Hey Folks! Welcome back. We’re gonna keep this one as short as I can because I just got back from a long weekend in NYC, where we hosted a discussion on Magnifica Humanitas (we’re hosting another this Thursday in Nashville. Register if you’re around).

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events: Discussion on Magnifica Humanitas, this week in Nashville!

• Feature Content: Implementing Solidarity into your Business (Part 4 of 4)

• Heavenly Hustlers: 6 People Building for the Kingdom

[read time: ~7 min | word count 1,472]

News / Updates

• 🤠 This week in Nashville, I’m hosting a discussion on Magnifica Humanitas. We will walk through it in an open discussion format. Please join us.

  📆 We have other recurring events taking place in Houston, Dallas, Wausau, and NYC. Check out all our events here.

• 📣 ICYMI, we published a commentary podcast with Zak Slayback and Edmund Mitchell on Magnifica Humanitas.

• 🤖 Join the guild to access our AI bot trained on all our content.

Implementing Catholic Social Teaching: Part 4, Solidarity

Today, we are concluding our series on integrating Catholic Social Teaching with the fourth pillar: Solidarity. This is where our commitment to our neighbor becomes a firm and persevering determination.

Solidarity: The Teaching

Let’s start with a quote from The Church on Solidarity.

“The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of “friendship” or “social charity,” is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood.” CCC 1939

What it is, in simpler terms, is… the truth that we all have a responsibility towards our fellow man. Regardless of our differences, we are all brothers in the sense that we are all created children of God.

As a business owner, this means having a heart for your employees and customers. Especially if you end up generating wealth and become an outlier in society, you cannot forget your connection to help your brother.

Solidarity relates to many aspects of what it means to be someone’s brother, but principally, it refers to spiritual (the most important part) and economic/financial.

We are called to ‘share’ our faith and our goods with others so that they may have eternal life and that their needs on earth may be met. Here are two more quotes from the Catechism.

“Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work.” — CCC 1940

“Solidarity is an eminently Christian virtue. It practices the sharing of spiritual goods even more than material ones.” — CCC 1948

The Why

The why of this is pretty simple; it just requires a bit of contemplation.

Each of our fellow humans is a brother to us because we are all created by Him in His image and likeness. If God created us, how could we hate any of our fellow man without also hating God?

Of course, you may not hate anyone actively, but do your actions show that you’re doing your part to share your faith and goods in order to help your fellow man? For those who are substantially less fortunate, do we help them out through offering employment and friendship? For those who do not know the faith, are we coming to know them so we can walk with them as they come closer and closer to God?

Now, let’s talk about the subtopics under Solidarity and how to implement them.

1. Human solidarity

This is the lived experience of being responsible for the people in your supply chain, your office, and your neighborhood. It shows up in the just distribution of goods and fair treatment.

How to implement: Respect your employees as humans — as neighbors. Do not overburden people with work. Allow ample time for rest. Do not see them as ‘costs to cut.’

2. Preferential option for the poor

This is the measure of whether justice is real in your business. It asks if your company is removing obstacles for the vulnerable to ensure they have access, stability, and opportunity. ie, Not only serving the rich because they can pay.

How to implement: You can do product discovery with poor communities. Or craft a particular offering that allows the poor to access your services. Dr. Daniel Tataje has his dentists and hygienists do a day for the poor each month, where people who cannot afford dentistry services get them for a heavily discounted rate.

3. Fair wage

A fair wage is a concrete way solidarity is made real. Pay and benefits should be evaluated against human dignity and family needs so that workers can live with stability and respect.

How to implement: This one is pretty straightforward. But it doesn’t mean paying ‘market rate’ wages. Because market rate wages may be insufficient for a family to meet their basic living needs. Consider adding other benefits, such as strong healthcare options or continued education funding.

4. Right of labor to organize

Workers should be able to form associations to protect their rights and mutual interests. Solidarity supports the idea that workers should not be left isolated or powerless. Yes, it allows for the organization of labor unions. However, if we are doing our job well and have proper channels for them to open up to us and discuss their challenges with us, they may never need to unionize.

How to implement: Do not do things that prevent people from organizing a union. But in order to avoid the combative nature that unions bring, listen to your workers and treat them with respect so that they never have an interest in this.

Thanks for reading this series! If you have not read parts 1, 2, or 3 yet, please check them out and circulate with your networks. My hope is that this series will help demystify what Catholic Social Teaching actually is and help business owners start implementing it.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 📣 Brandon Benson is the co-founder of Leo Ads, the AI agent of Percuity AI. They ensure your business campaigns and ads are optimized.

• 🤖 Nick Stokman is the founder and CEO of Third Loop. What he’s building helps companies and teams use AI effectively.

• 💪🏻 Betsy Hoyt is from Charlotte Metro, a certified professional trainer and the Founder IntegratedCatholicWoman.com. She coaches women on how to lead a sustainable, healthy, and rewarding life.

• 📲 David Spaedy is the president of DS1 Phone Systems serving the Charlotte, NC Metro area. Before cloud phones were trendy, David was already connecting businesses.

• 🫂 Elza Spaedy is the executive director of Healed and Restored. Healed and Restored is helping women and girls who have experienced abuse, violence, trafficking, and trauma find healing, restoration, and the strength to reclaim their lives.

• 🏞️ Lance Johnson is building Groundwork Ventures. Through Groundwork, he is tearing down the million-dollar wall of traditional real estate, rewriting the rules of land development so accredited investors can fractionally back high-upside entitlement deals.

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

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Highlight:

Nothing for you today as I’m out of time to hit send. Come back next week.

Here is a huge list of various resources that we have complied overtime: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

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

Hey folks! In case you haven’t had enough about Catholic Social Teaching with the drop of the summer (aka: Magnifica Humanitas) we are back at it with part 3 of 4 in our series covering the key aspects of Catholic Social Teaching, with our takes on how to actually implement them.

Today we are talking about Subsidiarity, and don’t worry it’s a lot shorter than last week’s.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events

• Feature Content: Subsidiarity; What, Why, and How to Integrate It

• Seven Incredible Heavenly Hustlers

• Highlights: Wisper Flow

[read time: ~6 min | word count 1,172]

News / Updates

• 📆 Check out our upcoming events in NYC, Nashville, Dallas, Houston, Wisconsin, and beyond by going to our Luma Calendar.

• :🎙️ Yesterday, we published a commentary podcast with Zak Slayback and Edmund Mitchell on Magnifica Humanitas.

• ⭐ Here is our summary episode of Magnifica Humanitas.

• 🤖 Join the guild to access our AI bot trained on all our content.

Implementing Catholic Social Teaching: Part 3, Subsidiarity

Welcome back to our 4-part series on Catholic Social Teachings, and actually implementing them.

Last time we covered The Common Good (the second pillar), and today we are covering Subsidiarity, the third pillar. This might be the most practical pillar for leadership and organizational structure.

Subsidiarity: The Teaching

A lot of you have probably heard the word subsidiarity. But many of you may not know what it means. Likely because it’s one of those Catholic words that sounds totally made up. I get it. But let me explain it in very simple terms.

The idea behind subsidiarity is, that decisions should be made at the most local level possible. The reason being that someone closer to the situation likely has a much better understanding of the situation itself. They likely know the people involved. And they probably know what the consequences will look like for those involved once they make a decision.

What follows is that the higher-level authority should not interfere with the lower-level authority whenever possible.

What’s pretty mind-blowing about this is that it’s actually the key to scaling a business. If everything is centrally planned, you are naturally constrained by one person’s ability to make decisions. But when other people can make decisions, the person at the top can focus on making key decisions rather than all the decisions.

Said another way, subsidiarity is the way to scale any business.

Here is the official line from the Church, in the Catechism.

“In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.”1

The Why

The why behind this is relatively simple, actually.

The Church worries that excessive state intervention could threaten personal freedom and the ability of people to take initiative. Another takeaway is that this principle opposes collectivism, where it becomes okay to trample the needs of the individual in order to ‘serve’ the needs of society as a whole.

The Church also argues that a society organized in this way is actually more efficient because everyone is doing what they can, rather than sitting around waiting for some bureaucrat to help them or approve what they are trying to do. Something none of us has ever experienced, I’m sure.

Subsidiarity in Practice

Now that we understand what the Church teaches and why she teaches it, let’s get into some practical examples of implementing it in the workplace (there are no ‘subtopics for Subsidiarity so all of this is just pure play implementation advice, yay!).

Pushing for an Ownership Mentality

In your company, you would push for each employee to understand the desired outcome and empower them to get there. Asking them to exercise their judgement on when they should raise it to their manager for support with the decision-making.

Note, this does involve proper training. You can’t just hand it off and blame them when it goes wrong.

Involving Employees in Policy Making

This one is very important, so please pay attention.

Involve your team when making decisions that affect them. Setting leave policy, bring your kids to work policy, how to lock up the store, etc. The list could go on.

Your employees have lives and families of their own. Your decisions could make living those lives very difficult. Or your decisions about how they should do things on the factory line could be really stupid because it wouldn’t work as well, or would cause danger. Would they know this? Yes.

Today, it’s become the norm that company policies are set by top-down methods. Many of us have personally experienced working in a company that gets acquired, and we see new policies come through that make no sense and hurt how we do our jobs on the front lines.

Those decisions were likely based entirely on ROI projects full of many assumptions. Had they actually delegated those decisions locally, we’d be happier and have a better outcome.

When you’re making decisions that affect your employees, involve them.

Empower Ownership

My favorite example of subsidiarity is when customer success agents are told they can do what they need to to make the customer whole. It may be very obvious how to make an angry customer whole and give them what is owed in justice, but with bureaucratic policies and procedures, they are forced to ask 6 more questions after they already know the problem, so that they are allowed to elevate to their supervisor, who will then ask a bunch of questions as well. Then, finally, after logic has been tossed out the window, and humans have been acting like robots and treated like robots, the right thing to do is done.

Everyone is frustrated. The customer success agent is just used to it. Heck, they are probably dehumanized by this point.

If you empower your people properly, they can do what they know is right. The customer gets helped right away, and depending on how pleasant the experience was, they might become an even bigger customer in the future.

Help Your Employees As Much As You Can

Before the nanny state existed, with all of the benefits it provided to citizens, how did people in need get help?

People helped each other. I know it sounds crazy, but we can just start doing this again. And we can start with our employees. If they had an unexpected medical expense, we could cover it. They are struggling to feed their kids and pay them more.

Heck, they might need help butchering a cow, make it a company weekend, and get all hands on deck to help.

Learn to make this a muscle. Help your employees locally rather than making them struggle and go to the state for help.

In Closing

One of the most fascinating things I find about subsidiarity is that, when you really engage people in this way, they are able to become more capable. And in a way, become more themselves. They are able to take the 1, 2, or 5 talents God gave them and multiply them. This multiplication means more people have the opportunity to benefit from that person’s unique gifts.

All of this starts with giving someone that ownership mentality. Then, treating them with respect and autonomy, so that they can become fully alive.

This to me, is one of the great mysteries of being an entrepreneur. That ability to affect the development of the employees under your care in such a positive way, that they can become more fully human.

To any reading this, please don’t take this part of your role as ‘boss’ or CEO for granted. Ever.

Okay, come back next week, as we wrap up our series with the 4th and final pillar of Solidarity!

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• ✈️ Joseph Rodriguez is the Founder of Vocatio Travel. They turn your dream trips into realities, and they have experience supporting several dioceses as well as many other Catholic-owned businesses with their travel plans. If you’re in the Dallas area, reach out to him.

• 💻 Garren DiPasquale is the Founder & CEO of Artifact. They turn language into living software.

• 🏛️ Matt Salerno is building DealCompass. A software that helps the real estate industry. Fun fact: he’s a Notre Dame alum. But he’s based here in Nashville.

• 💸 Peter Scott is building an app called Plena. Think of it like Acorns but for tithing.

• ✍️ William Van de Planque (don’t you wish you had a name like that… I know I do) is launching Beloved Son, a ghostwriting agency to help people keep active blogs and improve SEO. He’s just getting started, so reach out to him if you’ve got advice or are interested in giving him a project.

• ⚖️ Teddy Malone founded his own Tax Attorney practice in NYC called Estel Law. I met him a while back at one of Luca’s Fides events. Reach out to him if you need a tax lawyer.

• 👴 Nathanael Riddle is the co-founder of OmniBand. A wearable for aging parents. Think Whoop, but built for your grandpa, and not for sleeping.

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

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Highlights: Don’t Type, Dictate. Use Wisper Flow

If you want to save a lot of time typing, try out Wisper Flow. I’ve been using it for a while, and it saves me a ton of time, especially when writing emails. TLDR, instead of typing, you can dictate (on computer or phone), and it’s VERY accurate + has some wizardly features. It’s crazy good.

I am not sponsored by them, but it’s literally one of the best pieces of software I’ve ever used. While I’m not sponsored, they do give out a referral code, so I’m dropping that here. I believe if you use that link, you’ll get a month free (I’m not entirely sure how these affiliate things work)

Get 1 Month Free of Wisper Flow

Here is a huge list of various resources that we have compiled over time: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

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

Hey folks! Another Monday! Another potentially amazing week in front of us! It’s up to you to decide… 🚀

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events: SF, Dallas, Nashville, Wausau, Columbus

• Feature Content: The Common Good. Pillar 2 of CST

• Heavenly Hustlers: 5 Folks Building for God

• Highlights: Biz Dev VA Hack

[read time: ~9.5 min | word count 2,071]

News / Updates

• This week, Dallas is meeting. Next week, Nashville and Wausau. And then Columbus coming up in June.

• Last week, we hosted a hangout in SF after the Ascension mass. Great turnout! Check out the picture here (and follow us on Instagram).

• Listen to our most recent episode with Will Hickl — the man taking on Spotify! 🤯

• ICYMI: Derek hosted a Growth Mastermind for the group. Check out the recording here if you missed it (guild members only).

Implementing Catholic Social Teaching: Part 2, The Common Good

Last week, we discussed the first pillar of integrating Catholic Social Teaching into your business: Dignity of the Human Person. Today, we’re tackling pillar #2, The Common Good.

It’s especially important to discuss this because the current culture is heavily focused on the individual and merit alone. A sort of “pull yourself by your bootstraps” mentality is pervasive. This leaves many people at a substantial disadvantage. Something the new AI order is likely to exacerbate 100x.

Well! Enough pre-rambling — let’s get into it.

The Common Good: The Teaching

What exactly is the Church’s teaching about The Common Good?

