,135]

Events:

Before we start, a few updates and key things to be aware of.

• We’re hosting an exclusive men’s retreat in Chattanooga next month, focused on spiritual reflection and deep brotherhood with fellow Catholic business owners. Limited spots available.

• ARCHIVE: A while back, we had a guy on who bought and sold 5 businesses (all turnarounds). This was his first ever podcast. Check out this episode with Chris Farls of Pittsburgh.

• Two Catholic Meetups happening tonight: South Bend and Nashville. Register if you haven’t. And join one near you. Follow our calendar.

Why Are We Here

Why is such a loaded word. Made even more so in some ways following Simon Sinek’s work on the topic.

Asking the question causes a bit of introspection, and regardless of what Marc Andreessen says, this is a good thing. Especially for people like us, who are almost always on the move doing something, we need to take a moment to recall WHY we’re here.

Who are ‘We’

To be clear, I’m referring to Catholic business owners as a whole, but specifically the people who consider themselves part of Catholic Founders.

A Civilization in Ruins

Look around you.

Society has collapsed to a point that would be unrecognizable to most men of just one or two hundred years ago. Go back a thousand years, and they’d be aghast at what they see.

You might not agree. Just look at our technology you’d say. Modern medicine, etc. Sure, but despite all our technology, we have lost touch with God, and as a result, we’ve lost touch with the invisible things of life.

Honor, glory, chivalry, charity, purity, reputation, magnanimity.

I’m not sure exactly why, perhaps it has to do with our refusal to believe in anything that we can’t explain with a microscope, but we have ceased to believe in all things that we can’t ‘see.’

You can’t see honor. Reputation doesn’t exactly paste well into a spreadsheet. There are no double blind studies about charity.

We have rejected all the ‘invisible’ things in favor of the tangible. No more wonder. No more uncertainty. We’ve got this — we don’t need God.

Our society has crumbled, we’ve gotten what we deserve, because we rejected God. We have been destroyed. Only this time, he didn’t use fire and brimstone, we did it to ourselves.

Here we find ourselves, standing, looking around, inhaling the dust from the ruins. Not ruins of bombs. Ruins of decay. A lack of care led to the decay of the city. Slow and steady, atrophy did her work.

What am I going to do about it?

Each of us must ask ourselves this question. And the place to start is actually prior to this. It’s why. Why am I here now? Why am I in this geography? Why do I have the skills I do? Why do I have the parents I do? Why was I born into this particular socio-economic status?

As Catholics, we all know the answer. God chose for you to be here right now, in these exact circumstances. Ruins and all.

He created your soul exactly at the moment of your conception, with total intention. God doesn’t do things by accident. He is THE Creator. This is what He does. He creates. He doesn’t accident.

He chose for you to be born into this time of history, to your parents, in your geography, with your family network (or lack of), your inheritance (or lack of), and even your interests and your skills. These last two are formed largely by the age of 5. The influences you have at that point are primarily a product of your genetics and your environment. Two things that I don’t think a 5 year old can really do anything to change.

Those skills and interests have led you into the life of a business owner / founder. Do you realize that?

Do you realize, that it’s not an accident He gave you such a strong tendency towards entrepreneurship. Oh, and let’s call entrepreneurship what it really is… Co-Creation using the things of this world.

While we do have agency, when you look at the situation like this, it’s very clear, in a lot of ways we had no choice; becoming a founder was Divinely ordained. God did this to us by nature of our birth, dispositions, etc.

So, what are you going to do with that information? Knowing that God ordained for you to be a co-creator alongside Him, what are you going to do with your life?

Are you going to build a business so you can stack cash, have some extra houses, and buy a yacht to live peacefully? — Or are you going to lean into the good that is being a co-creator?

One Right Choice

Like all things in life, there is only one right choice. God gives us a free will so that we have the opportunity to choose the good thing; His will. Life is that. A choice between our will and God’s will.

With a well formed conscience, each opportunity we have to make a choice is only one of choosing to do the right thing, or choosing not to do good.

Most of you have already made this conscious choice to do the right thing in your lives. But do you understand what it means to choose this? To choose the path of being a co-creator, a steward in God’s magnificent vineyard?

An Agent of Change

Here is where our agency comes into play. We can just do things. We can be a force for good in the world around us. When I say force for good, I should say a force for truth. That’s why we are Catholic and why we want the world to be Catholic; because we have the truth and we want to share it.

The point of your business isn’t to stack chips like you’re at the casino. It’s not to get famous and be idolized by the masses. It is for you to be great. Great so that you can glorify God through your good deeds. The praise of men constantly directed upwards to the only one deserving of praise.

Culture Changers

At the end of the day, there are a lot of people in need of truth. And the world is arguably bleaker than ever. If we want our great grandchildren (our grand children even) to inherit this eternal faith, we should be doing everything we can to rebuild, to correct the lies. We should be changing culture.

Earlier we asked the question why.

Changing culture is the answer.

As Catholics, we have a calling to live out our faith in a way that brings others to know God through our actions. As business owners, we possess influence. Our time, our company policies, how we spend our excess income, the products and services we offer. People generally have respect for business owners.

When you put several of us in a room together, we can go out and make some real change in the world. Show up at city hall with our friends and employees to oppose something. Fund the pro family politician. Commission beautiful art.

We can, and must do things to influence the culture towards God. This is our mission. This is why He called us to be entrepreneurs. We are here to be instruments of His will in the world.

Rebuilders

We can fix the ruins around us. We can rebuild them because we have God and Truth on our side. Family life can once again be possible for our employees based on how we treat them and the benefits we provide, not to mention paying a household wage. The priority of the spiritual life can rein once again through us encouraging and making possible a work life that integrates prayer and allows for daily mass.

Genuine communities can exist when we move our employees close to the office. Then we can deepen our connection with one another, help each other out, have regular barbecues. Hopefully our children can find spouses amongst that cohort as well.

We can make time to raise our boys into men by challenging them and doing things together. They don’t have to be punished for not being more feminine in their local public school where energetic boys are forced into conformity.

Honor and chivalry can once again become part of our lives. Building up a reputation for ourselves, and for our offspring that will help perpetuate the desire to live honorable lives.

The various pillars of society can be rebuilt. We have to be the ones who do it.

A Generational Project

No, they won’t be rebuilt in our lifetimes alone. These pillars are meant to be sturdy fixtures that endure from generation to generation, meaning the next gen will have to take up the tools and continue where we left off. And so will their offspring. Once rebuilt, they will need maintenance. These invisible pillars are in so many ways, the real things that keep society on track. And we are going to rebuild them.

It’s the reason why Catholic Founders as a project exists.

There are many good and honorable Catholic Founders in the world. Many of them don’t have the language to understand and contextualize why they are here. Many still think entrepreneurship is just the way they are called to provide for their family and that’s it. Nothing more.

This is wrong frankly. The forces of evil are out there, lurking and seeking to devour souls. We are the stewards in the vineyard. We must use the Master’s resources to care for and protect those around us — those who cannot help themselves.

Together, we will:

1. Start and grow our businesses. Through this, we’ll be answering the calling to be co-creators alongside God, and we’ll have the things needed to change culture around us: prestige and extra capital.

2. Learn the Theology of Entrepreneurship. In the same way that a person cannot love God until they know God, we cannot do Catholic entrepreneurship until we know how to. This is a key reason why we are content forward.

3. Grow in Unity. Doing things alone and isolated keeps us in risk of being sniped off by the evil one. When you’re isolated, it’s much easier to give into fear. Together however, we become greater than the sum of our parts. We become a wrecking ball to knock down the structures of evil, and rebuild structures of God.

4. Change the Culture. The first three things are all in service of this. We are here to transform the world around us.

It’s not an ego thing. God gave us this calling. Yes, it can be scary. Pride and greed are real temptations, but we know He will provide us the graces needed to stay humble and holy. He called us to be real galvanizers and builders in this particular moment of history, so have confidence. Trust as the Apostles did that the Spirit is in us. God walks with us. And that the devil cannot assail us so long as we stay in the wounds of our Lord.

There are many, many souls to be saved. We have the truth. Let’s go share it with them. Let’s change the culture.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

News / Updates:

• 🧗🏻Upcoming Men’s Retreat/Hike: We’re finalizing the details of a men’s hike/retreat weekend for Catholic Founders in Chattanooga on the 9th and 10th of October. The cost will probably be around $150-200 to attend (covers lodging and food). Please register if you’re interested (we only have 15 spots).

• 👕 Have you grabbed your own Catholic Founders Shirt from our store? See more of our designs here.

• Register for upcoming events in Tampa Bay, South Bend (Notre Dame), Nashville, Mexico, Columbus, Wisconsin, Dallas, Washington D.C. Check out all of our in-person events on our Luma page.

In Today’s Issue:

• Intro to the Guest and Topic

• Core Takeaway

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Today’s Topic & Guest:

Evan Raugust | Kingdom Media

Learn how a creator went from ZERO to over 240k YouTube subscribers — in less than two years? 🤯

Today, we get the chance to chop it up with Evan Raugust, the Catholic Mr. Beast.

Evan entered the Church in 2023 after finding Catholic apologists online, and he immediately made it his life’s mission to use the internet to spread the Gospel to as many souls as possible.

Through his own channel and his agency, Kingdom Media, Evan produces high-stakes videos himself (like traveling to where all twelve apostles died) and he helps other creators grow their channels.

He’s helped top creators like Lila Rose, Fr. David Michael Moses, and Brian DeVilla scale their channels to millions of views.

He gives us tons of YouTube growth tactics, how to find market gaps, leveraging the algorithm to get viral reach, and most importantly, his perspective on remaining anchored in virtue, daily prayer, and humility when your job revolves around capturing attention.

It can be a nasty world, and he has clearly spent time figuring out how to navigate it. We’re grateful to have him in the Guild, and to have spent some time with him today for the benefit of all you.

Core Lesson:

If you want to win souls on the internet, bring absolute excellence to the craft and anchor every single upload in daily prayer.

Evan’s perspective is that we should stop burning twenty hours on tiny 10k-view video when that exact same energy could build a million-view home run.

Proper reach happens when your personal competitive advantage lands perfectly in an unserved gap in the market. Lean into the levers you actually possess (sounds like something we’ve said before).

Whatever your advantage and edge is… money, time, raw personality, or production value. Leverage that by dangling the candy of curiosity up front.

This allows you to feed people the good stuff. Deep, life-changing spiritual truths once they’re hooked.

Above all, stop hiding behind false humility.

Bailing on the creator space just to dodge the temptations of money or status simply leaves the battlefield wide open. It’s the same as burying your talent in the sand.

Get in the arena, embrace the daily friction, and let digital entrepreneurship forge real holiness in you.

God Bless & Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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Key Episode References:

Organizations & Agencies

• Daughters of St. Paul (Media Nuns)

YouTube Channels & Media

• Evan Raugust YouTube Channel

• Evan Raugust’s St. Carlo Acutis Video

• Lila Rose YouTube Channel

• Fr. David Michael Moses YouTube Channel

• Brian DeVilla YouTube Channel

• PrestonPlays

• Lungs of Faith

• Theology of Conversion - Justine Donahue

• Iron Inquisitor

• Jubilee

Saints, Devotions & Prayers

• Litany of Humility

Notable Figures

• Jeff Schiefelbein

Select Quotes:

• “Get in the arena! The guy who’s not in the arena and never has these temptations isn’t better than the guy who does.” - Evan Raugust

• “I’m a big believer that if you just pursue excellence, people will find you.” - Evan Raugust

• “ think about it like you dangle the candy so that you can get them to eat the vegetables.” - Evan Raugust

• “if you’re gonna spend 20 hours making a video, why not spend 20 hours making a video that could get a million views versus 20 hours on a video that’ll get 10,000 views?” - Evan Raugust

• “every single channel under the sun is able to be profitable and be able to make you like a full-time income, even enough to like support a family.” - Evan Raugust

• “I have made it my mission to use the internet to spread the gospel to the most amount of people before I die.” - Evan Raugust

• “I think a lot of Catholics need to recognize that that you can't just slap Catholic on something and and assume that it's gonna be widely adopted. You need to actually be be excellent.” - Silas Mähner

• “I've had some really l low points in my life and my creator journey, and all of them without fail are proportional to the lack of prayer that I have.” - Evan Raugust

• “It's not what's possible for man, it's what's possible for God.” - Evan Raugust

Key Moments: (outline)

• (00:18) - Intro: Silas introduces the podcast mission, newsletter updates, and creator Evan Raugust.

