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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
October 07, 2025
No more fat generals
When I was in the Army, I wanted to be held to high standards. I didn't join the military to be mediocre, politically correct, and to add diversity and inclusivity.
I joined the Infantry because I wanted to push myself.
I went to Ranger School to see what I was fully capable of.
I wanted to go to the 82nd Airborne Division and lead a platoon into a combat deployment because of the tradition of excellence in that organization.
Even then, many soldiers joined the military as an escape. It provided them with financial opportunity and a career when they were aimless or struggling in some way.
This can be a good thing. One need not be a die hard patriot with high standards for themselves to join the military, because the culture is one of patriotism and high standards and it has a natural ability to shape you in that culture.
Removing you from your familiar surroundings and lifestyle to immerse you in the military culture has transformed wayward individuals for 250 years.
The problem we've had recently is that people have started to make waywardness the priority, which has eroded the once great culture of excellence the US military prides itself on.
Many people in our world of safe spaces and emotional fragility may not like to hear the Secretary of War speak against "fat generals", but that's exactly the issue: the military is not meant to be a safe space for the emotionally fragile.
The military is designed for a specific purpose: to win wars and protect the nation.
When any organization loses sight of its purpose, its effectiveness also fades away. The hardest thing for leaders to do is hold people accountable.
It's fun creating standards, mission statements, and writing up your hopes for your company culture.
It's a lot less fun to hold people to those standards, mission statements, and company culture. People will inevitably fail or perpetually struggle to meet the minimums.
That's when the rubber meets the road for leadership and for an organization. Are you truly committed to excellence or not?
Because if you tolerate mediocrity or worse for long enough, you become mediocre as a whole. And when that happens with a military, you become extremely vulnerable as a nation.
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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
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...
Are we all a bunch of hypocrites?
I think most Christian parents are hypocrites, myself included. Let me give you an uncomfortable example of this.
In the eyes of the world, we are all hypocrites without a doubt. We promote values that we struggle to uphold and live out in our own lives.
That's inevitable. We can't help but continue to fail even on our path toward sainthood.
There are, however, certain things we can control and ways we can avoid vice in our lives.
What's one of the primary things parents of young children find themselves repeating over and over and over again?
"You need to share".
Toddlers are pretty selfish if we're being honest. They are willing to take things by force from others, even things that don't belong to them.
And they are very protective over what is theirs. We have all heard the angry "THAT'S MINE" phrase shouted by an angry 3 year old who sees someone playing with their toy.
What's worse than a selfish toddler? A selfish adult.
One thing that has become abundantly clear to me in my adulthood is ...
Live Chat
The Truth About Being a Stay-at-Home-Mom
We’ve glamorized hustle culture to the point where raising your own kids is seen as a “waste of potential.”
Here’s the truth: there’s nothing more valuable than being present in your child’s life.
Stay-at-home moms are often undervalued because their worth can’t be measured by a paycheck. But we should stop asking what the role is worth — and start asking what the absence of that role costs.
If you’re building a home, raising children, and forming the next generation with intentionality — you’re not “just a mom.” You’re leading a mission far more important than any title or salary could reflect.
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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