Here’s the official quote from Catechism (1905-1906). It’s a little long, bear with me and read through it. Slowly and repeatedly if needed.

“In keeping with the social nature of man, the good of each individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only in reference to the human person:

Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified, but gather instead to seek the common good together. By common good is to be understood “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”

The common good concerns the life of all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority. It consists of three essential elements:”

The common good is the sum total of social conditions that allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily. For a CEO, this means success is not just about what is legal or profitable, but whether your operation contributes to the flourishing of society.” 1

Alright, let’s put our best Vatican-ese translation hat on.

Each person possesses infinite dignity as a person (because they are created in the image and likeness of God). And since we as persons exist in a society of other persons, we must not take actions that directly prevent or harm the ability of others to reach their fulfillment (flourishing).

In other words, since we have personal freedom, we must keep our fellow man (also a person and free being) in mind when we act.

This matters even more for those in positions of authority precisely because our actions directly impact the lives of many (not just one or two). We manager dozens or hundreds of employees. We may have thousands of customers. We can directly impact more lives with a single action than those not in authority. Our actions can either harm or help others.

Consider the example of a company owner. He has a hundred employees under his care. He could find ways to use the income generated through the company to benefit all of those employees as much as possible. Cultivating a positive culture. Making family-centered policies. Allowing for the flourishing of those 100 employees.

Alternatively, he could focus on maximizing his own take-home pay. He benefits (at least in the short term) at the expense of his employees.

The latter example is against the common good because he, as an individual, benefited while the other individuals suffered.

The Why

The why of this is quite simple. If personal gain is set as the ultimate good, it would lead to the degradation of many humans for the benefit of one or a few. In other words, if this were true, it would be impossible for everyone to pursue this outcome because some others inevitably would have to suffer.

By recognizing the dignity of each person around us, we are naturally inclined to share and care for those around us. This is directly in line with the Christian Charity that we are taught.

That’s the what and the why of the second pillar. Now let’s dive into the 5 subtopics that go under this broader pillar.

Just like last week, we’ll give a brief description of each and then my perspective on how to integrate each one into your business.

1. Justice and the common good

Justice is giving each person what is due to them. Economic forces must be subordinated to the demands of social justice to ensure the whole operation serves a real good.

How to implement: Choosing how much to pay your team? Negotiating with your suppliers? Delivering the service you marketed to your customer? All of these are opportunities to practice justice. Pay fairly.

It must be understood that paying a just wage does not always mean paying market rate. Sometimes, a person cannot afford to feed their family on market-rate wages. If you’ve sold a certain service or product, you must deliver what was promised. If you don’t, you’re taking more than is just because the other party is now hindered in some way from flourishing, because you’ve taken more money from him than was just.

2. Conformity of social order to moral order

You cannot build a healthy business on a moral falsehood. Strategies and incentives must conform to objective moral law rather than just convenience or profit.

How to implement: Don’t participate in (or enable through services to) enterprises like pornography, drugs, IVF, contraception, etc. Any business that may be legal does not mean it’s sanctioned. It must not violate morality. Note, this would include refusing to supply any such enterprises with services that help them operate their business. Including software and financing.

You’d also need to avoid strategies such as ‘high-pressure’ sales because they are predatory in nature. As well as any other ‘strategies’ that would be considered immoral.

3. Private ownership vs. universal purpose of resources

While private property is a right, it has a social quality. The goods of creation are ultimately for the whole human race. Resources are entrusted to us to manage for the good of others. This is an interesting point to help us realize that our business is about far more than just making money. We are like employees of God who have a facility to manage. The purpose of the facility is to take care of other members of God’s creation.

How to implement: Consider if you grow food products or produce goods, giving some of your product away to those in need. To those who cannot afford but may be in need. View your assets as a tool for blessing others. Your employees, customers, your community, and the homeless. Any man who enters your life.

You’d should also empower your own employees to participate in this activity. To use their judgment to give away a pastry here and an oil change there, to those clearly in need.

4. Right to participate

People should not be arbitrarily excluded from the decisions that affect them. Social justice involves learning how to participate in the common order rather than dividing it.

At first glance, you might think this means something like ‘don’t be racist.’ It does. But it means a lot more.

How to implement: When making employee conduct policies and procedures, you should not exclude them. This is the problem with Private Equity bros making sweeping company policy decisions that affect people they have never met and who have had absolutely zero input to those decisions despite being the ones affected by them (this is against subsidiarity as well).

I cannot state this seriously enough. It’s critical. Just writing about this gets my blood boiling because the practice is so widespread.

5. Stewardship for creation

The environment and natural goods are resources entrusted to us for the common good. We have a responsibility to protect our common home for future generations.

How to implement: If a more sustainable option exists for an item in your supply chain, choose it. If you are a farmer, do not partake in harmful farming practices that degrade the property and make it impotent for future generations. Ensure your products or services do not lead to the destruction or harm of the environment.

There you have it. Join us next week to discuss Subsidiarity, the third principle. This focuses a lot on empowering your team.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 🛜 Ed Burns is the Co-Founder of TruSygnal. Based out of Philly. They connect shippers and carriers directly for contract opportunities without the endless back-and-forth. He’s also one of the few guys who actually replies to me on Twitter (thanks bro!)

• 🏡 Blanca Agregado is the Founder of Tessell Studio, a commercial interior design and strategy consultancy serving organizations based out of Ontario, Canada.

• 💻 Ian Doromal is the Co-Founder & CEO of Continuous AI in the Orlando area. The tech prevents your AI agents from going HAM and using way too much compute.

• 👨🏻‍🍳 Keegan Conrey is the CEO of Decision Logic in the Omaha, Nebraska area. They help restaurant operators boost their growth. Their platform turns messy operational data into actionable decisions that help restaurants run smarter.

• 🎨 Joseph Hearney is the owner of Decree Design Co.®, a published branding and design studio based in Western, KY.

🙋‍♂️ 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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Highlights

Keeping this short bc this is already too long.

If you network a lot, hire an overseas EA so that instead of saying you’ll follow up, and don’t, you can just text a picture of each biz card to your EA and send a voice msg with the follow-up instructions. I learned this idea from Jimmy Coleman on the episode he did with us.

Here is a huge list of various resources that we have complied overtime: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

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

After our hiatus last week, I’m back. Mostly out of guilt because not putting this out feels like I failed you all.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every most Mondays, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events: (SF, Nash, Houston, DFW, WI)

• Feature Content: Integrating Dignity of the Human Person

• Heavenly Hustlers: (skipped today)

• Highlights: A friend of CF has an incredible Substack

[read time: ~8.5 min | word count 1,837]

News / Updates

• We have events happening in Houston, San Francisco, Dallas, Nashville, Wausau, and Columbus. Register to attend.

• LMK if you’re in SF this week. I’m there Tuesday until Friday midday. Glad to link up.

• Check out the last episode of the pod with Edmund Mitchell. So far, people have liked it. If you think you might have ADHD and want to run a business, or do, this will likely resonate with you.

• ICYMI: We had an incredible session with Marco to learn marketing, branding, and positioning. Check out the recording (guild members only)

Implementing Catholic Social Teaching: Part 1, Dignity of The Human Person

Catholic Social Teaching is something people talk a lot about in the business world. But it’s usually very theoretical. Pie in the sky type of talk. This isn’t usually the way that business owners tend to talk. This has led to a lack of implementation of Catholic Social Teachings in the workplace.

Over the coming weeks, I’m going to attempt to do a breakdown of the 4 core tenets of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). I’m doing this in preparation for a talk I’m giving later this year.

These will by no means be extensive. The intent is to make this SUPER tangible for business owners.

Okay, let’s jump in.

The four key pillars of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) are:

1. Dignity of the Human Person

2. Common Good

3. Subsidiarity

4. Solidarity

Today, we are going to try to cover the first pillar, Dignity of the Human Person.

As a heads up, I had a lot of help researching this with Magisterium AI. I also apologize, because some of this stuff is a little wordy, because Church language often is. Even if you don’t have a lot of background reading, things like this, just go slowly, and I am confident that with the aid of the Holy Spirit, you’ll be able to grasp the concepts.

Dignity of The Human Person: The Teaching

The teaching states that every person has an intrinsic worth that society must recognize and protect. Not because of usefulness, talent, or social value, but because the person is human.

The Church states this principle in a classic way: “The human person … is and ought to be the principle, the subject, and the object of every social organization” (from Gaudium et Spes, quoted in the Catechism). 1

In other words, social institutions exist to serve people, not the other way around.

The Why

The Church teaches this because human dignity is grounded in what a person is before God, not in what a person can do currently. Dignitas Infinita clarifies that the most fundamental dignity (“ontological dignity”) belongs to the person simply for the fact that they exist, are created and loved by God, and therefore is “indelible and remains valid beyond any circumstances.” 2

This is why the Church rejects treating people as disposable or as tools: even when someone is vulnerable, the person still has a right to live with dignity. In Dignitas Infinita, Pope Francis says, “this fundamental right cannot be denied… People have this right even if they are unproductive… a dignity based not on circumstances but on the intrinsic worth of their being.” 3

That “why” shows up in how a just society should be built. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches that “A just society can become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent dignity of the human person,” and it adds a practical rule: the social order must work for the person, since “the order of things is to be subordinate to the order of persons.” 4

It also insists that every program — political, economic, scientific, cultural — must be inspired by the truth that each human being has a primacy over society, so that no one is excluded from protection and care. 5

Said another way: a human’s essence of being is present regardless of their perceived ‘value’ to society, and that is why each person must be treated with Dignity. That is why our businesses must exist to serve people, individuals.

Now that we have this understood. We need to cover the five ‘sub topics’ that fit under this heading. First, again with the help of Magisterium AI, I’m going to describe the principle, then I’m going to give my two cents on at least one way you could integrate this into your business.

1. Primacy of the human person

Every decision in your business should be weighed against whether it helps or harms the dignity of the people involved. Employees and customers are persons with souls, not expendable factors in a growth plan.

How to implement: Making an employee policy? Setting customer terms? Ask yourself if this policy is genuinely good for the human on the other end. Or is it just convenient for your business? Decide accordingly.

2. Importance of marriage and the family

The family is the basic cell of society. Business structures should support a healthy home life rather than competing with it for a person’s entire focus.

How to implement: What do you give your employees and expect out of them? Does the way you run your company allow for employees to carry out a healthy home life? To be home for dinner? If you’re detracting from an employee’s ability to fulfill his primary duties, find a way to change that.

3. Importance of religion

This protects the freedom of conscience and the spiritual dimension of life. A business culture should respect that moral truth is not subjective and that people have a right to live out their faith.

How to implement: For many of us, this one is pretty straightforward. Do you encourage a culture that allows people to speak openly about their faiths? Assuming you’re not following woke ideology, you should be good. But, be cautious as your company grows because it’s more likely for barriers to be set, usually due to common HR practices.

4. Dignity of work and workers

Work is meant for the person, not the person for the work. Labor has priority over capital. Workplace conditions must never degrade the individual.

How to implement: Ensure the workplace is better than simply neutral. Make it a place that is uplifting. From the music played, to the conversations between work, to the beauty of the place. Elevate your team. If they feel like they have to filter what happens at work to their children, then you should work on fixing that.

5. Morally responsible openness to life

Human life must be respected in every economic decision. We should never treat human life as something to be managed based on cost or utility.

How to implement: Ensure safe working conditions. Never consider rushing or sparing an expense if human safety is involved. I’d also interpret this to mean take good care of your team financially, so they can also be open to life without financial hardships.

That is all for this week. Please feel free to discuss further in the comments. I’m especially curious to hear other suggestions on how we can implement these principles.

The Bottom Line

A just society—and a successful business—is only possible when it’s built on the “transcendent dignity of the human person.”

I’m curious: Which of these five sub-topics is the hardest to implement in a remote or fast-growing environment? Let’s discuss in the comments and of course make sure to tune in next week as we cover the next core pillar, the Common Good.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

Hey guys! We are having to skip this week because of how behind I was in creating this. If you really want to help me out, send me more people I should cover with the link below. 👇

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

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Highlights: For Solo Operators

This week, I’m just sharing the link to a friend’s Substack. Lucas Wollschlager runs Veritas Copy and recently launched a really fascinating newsletter called The Solo Operator.

He does deep dives and provides implementation advice on running a solo business. This first piece crushed it as I heard a lot of people in our community commenting on how good it was. He covered how a dryer vent cleaning biz cleared $100k in the first year of business with a super simple strategy.

Give him a follow, and read that first issue here.

Read It

Here is a huge list of various resources that we have complied overtime: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

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

Happy Monday, folks!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events: SF, Nashville + a new perk for the Guild

• Feature Content: Make Generosity Your Entrepreneurial Compass

• Heavenly Hustlers: 8 folks. From Gluten Free Flour to an Uber Competitor

• Highlights: This Accounting Method Helps You Make Money

[read time: ~8.5 min | word count 1,845]

News / Updates

• 🚨🚨🚨 ICYMI: We recently launched the Faithful Steward. A free, private newsletter for Catholic investors to discover Catholic-run ventures raising money. A deal flow newsletter. It’s totally free. Sign up today. Builders, submit your deck here.

• 🎸 In Nashville? We’re hosting a hangout tomorrow night, sponsored by Lucid Private Offices.

• 🌉 In SF? We’re hosting a hangout after the Ascension Mass at Star of the Sea on May 14th. Details TBD, but sign up here to get notified.

• 🤠 In Houston? There will be an event the week of May 13th. Stay tuned for details.

• 🤖 We’re launching a new CF Guild perk. An AI bot that will answer questions from all of the CF content, and it will be able to help you meet other members of the Guild who can help you. To gain access, you’ll need to be a member of the CF Guild, so sign up today.

Make Generosity Your Entrepreneurial Compass

As entrepreneurs, it is easy to measure success by the bottom line, the growth rate, or the market share. But for the Catholic business owner, those are secondary markers. The real question is whether your work is ordered to God.

At the center of this vocation is a radical call to generosity. It is the key that unlocks our identity as stewards rather than masters.

Stewardship Over Ownership

If God has blessed your business with more than your family and your enterprise need to live well, that surplus is not just a cushion for comfort — consider it a sacred trust. The mindset should really be that this is His. Thinking “how should I give away my things” would be the incorrect framing. All of it belongs to God in the first place.

“In his use of things man should regard the external goods he legitimately owns not merely as exclusive to himself but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as himself. The ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family.” — (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2404).

When we realize we are merely stewards, the temptation to stack up more and more dissipates. We begin to see our capital as a tool for the Kingdom.

