Happy Feast of St. Michael the Archangel! A great feast for us to celebrate as business owners because St. Michael can really help us fight off the demons.
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.
In Today’s Email:
News / Updates
Feature Content: The Power & Importance of Joy for Catholic Business Owners
Meet 7 Catholic entrepreneurs (Heavenly Hustlers)
Miscellaneous Resources
[read time: ~8 min | word count 1,807]
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News / Updates
📆 We are moving to have recurring meetings each month for our Topic and Expert calls starting in October. So people can plan ahead of time — rather than me last-minute trying to throw something on their calendar. (This is a Catholic Founders Guild benefit — if you’d like to participate, upgrade to paid today)
🤝 Attention Chicagoans! We are planning to host a gathering of Catholic Founders (open to all) in either late October or early November. Please reach out if you’re interested in attending.
🌹 Given that October is the month of the Rosary, I’m asking all readers of Catholic Founders to pray 1 extra rosary per day. If you already pray one, add another. If you don’t already pray the rosary daily, start doing so. Use this extra rosary as a chance to pray for the special intentions that others have asked you to pray for.
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Despite having heard Cris speak several times before, he said something that struck my heart.
“The truest sign of a Christian is Joy”
I felt convicted. Do I display true joy in my daily life? If not, how deep is my faith? If my faith is deep, why is that joy not shining through the fog?
I didn’t know how to answer these questions so I did a bit of research because I felt compelled to write about this topic. So here are some things to consider about joy.
What it is. Where does it come from? Why it’s important. How to obtain it. And how to display it.
Big shout-out to Magisterium.ai for helping me with the research for this piece.
What is Joy and where does it come from:
Joy is a sign of communion with God. It’s not a feeling, rather a gift from the Holy Spirit that comes from the completeness of having God in our lives.
In other words, we can only have true joy when we have true communion with God. And this joy is a lasting joy — not some fleeting feeling that comes and goes.
Even when bad times come, we continue to possess joy (assuming we have true joy).
Why is it important:
Joy matters because others recognize it. It cuts through the noise of the world. When we encounter someone with joy, it’s impossible to ignore. It draws us in.
It’s especially apparent in people experiencing suffering or hardship. Joy in the face of that hardship really rocks your world.
It also benefits us. In suffering, joy sustains us.
The Catechism teaches that man was created “to live in communion with God, the source of true happiness” (CCC 45) and that the Eucharist makes us “really share in the body of the Lord” (CCC 790). The fruit of that communion is joy—the inner “fullness of his joy” promised by Jesus (Jn 17:13)
It’s a tool for evangelization. Especially in the current world, with so much suffering and a general attitude of complaint, encountering someone with true joy can lead them to ask why we have such joy. The answer, of course, is God. This is our opening to share the Joy of the Gospel as Pope Francis so often urged us to do.
How to obtain it:
Joy is nurtured and obtained through the practice of the interior life. Prayer, the sacraments, and gratitude.
Start your day with gratitude. Gratitude for your very life, the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross. The beauty of the world. There are endless things to be thankful for. When you start doing this daily, you’ll begin to recognize just how much you have to be joyful about.
Participate in the Eucharist often. The Eucharist pours the Holy Spirit’s joy into us, making us “fruitful” and “rejoicing”.
Develop a prayer routine and rhythm. Having a rhythm of prayer throughout your day and week helps you to be further united with God, solidifying that connection, and strengthening true joy in your heart. With a strong prayer routine, it’s impossible not to see God’s goodness.
How to display it:
Smile. Once we recognize the weight of what God has done for us, how can we not be joyful outwardly? Nothing can compare to this. We have the opportunity to spend eternity with God in heaven.
Practice small acts of kindness. Helping an old woman cross the street. Offering food to the homeless. And don’t forget to do this with your family and your employees. Maybe even send a nice note to your suppliers from time to time.
Display joy in times of suffering. When going through hardship, as all of us do at times, display that true joy for God’s goodness. This will really strike people at their heart. I promise you. I think this is especially important when we are experiencing tough times with our businesses.
Practice gratitude often. Thank people often. Write thank you notes. Don’t ever act like you deserve something.
As business owners, we encounter many people as customers. We spend a lot of time with our employees. And we interact in a meaningful way with our suppliers. All of these interactions are opportunities for our Joy to spill over. Are we taking this opportunity seriously?
If we truly care about evangelizing the world, we MUST develop these internal practices so that these interactions are not lost opportunities for evangelization.
To wrap up, here are some scripture references to joy:
John 15:11 — “My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”
John 16:20, 22 — “Your sorrow will turn into joy; no one will take your joy from you.”
Acts 2:46 — “They ate together with glad and generous hearts.”
Acts 8:8 — “Wherever the disciples went, there was great joy.”
1 Peter 4:14 — “Rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings.”
Hebrews 12:2 — “For the sake of the joy that was set before him He endured the cross.”
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
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Heavenly Hustlers
Looking to meet other ambitious Catholic business owners? You’re in the right place.
Meet today’s Heavenly Hustlers.
💼 Sean Dudley runs his own law firm supporting businesses with commercial activities (M&A, real estate, company formation, etc).
🧭 Joe Sullivan is building MatchStix, a tech that helps map out your career trajectory to help you land the right type of role.
☎️ Michael Lipic and Brad Pikeare building Lindenwood LLC, an IT consulting firm helping small and medium-sized businesses get the best IT set up for their unique needs (holistic, rather than disconnected solutions that don’t talk to each other) — and it’s free!
🙏 Andrew Windhamis the founder of Educated Freedom, where he helps founders at $10-100m in revenue integrate their faith into their entire operation (kind of like us, but a white glove service).
Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups) NOTE: If you’re a Catholic running a business, apply to win the top Christian startup Award from DOMINUS Lab — a program they are running that will be announced in December.
Events:
DM me if you’d like to attend our Catholic Founders meetup in Chicago (dates TBD — but late October / early November)
Our recent episode with Chris Farls really blew me away. This was also his first-ever podcast appearance after a 30+ year career of buying and selling businesses; he is someone I think all of us should look to learn from. Check it out if you’ve not already.
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.
OFFSHORE TALENT: Hire a Catholic Virtual Assistant through ParacleteVA (email us: catholicfounders@gmail.com)
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