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Seeking Excellence
Seeking Excellence provides people with the purpose, direction, and motivation to relentlessly pursue their God-given mission in life.
This community is about becoming fully alive through living a life of excellence.
We will discuss all things excellence including fitness, mental health, relationships, personal finance, Christianity, and social/cultural issues.
Join us here if you're ready to be your best!
This community is about becoming fully alive through living a life of excellence.
We will discuss all things excellence including fitness, mental health, relationships, personal finance, Christianity, and social/cultural issues.
Join us here if you're ready to be your best!
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
Nathan Crankfield@nathancrankfield
June 04, 2025
"I'm a proud Vatican II Catholic. And I think the Church needs to keep being open minded and avoid clinging to tradition and regressing like many want us to."
This was what I heard from a 72 year old Catholic woman after an event I was invited to speak at this week. We were there to discuss our hopes for the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, as well as some of our experience throughout Pope Francis' pontificate.
This woman thought I was excessively critical of Pope Francis. For what it's worth, it seemed as though any criticism of him would've been excessive in her view. And I do not consider myself a Pope Francis hater by any means.
In fact, I even shared how early in his pontificate I was a massive fan of Pope Francis, doing college papers and projects on his works. It was only after years of frustration and exhaustion of needing to constantly defend our Holy Father that I grew weary of his "make a mess" approach to leading the Church.
This woman's allegiance to Vatican II didn't bother me. What bothered me was her allegiance to what's called "The spirit of Vatican II" rather than the actual council and its documents.
The graph below shows exactly what I mean. Many parishes and Dioceses are returning to reverent, orthodox, and beautiful Catholicism that Vatican II documents actually promoted. This has led to a great resurgence in faith amongst young people, and an equal decline in mass attendance amongst the older, self-proclaimed Vatican II Catholics.
The young Catholics, by and large, like incense, latin, challenging homilies, and beautiful music. The woman I spoke with views some of these things as "regression" and "close-mindedness".
In a world as messy as ours, we need order and structure from the 2,000 year old Church, not chaos and confusion. I joined the Church as a 13 year old in a broken home because I wanted stability that only the universal Church and God Himself can offer. Many in our world today are looking for the same.
Ultimately, I don't think there's anything wrong with being a Vatican II Catholic. I love the Novus Ordo mass when it's done the way the council actually prescribed. I also love the Traditional Latin Mass, although I attend it much less often.
What I think is wrong is what we see happening in our Church in certain dioceses, parishes, and sometimes from the Vatican - punishing Catholic communities that our actually growing attendance and re-building the Church. The scandals of the last two decades have done enough damage.
Places that are growing in spite of all that should not have extra hurdles and burdens placed on them by people who believe that we must double down on the very behavior that destroyed church attendance more than the scandals ever could.
It's wild to me that people can sit in parishes with 3-5 people to a pew and nothing but gray hair in sight and think that the parishes that are overflowing with young families, young adults, and new converts are the ones that need to change.
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"My daughter was really offended by your talk last night." 😅
"My daughter was really offended by your talk last night."
Someone dropped this bomb on me unexpectedly after daily mass this past summer. Although I can sometimes be a bit dicey and bold in my presentations, I was pretty shocked to hear it.
I had given a talk to middle schoolers the night prior on how our faith can help us in managing sadness, anxiety, and stress.
After mass the next day, I was walking in the convention center and was stopped by a woman who asked if I spoke to the middle schoolers the night prior. I responded in the affirmative.
"My daughter was really offended by your talk."
In a flash, I try to recall what I said that might have been the trigger for offense. Nothing came to mind. So I inquired, "Interesting. What was it that bothered her?"
"She said that you told the kids that if you experience anxiety, you can essentially pray it all away. And she has been clinically diagnosed with severe anxiety so it upset her."
"AH okay, I see the misunderstanding here" I ...
00:56:59
I am a Charlie Kirk, not a George Floyd
Over the last few days, I've taken a lot of time to reflect on the importance of this moment for our nation and for the Church.
Here are further reflections on these recent events and what I think we ought to do from here.
00:36:22
The Lion and the Lamb - What We Can Learn from the Life and Death of Charlie Kirk
Yesterday, we lost a legend in the Christian movement in our country and world.
Charlie was a great force for good.
We remain here on earth to continue fighting the same mission - advancing truth, beauty, and goodness against the evil forces who work against us.
I encourage you to battle the temptation to hate or become cowardly in the face of hate. More than ever, we need love and courage to guide our words and actions.
00:34:02
Multiple hard truths can be believed at the same time
An important thing to remember is this - multiple things can be true at the same time. You can easily believe all of the following statements, which I believe shouldn't be controversial at all :
1) Taxes are taken by threat of imprisonment or heavy fines, aka by force, and meant to be used for improving society as a whole.
2) If you're able but unwilling to work, you should not have any aspect of your life subsidized by taxes.
3) If a person loses their income, it is good for them to receive help while they look for more work.