The Entrepreneurial Fiat

To live this vocation well, your business plan must begin with a fiat. Like Mary, our response to God’s provision should be a total surrender of our professional path.

“Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.” — (Luke 1:38).

This “yes” is not just a spiritual sentiment; it has to be practical. It must shape our time, our plans, and our use of money. You cannot follow God with your work while remaining closed-fisted.

Honoring God with Everything Over and Above

Scripture and Tradition are incredibly direct when it comes to how we handle the “extra.” The question is not, “How much can I keep?” but rather, “How can I honor the Giver with what remains?”

“But, when what necessity demands has been supplied, and one’s standing fairly taken thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains over. “Of that which remaineth, give alms.” — (Rerum Novarum, 22).

“Furthermore, a person’s superfluous income, that is, income which he does not need to sustain life fittingly and with dignity, is not left wholly to his own free determination. Rather, the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church constantly declare in the most explicit language that the rich are bound by a very grave precept to practice almsgiving, beneficence, and munificence.” — (Quadragesimo Anno, 50).

We see this pattern throughout the Gospels. Martha “welcomed him into her home” (Luke 10:38). Mary sat at his feet and listened. Jesus “loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5). And Joseph of Arimathea gave Jesus his own tomb, where he was “laid… in his own new tomb” (Matthew 27:60). These were people who made room for the Lord through the sharing of their home, their space, and their property.

A Mission, Not Just a Business

When we lead with a generous heart, our work takes on a mission-shaped purpose. We are not just building something for ourselves. We are building something that can serve God, serve the Church, and serve people in need. This is a direct imitation of Christ’s life of service.

That is what Catholic entrepreneurship looks like: faithful stewardship and open hands. Not a life focused on accumulation.

The Cheerful Giver

Ultimately, the goal is a heart that belongs entirely to God (because that’s what we’d have in Heaven). When we stop being selfish with our surplus, the grind of entrepreneurship becomes a joyful act of service.

Be generous toward God. When you do, your career can blossom into a path to holiness and a vehicle for delivering His will on Earth.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 🚲 Patrick McFarland and Davide Thompson are co-founders of CARI, a campus-based alternative to DoorDash that helps employ students. This is a little bit of an over-simplification, but that’s the way I understand it. They are based in Nashville.

• 👩 Anna Saucier & Megan Gephar run Apostolic Fruit. Helping Catholic women lead healthy organizations. They run some really interesting retreats called Rest Boldly.

• 💼 Mark Mastroianni is building an app to help board members bring up the most critical things, and to help executives integrate the 12 levels of humility from St. Benedict. He’s generally doing a lot of things. A bit of a hustler. Based in the Indianapolis area.

• 🚗 Ryan Kreager is the CTO & Co-Founder of Rides2U. A high-trust ride-hailing network that only employs the people you’d feel comfortable giving your daughter a ride home at 1 in the morning. They do schedule ahead and have much better economics. He’s based in the South Bend area.

• 👻 Daniel Urdaneta recently launched a ghostwriting agency. He’s focused on serving Catholics, and he’s based in Argentina.

• 🍞 Emmett Ackerlund is commercializing his sister’s gluten-free flour recipe. Guy is sharp. Based out of NYC. I’m already on the waitlist for my wife’s gluten allergy.

  Share

🙋‍♂️ 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!

Highlight: An Ultra-Short Explanation of How to Use the Profit First Method

Many of the founders I encounter don’t take profit first. They have all their money in one bank account, making it hard to visualize how much burn you have left.

I get it. That’s what I used to do. Until I heard about the profit-first method of accounting. I’m not going to explain the whole thing, but will give you my version of it so you can (hopefully) be convinced to get the book and implement it and save yourself a lot of headache.

Instead of 1 bank account, you’ll have 5. Income, Owner’s Comp, Tax, OpEx, and Profit.

When you get paid, it goes to the income account.

Then, on a periodical basis (maybe once or twice a week), you’ll ‘balance’ the accounts.

Depending on your business, you’ll put x% into each account from your income account, leaving it with the minimum needed (I just keep $100 in it).

It might look like this. 10,000 comes into the income. 15% ($1,500) goes to profit, 20% ($2,000) goes to tax, 30% ($3,000) goes to OpEx, and the remaining 35% ($3,500) goes to Owner’s Comp.

At the end of the quarter, you can pay yourself a ‘bonus’ from the profit account. Usually, let’s say 50-75% of the value of the profit account.

The other key benefit here is that you’re ‘forced’ to make your company run on the allocated OpEx account, rather than forgoing your own compensation for the sake of the company.

This creates more discipline on spending, and will also help light a fire under your butt to get more sales.

Again, this is super ‘not official’ — this is just my read on it. But I’m confident a LOT of you would benefit from reading this book and implementing something similar to ensure you are actually making money rather than just scraping by.

Here is the link to the book.

Here is a huge list of various resources that we have complied overtime: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

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

Thank God it’s Monday!

We get to serve God today. Just like every day!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Today you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• Upcoming Events in Nashville & Wausau, WI

• Feature Content: Small Crosses

• Heavenly Hustlers: 8 Folks to Know

• Highlight: A Book Rec to Help You Find Product-Market Fit

[read time: ~5 min | word count 1,146]

News / Updates

• We launched a NEW free newsletter. If you’re a Catholic investor and want to get deal flow of Catholic-owned businesses that are raising, sign up today.
  If you’re a builder seeking funding, submit your deck today.

• Our next Nashville meetup is happening on the 28th of April. Register here.

• Don’t forget about the last Saturday of the month CF meetup in Wausau, WI - sign up here.

• If you’d like to host a meetup for Catholic business owners in your area, please reach out, and we’ll help you organize and promote it. admin@catholicfounders.com

• And finally, remember, if you know a Catholic who wants to start a business, send them my way. We are looking to invest heavily in helping Catholics refine their ideas, launch their businesses, and get to their first million in revenue.

Small Crosses

Going to keep it ultra-short this week.

Running a business is hard. Sometimes, the hardest part is when things become repetitive and monotonous. Sending out DMs, doing the admin work, and doing the sales calls.

Whenever you encounter that feeling, here is a tip for you.

View each task you have to do as a small cross. You can choose to willingly pick up that cross and sanctify your work. Regardless if you’re doing a client visit, doing cold calls, or replying to customer requests. Each of these small things is a small cross to pick up willingly.

Personally, I’ve found this framing helpful because it is no longer about ‘powering through’ so that I can pay the bills and keep the business growing. It’s about sanctifying my work. About walking alongside Jesus as He carries The Cross to Calvary.

It’s no longer about you. Do it for Jesus!

PS: Shout out to Rob Hays for this visualization that he shared at our Dallas dinner.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 🧑‍⚖️ Cyrus Johnson is an independent business lawyer helping investors on the buy side as well as helping founders on the receiving end. He’s also got some really interesting AI projects in the legal space. Based in the Dallas area.

• 💨 Blaise Carney is building Fumus Et Ratio. A club to help Catholic grow in friendship and virtue as well as discuss edifying topics, while smoking premium cigars. Based in Ave Maria, Florida.

• 🚧 Tom Becher is the owner of Vitruvius Construction. They have a special focus on residential remodels, making homes beautiful. Given that he’s also involved in Thomas Aquinas College, I bet he’s pretty awesome. Based out of the Santa Paula area.

• 👣 Mike Meaney is the Co-Founder of One Small Step, a mental health platform to connect with peers when professionals are offline. Menlo Park-based.

• 💰 Joshua Elkington is the founder of investment firm Axial. They focus on partnering with early-stage life sciences founders and inventors. He’s based in the SF Bay Area.

• 👨‍💻 Jin Kuan and Leon Schwarzer are building Bicameral. A tech platform that helps developers build the right tech that has not already been stated as conflicting in some random memo or forgotten Slack message. It helps developers embrace the social nature of the act. Jin is SF-based and Leon is NYC-Based.

• 🥷 Vincent Casey is building something in stealth so I can’t tell you much about it, or I might have to… you know what. He’s also based in the SF area.

🙋‍♂️ 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!

Share

Highlight: Figure Out If People Want Your Product Before You Build It

For this week’s highlight, we’re going to talk about a book. The Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick.

This book is for anyone trying to figure out what product to sell and who to sell it to.

Entrepreneurs who are trying to do something novel have to be aware that there may not be a market for that thing. When you start a lawn mowing or window cleaning business, you know it can work because there are dozens of them in even a small city. But with a new product, it may not actually be something the market wants. Or if it is, it may not look exactly like you envision it.

This is when you need to do product market fit testing. ie: talk to a LOT of customers in a specific type of way, to find out what problem they have, and if you can make a product that will solve said problem.

Notice how the problem is what matters. Not the idea or invention. Ideas and inventions are only as valuable as the problem they solve and for how many people they solve said problem.

So, if you’re embarking on your entrepreneurial journey, read this book so that you can learn how to speak with your potential customers and figure out if there is demand for it, without spending a ton of money.

Here is a huge list of various resources that we have complied overtime: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

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

Hey everyone, welcome back to another Saintly CEO Monday newsletter! The place you go on Mondays, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Thank you for coming back week after week. Shoutout to our biggest fan, Andreas Widmer.

I was just on his podcast last week, and he told me it’s one of the few newsletters he reads each week. If that isn’t the best endorsement I could ask for, I don’t know what is. Thank you all for reading each week.

Today we’ll be talking about pacing. Timing. Speed.

But first, some events/announcements.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events

• Feature Content:

[read time: ~6.5 min | word count 1,392]

News / Updates

• The YCP Conference was amazing. Stay tuned for more info.

• The dinner in Dallas was also amazing! You’ll see pictures at some point.

• Our next Nashville meetup is happening on the 28th of April (tentatively). Register here.

• We are likely hosting a Columbus meetup in early May. Reach out if you want to influence the mission.

• And finally, remember if you know a Catholic who wants to start a business, send them my way. We are looking to invest heavily in helping Catholics refine their ideas, launch their businesses, and get to their first million in revenue.

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

You Don’t Always Have to Go Fast

I’m writing this from a Tex-Mex spot in Dallas. I’ve been in Dallas since Wednesday, and the schedule has been relentless: I did the Beatidudes podcast Thursday. Had a few meetings Friday. Recorded three episodes at the YCP conference on Saturday. Somehow kept my own businesses running. And to top it all off, tonight, I’m hosting a Catholic Founders Dinner at Rob Hays’ home.

Why am I giving you a play-by-play? Because these last six months have been an all-out sprint. If you asked my closest friends, they’d say I’m stretched thin. Some might say burned out (I wouldn’t say that).

This pace has forced me to ask myself… How hard should I push? Should I cut everything else out to go all-in on one thing? Should I be dissatisfied with our growth to date?

Endless questions.

Despite the black hole of questions I could ask myself, it started to make some sense once I considered a few of the characteristics of God.

A Theological Framework for Pace

To find peace, I had to recall a few fundamental truths:

• God exists outside of time. He isn’t stressed by some arbitrary quarterly deadline.

• God doesn’t have a rigid timeline. He isn’t checking a watch to see if you hit a specific objective by age 30 or 50. He doesn’t care about you getting on Forbes 30 under 30.

• God wants your presence. He desires your love in the present moment, not your anxiety about the future. Anxiety about the future is a lack of trust in God.

• God honors duty. He calls us to fulfill our obligations to our families and our health, not neglect them for the sake of making more money.

When I internalized these, I realized I don’t have to push to an inhuman level. God asks me to work hard, but He does not ask me to ignore the natural signals of stress or burnout. Those act as traffic signals for me. Telling me to go faster, slow down, or stop.

Re-Ordering the Mission

This shift in perspective is already changing my behavior. I am learning to turn down anything that doesn’t serve my primary missions. I’ve categorized them by the Level of Duty:

1. Justice (The Business): My clients have paid for a service. In justice, they deserve what they paid for. This stays at the top of the list.

2. Mission (Catholic Founders): This is a calling. It gets as much time as I can spare to keep the weekly and monthly momentum alive.

3. Legacy (My Dad’s Business): While I’m helping this grow, it isn’t urgent in the same way. I’ve found peace in the fact that I won’t work on it as intensely right now; it’s a slower build.

Hire Catholic Offshore Talent
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$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

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How to Evaluate Your Own Pace

If sprinting is crushing you, or you’re worried you’re not going fast enough, consider these four filters:

1. Type of Venture

If you are building a venture-scaled business, your investors expect a ludicrous pace. In winner-take-all markets, success often requires being first. If you have chosen this path, acknowledge it and buckle up, buttercup. That’s the nature of the beast.

2. The Manufactured Rush

Alex Hormozi points out that most “rush” is manufactured. Unless you are competing for the first-ever smartphone users, your pace probably doesn’t matter as much as you think. Growing a service company or a local business doesn’t require you to go crazy fast. Most of the time, the pressure is just our own impatience.

I would add that in some cases, rushing can hurt your business growth. Rush can lead to bad customer experiences, which slows down the compounding machine of customer satisfaction.

3. Your Season of Life

In the same way you cannot control when or where you were born (I’ve talked about this a lot) you cannot simply change your state of life. If you are married with children, you cannot abandon them for the sake of advancing your venture. That would be a violation of your primary vocation. Your season of life dictates, to an extent, what pace you can have while still fulfilling your family obligations. Accept the constraint; it is a gift, not a curse.

4. The Timing of Your Calling

Some founders aren’t ready to build their great work until their 50s; others start at 18. Daniel Ek talks about Founder-Fit. A lot of investors also consider this when evaluating a founder. Some people are uniquely qualified, by skills, life experiences, and/or personality, to build specific businesses or types of business. Don’t rush a door that hasn’t opened yet.

All In Versus Part Time Build

Before we wrap up, I also want to address going all in on your venture versus building your way out. Using prudence, it’s up to you to understand if God is calling you to take the leap and trust in Him. Or if you should build your way out of your job.

As my friend Joseph Henry recently reminded me, Slow and Steady wins the race.

Just because some of the famous entrepreneurs, whom many of us undoubtedly look up to, went all in and made it work, doesn’t mean that’s what we are called to do.

Conclusion

God has a pace for you. There is no universal rulebook, only the specific call He has placed on your life.

But here’s the thing. You will only be able to hear the instructions He gives you if you take the time to reflect on your circumstances rather than just sprinting through them. Your circumstances are often how God speaks to you. He gives you hints, you just have to look for them.

Push hard, but push within the boundaries of the life God gave you.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Highlights

If you want the full list of resources, you can get them here: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

Today’s Highlights Are…

Being skipped. Only so much time to do it.

