My wife still has not given birth, leading me to have the time to write this newsletter late last night. Please pray for us. Her due date was Sunday. Pray for baby Constantine Gerard!
Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
News/Events | Feature Content | 6 Heavenly Hustlers
[read time: ~7.5 min | word count 1, 692]
News / Updates / Events:
Events:
Up Next: Nashville (Sep 15th) | Monterrey, MX (Sep 22nd) | Columbus, OH (Sep 25th) | Dallas (Sep 26th)
Hike: Mark your calendars for a men’s-only hike on October 9-10th in Chattanooga (paid event). More details to follow.
📆 See all upcoming IRL events here —> Luma page.
Content:
Latest: Our episode with Marty on mercy brought me to tears.
Up Next: The kingpin of El Segundo 👀 (tune in to the pod Thursday)
Guild Call: Evan Raugust dropped expert YouTube advice on us last week.
Vault: What benefits should you provide?
The Guild Only Newsletter drops tomorrow (stay tuned).
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Evangelize By Being Different
When Peter rebuked Jesus for saying he would suffer and be put to death, Jesus replied with some of His strongest words ever recorded.
It didn’t compute with Peter.
Don’t ‘great leaders’ conquer with strength and power? How could Jesus usher in the kingdom without doing the same?
Jesus would go on to conquer the entire world (not just a sliver of it) and establish His Eternal Kingdom in the totally opposite way, through suffering and death. This is a total contrast to the way the world perceived great leaders at the time.
To become a sacrifice, He was as gentle and docile as a lamb led to the slaughter.
Other conquerors used strength, power, and violence — He was the recipient of those things.
This contrast is the most jarring part of the whole salvation story.
One man achieved a great victory, but in a way that no one expected. God wrote this story intentionally, in order to set the tone of what it would mean to follow Christ, “The Founder.” We follow Him through sacrifice. We conquer through sacrifice.
Business owners must do the same thing.
This pertains to both sacrifice and being ‘different’ or contrasting the norm.
Don’t Waste Your Parish’s Money
A mismanaged budget is a headache in business. In the Church, it’s a tragedy. Every dollar wasted on a poorly run construction project is a dollar taken from the mission.
When your parish or diocese is building something, goodwill isn’t enough. You need professional, unyielding stewardship.
Our Father Constructors and Associates acts as your expert owner’s representative. They support projects from $1M to $45M. Cristian and his team manage the architects, protect the capital, and find the money you didn’t know you were losing. They ensure what you build today serves the Church for generations.
Run your parish’s next project like a pro.
👉 Visit ourfather.us or email cristian@ourfather.us today.
Diference/Contrast
To bring others within our sphere of influence to know God, we must be different. Our way of doing business, if we are transformed by the Faith, should appear almost nonsensical to those around us. Employees, customers, and secular business owners thinking to themselves, "What in the world is he doing?”
This is the point I want to emphasize.
Difference is the key.
The same goes in marketing. Better to be different than better.
Today, many (if not most) people see business in a negative light. Greed. Extortion. Lack of care for employees. Cutting corners to save money. Customer left holding the bag while some private equity bro in a vest rides off into the sunset in his Porsche.
When our lives are transformed by Christ, the way we do business will naturally look different because the reason for doing business is no longer an earthly reason, but rather an eternal reason.
We’ll be gracious with our employees for choosing to work with us rather than expecting them to thank us for employment.
Encouraging our employees to exercise their co-creative abilities rather than becoming robotic clock-punchers.
Producing things for our customers with love to serve them, rather than for the sole purpose of making a profit.
Being flexible with our suppliers if they are late, recognizing that they are human too.
Paying people on time.
Being honest in our marketing. Living up to what we market about our products by making them well.
Choosing to receive less profit so we can pay our employees a living wage. Allowing families to get by on a single income.
Saying no to additional revenue by closing on Sundays and holy days of obligation.
Choosing not to accept projects that would force a rush and lead to negative effects on the family.
Having less profit by paying child and marriage bonuses to our team.
Being flexible with them when they have family matters to attend to rather than being judicial about having them adhere to strict HR policies.
Spending more on keeping our spaces clean and storefronts fresh in order to elevate our employees, customers, and community (again, less profit).
These are just a few ways we may appear ‘different’ to the world. But this is not an exhaustive list. You’ll naturally find other ways to do this if your Faith is real and full.
Is Your Money Being Stewarded — or Just Managed?
What is God calling you to build?
That’s where Tom Rooney and Matthew Mohlman start their conversations. They work with Catholic business owners to bring real stewardship to their finances across retirement plans, private markets, and wealth management.
Tom and Matthew want to extend an invitation for an estate health check with their team. Think healthcare directives, powers of attorney, risk and insurance gaps... your spouse will thank you!
PS: Tom and Matthew aren’t just advisors — they’re Catholic founders themselves, building this alongside guys like us.
Sacrifice
Ultimately, by being different, we will be sacrificing, and thus following in Christ’s footsteps. The sacrifice is often profit. Sometimes status. In some instances, it will also mean our life. If not physical life, at least social or political.
We may be totally ostracized for making our beliefs known. Perhaps you live in a community where living out your Faith would be supremely unpopular and lead to truly negative circumstances. Do it anyway.
To follow Christ is to sacrifice.
While others are flexing their power, you can admit your weakness. Stating that all your power and strength come from God.
I firmly believe that when we as business owners accept this fact, not only will our Faith become fuller, but our businesses will look different through the sacrifices we make, and in doing so, many… many souls will come to know God.
They will come to know God through that initial curiosity sparked by seeing how different our actions are. That contrast to the way others do business will begin to make them wonder. And wonder is an openness of the mind. An open mind is a mind ready to receive a seed. The seed of truth.
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
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Heavenly Hustlers
These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).
Please note: to see the full list of heavenly hustlers, you need to be a paid member. Today there are 6 in total. The first one is a freebie.
Get the other 5 by upgrading to a paid subscription now.
✝️ Pontus Stjernfeldt is building The Camino Company, a Catholic venture studio launching faith-aligned software and new mission-driven companies. Romania/Poland.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
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Highlights: Mind-Boggling Data
We have more clergy per practicing Catholic than ever, but because our numbers decreased and our parish count didn’t, it feels like we are dwindling.
That is the TLDR of the article I’m sharing today. And I think it may be one of the most important ever written on the Church’s actual current struggle, as well as the apparent solution. Please read it.
Here is a huge list of various resources that we have compiled over time: The Ultimate 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).
Your list of attributes is very good. And talking about this is also much needed.
I think that one of the ways in which most businesses lead by Catholics are going to be differentiated from the world is that they won't make as much money. This is a good thing, especially because it encourages healthy detachment from the things of this world.
Catholic business leaders need to be prepared for this. The reward for faithfully conducting business isn't likely to be more profit. That's because the world's incentives and rewards are different from those of God. Jesus directly told us this. We just like to ignore him.
Thing is, he also told us that the most profitable thing is to keep our souls, because that is worth more than all the profit in the world.
https://philosophyreligionreflections.substack.com/. Here is the link to my reflection.