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In Today’s Issue:
Intro to the Guest and Topic: Flip Howard, Private Office Mogul
Core Takeaway:
Episode References
Select Quotes
Key Moments
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Today’s Topic & Guest:
Flip Howard | Lucid Private Offices
Working from home is the answer for some. Most of us see it as a great way to be close to our families. But today’s guest, Flip Howard, the founder of Lucid Private Offices, thinks we should have separation between work and home via physical office space.
He has built Lucid into a thriving office space provider with 29 locations around the country. And the thing he spends most of his time really thinking about and chewing on is how he can not ruin his kids with the wealth he’s creating. So we end up talking a lot about that as well.
We also cover his perspective on ambition as a Catholic.
I’m convinced you’ll enjoy this episode, which I was able to record in person with Flip in Nashville a few weeks ago. Have a listen and let us know your thoughts. Should we work from home? How can we not ruin our children as we gain wealth? And how do you think about ambition as a Catholic?
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Core Lesson:
Be intentional about the workspace that you create for yourself and for your employees.
Work is a good thing — God gave us the commandment to work even before the fall of man. God chose to create the universe. Working is, in some ways, an imitation of this.
Because this is true, it’s important for us to consider how we create our space to help elevate our souls to do good work and to keep us in a virtuous mode. A priest once told me, "A beautiful and well-ordered exterior is a reflection of a beautiful and well-ordered interior.”
Consider this for yourself, and for your employees. Can you help elevate work by making the space beautiful? Regardless of whether you’re in white-collar office work or blue-collar factory/shop work, there are ways for you to elevate your work space and help lift your soul and the souls of your workers.
Just ask yourself, does this space look like a space where humans can flourish?
God Bless & Happy Building!
~Silas Mähner
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 catholicfounders@gmail.com with what you’re looking for, and we’ll get started.
Key Episode References:
Businesses & Venues
Literary Works & Documents
Places & Landmarks
Scripture
Select Quotes:
“Like, what was Mother Teresa? Clearly she was ambitious. You know, would you say she had ambition? Well, that makes it seem like it was for her, but she was clearly ambitious.” - Flip Howard
“And humans are the only creatures who are able to actually participate in creation through work. And work is what makes us fully human.” - Flip Howard
“And rich people are surrounded by beauty all the time. And that's really the main difference between someone who's rich and someone who's not.” - Flip Howard
“It is important for kids to see their dad work. You know, not work too much, not love work, but work.” - Flip Howard
“You can keep working from the beach, but you're not gonna really move the ball forward. You're not gonna be advancing the thing while you're doing it. And that to me, that's what, you know, remote work is like.” - Flip Howard
“And the answer is hire the ones that would naturally do that kind of thing. It's not about changing adults. Like that was their parents' job.” - Flip Howard
“But to me it's not really It doesn't come from some, like you said, heady philosophical understanding of Catholic social teaching. It comes from just trying to love in a gospelsy sort of way, in a very simplistic. I just I think that people can tell when they're being used.” - Flip Howard
“You're not doing anybody any favors leaving someone in a job they're not thriving in.” - Flip Howard
Key Moments: (outline)
(00:00) - Intro: Silas introduces Flip Howard and sets the stage for a discussion centered on real estate, beautiful workspaces, virtuous ambition, and family succession.
(03:03) - The In-Person Pivot: Silas welcomes Flip to the studio in Nashville and asks for a quick breakdown of his identity and his upscale co-working company, Lucid Private Offices.
(05:07) - From Laundry to Luxury Real Estate: Flip shares how he graduated from Franciscan University and stumbled into the executive suite industry after initially running a campus laundry business.
(09:15) - Identity and Joy in Entrepreneurship: A conversation on how to avoid tying your identity entirely to your business and how to naturally bring a charism of joy into daily operations.
(12:55) - Work is Good, Where You Do It Matters: Flip explains his core business philosophy, drawing inspiration from St. John Paul II’s encyclical Laborem Exercens and challenging the flaws of the remote work mindset.
(15:59) - The Power of Surrounding Yourself with Beauty: A deep look into how human surroundings impact our interior disposition and why modern utilitarianism falls short compared to older architectural standard.
(22:28) - Rethinking Family Legacy and Succession: Flip reveals why he chooses not to pass his business down to his seven children, prioritising healthy family dynamics over shared corporate wealth.
(28:20) - The Mirage of Remote Work Productivity: Flip breaks down the psychological differences between working from home and collaborating in a physical workspace where true advancement happens.
(34:16) - Protecting Family Time and Demanding Presence: Flip details how Lucid protects its employees by expecting them to switch off at 5:00 PM, and critiques the younger generation’s tendency toward “half-presence.”
(37:27) - Building “Vatican Valley” : The origin story of Flip’s core office location in Las Colinas and how it naturally transformed into a networking hub for Catholic leaders and local ministries.
(41:33) - Virtuous Ambition vs. Ego: Flip and Silas dissect the word ambition, clarifying how the virtue of ambitiousness stands against small-minded laziness when oriented toward the glory of God.
(44:11) - Living Subsidiarity in Company Culture: Flip shares how empowering employees and treating them as human persons beats treating them as mere corporate assets.
(46:38) - The Secret to Hiring Naturally Virtuous People: Why business owners should stop trying to reshape adult behavior and instead focus their recruitment efforts on hiring naturally well-aligned talent.
(50:37) - Charitably Firing and Ensuring the Right Fit: Flip outlines why releasing someone from a role where they aren’t thriving is an act of genuine charity rather than cruelty.
(54:01) - Rapid Fire and Devotion Shifts: Flip reveals his favorite scriptures, his business role model, and how a Lenten resolution brought him into a deeper relationship with the Holy Rosary.
(55:46) - Outro: Silas recaps his personal takeaways regarding intentional workspaces and employer responsibility, concluding with an open invitation to join the Catholic Founders Guild.
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 catholicfounders@gmail.com with what you’re looking for, and we’ll get started.