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

Happy Easter!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday… I mean, most Mondays, and some Wednesdays, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Obviously, I’m late with this newsletter. Being back in Wisconsin for Easter, I decided to make the most of the limited time I had with family. After all, I’ll never get those moments back.

Today will be short.

I’m writing this at 11 at night and don’t yet know how I’m going to connect the resurrection to entrepreneurship, but I place it in the hands of the Holy Spirit to guide me.

Because that’s the case, let me stall a bit with some VERY important reminders and announcements.

• I’ll be at the YCP Conference this weekend in Dallas. If you’d like to do an interview with me there, let me know.

• This Sunday, we are hosting an event in Dallas for Catholic Founders. If you’d like to attend, register. We only have about 2 spots left.

• Our next Nashville meetup is happening on the 28th of April (tentatively). Register here.

• And finally, remember if you know a Catholic who wants to start a business, send them my way. We are looking to invest heavily in helping Catholics refine their ideas, launch their businesses, and get to their first million in revenue.

Okay, let’s get into it.

The Resurrection and Entrepreneurship

Suffering and Conviction.

Those are the two main things to reflect on from the resurrection as Catholic Founders.

Suffering.

Another way of saying this is sacrifice. Jesus suffered and sacrificed, ultimately sacrificing Himself, so that a greater good might be achieved: the salvation of humanity.

How often do we face suffering and complain about it? How often do we wish our business were a little easier to build and to scale?

If you’re anything like me, a lot. More than I care to admit, if I’m being frank.

But this is the point. If it were super easy, everyone would do it. If we only want an easy life without the hard work, what does that say about our character?

We suffer in order to achieve something greater.

So next time you’re feeling that suffering in your business, remember the crucifixion that led to the salvation of humanity. Think about the weight of that. Compare your cross to the one Jesus carried. I’m sure you can manage just fine.

If you’re a Catholic looking to start a business but don’t know where to start, reach out. We are launching our success-based coaching program for Catholics looking to start their businesses.

No cost up-front. Only pay if you actually make money. We only have space for a few of these to start with, so reach out today and book an intro call here.

Conviction.

If you’re celebrating Easter, that means you believe in the truth of what the resurrection means. The death and resurrection mean that what Jesus said is true. That He is God, and that He died so that we may have eternal life.

We celebrate because we have conviction that Jesus truly conquered death, proving all of those statements.

How can knowing this not give us a steadfast, immovable conviction that running our businesses in alignment with our Faith is worth it? That doing this will bring more people to know Him, and lead to our own eternal reward?

We are not just building businesses out here. We are the hands of God in the world. Carrying out His will using the co-creative abilities that He gave us. There are souls on the line.

So, where is your conviction about your faith in God when the times get hard or seem uncertain? When deciding how to conduct your business, where is your conviction about your faith?

Conclusion.

Let’s get after it this Easter season with full confidence in God that the suffering is worth it, and the conviction that we were called to be entrepreneurs so that we can bring others to know God.

God Bless and Happy Building!

~Silas Mähner

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

[read time: ~5 min | word count 1,133]

Good morning, everyone!

It’s Monday of Holy Week. Traditionally referred to as Fig Monday. We’ll get into that!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. We’re on a mission to bring you a bit of tactical advice or encouragement each Monday to start your week off well.

Today, I’m going to keep things very brief given my current schedule and my desire for you to have only one thing to focus on this week as we wrap up Lent.

First, some quick announcements.

• We’re hosting a dinner in Dallas on April 12th. Apply to attend

• If you’re in central Wisconsin (Wausau area), join the last Saturday meetup

• We might be hosting a meetup in Columbus, OH soon - reach out if interested

• Raj Bhakta is speaking at a Fides event on Thursday April 9th in NYC. Register to attend (CF is co-sponsoring)

• Sponsors! We need some! Reach out admin@catholicfounders.com

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

Fig Trees and Entrepreneurs

Okay, let’s start with why today is called Fig Monday. It’s quite simple. On this day, certain liturgical traditions have the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree that had no fruit (despite it not being the season for figs), here it is. Matthew 21: 18-22

[18] In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. [19] And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. [20] When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” [21] Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. [22] Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”

A lot has been said about what this message means for us generally as followers of Christ. But let’s focus on what it means for entrepreneurs.

The key elements to focus on are. (1) The tree had leafs on it but no fruit (alive but no fruit). (2) The consequences of being fruitless was to wither and die in the end despite a long life of growth to produce leafs. (3) We can do the same works if we have genuine faith.

As entrepreneurs, we have been given a lot of skills. We have the willingness to take risk, the capacity to work hard, and the creative ability to create things of value.

We are a tree growing and providing shade with our leafs. But the species of tree that we are is called to bear a multitude of fruit. Think back to the parable of the good and faithful steward. His dedicated work returned 5 additional talents to the 5 he had been given (Matt. 25:14-30). There is also the example of the seed that fell on good ground and produced up to one hundred fold wheat (Matt. 13:8).

Are we not exceedingly blessed by our work ethic, ability to manage and motivate people, our ability to sell, the list goes on.

We must ask ourselves, what is the fruit we are yielding. The fruit cannot be simply financial. The true fruit we are called to yield is eternal fruit that brings others to God. So what are we doing?

Are people drawn to Catholocism because of our actions? Are we leaving bread crumbs for people to pick up along the way to give them a little taste of the Faith?

For any of this to be possible, we need to recognize the gifts we were given, and we need to nourish the seeds of faith in our hearts. Giving sufficient water and sunlight through prayer, the sacraments, scripture, and contemplation.

St. Thomas Aquinas comments further on the example of the fig tree, taken from this passage and from the parable of the fig tree in Luke (13:6-9). He says (paraphrased), the fig tree is outwardly promising (leafy) through profession of faith and law, yet inwardly unfruitful in charity and good works, facing divine judgment after a period of merciful patience.

On one hand you have the judgement side of that to avoid. On the other hand, consider how motivating it can be for us to lean into what we already know and profess about the faith. Allowing it to produce a great amount of fruit in our lives and the lives of those around us.

Remember, even if you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur and don’t have that many employees, you will likely have many people reporting to you one day. If you stick with it, and apply virtue to how you run your business, you are likely to continue growing. As you grow, will those fundamental pillars be in place allowing you to be a truly positive influence on all of those around you. Employees and customers alike?

I know we’ve discussed this idea in some way shape or form but this matters. This isn’t just a nice to have option we can pursue. God specifically gave us these skills to help carry out His will in the world. Will you view it as a weight on your shoulders, or will you see this as the opportunity to go on the adventure of a lifetime?

Will you see it as a way to gain financial success and notoriety, or will you see it as an opportunity to bring hundreds, even thousands along with you on this journey home; this journey to heaven?

Will you be barren and cursed or will you bear fruit and be blessed?

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

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Don’t forget about The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide. Bookmark for future reference.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

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Another Monday! Another week is upon us. Another opportunity to carry out God’s will in the world!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. We’re on a mission to bring you a bit of tactical advice or encouragement each Monday to start your week off well.

Today we’re talking about…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events: Nashville, Dallas, YCP, and NYC events

• Feature Content: Prepare to Observe Holy Week

• Heavenly Hustlers: From Catholic AI to St. Joseph Socks

• Highlights: Read Leaving a Legacy, by Johann Kurtz

[read time: ~5.5 min | word count 1,239]

News / Events

• Tomorrow I’m hosting a hangout for Catholic entrepreneurs in Nashville. If you’d like to attend, register here. We only have 2 spots left.

• If you’re in NYC, don’t miss the Fides Entrepreneurship event with Tim Busch, the businessman and philanthropist known for his involvement in the wine and hospitality business.

• I’ll be at the YCP conference, HMU if you’d like to link up there.

• We have a couple of spots open for our Dallas dinner on the 12th of April. Register if you’re interested.

• We’re looking for sponsors to help fund this project. If you’re interested, drop us an email, admin@catholicfounders.com

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

Prepare to Observe Holy Week

Holy week starts next Sunday. Hard to believe that we’re already coming to the end of Lent. But here we are.

Maybe your Lent was great. Maybe it was mediocre. Maybe you gave up entirely. Regardless of how it went, there is always the chance to end well. How to end well can be an art in itself. But as business owners, there is one thing in particular that we can do to end well.

Observe Holy Week by taking off of work.

I’m not asking you to take the entire week off. But I am asking you to truly observe Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Saturday. Take those days off, for you and your team (ideally paid leave if you can afford it).

Be uncompromising about Good Friday. Make it a day of no work. Set aside your day to pray and contemplate Jesus’ death on the cross. What does it mean for you? What is the weight of this sacrifice? How can you imitate Jesus’ example towards your employees? If you take none of this other advice, at least take this.

On Holy Thursday, consider doing something to serve your employees. Maybe make them lunch, then take the rest of the day off. If any of your team are not Catholic, invite them to the Holy Thursday mass and washing of the feet service.

On Holy Saturday, continue to observe the mourning of the death of Jesus. Place yourself in the shoes of the Apostles. Allow the silence to stew inside of you. Don’t play any music. Don’t respond to emails. Just leave work aside. Speak to God in this silence. Consider His sacrifice for you. No matter how much you want to pick up work and keep things moving. Let it be.

Our natural state as entrepreneurs is to work. It’s the default setting. But it’s not all that we are. We are given an intellect and a will to overcome these natural tendencies. Let’s make use of these faculties to be with God. To be with our family.

Of course, you should also invite your employees to the Easter Vigil / Sunday mass. This is a particularly great time for them to come and hopefully, witness many catechumens entering the faith. Perhaps it will inspire them, too.

It goes without saying, but really make sure to enter into Easter Sunday. Be present with your family. If you don’t already have some, consider establishing an Easter family tradition.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

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Heavenly Hustlers

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

• ✨ Peter Cooney and his brother Thomas are building Acutis. A general-purpose AI guided by Church teaching/morality. In other words, it won’t suggest that abortion is fine and good.

• 🕊️ Dan DeMatte co-founded Damascus with the purpose of creating a generation of Catholics who are capable of living out their faith. Really fascinating project.

• 🔨 John-Michael Pauzé runs JMR Contracting, doing renovation projects.

• 🧦 Scott Williams, creator of SockReligious, is now growing Catholic Concepts. A group that will help Catholic orgs create and sell merch as the printer for others.

• 🎥 Frankie Garcia is the founder and CEO of Kalorama Studios. A production agency focused on visual storytelling for trade associations, think tanks & corporations. Love to see a firm like this picking with and sticking with a niche.

🙋‍♂️ 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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Highlights

In case you missed it, we changed this section to focus on one or two key things we want to highlight each week. For the full list of resources, check it out here 👇

The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

Today’s highlight is a book.

Leaving a Legacy by Johann Kurtz

You’ve probably heard me mention this at least once, but it bears worth repeating. His book contains, what I think, is the key to saving Western/Christian living at least in the US.

We had the opportunity to have him on the podcast in January (listen here). If you listen to/read this book, I’ll make time to call you and discuss your opinions on implementing it.

If you’ve already read it and are on board with what he’s doing, I’d highly recommend checking out the thing he’s building called The Hancock Club (DM me, and I can put you in touch to learn more). The first chapter is launching in Texas.

I’m hoping the next one will be in Tennessee.

In case you have not picked up on it yet, I really like what Johann has written. I think it’s a huge solution to many of the problems we’re facing. As business owners, we play a crucial role in shaping the future around us. Both locally and nationally. Integrating the principles in his book can help us do that. The premise is one of building enterprises that direct capital and create family bonds and continuity that are hard to break, thus leading to a stronger society as a whole.

Looking forward to discussing this with you once you’ve read it.

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

Happy Monday Y’all!

Welcome back to Saintly CEO - the newsletter Catholic Founders puts out (almost every) Monday. We are on a mission to help Catholics launch and grow their business with intros, coaching, a network, and accountability.

Reach out if you’re looking for support as you start your business. Transparently, we are still trying to figure out how to charge for these services, so you may end up getting a lot of free help.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Events

• Feature Content:

• Heavenly Hustlers

• Highlights

[read time: ~5.5 min | word count 1,239]

News / Updates

• Last week we sponsored the Fides event in SF (check out the highlight) - Shoutout to Luca for pulling that together

• On March 24th, Derek McMonagle is presenting to the Guild on how to hack your temperament when doing business development. Join the guild to attend.

• Next week we’re meeting up in Nashville (join us!)

• March 28th the Wausau monthly meetup is happening

• April 12th, we’re meeting up in Dallas (stay tuned for link)

• We’re looking for sponsors for this project and our dinners — reach out if you're open to exploring this (admin@catholicfounders.com)

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

Business Presents Opportunities to Practice Mercy

Last weekend, I attended a half-day retreat hosted by our local YCP. The topic, Mercy.

The most striking thing the priest said in his talks - which seems obvious in retrospect - was that in Heaven we are united with God. If we are united with God, that means everyone in Heaven is also united with God. Meaning we are united with each other. Meaning… we cannot have any grudges in our hearts against our fellow man.

Yet, how often on earth do we harbor those thoughts of resentment, even if it’s just a little bit?

As a business owner, I think this is a huge area for me personally to work on, and I would imagine for others as well.

How often do we have a customer acting crazy and challenging us? Maybe a competitor is doing something we wish we had thought of. There are countless possible examples.

My question is (to myself and to you), have we forgiven these people? Have we offered mercy to them? Not in a condescending way to implicate them in some sort of crime against us. But in our hearts, have we accepted the wrong and let it go?

After all, we desire our fellow man to be in heaven one day. So why not start with forgiving them while we’re still in this life?

So, if you’ve got some beef left in your heart for a client or supplier that hasn’t always treated you well, this is your sign to let it go. Offer them forgiveness in your heart. Desire their good. Desire that they and you may one day be united in Heaven for all eternity.

Once this behavior becomes a habit, you’ll likely start treating people better in the moment. You’ll have more patience. And your peace of mind will benefit.

One final thing to consider is the way mercy can affect the receiver’s heart. If you have an employee who has stolen or someone who has committed a grave wrong against you. Offering them forgiveness can move them emotionally. It can have a transformative impact on their heart.

Just think of all the stories you’ve heard of a victim forgiving their aggressor. The more grave the offense, the more moving the story. I myself have been brought to tears many times in hearing these stories (I am a bit of a softie). There is a reason for this.

