Howdy y’all!
Hard to believe we’re mid way through Q3 already. How are you doing with your goals for the quarter / year?
Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
News/Updates/Events
Feature Content: Build What God Wants You To. Not The World.
Heavenly Hustlers
Highlights
[read time: ~7 min | word count 1,591]
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News / Updates / Events:
Guys… we finally launched the Catholic Founders Merch Store in partnership with 4 Marks Printing! 👕
A lot of you have been asking for it and now it’s live. Check out what we have and get one today (it will help keep Oscar’s salary paid 🤣)Nashville, we’re meeting tonight. More details here if you or someone you know haven’t registered yet.
🤝 We just locked in a special partnership with The Catholic Herald 📰. More details in the Highlight Section.
🎙️Our latest episode on the pod is actually a crosspost of my guesting on the Great Houses Forum by Gregory Treat. Listen here.
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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.
Build What God Wants You To. Not The World.
I just finished reading Wild at Heart by John Eldredge on Sunday. It’s not often I say this, but I feel that book is going to go down as one of the most transformational reads of my life.
Towards the end he quoted Gill Bailey.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Let that sink in a bit. Re-read it once or twice.
Aside from this quote making me feel more alive instantly, a thought popped to my head. This is very different than the typical business advice you’d hear. “Do customer discovery until you know what they want to buy, then sell that.”
This has been widely accepted as the thing to do. But when you look at it through the eyes of a Catholic, and through the lens of ‘doing what makes you come alive’ it feels really lame.
However, you’ve got people on the other side who only follow their passion. We all know them. Many of them can barely pay the bills.
Despite this supposed ‘failure’ in the eyes of the world, there is something quite romantic about pursuing your passion. Chasing what makes you come alive. And truthfully, I think if each of us can discover this, we’d be a lot closer to God than we are now.
Is Your Money Being Stewarded — or Just Managed?
Most financial advisors will ask what you want your money to do. Tom Rooney and Matthew Mohlman at Monument Advisers start somewhere different — they ask what God is calling you to build. They work with Catholic business owners to bring real stewardship to their finances: investment plans built around your values, guidance on whether a business retirement plan makes sense, and access to private market opportunities most advisors never bring up.
Tom and Matthew want to extend an invitation for an estate health check with their team. It’s kind of like an annual physical, but in this case there’s no cold hands or awkwardness in the waiting room! This check is an easy way to uncover gaps in your overall financial picture and then take action to establish foundational estate documents that address those you care for.
PS: Tom and Matthew aren’t just advisors — they’re Catholic founders themselves, building this alongside guys like us. That’s exactly why we trust them with this conversation.
I do believe that God speaks to us through our desires. Maybe they’re there to bring us closer to him. To uncover some broken parts of our hearts at that time. But ultimately, I think if we have a robust prayer life, genuinely want to get to heaven, and have a rightly ordered conscience, God speaks to us through those desires.
There, in the messy places, we find the calling God has for us.
For some, it may be the way you provide for your family financially. For others it may be something that has to stay on the side. But either way, I want to encourage you to find that thing and do it well.
Don’t assume you have to go ‘all in’ on this or you’re being a bad child of God. Sometimes God might be calling you to diligently care for your family with a full-time job while pursuing this passion on the side. Perhaps the two together are going to compliment each other in ways you didn’t expect.
The core thing to remember here is your focus on the eternal calling. Our ultimate calling is to be with God in eternity. It’s not to stack up some amount of money. Meaning, we shouldn’t put all our effort into achieving a certain revenue or net worth.
If this is true of our personal lives, why should it not be true of our business lives.
Bottom line, don’t do business for the sake of making money. Do it for the sake of getting you, your family, and the families around you to heaven. If you discover your true calling and passion in the world along the way, praise God for that, and don’t take it for granted. Too many people never discover their true passion.
Again.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Gill Bailey
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
Heavenly Hustlers
These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).
🏡 Michael Raboine is building Proto Energy, helping improve energy efficiency for commercial and residential buildings. He’s based in my home state of Wisconsin.
🎨 John and Ashley Noronha are Co-Founders of the Truth and Beauty Project based in Rome. They make custom, immersive, week-long formation experiences that utilize art and the ‘living classroom of Rome’ (what a line) to help people deepen their faith.
⚡️ Kiegan Lenihan Founded Xnilio. A tech startup that automates industrial quoting operations for large energy manufacturers. They can cut the time to quote drastically. He’s based out of NYC.
💬 Wes Wilke created Chat JP2. A chat bot to plug into Church websites for visitors to interact with the data on the site. He’s based in the Dallas, TX area.
🎙️Kyle Whittington runs Ipsum Audite. They operate the Catholic Creator Conference, which you might have heard of. He’s based in Steubenville, OH and hangs out with all the cool cats over at Newpolity. He’s also a media strategist - aka, he can help you win at social media.
📸 Abby Cummings runs Radiance Creative Company. She offers general marketing, social media, and photography to help her clients grow their brand. She’s based in the Charlotte area.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
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Highlights: Catholic Founders x The Catholic Herald Partnership
We are announcing officially our partnership with The Catholic Herald.
They are giving followers of Catholic Founders a 50% off code for your first year subscription. Annual subscription to Digital is $55 before discount and if you want the Digital + Print its $130 before discount.
CODE is: FOUNDER50. Link to sign up is here: https://thecatholicherald.com/subscribe.
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Here is a huge list of various resources that we have compiled over time: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.
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This is a gem of a take. Right now, I am on the side of not having built a business yet. Secular sources say find someone who does what you want to do and mentor under them. That may be good advice, however the truth is that God, in his infinite creativity, has given YOU unique charisms and a unique mission to pursue on this Earth. Trust Him. Mother Angelica (EWTN) was quoted in saying, "You only know God's will in the rearview mirror" so go and pursue what God desires you to pursue. Make the decision, commit to it, do not be attached to only having tunnel vision.
This is not a refined thought, kinda just raw. Happy for someone to think otherwise.
Also, I once heard someone say something that has always stuck with me-- Yes, you should follow your passion. You should follow it into the wilderness and kill it. Because it is only after killing your passions and dying to yourself that you can discover and understand what God has called you to do.