• (03:07) - Catholic Dallas & Mission: Evan shares his background in Dallas and his mission to spread the Gospel online.

• (05:46) - Conversion Journey: How online apologists like Trent Horn and Michael Knowles led Evan to Catholicism in 2023.

• (07:43) - Kingdom Media Agency: How Evan consults and scales YouTube channels from scratch to millions of views.

• (15:30) - YouTube Strategy for Business Owners: Multi-skill demands, short-form vs. long-form, and long-term brand building.

• (22:29) - Hooking Viewers & Spiritual Depth: Why curiosity hooks allow creators to deliver substantial spiritual value.

• (26:28) - How Content Goes Viral: Identifying competitive advantages, market supply gaps, and outlier topics.

• (34:08) - The 5 Growth Levers: Leveraging time, money, personality, creativity, or production value to stand out.

• (43:40) - Living Virtue as a Creator: Overcoming vanity, status, and fame through daily Rosaries, confession, and Adoration.

• (48:38) - Recapturing the Vocation: How trials and time with the Daughters of St. Paul keep work focused as a divine mission.

• (55:46) - Rapid Fire Questions: Evan shares favorite scriptures, inspiring entrepreneurs, daily devotions, and patron saints.

• (1:00:32) - Outro & Practical Reflections: Silas poses three self-reflection questions for business owners.

Hey folks! Happy Tuesday and happy feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary! Today would be a great day to get to daily mass.

I’m pleased to share that our son was born last week Thursday. September 3rd. The feast of St. Gregory the Great. His name is Constantine Gerard Luwaga Mähner. Advice welcome on this post. Thank you for your prayers!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events | Feature Content | 6 Heavenly Hustlers

[read time: ~9 min | word count 1, 889]

Subscribe now

News / Updates / Events:

• 🧗🏻Upcoming Men’s Retreat/Hike: We’re finalizing the details of a men’s hike/retreat weekend for Catholic Founders in Chattanooga on the 9th and 10th of October. The cost will probably be around $150-200 to attend (covers lodging and food). Please register if you’re interested (we only have 15 spots).

• 💰 If you’ve never heard it, check out our past episode with Will O’Brien: Should Catholics Try to Become Billionaires?

• 🤝 For CF Guild members attending the SENT Summit, don’t forget we have a dedicated group chat for you to find other Guild members. Find the link to join inside the WhatsApp community.

• Register for upcoming events in South Bend (Notre Dame), Nashville, Mexico, Columbus, Wisconsin, Dallas, Washington D.C. Check out all of our in-person events on our Luma page.

Farming-Games or High-Intensity Games; Which Are We Playing?

In entrepreneurship, one can categorizing the type of game you’re playing, as a Farming Game, or a High-Intensity Game. When playing the former, Catholics have an advantage over secularists.

A farming game is one that required some amount of effort, consistently, over a long long period of times. At the bare minimum, decades, ideally generations.

High-intensity games

A high-intensity game is one played at a much faster pace. You have to win in a short period of time. The longer it takes, the less likely you are to win.

Generally speaking, building a VC-backed startup is a high-intensity type of game. VCs invested, they want returns, you’re often going up against others, and it’s a race to see who can capture the market first. This naturally occurs often because VCs tend to invest in things that just on the edge but about to become mainstream.

Farming games

Outside of literally using agriculture or literally farming as an example, most mom-and-pop main street businesses are in this low-intensity type of game. You can be intense, but if you’re not the first person to start your HVAC service company, it’s not like you’ll have no market left. There will always be people in search of a new provider. There will always be some attrition from bad service.

To win in this game, you need to be consistent. You need to be in the game longer than everyone else.

Now, being around isn’t sufficient. You need to be good. You need to be better than others, consistently for a long period of time.

Septic cleaning business example

Let’s take the example of a Catholic-owned business I know that cleans out septic tanks. They acquired the business from another person. If I recall, it was just one truck at the time. It’s perhaps one of the least glamorous jobs one could do. But, little by little, they have grown and expanded.

Most of their expansion has come as a result of customers in the area being dissatisfied with their current solution. Lack of reliability, breaking things, overcharging them, etc. Others had been there for longer, but were not consistently virtuous in how they ran their business.

20-years later, this family has now grown to be the largest septic service in the entire region of the state. All because they were consistently good. They were virtuous. They kept their word. They were honest. And they did a good job.

Word starts to get around when you do good things.

Eternal timeline

Outside of just virtue, there is another advantage we have over the secularists.

They think only in terms of this life at most, but usually they think in terms of years, quarters, or maybe even days.

In the recruiting world, it’s very common to see someone have a huge month, and then completely fall off the next. Partially because they lost focus of fore year.

However, for us Catholics, we are not just focused on hitting this coming quarterly earnings target. We are first focused on eternity for our souls. Doing things that benefit our souls — that don’t compromise our spiritual life.

Serving our children

After that, our focus for things we do in this life must be for our children. How can we build something that can help our children to better serve the Lord. I do believe in most cases, people should build businesses to last for a thousand years (or longer). Build them so your family can take them over. This compounding can (and will) lead to your family being able to fund the construction of a new church or school in the future.

If you are too short sighted, how are you any different from the secularists?

Of course, we don’t aim for earthly success of our businesses. We aim to do God’s will fully — which usually means being diligent, virtuous, courageous, humble, etc. If we do those things, it’s pretty likely our businesses will grow.

Sure, one generation can mess it up. Does that mean you shouldn’t try to raise them in a right way? No, you’ve got to give it all you’ve got and keep at it.

Your business isn’t your worth

The key benefit is, you know you’re not building that business for some earthly glory. Your worth doesn’t hinge on the financial success of your business. God will judge you for how hard you tried, and for how much you loved Him and put Him above all else.

We build knowing we can pass it down to our children, where others try and extract the value as fast as possible just to get rich.

Who is going to win in the end?

We both know the answer.

Catholics are mostly playing a farming game

It’s important to recognize, the game we are playing as Catholic Founders is largely a farming game. We are trying to transform the culture around us. This requires a life of acting upon culture, but never enough that it causes us to lose the fight with raising our own families well.

Taking lower profits to pay a living wage. Investing in the beautification of our communities. Contributing to the building of a school or church in our area.

The secularists see their life as the end. When they die, they think it’s all over.

That’s why they need to get rich quick. They need to get retired so they can actually ‘enjoy’ this life.

Sometimes you need high-intensity

It’s worth noting, I’m not saying we should never play high-intensity games. I would contend that far too many Catholics never play at the type of intensity they ought. We cannot use the fact we think in generations to do things poorly — or without attention. Low intensity is not the same as low attention. We must be diligent and focused at what we do.

There will be times when we really need a burst of intensity to accomplish something. Usually this is the case when you start your business and stays the same for the first few years. It doesn’t usually just fall into place.

So. Let’s unite in playing the longest of games — the eternal game. Where we run our lives in a way that serves our vocation. Where our business is run with real virtue day in and day out because that eternal game is front and center in our minds. Let’s do things with genuine focus so that they may be done well.

In doing this, we will build many businesses that a secularist could never build. Because their time preference for money is too short. Not for us. We don’t need to be in a hurry to spend it in this life. For us, it can compound and compound. Serving generation after generation and allowing for greater magnificence to be practiced.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).

Please note: to see the full list of heavenly hustlers, you need to be a paid member. Today, there are 6 in total. The first one is a freebie.

Get the other 5 by upgrading to a paid subscription now. Discover builders in Colorado, Brazil, Dallas, Nashville, and Wisconsin today!

• 🏢 Alexander Cartwright is building HotelSHIFT to convert old, distressed hotels into affordable housing units without government subsidies. Dallas, Texas

🙋‍♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.

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News / Updates:

• Upcoming Hike: Mark your calendars for a mens weekend retreat/hike for Catholic business owners on October 9th and 10th in Chattanooga (paid event). Pls DM me if interested. More details to follow.

• 👕 The merch store is live.

• Discover future local events by following our Luma calendar.🗓️
  If you wish to lead a meetup in your area, email us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

In Today’s Issue:

• Intro to the Guest and Topic

• Core Takeaway

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Today’s Show:

Jeff Cassman | Catholic Men of America

A few months ago, I had the privilege of sitting down with Jeff Cassman on the Catholic Men of America podcast. Jeff runs the largest men-only Catholic network in the country, helping thousands of guys with professional development and networking.

We bumping into each other at the Build with Christ event in Atlanta and decided to set up a recording shortly after.

He asked about my origin story covering how I grew up making cabinets in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin and ended up as a recruiter in the renewable energy space working in NYC. Then he asked about taking the leap to launch my firm Roosevelt Talent (formerly called ErthSearch).

And, my favorite topic, what we are doing at Catholic Founders.

Core Lesson:

Entrepreneurship serves as a divine calling to step into our nature as co-creators with God and actively build a more faithful culture.

When you look at the landscape of entrepreneurship today, the mainstream focus is hustle culture. Get rich. Live a flashy life. Or, when you step up a level, to a more ‘sophisticated’ outlook, it’s all about cutting costs, running high margin businesses, doing all the growth hacks etc.

At the end of the day, these depictions, prioritize money over people.

Well, as you know by now, that’s not my view.

Entrepreneurship is an act of co-creation, and is therefore something divine. It can be bastardized. But in it’s purest form, it’s a divine thing.

When we realize this, and lean into it as true, it leads us to a much deeper, richer, understanding of what we are called to do with the skills and energy we have. We have a role to play in making the culture around us a Catholic one.

God Bless & Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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Key Episode References:

• Famous Persons & Entrepreneurs

  • Tom Monaghan

  • Dominic Taroli

  • Jacob Chiccarelli

  • Marcellino D’Ambrosio

  Organizations, Companies & Platforms

  • Catholic Men of America

  • Earth Search

  • Knights of Columbus

  • Ave Maria University

Select Quotes:

• “I really do believe that quality is is paramount in in this industry.” - Silas Mähner

• “If you believe you are called to be an instrument of God’s will in the world, you belong in the community.”- Silas Mähner

• “The infrastructure of Catholicism in America was not built by people who lacked ambition.” - Silas Mähner

• “Ambition has nothing to do with with greed. It only has to do with greed if you if you pursue it that way.” - Silas Mähner

• “We have an opportunity because nobody else has morality around recognizing that each human has infinite dignity and they deserve to be respected and told the truth.” - Silas Mähner

• “Entrepreneurship is about leaning into what it means to be a co-creator with God.” - Silas Mähner

• “There’s so much time we spend building alone, doing things on our own because we just don’t know where to go.” - Silas Mähner

• “Your soul, everyone’s soul, was created by God specifically at this time in history to your particular parents and your geography.” - Silas Mähner

• “We’re not given entrepreneurial skills for our own benefit, we’re given them to advance God’s kingdom here on earth.” - Silas Mähner

Key Moments: (outline)

• (00:00) Intro: Silas introduces his guest appearance on the Catholic Men of America podcast.

• (02:04) Origin Story: Growing up in Wisconsin, working in a cabinet shop, and moving to New York City.

• (04:14) Launching Earth Search: Taking the leap to start a cleantech recruiting firm focused on genuine human relationships.

• (14:05) The Future of Cleantech: How efficiency and sustainability are transforming manufacturing across all sectors.