Considering this, recognize that one day - perhaps even now - you might find yourself in a position to offer mercy towards someone who has committed an offense. You have a chance to be like the king who forgave his servant who owed 10,000 talents. Take advantage of that opportunity to imitate God’s mercy towards us by forgiving them. Release them from their ‘debt’ - hopefully it will affect a change in their heart.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

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We help you find vetted Catholic offshore talent to help your business grow. 

$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com 

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 👨‍🎨 Matthew Kilmurry is the CEO of Intrinsic Digital Brands. A digital brand holding company.

• 💼 Alex Ziolkowski is building… can’t tell you yet. It’s in stealth, but you should connect with him. He’s also a CF Guild Member.

• 📐 Ryan Huseman runs Forté Structural Engineering out of Amarillo, Texas. I met Ryan through SENT recently, and we’re having him on the pod soon to tell his story.

• ⚙️ Chris Greco is the Co-Founder of Goodlight AI where they use AI to help create a more complete picture of customers for retail shops. He’s based out of Kansas City. I also met him through SENT recently.

• 👔 Clint Branam runs Catholic Men’s Shop. They sell various menswear accesories, but primarily some slick neck ties. He’s based in the DC Area.

• 🐭 Trevor Britton works in marketing and websites, with a specialty of making custom animations. Based out of Iowa City, he’s a recent addition to the Catholic Founders Guild.

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

Share

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Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Highlights

In case you missed it, we changed this section to focus on one or two key things we want to highlight each week. For the full list of resources check it out here 👇

The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

Today we only have one highlight.

Desync.ai — A Sales Tool for Selling to Catholics

This is a product that contains various datasets of Catholics. So, if you’re trying to reaceh Notre Dame alum, people who work at parishes, or beyond, check out this product.

A while back Mark stayed at my house for a bit and I got to see how this product works. It’s in its early days, but if you’re trying to sell to value aligned customers, this is a really great tool.

And, it’s pretty affordable. Would recommend checking it out.

Mark did give me a code for this community if you guys use it you’ll get $25 of free spend (250 credits). I don’t make anything off of you using this, he just did it as a gift to the community.

Just shoot me a DM/reply to this email for the code. Don’t want AI bots scraping this post for it.

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

Hey you!

Notice how I didn’t say everyone? Well, that’s because despite this being a 1:N relationship, this post - and every post - is written for you.

Welcome back to the Saintly CEO. To say I appreciate you reading this is an understatement. After all, I’m literally obsessed with Catholic entrepreneurship, and to know that you are also into it makes me happy!

Today, we’re going to do things a little differently (do I have your attention now?)

1. I’m going to give you some updates / news (same old same old)

2. Then I’m going to highlight one specific thing that has stuck in my brain from a recent podcast episode (shorter than usual)

3. And then… drum roll please… I’m going to give you a little bit longer version of Heavenly Hustlers. More profiles and more detail. You could say, it’s going to be YUGE

At any rate, if you do enjoy today’s format - please do be a good fellow (or las) and let me know. Because, you know, it can get a little lonely writing into a void.

Oh an psst! As a reminder, the reason you should read this newsletter is that it’ll help you become a saint because of your business, not despite it.

[read time: ~9 min | word count 2,047]

News / Updates

• There is a kickass event for Catholic founders happening in SF this week — join if you’re around (and text your SF Catholic entrepreneur friends - we need to stick together) - Attend (yes, we are one of the sponsors)

• We’re looking to launch a monthly meetup in Columbus, Dallas, Nashville, and Austin - if you’re in those areas, get in touch to be involved.

• WE NEED MONEY! 🤣 This project isn’t free to run — if you’d like to support our mission AND make money (I know, give money to make money, such a concept), reach out to sponsor the podcast and newsletter (or maybe just one, who knows, depends on what you like). Email admin@catholicfounders.com to get in front of hundreds of Catholic business owners.

• We’re hosting a dinner in Dallas on March 12th. If you want to join (or sponsor) hit me up. VERY limited space.

• Nashville dinner/meetup: We are aiming tentatively for March 24th. DM me or email me to get on the list.

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

The Unexpected ROI of Radical Presence

A few weeks ago, Dr. Daniel Tataje came on the pod(check it out here). He relayed something he does with his employees that struck me deeply.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve actually witnessed this in real life when I met him at the SENT Summit in 2024.

He becomes fully present with the person he’s speaking with. As if you’re the only person in the world. When I experienced this, it was obvious that he was busy with something else prior to that. But when I put out my hand to introduce myself, he set it aside instantly and looked me in the eye.

That year’s summit had a lot of conversations and key moments, but that specific interaction was the most memorable for me.

What he does with his employees is a bit further. He tells them that they matter and that the world is incomplete if they don’t use their gifts.

In his clinics (he runs a large dental group in Madison, Wisconsin), he gets every employee to develop this same skill for each of their patients. When they are with a patient, they are a gift to that patient, and that patient is a gift to them.

Those two people are not anywhere else. They exist ini this moment. Not in the future and not in the past. Because the present moment is the only one they have, they focus on realizing the weight of it.

Through doing this, their clinics have grown like crazy because their patients know they are going to be well cared for. They also have incredible retention of talent compared to others in the space because, again, they are cared for.

The crux, humans enjoy being treated as if they have infinite dignity because they are created in the image and likeness of God. It just clicks.

Pro Tip of the Day: Recognize that each person you encounter is a gift, and treat them like it’s true. You’ll be returning the favor.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Hire Catholic Offshore Talent
We help you find vetted Catholic offshore talent to help your business grow. 

$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com 

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 🤖 Nhan Dinh is the Founder and CEO of Seller Labs, based in Alpharetta, Georgia, where he builds AI-forward software for Amazon sellers. I got to meet him last weekend at the BuildWithChrist.AI event, where he was leading a table. He also has 9 kids (so yeah, he’s super Catholic). In the past he scaled his own e-commerce venture to an impressive $11M in annual revenue. Now, he focuses his talents on simplifying complex software architectures and integrating agentic AI to help sellers automate growth. He’s also very involved in his local parish. Someone we can look up to.

• 🎥 John Blanford is a filmmaker and entrepreneur who co-founded Pastime Pictures, based in Atlanta, Georgia, a production company dedicated to crafting timeless stories that inspire and offer moral virtues. John is currently producing projects that elevate the human spirit, including the "Great Battles for Boys" series and the feature film Monster Summer starring Mel Gibson. A unique aspect of his journey is his commitment to the intrinsic creative value of every crew member—a philosophy reflected in his company's name, which subtly honors his and his co-founder's humble roots as Production Assistants. I also need to note that I think he has one of the coolest websites/landing pages I’ve ever seen.

• 🪚 Chris Czarka is the President and Founder of Ellington Custom Cabinetry LLC, based in Nashville, Tennessee, where he leads a family-owned custom cabinetry business. Obviously, this is dear to my heart as the son of a cabinet maker. Their focus is to create functional art for the heart of the home. What’s really fun is that he actually has an educational background in Philosophy. I wonder how much that influences how he runs the cabinet business. The story of how he started his own cabinetry business is pretty fascinating. We hope to tell it soon here on the pod.

• 🎻 Alex Wolaver studied at Juilliard and also co-founded ManAlive Studios, a production company specializing in high-end music and television content. He and his five siblings, as part of the acclaimed Annie Moses Band, create faith-based media—including the Emmy-nominated PBS special The Art of the Love Song and the Catholic children’s series The Wonderful World of Benjamin Cello—aimed at restoring beauty and spiritual integrity to modern entertainment. They run Packard Playhouse, a theatre in Columbia, TN that puts on some incredible productions. Alex is notable for his family’s collective conversion to the Catholic Church in 2013, a powerful journey sparked by their deep study of the arts, sacramental theology, and the writings of Pope Benedict XVI.

• 🏋️‍♂️ David Joniak is an Air Force veteran and seasoned fitness leader who founded Rescue Coffee + Fitness, based in Nashville, a mission-driven hybrid gym and coffeehouse concept. Drawing on over 16 years of managing top brands like Orangetheory and TITLE Boxing, David's venture combines functional strength training with specialty coffee to foster community. A remarkable aspect of this business is its central commitment to fighting child trafficking, with 10% of all proceeds and 100% of donations going directly to organizations that rescue local children. He’s joined by Stephen Hill in this endeavor.

• 🕵️‍♂️ Stephen Hill is an insurance advisor and Assistant General Agent at Nelson Insurance Advisors based in Woodstock, Georgia. His specialty is helping business owners and self-employed professionals maximize tax deductions and retirement benefits. Stephen and David are doing some incredible work to end Child Trafficking. If you’re interested in helping, reach out today.

• 🔍 Pedro Cadena is the co-founder of Servorum, a specialized recruiting firm based in Monterrey, dedicated to connecting Catholic business owners with values-aligned candidates across the globe. Pedro was a seminarian in the past, but after doing some work with my firm, he decided to launch his own thing. He’s doing some amazing work helping companies hire great talent offshore.

• 🚀 Jimmy Coleman is many things! Among them, he’s the Chief Growth Officer at Arimathea, Founder of X Cathedra, and a recent podcast guest of ours (in case you hadn’t noticed these past two weeks). You already know about Arimathea from the pod we did with Daniel Catone (or at least I hope you do). On top of all this, he’s the President of the SENT chapter for Charlotte. In the past, he ran over 50 miles carrying a flag that said “Eat my Flesh” — if he’s not a winner, I don’t know who is. Jimmy is a joy to our Catholic entrepreneur community. You should reach out to him if you’re looking for help getting more leads.

• ☕ Matt Johnson, Colm Kirwan, Clay Campbell, and Chris Coyne are building Gloria Patri coffee. An unapologetically Catholic coffee brand. They are based out of the Nashville area (you might be noticing a pattern with this week’s profiles). Their goal is to create Transcendental Goods, to inspire daily prayer. I also need to say, the video on their home page literally gave me goosebumps without even having the sound on. Well done!

🙋‍♂️ 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!

Share

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Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Highlight(s):

In case you missed last issue, we are changing the “Misc. Resources” (super original name) to be called Highlight(s) (even more original, amirite?)

Instead of a large list of resources, we’re just going to highlight one or two interesting things. Get the full list of resources here: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it (we just added several events). And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

How Catholics Should Approach Layoffs in the Age of AI (CF Guild Discussion)

This Tuesday (tomorrow), March 10th, the Catholic Founders Guild is getting together (at 1 pm CT) to discuss how we should approach layoffs in the age of AI. There has been a lot of discourse about this since Jack Dorsey laid off 40% of Block.

As Catholic business owners, we know we have a responsibility to our employees because they have families to care for. So we’ll be discussing this. If you’re a member of the Guild, join us. If you’re not, consider joining us really fast to get added. You can do so by upgrading to paid here.

Fio — Catholic Spotify (App)

Fio just released audiobooks on their platform. So, now they have a ton of Catholic audiobooks for you as you journey through Lent. I just had the chance to hang out with Will Hickl in person yesterday as he’s visiting Nashville. He’s also a member of our Catholic Founders Guild. So be sure to check out Fio.

My favorite thing about their model is that they have decided to pay their creators a LOT more than Spotify does, because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Excited to see where these guys keep going.

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

Happy First Monday of Lent! I hope everyone is off to a good start to the season. A season of letting go and offering up each part of our lives, to whatever God puts in front of us. So we may accept the battles at hand, rather than seek out a battle we’d feel comfortable with.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates

• Feature Content:

• Heavenly Hustlers

• (New!) Weekly Highlights

[read time: ~6 min | word count 1,386]

News / Updates

• Don’t miss our ‘breaking the founder bottleneck’ event this Tuesday (tomorrow). Exclusively for our Catholic Founders Guild members.

• We are starting a recurring monthly meetup in Wausau, WI — If you’re based there, check out the event link here.

• Come to the free BuildWithChrist.AI event in Atlanta on March 7th

• We’ll be hosting a dinner in Nashville, Dallas, Houston, and Austin in the not too distant future — stay tuned for details, and reach out to help organize.

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

Empty Me, Fill Me, Use Me: A Guide to Networking

This past Saturday, one of the first things I did was open the Hallow app to listen to day 4 of the Pray 40 challenge. It was an interview with Mother Olga. Let’s just say, I didn’t plan on crying at 6 am on a Saturday morning.

The story is very moving, but one phrase she mentioned really stood out to me.

Empty Me, Fill Me, Use Me — this is a prayer she has when she’s invited to events or speaking opportunities. She intentionally sets aside her agenda and asks God to set her agenda for her.

I immediately imagined seeing someone like her at a big conference or event, right there with all the really important people. The people we all want to speak with and pitch. The people we want to “connect” with.

But in my mind, she would be with the important people, precisely because she had no agenda. Or rather, her agenda is driven by the Holy Spirit. If your agenda is that of the Holy Spirit, how much easier it would be to go up to those people you want to meet with total confidence.

The confidence comes from detachment to your own will — and confidence in God’s will.

I think there is a lesson here — both in networking and generally in business.

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$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com 

The Choice

We fundamentally have two options in business. Our will or God’s will.

Reason has a role to play in performing God’s will, but what must happen first is intentionally relinquishing our will. So God can take over. Once we have made this prayer our own — Empty Me, Fill Me, Use Me — we can then begin down God’s highway.

Using This In Networking

With networking, instead of thinking how you can get something out of the event or meet someone, ask God to guide you to the people you need to meet — for your benefit or theirs.

Then tune into Holy Spirit FM — listen for and feel when the Spirit is calling you to walk up to someone — Empty Me, Fill Me, Use Me.

A huge part of this is noticing things. Noticing people — noticing our feelings — noticing when something just seems like the right thing to do.

Try this next time you’re in a situation that involves networking.

Using This In Business

In business generally, when making our short and long term plans, let’s practice the same thing — Empty Me, Fill Me, Use Me — surely this will lead to a better outcome. Better meaning, more in alignment with God’s will.

The Saintly CEO

Finally, imagine one of the holiest people you know. How do they carry themselves in situations like these? If you’ve not seen them in such a situation, imagine how they would behave.

Are they gunning to ‘connect’ with someone to achieve their agenda or do they flow more naturally?

You might be thinking — sure but the holiest people I know don’t run a business.

So what?

Why can’t you have the same holy characteristics as them while running a business? Why can’t the holiest person you know be a business owner? Perhaps if you take this idea of holiness seriously, you can become the holiest person others know — while still being a business owner.