4) It is also good for the poor, children, the sick, the physically and mentally disabled, and the elderly to receive help if they are unable to work or feed themselves.
5) It is best for both #3 and #4 to come from personal charity rather than taxation. And this is what was done for most of the history of Western Civilization.
6) Taxes are not charity. They do not produce the virtue of generosity. And they sterilize the relationship between the giver and ...
Should Christians support food stamps/SNAP?
About 42 million Americans lost access to SNAP (commonly known as food stamps) and EBT over the weekend, sparking a frenzy of online debate about the necessity and fairness of the system.
Government shutdowns are always somewhat of a goofy thing. Many in the government continue to work and get paid, like Congress and the Military (for the most part).
For the average American, we don't see much impact on our day to day lives. Nothing at all in my life has changed since the government shutdown aside from the news stories I consume.
That changed over the weekend as tens of millions of Americans lost access to their grocery money.
Some have pointed out that kids, the disabled, the sick, and the poor - the very people Jesus cared most about - will go hungry as a result of this.
Others have pointed to stories and testimonies of young, able bodied people who are taking advantage of the system and simply refuse to work out of a sense of entitlement.
It's one of those topics where we typically see ...
Happy Halloween!
These are the days that make the busy schedules worth it.
As much as I love the work I do and am blessed to be able to do it, it’s easy to get caught up in the pace of meetings, deadlines, talks, podcasts, and clients.
Life moves fast, and sometimes we forget to pause and notice the little things happening right in front of us.
But then there are days like this, when I decide to close the laptop a little earlier than planned, and I get to experience pure joy in its simplest form.
Watching my family laugh, goof around in costumes, and delight in something as small as candy reminds me of what truly matters.
Success isn’t only about what we accomplish in our careers, but about being present for the people we love.
Cherishing these moments can fuel our pursuit of our goals, lower our stress, and give deeper meaning to the hustle.
So here’s to making time for the fun things too, showing up for the people who matter most, and to finding gratitude in the simple things, because...
Happy Halloween from the Seeking Excellence Team!
What Is the Real Value of Stay-at-Home Moms?
Addressing the extremes of what society claims this vocation is worth
According to Investopedia, the real income of a stay-at-home parent exceeds $200,000. But is that based on reality?
For context, my wife stays home full-time with our children. We are very pro-stay-at-home moms around here—that should already be well known.
However, I am very opposed to skewing the numbers to make a financial point. The Investopedia article does precisely that. I have two significant issues with it.
First, it’s simply dishonest (which I’ll explain in a moment) and therefore unhelpful for those trying to decide whether to have a parent stay home full-time.
The second issue is that the article is materialistic in nature, focusing primarily on a financial argument for a decision that is fundamentally human, formative, vocational, and, for many, spiritual. It prioritizes money over the two most valuable aspects of having a stay-at-home parent, both of which are priceless.
Let’s address the dishonesty first. As you can see in the screenshot below, the article accurately assigns national average costs to the general work done by a stay-at-home parent.
This part is true: that's what you'd pay individuals to do those tasks. The problem, though, is that only the top 1% of society actually hires people to do that work. My wife doesn’t save us money by doing our laundry, cooking our meals, cleaning the house, or driving the kids around.
Why? Because if we both worked, we wouldn’t pay anyone to do those things. In most dual-income households, people end up doing all that work ON TOP OF their full-time jobs. Full-time working and parenting is an absolute grind, there’s no doubt about it.
My wife does save us money on childcare, but it doesn’t come anywhere near $130k per year for two children, unless I were hiring private trilingual tutors at the highest end of the cost spectrum.
Some two-income households have family members watch their children or other arrangements that cost $1,000 a month or less, so the $130k price tag to cover 14 hours of childcare per day is just absurd.
Now, I understand why people do this. It’s an extreme reaction to society’s growing distaste for traditional family values. When the world rejects the value of motherhood, we try to amplify it using the one measure the world respects most: money.
But money isn’t the best way to measure the value of the stay-at-home parent lifestyle and their contribution to the family. My wife would be the first to tell you that the most valuable part is the extra time she gets to spend with our kids.
By the time our children are 5, Emily will have had almost an extra 10,000 hours with them that she'd otherwise have missed out on. That has a massive impact on their character formation, familial bond, and education.
What’s in it for me, the provider? Besides the satisfaction of those extra 10,000 hours for my wife and kids, it’s the massive increase in leisure time I get because someone is managing the home full-time.
No, this doesn't mean I never help out around the house. But I don’t have to split cooking meals, doing laundry, and many other chores because she handles the majority of them while I’m working.
Then, when I come home, I'm able to enjoy the meal she's prepared and take over the kids for a couple of hours before we tag-team bedtime. I get to play with the kids every evening instead of washing dishes or cleaning the house. It’s a win-win: she gets her much-needed break from the children, and I get my precious time with
them.
That said, becoming a one-income household is definitely a financial decision. The problem with Investopedia’s math is that it distorts the financial bar of entry.
Most approach the financial
aspect of one parent leaving their job
through a simple equation:
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