• (18:38) Catholic Founders Mission”: Transforming America through Catholic entrepreneurship and deep community influence.

• (24:13) Permission to Build: Overcoming the stigma of ambition and reclaiming the drive to build wealth for good.

• (32:52) AI and Human Dignity: Why the rise of artificial intelligence creates a massive opportunity for human-centric businesses.

• (41:52) Who Belongs in the Guild: Identifying the faithful builders called to join the Catholic Founders community.

• (45:31) The Great Adventure: Discovering your unique secondary vocation and answering God’s specific call to action.

• (48:33) - Outro: The four pillars of the Catholic Founders Guild and final parting thoughts.

News / Updates:

• 👕 Back the Catholic Founders mission—shop our official shirts starting at $29.99 in the online store! Want a discount? Refer a new member to the Guild to receive a promo code. Check our online store here.
  Get a special discount code when you refer another member to the Guild.

• Get updates on our in-person events by following our Luma calendar.🗓️

• If you wish to lead a meetup in your area, email us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

In Today’s Issue:

• Intro to the Guest and Topic

• Core Takeaway

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Today’s Topic & Guest:

Jakob Diepenbrock | Discipulus Ventures

America used to build things. In a real way. Once the dot com boom happened, that changed in a lot of ways.

Instead of physical products, people started ‘making’ heaps and heaps of B2B SaaS startups. Seeing the potential ROI that an infinitely scalable software company could make, all of the money from investors went into this space. Thus leaving very little investment for people building hardware.

On top of it, there were not many people building hardware because it wasn’t sexy.

That’s all changing now.

There is huge momentum now and energy behind building physical things. Building back up America’s industrial might. Reindustrializing America! 🇺🇸

Our guest, Jakob, runs an accelerator and fund called Discipulus Ventures in El Segundo. The birth place of SpaceX and a place where there are more machine shops and manufacturing might in a small area than anywhere else in the US (fact check me please).

Broadly speaking, we talked about the importance of Catholics founders to build hard things, to lean into our divine calling, keeping spiritual life alive during particularly busy times, and how he chooses to live out his faith and even invite the founders in his cohort to mass.

I’ll also note, there is a big theme around the similarities between pursuing sainthood and building huge companies that impact the world.

NOTE: If you’re looking to build a company that helps the future of America, consider applying to the next Discipulus Ventures cohort (here).

Core Lesson:

Real purpose drives you further than market opportunities ever will.

Building hard tech requires grit, massive capital, and an insane amount of perseverance.

When you build simply to make money or chase a hype trend, you tend to hit a wall the moment things get hard. But if what you do is driven by what you think your divine calling is, you’ll have a divine reserve of energy. After all, if God has called you to something, how can you fail with His help.

God Bless & Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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Key Episode References:

• Companies & Organizations

  • Discipulus Ventures

  • Rainmaker

  • Numinar

  • SpaceX

  • Anduril

  • Oculus
    

  People

  • Steve Ballmer

  • Augustus Doricko

  • Paul Merlucky (Palmer Luckey)

  • Will O’Brien

  • St. Josemaria Escriva

  • Peter Thiel
    

  Literary Works & Media

  • The Way - St. Josemaria Escriva

  • Wild at Heart - John Eldredge
    
    (Full disclosure: We use affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission that helps fund this project)
    

  Scripture

  • Colossians 3:23-24

Select Quotes:

• “I think hard tech and American animism industries are more suited towards people that care about the country and the values that America stands for and the West stands for.” - Jakob Diepenbrock

• “Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward, you are serving the Lord Christ.” - Jakob Diepenbrock (quoting Colossians 3:23-24)

• “I think there’s been this resurgence of young people who want to build real things that matter and are driven by values that are important for the country.” - Jakob Diepenbrock

• “A life of virtue does include... not lying about anything, following through with what you say. And I think that is like what matters in building a company.” - Jakob Diepenbrock

• “What we should do as Christians is live our lives to the fullest, obviously in a context of pursuing virtue in that.” - Jakob Diepenbrock

• “I think you can’t be influential in the world unless you have some kind of impact in your personal life and in work life as well.” - Jakob Diepenbrock

• “You should learn faith from the saints and from Jesus... and you should learn how to go and build something hard from Elon or whoever.” - Jakob Diepenbrock

• “We should also be striving for: how do we be the best at business and also be the best in our faith.” - Jakob Diepenbrock

Key Moments: (outline)

• (00:38) - Intro: Silas introduces the episode’s core theme and guest Jakob Diepenbrock.

• (03:19) - Welcoming Jakob: An overview of Discipulus Ventures and the hard tech residency model.

• (04:39) - Jakob’s Background: Exploring early side hustles and working at Steve Ballmer’s family office.

• (08:22) - El Segundo Hard Tech: Breaking down the massive shift back toward physical manufacturing and defense.

• (12:57) - Launching the Fund: Scaling an MVP accelerator program into a $30 million second fund.

• (20:54) - The Founder’s Advantage: Why practicing virtue creates more resilient startup teams.

• (24:05) - Solving Righteous Problems: How to avoid building net-negative technology for society.

• (28:43) - Balancing Faith: Jakob shares his daily routine of Mass and prayer while managing heavy startup demands.

• (31:21) - Aspiring to Greatness: The necessity of finding high-achieving mentors who excel in both business and faith.

• (35:17) - Funding Magnificence: Why the wealthy possess a unique duty to execute massive, world-altering projects.

• (38:14) - Rapid Fire: Discussing Colossians, Peter Thiel, and lessons from Palmer Luckey.

• (47:01) - Outro: Final calls to action for Discipulus Ventures and the Catholic Founders Guild.

My wife still has not given birth, leading me to have the time to write this newsletter late last night. Please pray for us. Her due date was Sunday. Pray for baby Constantine Gerard!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events | Feature Content | 6 Heavenly Hustlers

[read time: ~7.5 min | word count 1, 692]

News / Updates / Events:

• Events:

  • Last Week: Mexico(!), DC, Wausau, and Steubenville hosted events. 🚀

  • Up Next: Nashville (Sep 15th) | Monterrey, MX (Sep 22nd) | Columbus, OH (Sep 25th) | Dallas (Sep 26th)

  • Hike: Mark your calendars for a men’s-only hike on October 9-10th in Chattanooga (paid event). More details to follow.

  • 📆 See all upcoming IRL events here —> Luma page.

• Content:

  • Latest: Our episode with Marty on mercy brought me to tears.

  • Up Next: The kingpin of El Segundo 👀 (tune in to the pod Thursday)

  • Guild Call: Evan Raugust dropped expert YouTube advice on us last week.

  • Vault: What benefits should you provide?

• 👕 The merch store is live.

• The Guild Only Newsletter drops tomorrow (stay tuned).

Evangelize By Being Different

When Peter rebuked Jesus for saying he would suffer and be put to death, Jesus replied with some of His strongest words ever recorded.

It didn’t compute with Peter.

Don’t ‘great leaders’ conquer with strength and power? How could Jesus usher in the kingdom without doing the same?

Jesus would go on to conquer the entire world (not just a sliver of it) and establish His Eternal Kingdom in the totally opposite way, through suffering and death. This is a total contrast to the way the world perceived great leaders at the time.

To become a sacrifice, He was as gentle and docile as a lamb led to the slaughter.

Other conquerors used strength, power, and violence — He was the recipient of those things.

This contrast is the most jarring part of the whole salvation story.

One man achieved a great victory, but in a way that no one expected. God wrote this story intentionally, in order to set the tone of what it would mean to follow Christ, “The Founder.” We follow Him through sacrifice. We conquer through sacrifice.

Business owners must do the same thing.

This pertains to both sacrifice and being ‘different’ or contrasting the norm.

Diference/Contrast

To bring others within our sphere of influence to know God, we must be different. Our way of doing business, if we are transformed by the Faith, should appear almost nonsensical to those around us. Employees, customers, and secular business owners thinking to themselves, "What in the world is he doing?”

This is the point I want to emphasize.

Difference is the key.

The same goes in marketing. Better to be different than better.

Today, many (if not most) people see business in a negative light. Greed. Extortion. Lack of care for employees. Cutting corners to save money. Customer left holding the bag while some private equity bro in a vest rides off into the sunset in his Porsche.

When our lives are transformed by Christ, the way we do business will naturally look different because the reason for doing business is no longer an earthly reason, but rather an eternal reason.

• We’ll be gracious with our employees for choosing to work with us rather than expecting them to thank us for employment.

• Encouraging our employees to exercise their co-creative abilities rather than becoming robotic clock-punchers.

• Producing things for our customers with love to serve them, rather than for the sole purpose of making a profit.

• Being flexible with our suppliers if they are late, recognizing that they are human too.

• Paying people on time.

• Being honest in our marketing. Living up to what we market about our products by making them well.

• Choosing to receive less profit so we can pay our employees a living wage. Allowing families to get by on a single income.

• Saying no to additional revenue by closing on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

• Choosing not to accept projects that would force a rush and lead to negative effects on the family.

• Having less profit by paying child and marriage bonuses to our team.

• Being flexible with them when they have family matters to attend to rather than being judicial about having them adhere to strict HR policies.

• Spending more on keeping our spaces clean and storefronts fresh in order to elevate our employees, customers, and community (again, less profit).

These are just a few ways we may appear ‘different’ to the world. But this is not an exhaustive list. You’ll naturally find other ways to do this if your Faith is real and full.

Sacrifice

Ultimately, by being different, we will be sacrificing, and thus following in Christ’s footsteps. The sacrifice is often profit. Sometimes status. In some instances, it will also mean our life. If not physical life, at least social or political.

We may be totally ostracized for making our beliefs known. Perhaps you live in a community where living out your Faith would be supremely unpopular and lead to truly negative circumstances. Do it anyway.

To follow Christ is to sacrifice.

While others are flexing their power, you can admit your weakness. Stating that all your power and strength come from God.

I firmly believe that when we as business owners accept this fact, not only will our Faith become fuller, but our businesses will look different through the sacrifices we make, and in doing so, many… many souls will come to know God.

They will come to know God through that initial curiosity sparked by seeing how different our actions are. That contrast to the way others do business will begin to make them wonder. And wonder is an openness of the mind. An open mind is a mind ready to receive a seed. The seed of truth.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).

Please note: to see the full list of heavenly hustlers, you need to be a paid member. Today there are 6 in total. The first one is a freebie.

Get the other 5 by upgrading to a paid subscription now.

• ✝️ Pontus Stjernfeldt is building The Camino Company, a Catholic venture studio launching faith-aligned software and new mission-driven companies. Romania/Poland.

🙋‍♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.

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Highlights: Mind-Boggling Data

We have more clergy per practicing Catholic than ever, but because our numbers decreased and our parish count didn’t, it feels like we are dwindling.

That is the TLDR of the article I’m sharing today. And I think it may be one of the most important ever written on the Church’s actual current struggle, as well as the apparent solution. Please read it.

Tradition & Renewal

We Must Build

(Editors Note: This is a guest post from my friend Andrew Warfield. Seminarians in Boston and New York peaked in 1953; in Galveston-Houston, in 1959. The collapse we assign to Vatican II was underway a decade before it opened. Andrew Warfield has written a well-researched diagnosis, and while I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the essay, the e…

Read more

a month ago · 99 likes · 23 comments · Tradition & Renewal

“YouTube is the most powerful tool for evangelization and business growth released in the last 500 years since the Printing Press.” –Evan Raugust

If you aren’t on it, your business could be leaving massive reach on the table. But here’s the problem, most creators are just posting and hoping the algorithm decide to make them viral.

During last Tuesday’s Expert Call, we sat down with Evan Raugust, the creator and strategist who’s been behind massive channels like Matt Fradd and Lila Rose. He’s helped us to decode what actually works. More than getting views, he shared with us viewer psychology, building systems to help you launch your Youtube Channel, and many more to help us win in the platform.