Empty Me, Fill Me, Use Me — Let us make this our refrain each day. May it be the beginning of our commitment to doing God’s will rather than our own.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Get in front of 100s of Catholic Business Owners
Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

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

• 🥃 Raj Bhakta is the Founder of Whistle Pig Whiskey. He made headlines recently because he purchased the Green Mountain College and is giving it away to a worthy cause that 1) promotes the Catholic Faith and 2) preserves Western tradition. Could be you?

• 👰🤵‍♂️ Matt Brooks is the Founder of The Marriage Group. A Catholic marriage pre-canna course (and more).

• 🎥 Sonny Varela is the Founder & Executive Producer of Scope & Sequence. A video & creative agency that works with mission driven orgs.

• 🇺🇸 Matthew Peterson is the Co-Founder and GP at New Founding. A VC firm that is focused on investing in “The America You Want to Live In.” (Love that!)

• 📊 David Brecount is the founder of US Digital Partners. A marketing agency that works across design and analytics.

• 💰 Stephen Hepburn and Tim Hepburn are building Drexel & Co. Financial Planning. Gotta love a family duo (I know I do).

🙋‍♂️ 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!

Share

Highlight(s) (NEW NAME — who dis?)

We are going to change this section up a bit. In the past we had a list of various resources + some content we’ve been liking lately. But we are going to focus on highlighting one or two things each time now.

If you want the full list of resources, you can get them here: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.

The Catholic Founders Resource Guide

Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).

Today’s Highlights Are…

Build With Christ (Event)

March 7th, 2026 at Phase Events, Alpharetta, GA

Watch professional teams build software for Adopt a Family. While there, get free coaching on how to use AI so you can upskill yourself.

The event is free to attend, but requires registration. There is also a virtual component for those who cannot make it in person.

Also, please note if you’re attending, they also offer free, professional childcare.

You can learn more about the event on the recent promo we did with one of the organizers, Michael Lyons.

Eliminate Owner Dependency (Event)

February 24th (Tomorrow) the Catholic Founders Guild is hosting our monthly expert call with Susan Fennema.

She’s an expert at helping business owners create and implement systesm so their busienss is not a prison.

This is a virtual event that is only open to paying members of the Catholic Founders Guild. If you’d like to join, you can do so here for $100 a year or $10 a month.

That’s all folks! See you next time — and don’t forget, you were created to create!

~Silas Mähner

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

PSA: Lent starts on Wednesday. (Hopefully, you knew this already.) Be sure to get your Ash in Church (sorry, I had to).

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates

• Feature Content:

• Heavenly Hustlers

• Misc Resources

[read time: ~6 min | word count 1,295]

News / Updates

• Lent starts on Wednesday — be sure to get your ashes and to prepare, in order to make a good Lent.

• Keep an eye out — we’re releasing the podcast tomorrow instead of Thursday, because it contains some good advice about doing Lent well. AND it’s our first episode with a priest. Hyped for that.

• We’re planning to host a dinner/hangout in Nashville soon — reach out if you’re interested (if you’re local or planning to drive/fly in)

• If you’d like to host a meetup/dinner in your area, reach out — admin@catholicfounders.com

• Get your company in front of hundreds of Catholic biz owners by becoming a sponsor of the show — admin@catholicfounders.com

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today
In my experience, the best way to improve yourself, is to go full emersion. Surround yourself with Catholic Founders who know their calling is to be instruments of God's will in the world. 

Through the content, community, and networking, you'll become a better Catholic business owner. 

Join a community of aspiring saints -- who also happen to be business owners. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

How Lent Can Transform The Lows Of Business Into A Hand Delivered Gift From God

If you’re paying any attention to your faith, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of advice on the three pillars of Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. I won’t focus on those today.

Instead, let’s take the next 40 days to do one thing in our businesses, and let’s do it really well.

We’re going to offer up all the ‘lows’ of business to God.

In business, even when things are going great, there are challenges (things suck). It’s the nature of the beast. Our first instinct is to fix the business by getting rid of those problems, but we actually come closer to God by accepting them. There is nothing wrong with improving your processes so you don’t face the same issues tomorrow, but while you have them, don’t let them get you worked up.

Each challenge is an opportunity to trust God — to trust that ‘this bad news is not the end of my world.’ Let’s be real, if your soul is in a state of grace, no news is truly consequential.

If you started your business for the right reasons, you aren’t doing this for easy money or recognition. A Catholic Founder runs their business because they recognize they’ve been given a talent(s) and they had better not bury it in the sand.

The mystical part is that God is bringing us closer to Him through the business itself; we are answering His call. If we believe this, how can we not praise Him for the challenges He sends our way?

In most cases, we have no idea why He sent a specific challenge or what He is preparing us for. It doesn’t matter. What matters is accepting it as coming directly from the hands of God.

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$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

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The Benefits of This Approach:

• Lower Stress: If you’re not worrying (because you trust in God) you’ll have a lot less stress.

• A New Perspective: You’ll see each challenge as a gift from God.

• Constant Prayer: You’ll think about God more often because each challenge makes Him present in your workday.

• Business Clarity: You’ll identify your bottlenecks quickly (nothing shouts “problem” like pain).

• Personal Calm: You’ll become more composed in other areas of life by mastering your response to professional friction.

Ultimately, practicing this acceptance is how we learn to say ‘yes’ to our cross.

By embracing our unique cross, we walk in unity with Christ as He carried The Cross (which bore the weight of the entire world’s sins). The more we unite our lives with His Passion, the more like Him we become. We grow in true love. True love is fundamentally about sacrifice — as proven by the ultimate sacrifice of His only-begotten Son.

3 Tips for Your Lenten Journey:

To wrap up, use these 3 tips to help you do this as you embark on your Lenten journey.

1. Journal for 5 Minutes Each Morning: Every morning, write down (in your own words — speak from the heart here) a commitment to accept anything you receive that day as a gift from God. Commit to bearing it all patiently and with gratitude.

2. Gift or Curse. You Decide: When bad news hits your desk, recognize that God is personally delivering you a gift. Whether that gift appears positive or negative depends entirely on your disposition toward it.

3. The Evening Audit: Before bed, review how you responded to those gifts. Where did you succeed? Where did you fail? Offer it all to God. Use this as an opportunity for humility. To recognize how reliant you are on Him for literally everything.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

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If you'd like to get your business in front of hundreds of other Catholic business owners, reach out to sponsor this project (prices as low as $50 per issue). 
Email us to inquire: admin@catholicfounders.com 

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 💼 Dan Fuerst runs Briefcase Marketing. Helping Catholic-run organizations launch websites and Google/Meta ads that inspire people to take action. Owner of Briefcase Marketing

• 🧔‍♂️ Tony Vasinda and Michael Marchand co-founded Catholic Balm Co. In case you’re interested in some of the story behind them, starting this co, check out this article. (PS: if you know them, intro me so I can get one or both of them on the pod.)

• ☕ Brian and Trisha Galvan run St. Benedict Coffee Company and are restarting their biz out of a food truck at the University Catholic Center at the University of Texas in Austin (learn more here).

• ✝️ Matt Zerrusen is the founder of Newman Ministry. Based in the Dallas area.

• 🧮 Gabriel Malavolti is the CEO of Tavola Group. A holistic accounting, tax, and business advisory services firm.

🙋‍♂️ 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!

Share

Get in front of 100s of Catholic Business Owners
Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Misc. Resources:

Groups:

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year

• Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free, and there are a ton of great folks there.

• Apply to become a member of SENT

• Fides Entrepreneurship Group

• Check out Catholic Owned

Events:

• Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC)

• Upcoming DOMINUS Lab Events

Content:

• Check out last week’s episode, where I explain the key lesson that Mozart’s life has for us as Catholic entrepreneurs.

• Here is the episode of Founders that spawned that idea.

Services:

• Hire Catholic Offshore Talent: admin@catholicfounders.com

• [Become a sponsor today AND support the show while doing]

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

Welcome back for part 3 of 3 on why you’re called to build community.

It’s important to read Part 1 on the theology (the WHY) behind this idea — and Part 2 focuses on your parish and your neighborhood. Would recommend reading that too, but not critical before jumping into today’s post.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates

• Feature Content: Build Community In Your Business, and Within Your Industry

• Heavenly Hustlers

• Misc Resources

[read time: ~7.5 min | word count 1,648]

News / Updates

• We’re planning to host a dinner/hangout in Nashville soon — reach out if you’re interested (if you’re local or planning to drive/fly in)

• If you’d like to host a meetup / dinner in your area, reach out — admin@catholicfounders.com

• Get your company in front of hundreds of Catholic biz owners by becoming a sponsor of the show — admin@catholicfounders.com

• Please! Check out last week’s episode of the podcast with Dr. Daniel Tataje!!! His story is one that should inspire all of us with a few ways we can learn to be saints in business. Please listen to it and reach out to him if you’re looking for advice on growing your biz.

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

Build Your Business Community

Alright! So far, we’ve covered community building in the Family, the Parish, and the Neighborhood. Now, let’s talk about building community in your business and with other business owners.

Your business is not just a way to make money. It’s an engine of community.

You have employees, customers, suppliers, and then the general public that interface with your business (especially relevant for brick and mortar).

What are you to do with this engine?

Number 1: Build Community for/with Your Employees.

Your employees are more than your employees. They are humans with human desires and needs. They want to feel a sense of belonging at work. This doesn’t always mean a warm and fuzzy work culture with beanbags and free lunches. In most cases, that’s actually not it. People want to be respected at work. They want to know their workmates and boss have their back. They want to be part of a bigger mission. They want to have opportunities to grow and be challenged. You can create that through how you treat your employees.

You can also help them foster friendships with each other.

Consider hosting events for your team outside of a work context. Volunteering for a community project, going to mass together, hosting a picnic, lunches, etc. Ways for them to be around each other, outside of the work context helps them to develop friendships. When this happens, they start to understand each other better and have more empathy for their co-worker in times of need or challenge.

This also helps with employee retention and recruiting (it becomes its own gravitational pull, keeping people there and bringing new folks into orbit).

Number 2: Build community with other business owners.

This relates to business owners in your industry, your local geography, and with other Catholic business owners.

Within Your Industry:

Developing a strong community with your industry peers helps with collaboration/partnerships, learning for you, helping each other out if needed, etc. And one last key thing is — the ability to shape the industry. If you can influence these others to act a certain way, say within a framework of Christian morals, couldn’t you imagine the entire industry trending in a certain way? Thus leading to better outcomes for all of your customers (aka, many humans).

In Your Local Geography:

Especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar, but even if you’re not, you live in a place. You’re surrounded by other business owners who have a vested interest in the success of the community. Why not host breakfast gatherings, dinners, or even just 1:1 coffee chats with them? You never know when the time may come for you, as a local community of business owners may come to help influence a city board meeting or maybe get approval for some community project y’all want to fund.

Especially if you’re in an area with high foot traffic, y’all together could do a lot to beautify the space, even just through how you decorate and maintain your shops.

With other Catholic Business Owners:

This may not seem obvious to you, but that’s okay, because I’m literally obsessed with this topic.

We as Catholics, who also run/own businesses, believe (know) ourselves to have the morally correct position on many matters (because the Church possesses the fullness of the truth). If we actually believe that, why wouldn’t we be involved in influencing the world around us towards that gold standard — truth?

If you’re serious about doing that, you’re going to want to have allies who also understand these same things. Other Catholic business owners who will put in a call, donate money, or offer their assets for your use. If you’ve got enough of you, you can achieve a lot of things.

On top of this, it gives you the opportunity to learn how other Catholic business owners are integrating their faith into their work. Or working through a tough challenge. This matters because we do not approach our challenges in the same way that a secular entrepreneur would. We know there is eternity behind each decision.

To build this community:

• Host general meetups

• Go to mass together

• Meet with them 1:1

• Rally behind their projects

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (yes, it’s a plug - but it’s great, I promise)

Through doing this well, we can retake society for God. Much more easily than we can alone.

Unity for Good:

I must point out that the purpose of this coordination and collaboration is to operate in unity — in the same way the Trinity has perfect unity, we aim to imitate that. However, we must resist the urge to do things that just benefit us at the expense of others. None of this works unless we are acting in a morally acceptable way.

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$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com 

The Bottom Line

At the end of all this, there are two key reasons to build community in business as we’ve laid out today.

1. To have influence so that you can organize this group of people to do things that are good for society. If you want to build a project for the community (say a mural) wouldn’t it be a lot easier to make that happen if you have dozens of employees willing to help out with time, as well as other influential business owners willing to pitch in financially and politically in your area?

2. To create a foundation of friendship, which is the soil upon which conversion can begin. Without this deeper, more than transactional relationship, you cannot invite people to mass. They cannot see what you’re about enough to get curious. The opportunities for sowing are just fewer when you’re just another transaction during their day.

Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s get to work.

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 🍻 Thor Cheston is the owner of Right Proper Brewing out of DC. Shoutout to SENT Ventures for the recent highlight to help me discover him.

• 🧔‍♂️ Tony Vasinda is the co-owner of Catholic Balm Co. (They have some great beard balm, soap, and other men’s hygine products).

• 🤖 Alejandro Laplana is the founder and CEO of Shokworks, Inc. Founding Partner of Austin AI Lab. And an investor in many other companies. If you’re interested in where AI is headed practically, and want some strategic advice, I’d highly recommend reaching out to him.

• 💸 Eric Jones is the President of Workforce PayHub Inc and owner of Your Financial Solutions, Inc. Based out of the Detroit area.

• 🌐 Carson Weber is the Founder and CEO of On Fire Media, where they do digital marketing and website development.

🙋‍♂️ 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!

Share

Get in front of 100s of Catholic Business Owners
Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Misc. Resources:

Groups:

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year

• Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free and there are a ton of great folks there.

• Apply to become a member of SENT

• Fides Entrepreneurship Group

• Join DOMINUS Lab (kind of like Catholic YC)

• Check out Catholic Owned

Events:

• Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC)

• Upcoming DOMINUS Lab Events

Content:

• Last week’s guest beat PE firms offers to buy out dentist offices, even tho he had a lower offer. Learn why. (Yes, this is a very YouTube-esque title, but this is one of the best guests we’ve ever had on).

• I really enjoyed this episode of the Catholic Gentleman (The Husband’s Authority (4 Ways Men Are Called to Protect Their Families)

Services:

• Hire Catholic Offshore Talent: admin@catholicfounders.com

• [Become a sponsor today AND support the show while doing]

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

Happy Monday folks! We’re back with part II of our community buildign series. If you missed last week’s please read it first for the context.

