The Saintly CEO: What Does Your Calendar Say About Your Priorities?
How we choose to spend our time says a lot about if we are putting our will, or God's will first.
Hello! Happy November.
I hope you had an incredible feast of All Saints. Don’t forget to take advantage of the plenary indulgence that you can obtain for the souls in purgatory by visiting a cemetery the first 8 days of November and praying for them. It also requires confession within ~10 days before or after. I’ve always found great reciprocity when I pray for the souls in purgatory and ask for special favors. Highly recommend.
Welcome back to The 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…
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
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News / Updates
Tomorrow is the CF Dinner in Chicago. We are at capacity, but text me so I can lyk if someone pulls out last minute.
We’re hosting a dinner in December in NYC. Reach out if you want to participate or support in some way.
If you’re interested in attending a gathering of Catholic entrepreneurs in SF on Nov 20th, reach out. (Seems this event is starting to come together)
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.
What Does Your Calendar Say About Your Priorities?
Most weeks, I end up having a lot of commitments that don’t follow the 80/20 rule. I let things land on my calendar that don’t move my business forward.
Dinners, catch-up calls with friends, free advice, or coaching sessions. These calls prevent me from moving my business forward. During that time, I’m not doing outbound business development or finding candidates for my clients.
But is that bad?
Modern time management advice for entrepreneurs is to be ruthless with your calendar.
But doesn’t this miss the point of life entirely?
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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. ⛰️We are individuals created in the image and likeness of God. We were only created because God wanted us to have a relationship with Him.
So if we are not investing in relationships, aren’t we missing the whole point of life?
And I’m not talking about relationships that lead to good business outcomes. I’m talking about relationships that have no particular end in mind.
Of course, we can’t have deep relationships with everyone, but there are people we should deepen our relationships with. For example, our family (immediate and extended). We didn’t choose them, but they are in our lives and we owe them some time.
Then there are people God puts in our lives, and we are called to go deeper with. We must discern who those people are.
Deepening these relationships can often feel in conflict with our business goals because they prevent us from moving the business forward. But again, moving our business forward isn’t the point — relationships are.
As Catholics, we know our highest calling is to get to heaven. The greatest commandments say, to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
To love our neighbors (any fellow man) means to desire them to reach heaven. So, when faced with the opportunity to catch up with an old friend who is visiting town, or going through a tough time, what should we do? Make a few more sales calls or spend time with them?
Fundamentally, one is selfish, one is selfless.
We are foregoing our own goals to will the good of another — our fellow man.
I think this is the key to successfully managing your calendar as a business owner who desires to carry out God’s will. No longer can our own goals come first. We must follow what God asks us by paying attention to the signals He sends us.
When we do this, we’re practicing true trust in God. This is what the saints did. Considering we just celebrated All Saints Day, we should be thinking about this more. How can we be more saintly?
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan our day at all. But we need to recognize that God will occasionally blow up our calendar. And that’s okay.
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. Why do I keep writing about this?
Because the more I pray and think about what it means to be a Catholic Founder, the more I confront the conflict between our will and God’s will.
This isn’t a conflict that can have a blended answer. There is only one true answer. And we all know the right answer. Accepting it is the hard part. Then doing the actions that reflect that decision is the harder thing.
So if we can integrate this decision into the simplest things, like managing our calendar, we are setting the foundation for following His will in all the big things, too.
To wrap this up, here are a few practical steps to take:
First thing in the morning, say a prayer dedicating your day to God. Ask for the grace to notice and accept when He’s calling you to break away from your schedule.
Think back on your past couple weeks. Did you spend any time with friends and family? Was there a time you should have but chose not to? If so, remedy this and set up a lunch/coffee with that person this week.
Set a few times throughout your day to mentally put yourself in the presence of God to ask for His guidance.
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
PS: If you like this topic, we wrote about a similar topic in the past.
Launch Your Podcast — Build Trust With Customers
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Visit saintkolbestudios.com to get started.Heavenly Hustlers
Looking to meet other ambitious Catholic business owners? You’re in the right place.
Meet today’s Heavenly Hustlers.
🏭 Federico Chávez-Torres and Matthew Bennett recently came out of stealth with Tex.pro — the software platform for heavy machinery operators. This is going to be really special. Go check out his work.
🧼 Joe Newbury is the owner of VCM Cleaning - a local home and commercial cleaning business in Wausau, WI. Joe’s a good friend and just getting started. But keep an eye out for him (if you have any tips on running a cleaning biz, I know he’d love the tips).
💰 Christopher Royalty runs Soloprenuer Sherpa Tax — they specialize in helping soloprenuers with tax, accounting, and payroll (I use Chris and he’s been fantastic).
📊 Floyd Anderson is running Flowline, a fractional CFO and strategic finance firm.
📈 Ellen Twomey is a fractional Growth consultant (Ellen Twomey Consulting). She’s incredible (she just presented to us last week with tips on how to grow your business with a focus on magnanimity and humility; it was amazing).
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
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 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 (Think Hampton but for Catholics)
Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups)
Events:
Tomorrow we’re hosting a dinner in Chicago. We are at max capacity now but feel free to reach out in case we have some no shows.
Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC) — As a CF reader, get 15% off all their events for the rest of the year. Use code CATHOLICGUILD2025.
There is a Catholic entrepreneur gathering in San Francisco on November 20th (tentatively) — Stay tuned for more details.
In December sometime, in NYC, we’re hosting a dinner for the CF Community. Reach out if you’d like to help host, sponsor, or attend.
Content:
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.
DONE-FOR-YOU PODCAST PRODUCTION: If you want to build trust with future customers, reach out to Saint Kolbe Studios to help you launch a professional podcast. They help from start to finish.
OFFSHORE TALENT: Hire a Catholic Virtual Assistant through ParacleteVA (email us: admin@catholicfounders.com)
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