Member Bonus Offer 🎉

Evan has provided our Guild members with access to his complete YouTube strategy guide and resource materials. Become a paid subscriber today!

Alright, the rest of this session is exclusively for CF Guild members. If you’d like to join future calls, consider upgrading to a paid membership today.

Subscribe now

The Catholic Founders Guild is an association of Catholic Biz owners who believe that their business is meant to be an extension of God’s will in the world.

If you share this belief, join today! (PS: It’s only $100 a year or $10 a month, so anyone can afford to join)

Read more

News / Updates:

• 👕 Support the Catholic Founders Mission by purchasing one of our own Catholic Founders’ shirt merch. Starts at $29.99. Check our online store here.

• 🌎 We’re going global! 🎉 We just had our first Catholic Founders Meetup outside the USA last Tuesday. S/o to entrepreneurs from Mexico. More updates here from Pedro Cadena of Servorum.

• 🤝 There will be a first meeting of Catholic Founders + entrepreneurs in Steubenville this coming Saturday. Register here or share with someone you know.

  • Get updates on our in-person events by following our Luma calendar. 🗓️

    If you wish to lead a meetup in your area, email us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

In Today’s Issue:

• Intro to the Guest and Topic

• Core Takeaway

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Today’s Topic & Guest:

Marty Arlinghaus | The Serenelli Project

What does it take to truly reach the darkest corners of human experience?

Today, we’re talking with Marty Arlinghaus, a man who is building a new model for prison ministry, from the ground up.

Marty is the founder of The Serenelli Project, an ambitious initiative designed to build a monastery for convicts re-entering society. It all started with a simple, jarring question from an inmate: “Could a guy like me become a priest?”

That question launched Marty into a mission to bridge the gap between incarceration and true, lasting transformation. We explore how mercy isn’t just a nice concept, but a radical, transformative power that can reshape society.

We also discovered some fascinating insights about the role of mercy in helping us transform our world. Some things that we as business owners should really take to heart. How knows, maybe we’re really the ones in need of the mercy.

Core Lesson:

Mercy has a way of melting hearts. This might be the key to transforming our society.

I’m certainly shooting from the hip when I say this, but during the conversation, I became really convinced that our society is one in desperate need of mercy. Mercy because of the huge amount of sin in our world currently.

The person receiving the mercy can be touched in a certain way. It also really affects the giver (in many cases even more than the recipient). Heck, even an observer can be transformed by witnessing mercy.

So, while I don’t know the exact mechanics, I’m convinced that as business owners, there is something regarding mercy that we can do to really make a transformation in our society. If you know what that might be, please drop it in the comments.

God Bless & Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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Key Episode References:

People & Saints

• St. Benedict

• St. Maria Goretti

• Alessandro Serenelli

• Flip Howard

• Mark Frommeyer

• St. Paul

Organizations & Locations

• Blue Oven Bakery

• University of Cincinnati

• Clear Creek Abbey

Bible Passages & Concepts

• Matthew 25 (The sheep and the goats/visiting the imprisoned)

• Ephesians 4:11 (Gifts of the Spirit)

• Peter Walking on Water

• Ora et Labora (Prayer and Work)

Select Quotes:

• “Prison ministry is where you see mercy and grace kind of working at their most intense. You’ve got a concentration of human misery, weakness, and failure. But because of that, you also have a concentration of the way that grace and mercy are working on people.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “Only [God’s] mercy can go there. Only [God’s] mercy is infinite enough to reach that abyss.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “No matter how good your economic system is, it’s not going to be able to touch those human depths that cry out for God alone.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “We’re not just housing. We’re not a transitional house in the strict sense of the term. We’re not a halfway house; we’re community life.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “It’s turning into more and more a mission field for evangelization, as much as it is pastoral care for those who are Catholic.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “When people get that second chance or that third chance or that fourth chance, but they’re given the resources to be able to succeed... they’re so grateful that they become some of your best workers.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “I have almost zero turnover in my employees... and I’m not spending money on recruiting anymore because I retain almost all of my employees because they love working at my company.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “Lord, if it is you command me to come out onto the water, and then he [Peter] does. I think that kind encapsulates the experience of setting out to found something and the risk you’re taking.” – Marty Arlinghaus

• “She looked to the crucifix. And then she said, ‘Yes, for the love of Jesus, I do forgive Alessandro Serenelli, and I want him to be in paradise with me.’” – Marty Arlinghaus (quoting St. Maria Goretti)

Key Moments: (outline)

• (00:00) – Intro: Setting the stage with the raw reality of prison ministry.

• (05:38) – Marty’s Journey: From studying music and German to entering the seminary and eventually landing in prison ministry.

• (08:02) – The Birth of the Project: The inmate who asked, “Could a guy like me become a priest?” and the vision for a reentry monastery.

• (16:40) – The State of Ministry: A candid look at why the current model of prison ministry is broken and why it’s a mission field, not just a pastoral one.

• (25:46) – Sustainable Impact: Introducing Serenelli Industries and the “charitable VC” model for helping residents find purpose through skilled work.

• (34:35) – The Theology of Mercy: Discussing the depths of mercy and how it transforms not just the receiver but the giver.

• (45:44) – Business Applications: How second-chance hiring and the Rule of St. Benedict can actually improve your business culture.

• (51:22) – Rapid Fire: Peter on the water, the lessons of Mark Fromier’s journey, and the witness of St. Maria Goretti.

• (1:00:18) – Closing: Final encouragement to contemplate the role of mercy in your own calling.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Today is the feast of St. King Louis IX. He was involved in the Crusades; he was known for his care for the poor and his justice (among other things). In other words, he’s a great example for Catholic business owners, who are often building ‘empires’ of our own to look up to. Consider reading more about him in the Catholic Encyclopedia here.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates/Events

• Feature Content: The Angelus: A Call to Accept the Word of God, and Act On It

• Heavenly Hustlers x 6

[read time: ~8 min | word count 1, 639]

News / Updates / Events:

• 📰 Check out my latest article on The Catholic Herald titled How business owners can rebuild communities to see how Catholic business owners can bring real accountability and connection back to our neighborhoods. PS: Sign up for an annual subscription using code FOUNDER50 for a hefty discount.

• 🤝 We’re getting the D.C. founders and biz owners together for another meetup. Get ready for an evening of good conversation with fellow entrepreneurs this week. ​Mike Lehmann will be leading the group for this. Register here.

• Some recap from the Nashville and Dallas gathering last week. If you want to join a meetup in your city, check out all of our in-person events on our Luma page. 📆

• Check out last week’s episode with Joe Markey (we had great feedback, so if you’ve not listened already, check it out)

A Reflection On The Angelus for Catholic Entrepreneurs

For some time now, I’ve been promoting the Angelus Bells app that our friend Daniel Egan created (add it to Chrome here). A tab pops up at 6, noon, and 6 with bells of your choice ringing. A visceral reminder to pray the Angelus.

Growing up, we prayed the Angelus very consistently as a family. But I honestly didn’t start to realize the power of the prayer until recently. I think it’s a prayer that is particularly of interest for Catholic business owners — aka, ‘doers’ in society.

If you’re like me and you’ve grown up saying the Angelus, or perhaps you picked it up more recently, perhaps this post will deepen your appreciation for the prayer, or at least refresh you on it (we can all use refreshers from time to time).

“The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary. And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.”

This is the first line. We hear words being exclaimed, and action taking place.

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word.”

Here we have Mary accepting the word of God. The angel has declared, and Mary has accepted. She’s welcomed the word into her heart. She wills whatever it is that God wills.

“And the word was made flesh. And dwelt among us.”

God becomes man. The Word becomes man. The Word becomes action.

Word —> Acceptance —> Action

This is our blueprint to imitate Mary (and all the saints).

If you’ll recall, the intro to John’s Gospel starts with this literary banger (in the Latin Mass, this is the ‘Last Gospel’ read at the end of every Mass).

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) — “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

The ‘Word’ is God the Son. He proceeds from the Father. The words coming out of His mouth are the Son. He is a living thing coming straight from the Father. But not only is He (the Son) word; He becomes man… he becomes action.

I found this really interesting to consider as an entrepreneur. So much of our personality is tied to taking action. After all, the one with an idea for a business never makes any money. However, the one who takes action does. He is the real entrepreneur.

If we are truly in pursuit of heaven, if we desire God above all things, are we allowing the Word of God to truly enter our hearts and lead us to action?

As entrepreneurs, we know we are capable of action because of where we are now. That means we know we are capable of acting on our faith. We just have to accept it in our hearts and take the actions God is calling us to.

So today, let us take action, both in our faith and in our businesses.

If you’ve been putting off doing business development — stop procrastinating. Get out there and do it.

In your faith.

• Start acting on that ambitious project for the Church. Raise the money for the mural.

• Get together some fellow parishioners to buy the duplex next to the church so it can be rented to a good Catholic couple.

• Invite your business partner to Mass.

• Say the Angelus out loud in the office with your other Catholic employees.

• Start going to an extra Mass during the week.

• Get together a group of other business owners to attend the next city hall meeting and oppose the anti-family policies.

• Offer to match the funds for the Church fundraising effort.

There are infinite things you can do to act on your faith. Pick one and do it.

Perhaps if you start praying the Angelus consistently and attentively, you’ll be moved to action. Having heard the word of God, and accepted the Word of God in your heart, maybe you’ll become more like Mary, an instrument in the salvation of men.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

PS: Don’t forget, through receiving the Eucharist, Jesus, the Son, is in your heart. You’ve already accepted Him physically — all that’s left is for you to accept Him spiritually. The action will follow.

Heavenly Hustlers

These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).

• 📊🌾 Lee Greer is the founder of SPECCX, a Nashville-based marketplace technology company that utilizes pricing algorithms to empower farmers and buyers in the agricultural industry. By focusing on integrity and excellence, the company strives to maximize profit for farms and wellness for buyers through sophisticated community-driven exchanges.

• 🎨👩🏻‍💻 Anna Maria Yates of .am-yates Web Design, based in Calvert County, Maryland, is a web designer and developer building digital solutions and infrastructure to give brands a creative start.

• 🏡👣 Jason Murphy leads The Martyr’s Walk, a Charlotte-based non-profit organization offering intensive three-day spiritual programs designed to guide men through profound life and faith transitions. He is also the owner of Daedalus Properties, a premier construction, real estate, and investment firm raising values in Charlotte's hottest hood since 2004.

• 👨🏻‍💻💰 Kevin Dale is an Army Infantry veteran, Vanderbilt BA/MBA, and serial entrepreneur. After leading combat operations in Afghanistan and scaling tech/software products, he’s now tackling wellness at scale. Starting with microplastic-free, all-natural non-GMO tea.

• 🧔‍♂️🪜 Todd Uterstaedt is an Army veteran, C-Suite advisor, and CEO of Baker & Daboll, bringing executive coaching and intentional mentorship to executive teams. They are based in Ohio.

• 👩🏼‍💼🎵 Bea Whitmarsh is the founder of My Holy Crescendo, a formation ministry started in Oklahoma City, helping Catholic women discover God’s unique design in their body, mind, and spirit. Through structured programs like her 15-week A Symphony of Grace, she empowers women to embrace their true identity, stop fighting themselves, and live fully as the masterpieces God created them to be.

🙋‍♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.

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News / Updates:

• 🤝 Catholic Founders events are happening in different cities (open to all Catholic biz owners, or those seriously aspiring to be)

  • Dallas - August 22 (guest speaker ​Alex Cartwright, founder of Hotel Shift)

  • Monterrey, Mexico - August 25 - we’re growing beyond the US!

  • To catch all other meetups, follow our calendar. 🗓️ If you want to lead a meetup in your area, email us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

• Guild Members will gather for an Expert Call on the 25th with Evan Raugust on How He Got 240K Subs and 73M Views in a Year, and How You Can Steal His Results. Upgrade to paid to apply and get access (do it quickly so we can get you onboarded in time).