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find…

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates

• Feature Content:

• Heavenly Hustlers

• Misc Resources

[read time: ~6 min | word count 1,183]

News / Updates

• If you’d like to to host a Catholic Founders meetup in your area, reach out so we can help organize it, provide the materials, and cover some of the refreshments. admin@catholicfounders.com - Subject line: CF MEETUP

• For Guild Members, if you missed last week’s call with Ryan Cruz, check it out. He covered how to fill up your pipeline using Content, Outreach, and Paid Ads. It was well-attended. If you’re not a Guild member, consider upgrading today to watch the recording and attend future events (we host 2 per month).

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

Building Community At Your Parish & In Your Neighborhood

Last week, we explored the theology of community, and building it for your family. But once the family is in order, where do we go next?

The Parish and your Neighborhood.

In America, most parishes have been decaying for decades. We are in a period of rebuilding. However, without a large staff of clergy, rebuilding is in our hands. We need to pick up our tools and start building.

Embracing this mentality is a counter to the consumerism behavior that our society promotes currently.

The good news, getting started doing this, is actually super easy.

Community Building In The Pews:

• Invite: When was the last time you invited a family from the parish over for dinner?

• Connect: Have you had coffee with a fellow business owner from your church?

• Organize: Start a rosary group or a simple study. These things require almost no effort, but they create communion. You can’t love a community you don’t actually know.

Community Building In Your Actual Neighborhood:

Most of us forget that our neighbors, like, actual neighbors, are our mission field. And by extension your street and entire neighborhood. How many of us know our neighbors to any serious degree?

Here are some ways to build community in your neighborhood.

• Host Dinners: Invite neighbors over for dinner to get to know them.

• Organize Outings: Invite several of your neighbors to a local event or museum to spend time together.

• Host a Block Party: This is a tad more work but a great way to light up the neighborhood and build shared community.

• Maintain Your Yard: This may seem silly, but simply creating a beautiful space has an effect on the community. How many folks will make their yard nicer when they see you putting in the effort.

There are many benefits to this including a safer community, people you can rely on, friends for your children, and increasing your network. But the most critical component to this is, through having exposure to your life, they have the opportunity to be touched by Christ through you — assuming you’re living your faith.

If you have a brick-and-mortar location, the same applies to that neighborhood as well. Even if it’s in an industrial park, there are ways to build community and welcome that exposure to your way of life. You could host a taco truck on Tuesdays drawing in more local employees etc. There are a lot of things you can do with physical locations — if you need ideas, reach out and we’ll chat.

To reiterate, none of this is done as a ‘scheme’ to convert people. This is done because it ultimately benefits our society. But, if we are living out our faith in practice, it will create the opportunities to invite people further into the faith. To invite them to mass and more.

Next week, we’ll wrap this up by covering how you build community within your business and among other Catholic business owners.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Hire Catholic Offshore Talent
We help you find vetted Catholic offshore talent to help your business grow. 

$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com 

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• ✍️ Keaton Tucker hasn’t launched anything yet but keep an eye on him. He’s working on something pretty fascinating.

• 🚗 Zuhair Madanat runs Auto Glass Experts in North Carolina. He’s grown the business rapidly and takes a very human-centric approach to how he runs the business. He credits God for everything. A very inspiring figure.

• 📚 Pat Neve is a fellow podcaster, substacker, and author, who just today, released a book called Save Your Parish. Check it out on Amazon today. We’ll likely have him on the show soon to discuss this idea.

• 💸 Dan Hamlet runs 360 Integrated Financial. Which he started after deciding he wanted to focus on Faith-Integrated investing. He even has a book on it.

• ⚡️ Stephen Filippo and his wife run JMJ Power. An org that helps churches and schools save money on their electric bill. He also runs a real estate outfit.

🙋‍♂️ 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!

Share

Get in front of 100s of Catholic Business Owners
Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Misc. Resources:

Groups:

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year

• Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free and there are a ton of great folks there.

• Apply to become a member of SENT

• Fides Entrepreneurship Group

• Join DOMINUS Lab (kind of like Catholic YC)

• Check out Catholic Owned

Events:

• Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC)

• Upcoming DOMINUS Lab Events

Content:

• If you didn’t see it, read last week’s Saintly CEO, check it out so you understand the context of today’s post.

• Check out last week’s episode with Federico Chavez-Torres on taking back magnificent as Catholics.

• I’ve recently been really enjoying the Cost of Glory Podcast on the lives of ancient Romans and Greeks by Alex Petkas.

• Check out the Founders podcast episode on Harry Snyder - the founder of In-N-Out Burger. There are a lot of lessons in there I think we as Catholics should apply to how we run our businesses.

Services:

• Hire Catholic Offshore Talent: admin@catholicfounders.com

• [Become a sponsor today AND support the show while doing]

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

Happy Monday folks! Last Monday of January — can’t believe it’s already been a month. I hope your New Year’s goals are making good progress!

Today, we are kicking off a three-part series on community building. First, we discuss the ‘theology’ of community building and our responsibility to do so — along with the first community we need to focus on building: our family.

In the coming weeks, we’ll cover building up our parish, local, and business communities.

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

• News/Updates

• Feature Content:

• Heavenly Hustlers

• Misc Resources

[read time: ~6 min | word count 1,343]

News / Updates

• We’re looking for partners to help us host local Catholic Founders hang-outs. If you’d like to become a host, reach out to admin@catholicfounders.com with the subject line “HOSTING HELP” and we’ll be in touch.

• We’re looking for anchor sponsors to help us fund this work — if you’d like to get in front of hundreds of Catholic business owners each week, reach out to admin@catholicfounders.com for more information.

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today

We're building the largest network of Catholic biz owners in the world.

It's for any Catholic biz owner who believes they are called to be an instrument of God's will in the world. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

Curious? --> "What is the Catholic Founders Guild"

The Theology of Community and How to Build it For Your Family (Part 1)

If we want to take the culture back for God, big solutions are important. But we should first look at the foundational solutions that we can all affect.

Society is built on the family. Period. The family is the first natural community — a direct reflection of the Holy Trinity. In the root of the word “community,” we find communion. A togetherness. A shared life.

But look around. Most of us in the US are living in a state of severe isolation. Depression is at an all-time high, and it’s no mystery why. Man is a social creature. We weren’t designed to grind in a vacuum. Our perfect “end state” is perfect communion with God and the Saints in heaven. If that’s the goal, we have to start practicing that rhythm here on earth.

As Catholic founders, we have a specific duty of stewardship. But where do we start?

It starts with your family.

This sounds obvious, but many of us get it backward. We treat our vocation to marriage as something we “fit in” around our career. That is a disordered life.

It’s not about a “magic number” of hours spent at home. It’s about building a life that allows you, your spouse, and your children to orbit your faith. God is at the center, you and the family are scheduling your entire week around The Faith.

Faith and family aren’t a ball you kick down the field every so often to feel like you’re making progress. They are the point.

The Strategy:

1. Witness to the ‘Forced’ Community: In a sense, God ‘forced’ your extended family into your life. You didn’t choose them, but you are called to minister to them. You don’t need to go to a foreign land to be a missionary — start with your cousins and siblings.
   The point of this is to truly be there for your family. If you don’t know what is going on in their lives, how can you help them? If you don’t have a true connection, how will they feel comfortable coming to you in those times of need?
   All of us have family who need to hear the Gospel — how do we expect to do that without even spending time with them?

2. Cultivate Future Allies: Your job as a father isn’t an 18-year project. It’s a multi-generational legacy. You should be looking for other families who share your values now, so your children grow up surrounded by potential spouses and business partners who actually care about the Faith.
   Some see this as cold-hearted and old school, but is it really? Or is it just common sense? What parent doesn’t want their children to be surrounded by others who will help them, inspire them, and above all, encourage them to live out their Faith?
   Along these lines, check out this book, Leaving a Legacy. We recently interviewed the author.

Start This Week! (Challenge)

Look at your calendar. Do God and family get the ‘first fruits’ of your time? Or does your work force your family to ‘fit in?’ Pick one routine this week to move God and family back to the center. It can be something as small as an immovable block for morning prayer. Maybe you decide to listen to the readings of the day while sitting down with the family for breakfast.

There are plenty of things like this where you can show your priorities through your time. You show your love to God by doing this, and you show how to live to your children.

Next week, we’re going to talk about community building in our Parish and in our local community (town/city/neighborhood). Stay tuned for that.

Until then, God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Hire Catholic Offshore Talent
We help you find vetted Catholic offshore talent to help your business grow. 

$500 upon hire and $500 if you're still happy in 30 days. 

Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com 

Heavenly Hustlers

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

• 🔍 Mark Evgenev is building Desync AI. A data extraction tool that can help you find values-aligned customers (among other things). I met Mark the other day, and one of his goals is to make people smile more. It’s simple but profound. He said our generation doesn’t smile enough, and I agree. Let’s all be more like Mark.

• 🤵‍♂️ Chris Cottrell is co-founder and CEO of Shepherd’s Clothing, as well as the owner and co-CEO of Rite-a-Way Garage Doors and Gates, and Managing Partner at Verde Peak Partners (buying small businesses in Arizona, responsibly). (Chris, if you’re reading this, let’s get you on the pod)

• 🤳 Seamus Harvey is an expert marketer and is also building a personal training biz on the side. Follow for inspo on how to market well.

• ✝️ Sean Murray is building Catholicsm Rocks (Catholic Stickers)

• ⚙️ Matthew Longo is building CRMs for Non-Profits.

• 🏘️ Daniel Egan (past pod guest) has been doing side hustles forever, but recently just set out on his own in earnest. He’s building a consulting firm for PE firms that roll up home services businesses. He’s also the creator of the Angelus Bell Chrome extension.

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

Share

Get in front of 100s of Catholic Business Owners
Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Misc. Resources:

Groups:

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year

• Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free, and there are a ton of great folks there.

• Apply to become a member of SENT

• Fides Entrepreneurship Group

• Join DOMINUS Lab (kind of like Catholic YC)

Events:

• Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC)

• Upcoming DOMINUS Lab Events

Content:

• Our episode with is still one of my favorites to date. Check it out if you care about Family Legacy at all. Perhaps you think we shouldn’t focus on it — all the more reason to hear a Catholic’s take on it.

• A throwback: #17 with on the moral importance of truth in marketing. Classic episode.
  

Services:

• Hire Catholic Offshore Talent: admin@catholicfounders.com

• [Become a sponsor today AND support the show while doing]

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

Happy Monday folks! Welcome to another issue of The Saintly CEO. Today is short again (skipping Heavenly Hustlers). This time my excuse is, I actually did a good job of observing the Sabbath and just punched this out in the wee hours of the night. I hope you don’t mind the brevity this week. Soon I will be back into a somewhat normal schedule after we find our long term place in Nashville and client work dies down a bit.

If you’re new here:
The Saintly CEO is a newsletter that comes out every Monday morning with the intention of helping you learn how to run your business like a Saint — or rather, how to become a Saint through running your business.

If you believe that you’re called to be an instrument of God’s will in the world, and you’re a business owner, this is probably going to be one of your favorite corners of the interet — nay it will!

[read time: ~6.5 min | word count 1,422]

The Eye-Contact ROI: Why Treating People as a Gift is Your Best Growth Strategy

I recently recorded a podcast with Daniel Tataje of Mercy Dental. Out of the many pieces of wisdom he shared, one has really been stuck in my mind these past few days. He teaches every person on his team to look every patient in the eye and treat them, quite literally, as a gift.

It sounds simple, but I wanted to dig into what that actually means and why it’s so transformative for a business.

It’s Not a Tactic

First, we have to be clear: this is not a tactic you do for the sole purpose of benefitting your business. We don’t do this to make more money or for our own benefit. We do it because it’s the right thing to do — it is a truly Christ-like behavior.

To do this consistently, it has to be part of who you are — a fundamental belief rather than just a habit. You have to recognize intellectually that the person in front of you is a gift, created specifically by God, and there is no other person like them. When that is front and center in your mind, a certain type of communication happens beyond any words that are said. Deep down, they know they’re being respected.

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today
Get access to all CF Guild online events, the recordings, paywalled content, the CF Guild community/group chat, and CF Guild member directory. 

Many members have reported doing business with other CF Guild members within months of joining. 

With an annual membership fee of $100, it’s a total no-brainer to join. Consider this an association of Catholic business owners, not a high-commitment community that will sap your time. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

The Customer: Building on Dignity

When you recognize that a customer is infinitely loved by God and is a gift to you at that moment — because their time isn’t being spent with anyone else — it hits you in a certain way.

The impact is tangible. They enjoy the experience, they want to come back, and they tell their friends. But why? It’s because the beginning of a relationship is being formed. That’s all business is: relationships between people.

Customers will recognize that something is different about your business compared to the place that only cares about money, or the place where the employee hates their job and wants to leave every second of the day. You’ll even find they give you more deference; if there’s a dispute, they might go easier on you because they appreciate the relationship.

The Upward Spiral: Leading Your Team

The real question is: how do you get your employees to begin this “upwardly spiraling” positive effect?

It starts with you. You must look each employee in the eye and recognize that they, too, are a gift to you and to all of humanity. Employees will do what you do. If you have that level of respect in the interview phase, top talent will be drawn to you. You might not have the biggest salary or the best benefits, but you can offer something that is free and rare: true respect.

Imagine the impact on someone’s life when you help them recognize their own significance. Nowadays, so many people do not feel any level of importance. When you treat them with dignity, you gain more trust, more deference for your leadership, and a team that is willing to put in the hard hours because they respect the fact that you respect them.

Hire Catholic Overseas Talent
In LatAm and the Philippines, there are millions of Catholic remote workers (across all domains) who want to work for ethical bosses. 

Often they’re treated as second class citizens or work for organizations that ask them to do questionable things. They reach out to us in search of a Catholic boss. 

So, we started ParacleteVA (website coming soon). 

With ParacleteVA, we’ll find you vetted, Catholic overseas talent who will help you move your business forward. 

How it works: Pay a $500 finders fee when the candidate starts and $500 if you’re still happy with them after 30 days. 

To get started reach out to admin@catholicfounders.com with what you’re looking for and we’ll get started. 

The Bottom Line

When it is the core belief of every employee that each person has value, they can’t help but lift each other up. This breeds a workplace where people actually want to be, dramatically lowering the cost of employee acquisition because your people become your best recruiters.

Let’s recap the benefits of this behavior:

• Customer Loyalty & Referrals: People don’t just buy; they become advocates. They tell their friends and leave the kind of Google reviews that money can’t buy.

• Customer Deference: When a mistake happens (and it will), customers who feel respected are far more likely to be patient and forgiving.

