The Saintly CEO: Your Hope Determines Your Wealth
Hope is More Important Now Than Ever For Catholic Entrepreneurs to Exhibit
Happy Monday, everyone! How are those extra rosaries going?
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
Upcoming events:
CF Guild Topic Discussion on Competition | Oct 14th (tomorrow) at 1 pm CT
CF Guild Expert Call — GTM Advice w/ Ellen Twomey | Oct 28th at 1 pm CT
Catholic Founders Dinner in Chicago (open to non-guild members) | Nov 4th from 6 to 9 pm w/ after party
Catholic entrepreneurs gathering in SF | November 20th (time tbd)
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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.
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What Catholic Entrepreneurs Need to Understand About Hope
We’ve all heard of the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. They are brought up a lot. Of these three, hope always feels the most vague. No one really seems to have concrete terms to describe it.
However, Frank Hanna does.
At the SENT Summit, legendary investor and philanthropist Frank Hanna gave a talk on hope and how it relates to investing and philanthropy. The clarity of thought he provided was profound. In fact, his talk was my favorite part of the entire summit. It’s clear to me that the Holy Spirit was truly moving in him.
Using what he said, I’ll do my best to communicate what hit me most through that talk.
But first, a quick shoutout to our sponsor, Verso Jobs.
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The amount of hope we have for the future determines our current amount of wealth. Without hope in the future, the present is pretty grim. This is especially relevant for business owners.
Here are some examples.
The current value of NVIDIA’s stock is directly tied to the investors’ collective amount of future hope. If a piece of legislation comes up tomorrow that makes NVIDIA’s products illegal, the hope would be gone, and so would the stock.
When hope goes away, so does market cap.
In a similar way, if we have hope for heaven, we can live in the present with joy, and we do things that wouldn’t make sense otherwise. Things like getting married and having children. If we had no hope for heaven, we might resort to hedonistic living because the current sacrifice wouldn’t appear worth it.
Without the hope of heaven, there is no reason to sacrifice — for anything.
Our present ‘wealth’ is directly linked to our amount of hope for the future.
I put wealth in quotes because wealth is not just financial. In a way, it’s not financial at all. It’s primarily spiritual. One can have money and be miserable. One can have money at the expense of their family. One can have money without a relationship with God. True poverty is when we do not have God.
Conversely, true wealth is having a strong relationship with God.
This principle applies everywhere.
When we give money away, we are demonstrating hope that we might help humanity. This really goes deeper, though. It’s about helping individuals. It’s love for your fellow man. Not in an abstract sense, but in the particular. The neighbor with a name and face, and history.
If you don’t have any hope, why would you give to charity at all?
When we invest in our businesses, we are demonstrating hope for the future. Hope that we will better our own lives and the lives of our current or future employees. Hope that we’ll benefit our customers and our community.
Hope needs to go deeper.
Truthfully, we need to make an effort to tie the principle of hope to the root of all we do. When investing, writing a check to charity, sacrificing to grow our business — during all of these activities, we should be thinking about the hope we have for the salvation of each and every man.
So next time you’re investing, giving, or building, ask yourself, How is this tied to my hope for my fellow man.
Whatever that connection is, lean into it. Because when you do, it will multiply the outcome — because when you place your heart in the right position, God can work through you. And when God is working through us, we achieve so much more than what we do on our own.
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. Some tips for greater hope.
If you struggle with charitable giving or with investing in the future generally, ask God for an increase in the virtue of hope. Remember, He always helps us when we ask. Especially for something like virtue. Asking for grace and virtue has always worked for me — noticeably.
If you’re already pretty good at this hope thing, ask God to purify your intentions. This way, you’ll be guided by hope for your own salvation and hope for the salvation of all mankind. If this virtue is firmly rooted in your heart, it will transform everything you do.
Once you understand this, it will allow you to act ‘radically’ with your money, your time, and your influence (similar to how Tim Connors does). It will set you on fire — how could it not? What is more motivating than a genuine hope for the salvation of your brother?
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.
Dave Durand has built many businesses and had two 9-figure exits. He’s a speaker and author as well. Potentially most well-known for Best Version Media (aka: BVM), he’s someone I think all of us can look up to.
He’s tenacious about living his faith unapologetically. His leadership style is to empower those under him to grow and execute on their own (to have ownership), aka: subsidiarity.
He spoke at the SENT Summit, and it was electric. He’s currently promoting genuine leadership with his new book called Leading Giants. His aim is to help leaders all around the world embody Catholic leadership principles. He argues that there is no difference between leadership and Catholic leadership. That leadership in the first place is fundamentally Christian.
If you’re not already familiar with Dave, I’d recommend checking out his works.Rich Todd is the CEO and Principal at Innovest. A registered investment advisor that has been in the business since 1996. Rich is someone who has had to endure a lot of public persecution for his pro-life and Catholic beliefs.
Kat Nichols is the founder of Nichols Virtual Sourcing (NVS), a recruitment / headhunting company serving US-based companies.
Johnny Brask is a Co-Founder of Verso Jobs. They help conservative and Catholic organizations hire people who actually share in their mission using a gamified platform that uncovers their motivations.
Daniël Hussem and Emily Wilson-Hussem are a husband-wife duo building SacredSpark — a dating app for Catholics with the aim of solving dating and what comes after the match.
Myah Abraham is the President of Right to Know, a company building a brand to counteract Planned Parenthood.
🙋♂️ 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 —> CatholicFounders@gmail.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 (NOTE: we are currently looking for founding members for the Nashville chapter — reach out to me if you’re interested).
Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups)
Events:
CF Guild Topic Call — Competition (Tomorrow / Oct 14th at 1 pm CT) (Guild members only)
CF Guild Expert Call — Scaling Virtuously w/ Ellen Twomey — Oct 28th at 1 pm CT (Guild members only)
Chicago Catholic Founders Dinner — November 4th from 6 to 9 pm (with after party) — Open to all, but will limit to 25 participants. Reach out if interested.
Catholic entrepreneurs 1-day summit in SF on November 20th. More details forthcoming.
Content:
Ambition, Pro-Family Work Culture, and AI w/ Patmos Founder, John Johnson (episode 35)
The Catholic Gentleman had a great episode recently, “Rules the Greatest Men Discovered.” — I highly recommend checking it out.
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: catholicfounders@gmail.com)
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