In Today’s Issue:

• Intro to the Guest and Topic

• Core Takeaway

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Today’s Topic & Guest:

Joe Markey | Workday Leader

Today’s guest isn’t our usual suspect. He didn’t run a business. In fact, he worked almost his entire career at one place — all in finance in NYC. Along the way, he discovered his deep interest in theology. After retiring, he decided to get a degree in Theology.

Now, he’s approaching your faith life through a lens of applying ‘best practices’ from business.

Quite an interesting concept.

Let us know how you enjoy the conversation!

Core Lesson:

Any good leadership in the marketplace is fundamentally rooted in Catholic theology; good business and good religion naturally go hand in hand.

When corporate leadership programs train executives on empathy, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence, they are unknowingly utilizing a secularized version of what it means to be truly human, made in the image of God.

This is a helpful way for us to stop compartmentalizing our Sunday obligations from our Monday operations. If you want to be truly good at your job, practice Christian virtue.

God Bless & Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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Key Episode References:

Encyclicals & Documents

• Centesimus Annus - St. Pope JPII

Scripture

• Psalm 46 : “Be still and know that I am”

• Romans 12:1-2

Books

• The Courage To Be - Paul Tillich

• The Advantage - Patrick Lencioni

Saints & Devotions

• St. Ignatius of Loyola

• The Rosary

Podcasts, Newsletters & Ventures

• Flip Howard Catholic Founders Episode

• Lucas & Jessica Moser’s Episode

Select Quotes:

• “People want to work with or to be led by people who are authentic.” - Joe Markey

• “Good business and good religion go hand in hand. And too often in our culture we separate the two.” - Joe Markey

• “And sometimes you’re looking more to see how you deal with disappointment than how you deal with success. Because it’s easy to deal with success. It’s harder to deal with failure.” - Joe Markey

• “The government is not the answer. The government is the problem; it’s not the answer, it’s not the solution.” - Joe Markey

• “But, you know, at the end of the day, you have to have an economic pie that’s big enough to take care of the marginalized.” - Joe Markey

• “But the beauty of the theological language is that it goes deeper. It goes deeper into what it means to be human, truly human.” - Joe Markey

• “But if you are a religious person, the theological aspects of it goes deeper and gives you validation for who you are.” - Joe Markey

• “We’re here to provide for our own families, for the families who work for us, but also to just be an example to the culture around us, to start transforming our communities.” - Silas Mähner

Key Moments: (outline)

• (00:00) - Intro: Joe Markey shares his baseline philosophy on vulnerability and authenticity in leadership.

• (00:54) - Meet Joe Markey: Silas introduces Joe, a retired finance executive who pivoted to study theology.

• (06:15) - Joe’s Career Path: Joe discusses growing up in a large family and his unexpected 40-year career in banking.

• (10:35) - Business and Religion: Examining how taking care of employees merges good business practices with a deeply lived faith.

• (17:47) - The Power of Authenticity: Exploring how an authentic leader naturally attracts and motivates unengaged employees.

• (26:25) - Wealth Disparity: Joe and Silas tackle the modern cultural shift toward democratic socialism and wealth inequality.

• (40:22) - Sacred vs. Secular: How modern secular leadership science draws heavily from foundational theological concepts.

• (52:35) - Rapid Fire: Joe shares his favorite scriptures, business inspirations, saints, and daily devotions.

• (1:01:07) - Outro: Silas wraps up the episode and invites listeners to continue transforming culture through the Guild.

Howdy y’all!

Hard to believe we’re mid way through Q3 already. How are you doing with your goals for the quarter / year?

Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates/Events

• Feature Content: Build What God Wants You To. Not The World.

• Heavenly Hustlers

• Highlights

[read time: ~7 min | word count 1,591]

News / Updates / Events:

• Guys… we finally launched the Catholic Founders Merch Store in partnership with 4 Marks Printing! 👕
  A lot of you have been asking for it and now it’s live. Check out what we have and get one today (it will help keep Oscar’s salary paid 🤣)

  Get Your CF Merch Today

• Nashville, we’re meeting tonight. More details here if you or someone you know haven’t registered yet.

• 🤝 We just locked in a special partnership with The Catholic Herald 📰. More details in the Highlight Section.

• 🎙️Our latest episode on the pod is actually a crosspost of my guesting on the Great Houses Forum by Gregory Treat. Listen here.

• Don’t miss out on all the CF meetups happening by subscribing to our Luma page.

Build What God Wants You To. Not The World.

I just finished reading Wild at Heart by John Eldredge on Sunday. It’s not often I say this, but I feel that book is going to go down as one of the most transformational reads of my life.

Towards the end he quoted Gill Bailey.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Let that sink in a bit. Re-read it once or twice.

Aside from this quote making me feel more alive instantly, a thought popped to my head. This is very different than the typical business advice you’d hear. “Do customer discovery until you know what they want to buy, then sell that.”

This has been widely accepted as the thing to do. But when you look at it through the eyes of a Catholic, and through the lens of ‘doing what makes you come alive’ it feels really lame.

However, you’ve got people on the other side who only follow their passion. We all know them. Many of them can barely pay the bills.

Despite this supposed ‘failure’ in the eyes of the world, there is something quite romantic about pursuing your passion. Chasing what makes you come alive. And truthfully, I think if each of us can discover this, we’d be a lot closer to God than we are now.

I do believe that God speaks to us through our desires. Maybe they’re there to bring us closer to him. To uncover some broken parts of our hearts at that time. But ultimately, I think if we have a robust prayer life, genuinely want to get to heaven, and have a rightly ordered conscience, God speaks to us through those desires.

There, in the messy places, we find the calling God has for us.

For some, it may be the way you provide for your family financially. For others it may be something that has to stay on the side. But either way, I want to encourage you to find that thing and do it well.

Don’t assume you have to go ‘all in’ on this or you’re being a bad child of God. Sometimes God might be calling you to diligently care for your family with a full-time job while pursuing this passion on the side. Perhaps the two together are going to compliment each other in ways you didn’t expect.

The core thing to remember here is your focus on the eternal calling. Our ultimate calling is to be with God in eternity. It’s not to stack up some amount of money. Meaning, we shouldn’t put all our effort into achieving a certain revenue or net worth.

If this is true of our personal lives, why should it not be true of our business lives.

Bottom line, don’t do business for the sake of making money. Do it for the sake of getting you, your family, and the families around you to heaven. If you discover your true calling and passion in the world along the way, praise God for that, and don’t take it for granted. Too many people never discover their true passion.

Again.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Gill Bailey

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).

• 🏡 Michael Raboine is building Proto Energy, helping improve energy efficiency for commercial and residential buildings. He’s based in my home state of Wisconsin.

• 🎨 John and Ashley Noronha are Co-Founders of the Truth and Beauty Project based in Rome. They make custom, immersive, week-long formation experiences that utilize art and the ‘living classroom of Rome’ (what a line) to help people deepen their faith.

• ⚡️ Kiegan Lenihan Founded Xnilio. A tech startup that automates industrial quoting operations for large energy manufacturers. They can cut the time to quote drastically. He’s based out of NYC.

• 💬 Wes Wilke created Chat JP2. A chat bot to plug into Church websites for visitors to interact with the data on the site. He’s based in the Dallas, TX area.

• 🎙️Kyle Whittington runs Ipsum Audite. They operate the Catholic Creator Conference, which you might have heard of. He’s based in Steubenville, OH and hangs out with all the cool cats over at Newpolity. He’s also a media strategist - aka, he can help you win at social media.

• 📸 Abby Cummings runs Radiance Creative Company. She offers general marketing, social media, and photography to help her clients grow their brand. She’s based in the Charlotte area.

🙋‍♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.

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Highlights: Catholic Founders x The Catholic Herald Partnership

• We are announcing officially our partnership with The Catholic Herald.

  They are giving followers of Catholic Founders a 50% off code for your first year subscription. Annual subscription to Digital is $55 before discount and if you want the Digital + Print its $130 before discount.
  

  CODE is: FOUNDER50. Link to sign up is here: https://thecatholicherald.com/subscribe.

  
  If you are interested with CF Partnerships and Sponsorships contact us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

Recently Matthew Gaddis, co-founder of TridFi joined the Guild. Many people expressed interest in what they are doing so we set up a Guild call to cover it.

What we uncovered was epic.

With their consulting side, they help companies get ‘fit financially’ by trimming tons of unneeded expenses and optimizing cash management (among other things).

With that savings, they put the money into a fund that is then used for the local community members to help them knock down their home mortgage interest (among other things).

I really encourage people to listen to this and take serious note about what they are doing because it can serve as a real model for us in other ways in how we run our businesses.

The topic call is a recurring monthly event where we discuss relevant topics about running the business. To join future events, become a member of the Catholic Founders Guild today.

Alright, the rest of this session is exclusively for CF Guild members. If you’d like to join future calls, consider upgrading to a paid membership today.

Subscribe now

The Catholic Founders Guild is an association of Catholic Biz owners who believe that their business is meant to be an extension of God’s will in the world.

If you share this belief, join today! (PS: It’s only $100 a year or $10 a month, so anyone can afford to join)

Read more

News / Updates:

• 🤝 Catholic Founders events are happening in different cities (open to all Catholic biz owners, or those seriously aspiring to be)

  • Nashville-August 18 - 🍕 Pizza Party and Curious Biz Discussions

  • Dallas - August 22 (guest speaker ​Alex Cartwright, founder of Hotel Shift)

  • Monterrey, Mexico - August 25 - we’re growing beyond the US!

  • To catch all other meetups, follow our calendar. 🗓️ If you want to lead a meetup in your area, email us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

• Discover how AI affects our cognitive skills and how to avoid brainrot; listen to our latest episode with Dr. Klaudia Rosinska.

• Guild Members will gather for an Expert Call on the 25th with Evan Raugust on How He Got 240K Subs and 73M Views in a Year, and How You Can Steal His Results. Upgrade to paid to apply and get access (do it quickly so we can get you onboarded in time).

In Today’s Issue:

• Today’s Episode

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Today’s Episode:

I recently appeared as a guest on Gregory Treat’s show, the Great Houses Forum.

We primarily spoke about the values of having a loyal employee base who become ‘lifers’ and how you can generate that type of loyalty in today’s day and age.

Keep in mind that we don’t agree on every single point regarding Catholic teaching (given that he’s not Catholic), but I think the contents of this discussion are really important. We need to start thinking more about these long-term solutions.

Enjoy the episode!

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Key Episode References:

• Famous Persons & Thinkers

  • Pope Francis

  • David Oks

  • Tony Robbins

  • Rory Sutherland

  • Peter Thiel
    

  Concepts, Media & Literary Works

  • Pope’s New Encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas

  • Dunbar’s number

  • New Founding

Select Quotes:

• “Your likelihood of defection is equal to one minus the proof of work you’ve put into a particular system or thing divided by proof of work plus the benefits of defection” - Gregory Treat

• “If you want a long-term relationship, you have to be okay with the person you’re in a long-term relationship with asking for accountability and some means of reducing your likelihood of defection, which is gonna mean you giving up optionality” - Gregory Treat

• “The number of talent in the market who are genuinely interested in compounding their knowledge forever has basically gone to effectively zero.” - Silas Mähner

• “When you have a relationship with your employees and you respect them as humans, as not just numbers, they feel that. By the way, this is the number one reason why people leave jobs, is they just don’t feel respected.” - Silas Mähner

Key Moments: (outline)

• (01:43) - Silas’s Background: Silas shares his personal journey and the overarching mission behind Catholic Founders.

• (03:12) - The “Lifer” Employee: Gregory unpacks the historical context of long-term corporate employment and the math behind employee retention.

• (09:35) - The Japanese Corporate Model: Gregory highlights how Japanese firms successfully build lifelong careers through intense training and division expansion.