• Talent Attraction: You win the “war for talent” not by outbidding on salary, but by offering a culture of significance that high-performers crave.

• Operational Efficiency: Trust leads to better follow-through. When employees respect you, they follow instructions more closely and work harder when the pressure is on.

• A Self-Sustaining Culture: This creates a workplace that uplift itself. Employees treat each other—and your customers—with the same dignity you show them, creating a reinforcing loop of growth.

And let’s not forget the merit we store up eternally when we make this behavior core to our every day life.

I don’t see how it’s possible not to have benefits from this behavior. But a final reminder: none of this is possible if it doesn’t stem from a true belief in individual dignity. You will see the benefits, but you must not do it for the benefits. Do it because each person is a gift from God, and they deserve infinite respect.

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Heavenly Hustlers

Check back next week… hopefully by then we will be resuming the HH section…I think?

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

Share

Become a Sponsor! Get your message in front of hundreds of Catholic business owners! Reach out today —> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Misc. Resources:

Content:

• If you care about building a family legacy (or if you’re against it) please listen to our episode with Johann Kurtz from last week. He’s the creator of the Becoming Nobel substack and the author of Leaving a Legacy: Inheritance, Charity, & Thousand-Year Families. This episode has a lot of gold in it.

• I’ve been loving the Cost of Glory Podcast recenetly to help me get educated on the classics. Not entirely related to business but does teach me a lot about being a great leader.

Groups:

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year

• Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free and there are a ton of great folks there.

• Apply to become a member of SENT

• Fides Entrepreneurship Group

• Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups)

Events:

• Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC)

• Upcoming DOMINUS Lab Events

Services:

• OFFSHORE TALENT: Hire a Catholic Virtual Assistant through ParacleteVA (email us: dearcfpod@gmail.com)

• [Become a sponsor today AND support the show while doing]

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

Hey folks. Keeping this ultra short because I just moved to Nashville last weekend and I’ve been a tad occupied getting set up 😅 (hopefully you can forgive me)

Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.

Each week you’ll find… (well… not this week XD)

CF News/Updates | Tactical Advice to Run Your Biz Like a Saint | Other Catholic Biz Owners For You to Meet (Heavenly Hustlers) | And Some Misc. Resources

[read time: ~4 min | word count 897]

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today
Get access to all CF Guild online events, the recordings, paywalled content, the CF Guild community/group chat, and CF Guild member directory. 

Many members have reported doing business with other CF Guild members within months of joining. 

With an annual membership fee of $100, it’s a total no-brainer to join. Consider this an association of Catholic business owners, not a high-commitment community that will sap your time. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

The Correct Pursuit of Ambition

During my drive to Nashville last weekend, I decided to binge The Cost of Glory podcast (~20 episodes), which explores the lives of Greek and Roman heroes through the lens of Plutarch. Listening to the sagas of men like Gaius Marius, Pyrrhus, and Eumenes, I couldn’t help but notice: these were men of immense talent and “virtue.” But most of them simply didn’t know when enough was enough. They crossed the line one way or the next and it led to their demise. In some cases to the demise of their progeny.

They pursued personal greatness as an end in itself. However, the more power they tasted, the more they hungered for, eventually leading to ruin. They weren’t striving for country or legacy; they were striving for themselves.

Naturally, I began to reflect on my own ambitions. How far can one go without crossing that line? Wouldn’t I be different?

This is the wrong question to start with, though. It’s not about how far you can go; it’s about the intention from the start.

Audacious ambition is only properly ordered when we do it for God with complete and utter resignation to His will.

The Roman heroes failed because their perspective was fundamentally selfish.

Our goal cannot be to build a monument to our own names. It must be to glorify God through using all the skills and gifts that He has given us. Our life, our station in life, our skills, etc. — all of these are from God.

Having ambition in this way is then a fulfillment of the call to be good stewards. We work diligently with all our might, but we accept the outcome.

Certainly, we can strive for a certain vision of where our efforts might lead. This is done best when we aim for a vision that is in line with God’s. But even if we don’t have that discernment, we can pursue this grand ambition with full resignation to God’s will. Because ultimately, we know He will direct the outcome.

Doing this is the path through which we come closer to Him. The same way you develop a bond with someone that you work with for years, you develop an even deeper bond with God through a lifetime of commitment to His will.

The next time you contemplate your goals, ask yourself: “Am I pursuing this for my own glory, or for the glory of God?”

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

SPONSOR Catholic Founders!
We are currently filling out our sponsorship spots for 2026 -- if you'd like to get in front of Catholic business owners around America, please reach out: admin@catholicfounders.com 

Hire Catholic Overseas Talent
In LatAm and the Philippines, there are millions of Catholic remote workers (across all domains) who want to work for ethical bosses. 

Often they’re treated as second class citizens or work for organizations that ask them to do questionable things. They reach out to us in search of a Catholic boss. 

So, we started ParacleteVA (website coming soon). 

With ParacleteVA, we’ll find you vetted, Catholic overseas talent who will help you move your business forward. 

How it works: Pay a $500 finders fee when the candidate starts and $500 if you’re still happy with them after 30 days. 

To get started reach out to admin@catholicfounders.com with what you’re looking for and we’ll get started. 

Misc. Resources:

Groups:

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year

• Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free and there are a ton of great folks there.

• Apply to become a member of SENT

• Fides Entrepreneurship Group

• Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups)

Events:

• Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC)

• Upcoming DOMINUS Lab Events

Content:

• A reflection on our need for personal transformation of heart (a pod)

• Jamie Baxter on having detachment while running a successful business (episode 44)

Services:

• OFFSHORE TALENT: Hire a Catholic Virtual Assistant through ParacleteVA (email us: admin@catholicfounders.com)

• [Become a sponsor today AND support the show while doing]

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

Happy New Year Everyone!

This is the first issue of Saintly CEO for the year! Saturday, we shared our key lessons from 2025. Yesterday, we published a Sunday Special with Jamie Baxter, founder of Exodus 90. Tomorrow we have a surprise for you. And Thursday, we’ll have another episode as well. Lots of content to get the year started off (don’t expect this much content going forward).

Today, as always, the Saintly CEO newsletter helps you learn how to run your business like a saint. Each week you’ll find…

Tactical Advice & a List of Catholic Biz Owners (Heavenly Hustlers)

[read time: ~8.5 min | word count 1,886]

News / Updates

• 🍝 In 2026, we aim to host 12 dinners around the country for Catholic Founders. If you’d like to help make this happen in your city, reach out. We only need ~12 Catholic business owners, a space, and some food.

• 👀 Keep an eye out for a special surprise tomorrow.

• Sponsorships: We are looking for 3 anchor sponsors to support the show in 2026 — reach out to learn more admin@catholicfounders.com

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today
Get access to all CF Guild online events, the recordings, paywalled content, the CF Guild community/group chat, and CF Guild member directory. 

Many members have reported doing business with other CF Guild members within months of joining. 

With an annual membership fee of $100, it’s a total no-brainer to join. Consider this an association of Catholic business owners, not a high-commitment community that will sap your time. 

Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.

The Foundation of a Saintly CEO: Why Personal Transformation Must Come First

The mission of Catholic Founders is simple: to give you the tools and frameworks to carry out God’s will through your work as business owners (to help you learn how to run your business like a saint).

But here is the hard truth we have to face as we head into 2026: You cannot carry out God’s will in the world if you aren’t consistently choosing His will over your own.

Because of our fallen nature, that choice is a constant battle. In fact, without God’s grace, it’s an impossible one.

The Binary Choice

Life, at its core, is a series of binary decisions: God’s will or my will.

We know how “my will” turned out for Lucifer. We know how it turned out for Adam. And if we’re being honest, we’ve all seen the wreckage in our own lives and businesses when we let our ego take the driver’s seat.

Logically, we know we are better off when we align with Him. So why is it so hard?

It’s hard because we haven’t undergone the personal transformation necessary to make that choice secondary nature.

Hire Talent That Actually Shares Your Mission with Verso Jobs.
Verso Jobs has built a gamified, data-driven job platform to help you hire people who actually share your mission and values.

Their team understands your needs, goes out to qualified candidates, tests them through the gamified application. Then presents you with candidates who truly share your mission. 

If you’re a Catholic or conservative organization looking to cut through the fog, reach out to Verso Jobs to help you today. 

Whether you’re hiring for your startup, school, parish, or nonprofit — Verso makes it easy to find mission-aligned talent ready to build the Kingdom.

Visit versojobs.com or book a demo to get started — To the heights. ⛰️

Knowing the Mind of the Father

You can’t choose God’s will if you don’t actually know what it is.

Think about your closest friends. You know their likes, their dislikes, and how they’d react in a certain situation because you’ve logged the hours with them. You’ve listened to them.

If you think one hour at Mass on Sunday is enough to “know” the Creator of the Universe well enough to let Him direct your cap table, your hiring decisions, and your family life, you’re mistaken.

One hour on Sundays might be enough to know of Him, but it’s not enough to know Him. If you believe God is the one who holds the blueprint for your best possible life, you should be a lot more motivated to build up a strong rapport with Him.

Your 2026 Mandate

As we start this new year, I’m urging you to make a commitment to your own heart first.

None of the grand objectives you have for your business (no matter how noble they are) will reach their full potential unless you allow God to transform you from the inside out.

Sure, you can do some good things on your own strength. But imagine what’s possible when you’re actually operating in total alignment with the Will that created you. Just imagine how much further He will take you.

Hire Catholic Overseas Talent
In LatAm and the Philippines, there are millions of Catholic remote workers (across all domains) who want to work for ethical bosses. 

Often they’re treated as second class citizens or work for organizations that ask them to do questionable things. They reach out to us in search of a Catholic boss. 

So, we started ParacleteVA (website coming soon). 

With ParacleteVA, we’ll find you vetted, Catholic overseas talent who will help you move your business forward. 

How it works: Pay a $500 finders fee when the candidate starts and $500 if you’re still happy with them after 30 days. 

To get started reach out to admin@catholicfounders.com with what you’re looking for and we’ll get started. 

Tactical Steps for Transformation

Transformation doesn’t happen by accident; it happens through discipline. Here are a few ways to start:

• Immerse in the Word: Start Bible in a Year or Catechism in a Year on Hallow. A few minutes a day can substantially elevate your understanding of your faith and the scripture.

• Understand the Gospel: Listen to the Logical Bible Study Podcast. It breaks down the daily Gospel reading so you actually understand the literal meaning of the text.

• Practice Silence: Set aside 15 minutes every morning in total silence. Don’t ask for anything. Don’t run through your to-do list. Just sit with your mind fixed on God and listen.

• Seek Guidance: Start monthly spiritual direction. You hire coaches and experts in your business; why not have a spiritual coach? (find a spiritual director)

• Go to the Source: Attend Daily Mass when possible. Don’t just show up — really focus on the mystery of the Eucharist and ask Him to teach you His ways.

• Daily Bread: Read from the My Daily Bread book. It takes about five minutes, but you can read slowly, to soak it in.

• Study the Pros: Read the lives of the saints. We know they figured out personal transformation; their lives are great examples for us.

• The Power of Prayer: Pray the Rosary daily and meditate on the mysteries (learn how here).

• The Angelus: Pray it at 6 AM, Noon, and 6 PM religiously. It’s a physical and mental reset that reminds you why you’re doing what you’re doing (try this Chrome extension to remind you).

God Bless & Happy Building

~Silas Mähner

Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today
We have a peer group of around 70 Catholic business owners who are truly dedicated to being instruments of God's will in the world -- through their businesses. 

If you want to journey with us, to figure out the unique way that God is calling each of us to be His instrument, join today by upgrading to a paid subscription of this Substack (click "upgrade to paid"). It's affordable so that anyone can join. 

Once you sign up, check your email for next steps and the screening process to make sure you're a good fit. 

Subscribe now

Heavenly Hustlers

Each week, we highlight a few other Catholic business owners (Heavenly Hustlers) so you can discover and make new friends in the Catholic entrepreneurship world. Check back every week for more.

• Adeline Rodriguez is the founder of Holy Trinity Home Care Agency based out of New Jersey, bringing faith and prayer into the home health care industry.

• James Reichert and some colleagues are building Cana.Wedding — a Catholic alternative to wedding planning sites like The Knot where the sacrament is front and center.

• Joe Roberts runs Frassati Designs — a web design and design-driven marketing company. Aside from this, Joe has a good number of other ideas and side hustles. Good person to bounce ideas off of.

• John Paul Makilya is the Founder and CEO of BaRIZI (Insta). They’re bringing color to your home at an affordable rate. I got to see his shop in the Westfield World Trade Center last month, and it’s amazing. Highly recommend checking it out if you’re in NYC. Second location coming soon.

• JP Gschwind is the CEO of SKUsafe. An AI-powered formulation tool that helps the food and bev space manage R&D properly.

• Brian Schardt is the co-founder of twitter famous Autopilot (the company behind the Nancy Pelosi stock tracker account). They’re tech hooks up to your brokerage account so you can trade like a politician.

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

Share

Big thanks to Catholic Owned for helping us identify some of these Heavenly Hustlers each week. Support other Catholic Owned businesses today! — Get listed today!

Become a Sponsor! Get your message in front of hundreds of Catholic business owners! Reach out today —> Admin@CatholicFounders.com 

Resources:

Groups:

• Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year

• Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free, and there are a ton of great folks there.

• Apply to become a member of SENT (monthly small groups of highly successful Catholic CEOs and Founders guided by a professional facilitator)

• Fides Entrepreneurship Group

• Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups)

Events:

• Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC) (hosting in-person dinners and talk series in NYC for Catholic business owners)

• Upcoming DOMINUS Lab Events

Content:

• If you’ve not heard it yet, check out the Sunday Special with Jamie Baxter, founder of Exodus 90 on having detachment while running a successful enterprise.

• Planning to launch a business in 2026? Check out these 9 principles to consider.

• The episode we did with Jeff Carron is packed full of value. Check it out (bonus: his story is really cool).

• PLEASE read this book Leaving a Legacy: Inheritance, Charity, & Thousand-Year Families by Johann Kurtz — It is one of the most impactful books I have read in a long time. (PS: we’ll have an interview with him coming out soon).

Services:

• HIRING: Looking to hire top talent that is also bought into your mission and values? Give the guys at Verso Jobs a shout. Joe and his team are incredible at filling jobs accurately and fast. And they won’t break the bank.

• OFFSHORE TALENT: Hire a Catholic Virtual Assistant through ParacleteVA (email us: dearcfpod@gmail.com)

• [Become a sponsor today AND support the show while doing]

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