The Saintly CEO: How to Break Your Business Bottleneck (The Answer is in the Spiritual Life)
As Catholics, We Have The Ultimate Roadmap to Overcoming Our Business Bottlenecks
October is coming to a close. Let’s be sure to finish strong with an extra rosary each day this week.
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…
Upcoming Events | Tactical Advice to Run Your Biz Like a Saint (Feature Content) | Other Catholic Biz Owners For You to Meet (Heavenly Hustlers) | And Misc. Resources
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News / Updates
Tomorrow, Ellen Twomey is teaching the CF Guild how to scale on October 28th. Upgrade to attend.
December 9th (tentative), we are hosting a dinner for Catholic Founders in NYC. Time and Location TBD. But reach out to be included.
There is a (tentative) Catholic entrepreneur gathering in San Francisco on November 20th (tentatively) — Stay tuned for more details.
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.
How to Break Your Business Bottleneck (The Answer is in the Spiritual Life)
Many of us in this community are the bottleneck in our business. Some of us are still fully solopreneurs. Some of us have VAs or part-time employees. Some of us are more developed. But we’re still the key person in the business. We are the bottleneck.
How do we get past this?
Since starting my recruitment consultancy, it has always been my goal to remove myself as the key person. I know I’ll get there eventually, but it often feels like I’m not making any progress.
However, I recently had a moment that felt substantial in moving towards that transformation.
And no, I’m still not close to solving this bottleneck problem (I wish). The breakthrough came because I decided to invest in an expert to help me build a proper client acquisition funnel.
Shout out to Ryan Cruz, member of the CF Guild. He’s an expert at helping people build lead/customer acquisition channels. In only 2 weeks of working with him, my mindset has totally transformed.
More about that, but first, check out our sponsor, Verso Jobs.
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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. ⛰️When I hired Ryan as a coach, I thought I’d just come up with some catch phrases, throw some money at Google or LinkedIn ads, and watch the customers pile up.
And, while we’ll probably get to something similar eventually, that’s not where we started.
His questions helped me realize that my product offering and positioning are actually very weak. Keep in mind, I’ve spent the last 1.5 years thinking I’ve invented the best thing since sliced bread for clean tech startups.
Realizing how naive I was — to think I had so much figured out — made me realize a core challenge we face as entrepreneurs.
We cling to the things we know and stick to our convictions. If we don’t, who will believe in us? Often, no one aside from maybe our spouse. But clinging to our convictions has downsides. It often blinds us, leaving us uninformed — or straight up wrong.
This leads me to my challenge for all of you today — regardless if you’re a one-man (or woman) band or you have hundreds of employees — take a moment to ask yourself, what area do I need to grow in? What area am I uncomfortable in?
Recognizing this allows you to take the first step towards growing outside of your comfort zone — aka, growing new competencies.
For me, it’s building a true system. Not a mess of spreadsheets and ‘SOPs’ that live in my head. No more living by the seat of my pants. If I’m going to grow this business, it will require more intentionality and systems thinking in my biz.
For you, it might be learning public speaking, sales, hiring, finance, or marketing. Or one of any number of other areas of expert knowledge. Regardless the area, once identified, hire a coach/expert to push you out of your comfort zone.
As entrepreneurs, we face discomfort in some way every day. But in reality, we are all living in some version of our comfort zone. Your business has now become cozy despite the lack of order and the messiness (imagine a home). To recognize it’s messy and full of chaos in the first place, you need to invite someone in.
When you do that, you see for yourself the chaos. Now you’re aware that someone else can see it. That’s what a coach/expert will do. They force you to look at your own situation. Then you take action with their help to improve the environment.
It seems like it’s time to embrace another level of discomfort.
You’ve got the business going. You’re making revenue. Things are moving forward. But do you want to stay stuck here?
This journey is very similar to the spiritual life. Let’s talk about that — but first, shoutout to our sponsor, ParacleteVA.
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. From the great writers, we learn that the spiritual life has a depth that never ends. You can always go deeper than you are. Some artistic writers have compared it to a sea creature that builds a house of coral. As the creature grows, it outgrows its house and builds another. Eventually, outgrowing it as well. It goes on and on, continuing to grow and change. With each growth comes a change of environment.
This is the spiritual life, but the same applies to the entrepreneurial life.
You took the leap. Now it’s time to level up.
Don’t kid yourself. It won’t happen unless you push yourself. If you know the next step, take it; if you don’t, find a guide who can identify the next step for you.
In the spiritual life, we have a guide in Christ through our spiritual director. In business, we have coaches.
This is where silence can be powerful on your entrepreneurial journey. Without time to contemplate and reflect, you may not even recognize your need for growth at all.
Finally, look at it this way — because you’re Catholic, you have zero excuse to be complacent. There are deeper levels to most things in life, just like in the spiritual life (just observe the chasm between us and the saints).
If anything, you should be more capable of growing outside of your comfort zone because you are Catholic and understand the need to grow closer to heaven every day.
So Catholic Founder — what will it be? Growth, or complacency?
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
Launch Your Podcast — Build Trust With Customers
Trying to bring in more leads? Launching a podcast might be the best move you haven’t made yet.
Saint Kolbe Studios helps Catholic entrepreneurs launch professional, mission-aligned podcasts that build trust and increase leads.
Their team walks with you every step of the way, from strategy and recording to branding and editing, so you can launch your podcast in under 90 days.
Get 20% off all services for the rest of 2025 because you listen to Catholic Founders. Just mention Catholic Founders when you reach out.
158 million people listen to podcasts every month, and that’s just in the US! Your ideal customer may already be listening to a competitor’s podcast.
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.
💰 Gellert Dornay, Marc Rome, and Mike Brown are the managing partners of the 1571 Fund (investors in Patmos, Nic Nac Naturals, Longbeard, Hewo, and Monster Summer)
🙌 Nick Khami is building Patron, a competitor to Patreon. They are purpose-built for sequential style of content.
📓 Carolyn Madigan and Mariana Madigan are building Solé Atelier — the first Catholic weekly planner for professionals.
✈️ Matthew Giltner is building TripCatholic, helping you discover Catholic churches, shrines, relics, and pilgrimage sites around the world.
💪 Derrick Diedrich is running various side hustles. If you attend Notre Dame, reach out to him.
🙋♂️ 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.
Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups)
Events:
Ellen Twomey is teaching the CF Guild how to scale on October 28th (tomorrow). Upgrade to attend.
There is a (tentative) Catholic entrepreneur gathering in San Francisco on November 20th (tentatively) — Stay tuned for more details.
December 9th (tentative) we are hosting a dinner for Catholic Founders in NYC. Time and Location TBD. But reach out to be included.
Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC) As a Catholic Founders reader, get 15% off on all upcoming events through the end of the yea — use code: CATHOLICGUILD2025.
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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