• (16:36) - Patronage and Leadership: Gregory explains why intelligent leaders have a moral obligation to protect and provide for those under their care.

• (27:20) - Democratic vs. Aristocratic Technologies: An exploration of how shifting technologies impact market timelines and short-term capital allocations.

• (35:49) - Building Lifelong Covenants: The guys discuss creating enforceable agreements and cultivating mutual dependence to secure top talent.

• (50:29) - AI and Corporate Specialization: Gregory predicts a near future where AI forces companies to develop highly idiosyncratic tech stacks.

• (58:58) - Reviving Small Towns: Silas and Gregory discuss leveraging remote capital to build hyper-local employment in forgotten communities.

• (1:04:03) - Three Feudal Futures: Gregory outlines how AI deployment might shape society into caste-based, collectivist, or Christian feudal structures.

• (1:12:12) - Cultivating Beauty: Gregory argues that true architectural beauty stems from a family’s deep desire to keep their own children engaged in their legacy.

Happy Tuesday! Hopefully you’re reading this first thing to get a little closer to heaven before the day attempts to kick your teeth in.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates/Events

• Feature Content:

• Heavenly Hustlers

• Highlights

[read time: ~8 min | word count 1, 879]

News / Updates / Events:

• Next week is the Nashville CF meetup in Germantown. Sign up.

• 🤳🏻Guild Members, we’ll have an exclusive topic call later at 6PM CT via Google Meet with the CEO of Tridfi banking. Discover How TridFi Invests in Local Communities by Taking on Banks. Email us if you didn’t get the link.

• 🤖Discover some of AI downsides from an AI Regulation expert at the latest episode of the Catholic Founders Podcast.

• 🤝We’ve also got Dallas, Monterrey Mexico, DC, Wisconsin, Steubenville and more. Check out all of our in-person events on our Luma page.

Faith to Start and Faith to Continue

On Sunday we heard the story of Peter walking on the water. An unforgettable short story of a man with faith.

Then we get to see what happens when that faith wavers. When his attention is drawn to the world around him and his faith falters.

And then again, how dramatically it changes course when he returns his focus to Jesus, in whom he has faith. “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.” [Matt. 14:31]

In a split second, He’s there helping Peter.

There’s a lot we can take from this story as Catholic entrepreneurs. Let’s look at three that come to my mind.

Faith versus Risk Taking

A secular person who does not believe in Jesus would see what Peter did as a risk. He took a risk by stepping out.

As Christians, we only see faith. Peter has his gaze firmly fixed on Jesus. He is thoroughly convinced of his power.

When this is the case, stepping out into the water isn’t a risk because he’s not even thinking about that. He’s locked in on Jesus. His gaze is fixed directly on Jesus. He has faith in Jesus.

Only when his focus goes off of Jesus does he begin to sink. In several versions of the translation, the scripture says Peter ‘saw’ the wind. Indicating his eyes went elsewhere.

I’m bringing this up because I think we can apply a lot of this to our own lives as business owners. When you started your business, I’m guessing many of you were locked in on Jesus. Eye to eye. You stepped out on the journey of entrepreneurship with total faith. In my case, I had faith that it would work out. Not that my company would succeed. But that even if it failed, it would be God taking care of me and directing me. In some ways it was easier then, because I hadn’t built it. I had no reputation yet.

Can we bring this into our business beyond just starting? Can we start to see things not as risk-taking, but rather as an act of faith?

Continuous Faith

Notice how one act of faith wasn’t sufficient to keep Peter on the water. It had to be constant (take that protestants 😉). He popped in and out of faith in this short span of time.

As I mentioned before, it’s not enough to have faith when you start the business. You must keep that faith as you go on. In tough times (like I am), He will provide. In good times, He might be calling you to something bigger. To take another risk. At the bare minimum, to stay focused on Him and give glory to Him for what He’s blessed you with.

Don’t just have faith at the outset. Have faith constantly!

Magnanimity

When you reflect on the timing of the story. Faith once is enough to get you started, but faith throughout keeps you going. It keeps you taking more ‘risks’ as you go.

Above we discussed that risks aren’t really a risk at all, so long as our gaze is fixed on Jesus. So why do we slow down when our business starts to do well? When it gets to a place where it’s clearly working?

Are we not being complacent or lazy?

When you look at growing to the next level — of going from $500k to $5m — do you see it as a big risk? If so, perhaps your gaze is not where it ought to be.

Truthfully, magnanimity demands that we continue growing.

For those unaware, magnanimity is a virtue by which we become fully who we are called to be. Regardless of who you are and what your unique calling is, I can guarantee that you’re called to some form of greatness.

Magnanimity applies to all aspects of your life. In the spiritual life, it can be hard to quantify because it’s not ‘visible’ — but in the business world, it’s nearly impossible to ignore.

Most things are measurable, especially revenue and profit.

So if your business is at $500k a year in revenue or $1m, what is stopping you from growing it further to $5m? I ask you once again… are you being magnanimous? Or are you giving in to pusillanimity? (Yes, I know this word is impossible to pronounce. You can just say it how you think it should be said. No one will judge you. Unless you say it out loud, of course).

Pusillanimity is the opposite of Magnanimity. Small-mindedness. Often pride masked as false humility.

Ultimately, what I’m saying is, true faith will lead to becoming magnanimous.

If your gaze is firmly fixed on Jesus, you won’t even realize where He’s led you. To walk on the water, to climb the tallest mountain, to slay the enemies in battle — all that you’ll see is Him because you’re focused where you ought to be.

As you finish this read and go back into the world to face it while you lead your business — keep that idea front and center. How can I have a faith that is constant? How can I keep my eyes firmly fixed on God?

Start by asking for the grace to have such a faith.

Then put in place all the pillars necessary to remind yourself of the faith you seek frequently throughout the day.

• Start by adding the Angelus Bells to your Chrome browser. You’ll never have an excuse to miss the Angelus again.

• Create an accountability group for getting up early and praying every morning (we can probably arrange this through the Guild for you).

• When networking locally, suggest going to Mass and then getting coffee. If they are not Catholic, at least offer the coffee part, but schedule it right after Mass.

Finally, avail yourself of the sacraments. God is there with His hand out, waiting for you to take it. Ready to snatch you from the danger as soon as you cry out — just like Peter did.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).

• 👨🏻‍💻🤝Jeremy Foxx is based in St. Augustine, Florida. He is the founder of Foxxception where he provides consulting services for business, marketing, and product strategy, specializing in full stack web development and marketing strategy.

• 🤔🔉Joseph Valentic is the man behind The Catholic Curator. He is based in Detroit, Michigan. The man leads a Fractional Executive Services and the Heroic Catholic Man platform, merging professional business strategy with spiritual direction for Catholic leaders.

• 🕵🏻‍♂️🪧Will Deatherage leads Catholics For Hire, a Rockville, Maryland-based agency serving as a one-stop shop for marketing, design, fundraising, and educational resource development projects.

• 🧐💻Josh Longbrake is a the founder of Studio Brainchild from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He builds custom software solutions for start-ups and small business from concept to launch.

• 👴🏻🧓🏻Alexander J. Hoffarth is the founder of Aquilux Partners based in Washington, D.C., a buy-and-hold firm focusing on stewardship and modernizing small businesses to navigate the massive rise of retiring baby boomers.

• 🔢📈Steve Cyboran is an actuary and founder of Humaculture He is based in Houston. His firm cultivates organizations to nurture and grow people to thrive through data-driven and culture-aligned solutions.

🙋‍♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.

Thank you to Catholic Owned for helping us find some of these folks each week. Get listed today!

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News / Updates:

• ​🍽️🤝 ChampaBay (Tampa) Local Catholic Business lunch later today. More details here.

• Today is the first day of the Novena to Our Lady of the Assumption. Read the novena prayers through this link. 🙏

• Guild Members will gather for a Topic Call next week on How TridFi Invests in Local Communities by Taking on Banks. Upgrade to paid to apply and get access (do it quickly so we can get you onboarded in time).

In Today’s Issue:

• Intro to the Guest and Topic: Dr. Klaudia Rosinska

• Core Takeaway: Don’t Outsource Your Thinking to AI

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Today’s Topic & Guest:

Dr. Klaudia Rosińska | University of Social and Media Culture in Toruń

Today, we’re pivoting from our usual programming. We’re speaking with Klaudia Rosińska, who is a lecturer at the University of Social and Media Culture in Toruń.

I met Klaudia recently at the speech I gave at the Catholic University of America. When we spoke, I was drawn to her unique focus on social media and misinformation (for the record, I hate that word).

Today’s conversation is a bit of a reality check. I’m not an AI Doomer by any means. But we discussed some of the downsides. Even if you aren't a software founder, this episode will teach you a thing or two about how to use AI without sacrificing your inherent uniqueness and giftedness.

Core Lesson:

You were given a Will and an Intellect for a reason — do NOT under any circumstances let them turn useless because “AI is just so much better”

God gave us a will and an intellect. These allow us to experience things inside of time. The order of those experiences changes us.

Time. That’s the key factor.

It’s a unique gift that only we have. Even the angels don’t have the same ‘set up.’ They were given knowledge and made a choice. We are shaped by the experiences that happen over time.

And how eager are so many people to toss that out the window all because AI can do it faster? AI can share data with you. But it cannot replicate the experience of learning and education. Sure, data might help you make better decisions (assuming it’s accurate). But the time of soaking in certain data points — pondering them — allowing them to stew in your heart… that is a critical component of your growth and wisdom from the original data.

Experiences can also be this. God uses experiences a lot to shape us. He’s intentional about what experiences we encounter.

So, without going on and on… recognize that AI has the potential of leading you to forget about one of the biggest gifts that God has given you. Your ability to contemplate, turning things over with your intellect, then willing them into your life. All through the passage of time. Yes — an intentional slowing of process. In order to allow it to transform you.

Don’t give that gift up.

Sure. Use AI as an aide, but don’t be in a rush to use it for everything. Don’t outsource your thinking and decision-making.

God Bless & Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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Key Episode References:

• Magnifica Humanitas

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

• Jean Twenge, Ph.D.

• Montessori Schools

• Litany of Loreto

Select Quotes:

• “You have your own style, your own way of thinking. You can see some lacks, you can see some things because your brain has individual experience. It’s important, it’s valuable, and it’s yours.” –Dr. Klaudia Rosińska

• “We learn by experience and repetitive experience. And this technology wants us to believe that if some process is faster, it means better. And that’s what I really disagree with at the core, because sometimes the way we developed ourselves during the process, is much more valuable than the effect of the process.” –Dr. Klaudia Rosińska

• “We have to use our brain to look for the truth all the time. All the time.” –Dr. Klaudia Rosińska

• “She [Maria Skłodowska-Curie] treated technology in service of human dignity because when she discovered radium with her husband, they together intentionally refused to patent the process because they really strongly believed that scientific breakthroughs belong to humanity and must serve them.” –Dr. Klaudia Rosińska

• “You must demand of yourselves even if others do not demand of you.” –Dr. Klaudia Rosińska

• "It’s good still to look into another person’s eyes. Sometimes I feel people forget about that and smile at other people because in that area we still need to remember about others and about creating the community.” –Dr. Klaudia Rosińska

• “To be better as an individual, we need other people to give us this opportunity to be better.” –Dr. Klaudia Rosińska

Key Moments: (outline)

• 05:21 – Klaudia’s unique background: An overview of her interdisciplinary work spanning media, psychology, theology, and her experience on fighting disinformation.

• 12:37 – Why AI is different: Klaudia explains why AI is not a “neutral tool” like a pen; it learns from us and can actively reevaluate or influence our perception of reality.

• 22:31 – Individuality vs. The Average: A discussion on the theological truth that God created us uniquely, and how AI tends to flatten human individuality into a conformist “average.”

• 25:35 – Efficiency vs. Development: A challenge for business owners to consider if “faster” processes are actually better, or if they are stunting the crucial development of human creativity.

• 34:15 – The Attention Economy: Why social media algorithms naturally favor controversy and misinformation, and the ethical implications for those trying to share “good news.”

• 43:31 – Protecting the next generation: Klaudia outlines the urgency of keeping children off social media to protect their cognitive development from addiction.

• 48:27 – Finding hope in personal agency: Discussing how we can resist the “matrix” by leveraging personal agency, building intentional communities, and relying on the sacraments.

• 1:02:39 – Rapid Fire: Insights on humility (Philippians 2:1-11), lessons from Marie Skłodowska-Curie on human dignity, and the necessity of being a person who demands more of themselves.

Happy, and hopeful, Tuesday to you, dear sir (or madam)!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates/Events

• Feature Content: Hope in Time of Anxiety

• Heavenly Hustlers x 6

[read time: ~10.5 min | word count 2, 312]

News / Updates / Events:

• SHORT NOTICE: Andrew Whiskeyman is hosting a meetup for Catholic Business owners in Tampa this week on the 6th. Sign up now.

• Nashville founders and biz owners, we have another meetup lined up. More details here. 👀

• For Guild Members, we have launched our first exclusive Guild Members-only newsletter with Wins, Asks, and Updates shared by members. A valuable way to connect with each other more deeply. ❤️‍🔥

• On our latest episode of Catholic Founders pod, we’re joined by Lucas and Jessica Moser. They are a married couple raising five young children on an acreage in rural Virginia, building a life centered on faith, family, and hard work.

• Check out all of our in-person events on our Luma page.

• It’s the month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Stay prayed up and close to Our Lady through the Holy Rosary. 🙏

• And… don’t forget that August 15th is the Feast of the Assumption. A Holy Day of Obligation. Be sure to make it special. After all, you’re a business owner, and can make your own hours.

Hope in Time of Anxiety

Today, I’m going to be pretty open. Largely because I view my own journey, with life and business, as the means by which God is teaching me things, so that I might share them with you. We all know a person can know a thing through information. But they can also know a thing through experience. When teaching, it’s best to teach from experience.

Most of you know that I started my recruiting consultancy in the spring of 2024, the same time that I started Catholic Founders. The first few months were dry. I only closed one deal, which fell through because the candidate accepted an offer from another company after agreeing to the one I had presented.

It was dry.

Then, on the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, I got an out-of-the-blue call from a contact I barely knew. That ended up turning into about 2/3 of my revenue for the rest of that year. Since then, the business has continued to grow. Quarter after quarter. Not every month was great, but as a whole, we kept growing steadily.

To the point where Q1 of this year I did as much revenue as I had done the entire first year of business. Wow. Incredible. I was on a roll. I couldn’t fail.

You might know where this is going.

These past few months — from around April till early July — things have been challenging. We’ve had clients pull the plug on us. My team and I miss delivery timelines. We've struggled to land new clients. And for the first time since starting this business, some upset clients.

Starting around June, when I’d sit down to do my financial projections on how fast we’d run out of money, it started to hit me. I’m in a deep hole and need to figure this out soon. Honestly, I started to panic. I’ll work harder, put in more hours, call in favors.

None of it worked. We kept going deeper into the hole. To the point where I had to dig deep into my savings and investing accounts to make payroll, several times.

During this time, I was struggling deeply with anxiety and trust in God. I knew intellectually that He would take care of us. That even if I ran into financial ruin, He’d still love me, and I’d still have a place in heaven.

But, expecting another child in a few weeks, and having a family reliant on me, it was really, really hard to pull out of that tailspin mindset. Each day I’d ask God for help trusting in Him and for total abandonment to His will. But the anxiety was still there. Some days I was paralyzed by it.

Then everything changed.

No. I didn’t land another big client to subdue the worries. In fact, we are still in a very tight spot. I’m probably going to have to keep dipping into my reserve cash to dig us out of this hole.

The thing that changed is God plopped in my head a reminder of the virtue of Hope.

You see, hope and anxiety are incompatible. If we have hope, there is no space for the rumination that occurs during your bouts of anxiety. How can you have anxiety when you’re focused on heaven — on that eternal reward, the endless banquet — the beatific vision.

When you have anxiety, you’re thinking about the future in terms of fear of lack of control. How can I dispel that future fear by controlling something in the present?

The Church teaches explicitly about anxiety, quoting St. Peter.

Christ invites us to filial trust in the providence of our heavenly Father (cf Mt 6:26-34), and St. Peter the apostle repeats: “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you” ( I Pt 5:7; cf. Ps 55:23).

The Church is telling us that Anxiety takes us in the opposite direction of hope. It pushes us away from trusting God’s providence and toward being stuck inside our own worries.

Hope helps us move forward in confidence. The Catechism says.

“When God reveals Himself and calls him, man cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own powers. He must hope that God will give him the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God’s love and of incurring punishment.”

As you know, I’m not a theologian; I don’t have expert knowledge of all these things. I can’t perfectly translate all of this into a simple, logical argument for why hope is the path.

What I can say is, I know, deep down in my bones, that me being consumed with anxiety is not going to help me move towards the future with strength and confidence in God.

I do know that if I am full of hope, I would be unstoppable. Because God is right there with me. That hope is a trust that He will, in fact, walk alongside me. He will give me the strength to overcome any situation. To act in charity when it may be hard.

I also know that my team, my family, and all those around me will respond better to my leadership if I’m walking with hope. There is a certain vibe that exudes from a man full of hope that does not exist from a man full of anxiety. There is certainly something exuding from a man full of anxiety, but it’s not positive, and it does not inspire.

“The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.” — Pope Benedict XVI

Remember. This hope is ultimately a hope in a person: Jesus. Once we know that Jesus is always with us, and that we are granted eternal life in Him, we ought to hope.

It’s probably important to mention that this realization only happened last week. So, I am by no means well-versed at keeping this hope front and center. But I can say, ever since having this reminder from God, anytime the anxiety shows up — the worry about the future — how I’ll feed my family — how I’ll pay rent — it’s become nearly impossible to dip down into that pool of anxious thought. How can I? Knowing that God is right beside me and he’s asking me to look up? To look to the cross. To look to heaven as he ascends into the clouds. To look to the saints and Our Blessed Mother.

No. I cannot have anxiety anymore. I’m sure the devil will continue to try and lay it on. Surely one day I may even forget this lesson after the evil one lays off for some time. But deep down I know now that God is calling me to hope in His promise to me and to each and every one of you.

I know — for a fact — there are many of you reading who are not where you want or even need to be financially in your businesses. The early days are hard. It’s not easy to get that momentum going. But I want this to be your rallying cry.

“In you, O my God, I put my trust” (Psalm 24:2)

Spiritually, bring yourself into alignment with God and the eternal beatific vision that He’s promised us. Keep that as your focus. It will be like a taut rope pulling you in like a tractor beam in a space sci-fi movie. Nothing can divert you from moving towards that eternal bliss as long as you have hope. No distractions, no worries, nothing.

Place your hope in the Lord. It will make you a better leader. And it will guide you on your business journey too.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).

• 🧔🏻🤝 John Mullen, based in Columbus, Ohio, operates The Arena, a ministry project dedicated to building fraternal brotherhood and spiritual networking for young adult men. He focuses on facilitating local environments for formation and mentorship.

• 💻🔊 Vincent Roberts of Charcoal Agency, based in Cincinnati, helps other owners become known and trusted by the right buyers through organic content. In short, write content, get customers (but he does it for you).

• 🪙🔐 Teresa Suarez, founder of Washington, DC-based DiVinciX (DiVinciX = Divine + da Vinci + the eXploration of space). She is developing a FinSecOps platform that shifts cybersecurity from a fear-based model to a value-driven approach (quantifying risk).

• 🦺👷🏻 Joshua Garay of Garay Concrete Work Co in DFW, Texas. He is a hustler in specialized concrete work. If you’re looking to build, message them.

• 🛜 Kenan Wursthorn from Indiana, IN, is a Co-Founder of Signalyze AI. It is an AI engine that helps sales teams grow revenue.

• 📆📒 Jennifer Autry is the Founder and Lead Consultant of AMDG Events Co. They partner with Catholic non-profits, parishes, and schools in creating excellent and truly God-glorifying and generosity-inspiring fundraising events.

🙋‍♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.

Thank you to Catholic Owned for helping us find some of these folks each week. Get listed today!

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How did we do? Reply with 1 (Great 😄), 2 (Mid 🫤), or 3 (Needs Work ☹️)

As Catholic founders, how we build and integrate technology matters. Too many entrepreneurs fall into two extremes: using AI as a Toy (wasting time without adding real value) or building a Tower of Babel (over-engineering massive systems that create chaos instead of order).

To avoid both scenarios, our latest Catholic Founders Expert Guild Call asked our fellow Guild Member, Raffaele D’Apolito to break down a practical, Catholic Social Teaching (CST)-aligned framework for AI automation.

The topic call is a recurring monthly event where we discuss relevant topics about running the business. To join future events, become a member of the Catholic Founders Guild today.

Alright, the rest of this session is exclusively for CF Guild members. If you’d like to join future calls, consider upgrading to a paid membership today.

Subscribe now

The Catholic Founders Guild is an association of Catholic Biz owners who believe that their business is meant to be an extension of God’s will in the world.

If you share this belief, join today! (PS: It’s only $100 a year or $10 a month, so anyone can afford to join)

Read more

In Today’s Issue:

• Intro to the Guest and Topic: Lucas & Jessica Moser — Teaching their children the value of work one honey jar at a time.

• Core Takeaway: Enduring heritage > financial wealth

• Episode References

• Select Quotes

• Key Moments

First time here? Learn more about our mission. And don’t forget to subscribe.

News / Updates:

• CF Nashville had another rigorous but definitely inspiring discussion on Magnifica Humanitas. 📖🧐

• 🤝Check out our upcoming Catholic Founders events (open to all Catholic biz owners, or those seriously aspiring to be)

  • Dallas - August 22 (guest speaker ​Alex Cartwright, founder of Hotel Shift)

  • NYC - August 22 - Rooftop BBQ 🌭 Grilling party. Sounds super fun!

  • Monterrey, Mexico - August 25 - we’re growing beyond the US!

  • More coming in 📍Houston, DC, Tampa, South Bend, Steubenville, Charlotte, Kansas City, Denver, Fort Lauderdale area, Wausau Wisconsin, and more! To catch them, follow our calendar. 🗓️ If you want to lead a meetup in your area, email us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

• Last week’s guest was Eamonn Clark, where we talked about Building a Social Enterprise Accelerator and How These Help Christians in Various Parts of the World. If you haven’t yet, listen to this episode here.

• 🗣️ 🏦 Guild Call on August 11. Topic: “How Tridfi is Investing in Local Communities by Taking on Banks” is going to be on Aug 11th. (Join the guild to attend)

Today’s Topic & Guest:

Lucas & Jessica Moser | Mosermade

We’re joined by Lucas and Jessica Moser for their very first podcast appearance. They are a married couple raising five young children on an acreage in rural Virginia, building a life centered on faith, family, and hard work.

Off their property, they run Mosermade — a family venture spanning custom woodworking, a sawmill, and an apiary (look at us using fancy words) with around fifty honeybee colonies.

They have built this out slowly over time through dedication to the long-term goals of the family and Lucas’ engineering job. Yes, he still works full time, and they do this.

This conversation genuinely inspired me because seeing how they have built their business ventures to all be in service of the family is just incredible. It also has the benefit of teaching their own kids the skills of entrepreneurship.

Core Lesson:

Money AND business should be oriented to serve your family. Truly.

As I sat thinking after this conversation about what stood out most to me, it was easily this. That their business ventures clearly exist to help serve their family needs and goals. The money the business produces is ALSO in service of the business. They never sit down and plan how much they need to work in order to make x amount of dollars.

When I say I feel inspired by this incredible couple, I am not exaggerating. I really mean it.

Even though I’ve talked about things like this on the podcast and written about them in the newsletter in the past, seeing it in live action was really awesome.

Really hoping that everyone else listens with intention and focus so you can see what I’m talking about.

God Bless & Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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Key Episode References:

Books & Literary Works

• Leaving a Legacy by Johann Kurtz

• Catechism of the Catholic Church

Podcast Episodes

• Catholic Founders Episode: Johann Kurtz

Saints & Holy Figures

• St. Valentine

• St. Joseph

• St. Anthony of Padua

• The Blessed Virgin Mary

Bible Passages

• The Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31–32)

Select Quotes:

• “We really want our kids to to be successful and success to us means that they have a healthy church life and they are able to to look after themselves both financially and religiously.” - Lucas Moser

• “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it as a financial legacy that we’re trying to leave behind so the the legacy being like how will they remember us? Like did we lead them closer to God? Did we show God’s light at all?” - Jessica Moser

• “The business is a way for us to inculcate values into them that are important to us, like hard work. ” - Lucas Moser

• “...keeping our heads down and worrying about what we’re building ourselves is a lot more helpful because when we start to look at other people, that that’s when it becomes like, shoot, I don’t feel as fulfilled right now.” - Jessica Moser

• “Having shared goals helps, and being humble enough to admit where you’re not not able to fulfill the particular business need goes a long way.” - Lucas Moser

• “And I think that in general, the point of life is really how can I serve God? And you can serve God through serving your neighbor, through serving your your spouse, through serving your children.” - Silas Mähner

• “...if I just have a little bit of faith and just put forth like I know nothing can magically happen, so obviously I have to do work myself, but like just doing that and then trusting him with the rest...” - Jessica Moser

• “You don’t need a whole lot of faith. I mean all God asks for is just a little bit.” - Jessica Moser

• “In general, the money itself is in service of their family and their business, right? The business is not in service of creating money.” - Silas Mähner
  

Key Moments: (outline)

• (03:28) - Meet Lucas and Jessica: Overview of the Mosers’
  rural Virginia home, sawmill, and apiary operations.

• (05:33) - Origins of the Business: How a small beekeeping hobby
  and practical home woodworking grew into a business.

• (06:31) - Balancing Engineering & Business: Lucas shares how
  he manages a full-time job alongside family homestead enterprises.

• (08:00) - Heritage & Family Involvement: The role of extended
  family support, heritage equipment, and custom branding.

• (12:18) - Hands-On Homeschooling: Why the Mosers chose
  country life and integrated learning into daily tasks.

• (15:19) - Passing Down Values Over Liquid Assets: Utilizing business to
  teach children virtue, stewardship, and practical craftsmanship.

• (20:21) - Finding Joy in the Daily Work: Staying present in the work
  and including young children in harvesting and woodworking.

• (27:19) - Marriage & Co-Founder Dynamics: How Lucas and Jessica
  leverage their complementary strengths and avoid envy.

• (34:10) - Purposeful Goal Setting: Measuring business growth through practical milestones rather than arbitrary financial targets.

• (40:19) - Daily Prayer & Saint Devotions: Weaving Catholic faith,
  saint feast days, and morning prayer into family routines.

• (43:45) - Cultivating Local Community: Serving neighbors through
  farm-to-table dinners and authentic local connections.

• (49:39) - True Legacy Defined: Shaping how children and neighbors remember the family’s faith and witness to God’s love.

• (55:02) - Rapid Fire Questions: Scriptural inspirations,
  saintly intercessors, and entrepreneurial role models.

• (1:00:58) - Silas’s Reflections & Outro: Summary of takeaways on
  money, family life, and the Catholic Founders Guild.

I can’t promise you much, but I can promise you today’s newsletter will be better than Nolan’s Odyssey. Just kidding, I actually liked it. I can, however, promise you this is a lot shorter and won’t blow out your eardrums.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• Updates: My First big Speech

• Feature Content: What Humility Really Means

• Heavenly Hustlers: Spotify for Patents?

• Highlights: What CF and Sam Adams have in Common

[read time: ~8.5 min | word count 1,898]

News / Updates / Events:

• Nashville Catholic Founders, we have a meetup tonight. 🤝 If you’re coming and haven’t signed up yet, register here.

• If you’re interested, here is the recording of the talk I gave at Catholic University of America last month. I had to tell a room full of Catholic biz school professors what they need to teach the leaders of tomorrow.

• Learn how entrepreneurship in mission territories helps Catholics fight poverty and elevate communities toward holiness and prayer through our latest podcast episode with Eamonn Clark. 🎧

• Catholic Founders in NYC had an amazing celebration last weekend. 🎉

• Check out all of our in-person events on our Luma page. Or start your own meetup; we’ll be happy to coordinate with you. Email us at admin@catholicfounders.com.

Pursue Glory. Humility Requires it of You. Let me Explain.

Humility is the basis of all virtues. A priest once illustrated this to me using the Crucifix. He said (I’m paraphrasing) the heart of Jesus — the center of the crucifix — is Charity. But holding all that up, is the cross itself — firmly planted in the ground. Without that firm root, the cross can never stand, and charity cannot be displayed.

This is an important reminder for us as Catholic builders.

We are, in many ways, living in the heart of the world. It’s the domain where we must allow our charity to shine to all those we encounter. However, as stated previously, we cannot do this if we are not firmly rooted in humility.

Now, there is something interesting about humility. I recently read 1 Peter 5:5-6, and one line really stood out to me. Here’s the passage.

“In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for

‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ [quoting from proverbs]

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.”

Perhaps this is an indictment of where the attention of my heart lies, but that last phrase stood out.

It just seems interesting to me that Peter tells us to humble ourselves, so that God may exalt us in due time.

Does that mean we are actually in fact meant to be exalted… eventually?

While I do not feel that I have in any way ‘figured out’ this passage, I have been thinking about it for a couple days, and here is what I think it means (I remain highly open to suggestions though).

We know that God desires our exaltation in heaven. This is not really glorification of us as much as it is a glorification of God through his perfected creation. But beyond heaven, I take this to mean something similar.

In this life, we can become exalted… in order to give glory to God. We can attract the praise and glory of men, but then choose to redirect that energy towards its rightful end: God.

And I believe that God is pleased by this.

His creation, using the talents and skills he has bestowed on us to do good, to imitate his goodness on earth, and ultimately to send the praise for those works up to him. Hopefully drawing more people in towards him, so that they may know his heart.

Consider the story of a musician. He’s given a talent. He decides to practice and lean into that talent. He knows it comes from God, so as he grows in popularity, he always directs that praise he’s receiving up towards God. He can only do this authentically if he actually believes that the gift is from God. When others see this authentic praise of God, they are drawn to consider it more deeply, hopefully one day, coming to know God.

The key part of this is that there is an active participation. We do put in the work. This ‘work’ is really just cooperation with the things he’s given us. The raw talent is shaped by his graces. But it requires us pursuing him.

Going back to the musician. He had the interest, the basic skill, and the resources to know about his love of music. But he had to cultivate it into a real skill. To the point where he could even be capable of receiving praise from men. If he hadn’t cultivated the gift, there would be no attention for him to redirect towards God.

We started this conversation around humility, and this is where I’m trying to get. If we are humble, we can truly recognize the gifts God has given us. Once we have done that, we must also recognize that it would be wrong, lacking gratitude, and plain sad for us not to put those gifts to the best possible use.

For goodness sake. He created us, gave us gifts, and how often do we just bury those in the sand? What if the musician just let his gift fall to ruin, or worse, what if he never cultivated it at all?

Doing this, putting these gifts to work, honing them, perfecting them, and using them to serve those around us, will undoubtedly lead to us getting attention. In a way, you could say it would lead to our ‘exaltation,’ at least in the world’s eyes.

Does this mean we should not do these things? No. Obviously not based on the reasoning we’ve followed so far.

It doesn’t mean we should not do these things; it just means that we should direct all that praise to God, where it belongs.

Again, we cannot set out in pursuit of exaltation, for to do so would be a failure to recognize the gifts are from God.

We should, however, set out to exalt God. To glorify him for the gifts he’s given us, and the things he’s done for us.

Exaltation is going to be the outcome as a byproduct… but not exaltation of ourselves. Exaltation of the Most High, King and Lord of All — God; the Creator.

So, I’m asking you, in humility, to recognize where your gifts come from, and pursue glory — glory for God. He desires that you put those gifts to work. It pleases him.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).

• 🚰 Kory Koralewski is the founder of Denver-based Optimum Field Service Solutions, a company providing specialized management software for the irrigation industry that integrates scheduling, inventory, and CRM tools for dealerships.

• 💰 Chris Da Silva is based in Armadale, Australia, and is building ‘Financial Discipleship,’ a project offering digital resources and coaching to integrate faith with personal finance. The project aims to provide financial education to institutions, including schools and their staff.

• 🪪 Art Nutter, based in Colorado Springs, leads Patent Books, a platform that helps independent inventors secure licensing compensation from major tech companies through centralized industry patent pools.

• 🚜 Michael Thomas of the Catholic Land Movement, based in Cooperstown, New York, leads an international mission to resettle Catholics onto productive, agrarian property. They promote distributist economic principles and foster community-led sustainable agricultural enterprises for Catholic families.

• 📈 Christian Esqueda operates Krux Marketing and Philanthropy based in Texas, an agency that assists Catholic organizations with advancement and fundraising. He is also piloting a SaaS product called Micro Give to help streamline donations for Catholic nonprofits.

• 🙏 Carlos Espinoza Banegas is the Founder of the PleasePray App. Through this, his goal is to create innovative faith-based solutions to connect communities.

• 🧮 Tim Thackston leads and operated a family owned accounting firm serving small businesses. He is based in Westminster, Maryland.

🙋‍♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.

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Highlights: A Key Part of Sam Adams’ Success in the Revolution

A group I’m part of recently read about Samuel Adams and how he is arguably the most critical man in creating the circumstances for the American Revolution.

Without getting super far into it, there is one thing that stood out to me. And that is the network that he built called the Committees of Correspondence. The name sounds innocuous, but in reality it was a form of shadow government before the union was finalized.

Hearing about this got me thinking a lot about what we are doing with Catholic Founders. The local meetups, discussing the ideas of Catholic entrepreneurship. Our WhatsApp chat, stitching these local communities together. And a shared goal: to Make Our Country Catholic.

We all need to do our part in growing these networks and fostering true community among ourselves.

How did we do? Reply with 1 (Great 😄), 2 (Mid 🫤), or 3 (Needs Work ☹️)

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A while back, I had the opportunity to meet . Since then, he’s been very supportive of the work we’re doing at Catholic Founders. Giving me ideas, makes intros, and, as he says, reads our newsletters every week.

If you’re interested, here is the podcast episode he recorded with us over a year ago.

Andreas’ story is incredible. Born and raised in Switzerland. He ended up joining the Swiss Guard — the pope’s bodyguards. He did this for two years during the papacy of Pope St. John Paul II. He shares about that in his book The Pope & the CEO (it’s quite moving).

After that experience, he got into business and eventually ended up becoming a teacher at the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America.

Now, once a year, he brings together a group of 20-40 Catholic business school professors from around the world to discuss how to better educate their students in the coming year — especially relating to Catholic Social Teaching.

This year, he invited me to address that group based on the things I’ve learned from running Catholic Founders over the past two years.

The main point of this talk was to help these professors understand what’s at stake, help them recognize their unique role in solving these problems, and then to walk them through the key areas where they need to help educate the future Catholic business leaders.

Shoutout to James Knight for helping me prepare and structure this talk.

If you have any follow-up thoughts on it, I’d love to hear them. My DMs are open, and the comments are as well.

NOTE: If you prefer to watch on YouTube, you can do so here.