When Technology Meets Faith

Nathan Crankfield is a husband and father of two beautiful children. Upon graduation from Mount St. Mary's University, Nathan became an active duty Infantry Officer in the US Army. He now serves as a Sales Manager at Hallow, the #1 prayer app in the world. He is also the host of the Seeking Excellence podcast, a motivational speaker, and runs a coaching program for men and women who want to live an excellent life. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to Eight Principles Voices. Conversations with those who are making a difference. I'm your host, Larry Johnson, founder of the Eight Principles. Now join me as I welcome this week's guest, as they invite us to come along on their journey. Hello, everybody. It's Larry Johnson, your host for A Principles Voices, and I'm delighted to have with me a young man, and he is young compared to me, Nathan Crankfield, who's coming to me from um uh from Kansas, Wichita, right? Is that it? No, is that where you're going?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Kansas City, Missouri.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Kansas, I got it wrong. Kansas City, Missouri. And uh Nathan has a really interesting job. We'll get to that in a minute. But he is a father, and you have one, two children?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Two children, yep. Two children. Under two and a half.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Under two and a half. Now you see, I don't see any uh uh deep circles under his eyes, though. He must be pretty, pretty energetic, uh, because I know what those are like. Mine are a lot older. But um, so and he's and he studied, what was it? You studied again in school? Criminal justice philosophy. And oh, there's a combo. All right, okay. And he was in he was in the army for a while, and now he's doing something demonstrably different, but I suspect a little more rewarding. Would you say it's more rewarding?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

I would say so, for sure. Yeah, it has more eternal comp uh impact.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Eternal impact. He almost said compensation, but he was gonna say this. Uh no, he is the national sales manager for the Hallow Prayer Act. Welcome. Now thank you. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you, Larry. Now, I presume you use the product.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I do, yes. Okay, I was listening to it on the way to work this morning.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

All right, and as I do as well. Um, and um, so have you d tell me a little bit about how you came to work for them.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, so I was very lucky, very blessed in my journey to Hallow. So I first heard about the app. One of my best friends from high school, his name is Alessandro DeSanto. He's now our CFO and one of our co-founders. He told me about the app, uh, you know, this summer of 2018, spring of 2018. He he calls me one day. We're catching up. He came to my rage school graduation. I can't I visited him when he was working on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs, and he calls me up summer of 2018 and says, Hey, like uh, I think I'm quitting my job. And I'm like, okay, but what are you gonna do? And he gives me this whole story of his friend Alex Jones, who I had met when we were all in college when we were 21, and he's telling me about how he's gonna quit his job and start this prayer app. And I'm like, okay, sounds like a great thing. I think that'll be really helpful for a lot of people, but never would he have imagined it would become what it is today. But I donate to the Kickstarter when they're doing their Kickstarter, they all drain their 401ks and all the money that they had. They maxed out their credit cards to start Hallow. And uh it was really awesome just to kind of see them just go full force into this thing. And so I'm kind of watching it from afar. This is the same year that I was getting out of the army the following summer, and so we launched December of 2018, is when the app launched. So that next summer I moved up to Cincinnati when I took a job um in uh Cincy and I started doing some volunteer stuff with them. I would go to like a parish launch with him. I remember going to a conference with him, just kind of like tabling or just kind of promoting and getting out there as best I could. So started dabbling with, you know, working with them back then. But then fast forward a couple years later, they were starting their sales team. I was looking for a new job as I was leaving my role at Benedictine College here. That was when I was living in Atcheson, Kansas, uh, and moving to Denver with my then fiance, now wife. And they were like, Why don't you come work for us? Why don't you come do this this sales thing? And I was like, Okay, let's give it a shot. So I always say I got in at the the family and friends round when they were still hiring people that they just knew. It was before we were, you know, we just we just listed 17 roles back in July of 2025, and we had over 7,000 applicants. And so had I had to apply during a time like that, there's I don't think there's any way that I'm sales manager at Halo today. So I'm very blessed to have been good friends with Alessandro and to have gotten in when I did.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

There's a there's a third category when you're in that in that range. It's called it's called friends, family, and fools. But obviously, you're not a fool. Uh now, but I but I want to go back and so this so a Halo, uh what how many were there two or three people that were in it in first three founders, two or three founders?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Three co-founders. That's correct. Yeah, three co-founders, and they say a founding team of about five to seven.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Okay. And so then they essentially uh did a Kickstarter, but then put all their own money into this thing, including maxing out some credit cards, and that's kind of scary, um, to make it work. So then they did not go the venture capital route. Uh and they did eventually.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

So yeah, so they did yeah, they did a seed round, I think, in in 2019. I don't want to misspeak on that. So I'm I'm not the expert of the whole timeline of the venture capital rounds, but I believe 2019, and then I think we did series A. We almost did them annually there for a while. It was like series A was in 2020 or 21, and then series B in 22, and then I believe we've done it up through Series C at this point.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

And uh I presume that was after you with uh the proverbial you had put all the their their money into it to demonstrate the concept, so then the correct the capital came as a point as acceleration as fuel to grow. That's the way it was certainly okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

All right, yeah, and a great time too, obviously. Uh you know, 20 they they launched in advent, so December of 2018, as I said, and then 2019 was kind of this get it out there, nobody knew who it was. And then when COVID hit in 2020, that was really when they started to get become more known, right? People were starting to look for spiritual things they can do remote. So the time was obviously uh very providential, uh, we would say, and it's just something that a lot of people needed. So 2020 was a huge spike in in usage, and then it's from there grown exponentially.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

So let me ask you, what does a sales manager do? Because I presume this is it was it's like I bought it on a point-to-point sale. Um, I mean, uh so what what do you do, as they would say? You know, when I was the first vice president at a college, someone a young student said to me, you know, Mr. Johnson, I know you're vice president, but what is it you do? So I'm gonna so what is it you do?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah, it's a great question. So we sell obviously individual subscriptions, and so an individual person can go in and buy an account or buy a subscription. You can have a free account or you can have a paid uh subscription, and then you can buy family accounts. What we do is we sell it at scale, and so we partner with a Catholic school, for example, and say they have 500 students at the school, they can buy it for five to seven dollars per student, and all the faculty staff is also included in that. And so then they're giving access to the students. The students can pray at home with their families. We give them additional resources like teacher guides, curriculum guides, uh, walkthroughs for the teachers. We train the teachers on how to use it, and they have a dedicated success rep that works with them throughout that partnership. And so we have partnerships with schools, parishes, universities, dioceses, Catholic organizations uh that give, you know, other nonprofits that give access to their employees uh for a full year and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

So it's a but it's under the same, it's a subscription, it's the license model. So it's a it's a periodic fee. Now, um, I know that it's uh it's uh it's Catholic in its in its orientation. Do you and I'm a Protestant, do you sell it to any Protestant schools or anything as well?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, we haven't yet. I think we've had small partnerships with certain Protestant schools. We think that it'll be something we do down the line uh more intentionally on the B2B side. Uh with individuals, though, we have almost 40% of our users are non-Catholic. So we we reach a lot of non-Catholics through the app itself. But we on the the B2B side, I think our main approach of our philosophy is just really trying to master what we're doing on the Catholic side because it's what we know, and then roll it out to the organizations that operate a lot differently than than what we're used to. And so uh to you know, our earlier conversation, we've always kind of thought about, especially on the the church side specifically, schools would be pretty easy to do. We just haven't really um done a lot of outreach, but we've met with a number of Protestant schools. I know we've partnered with a handful of them, and we we have no, I would say, uh hesitancy or anything against partnering with a Protestant school or even some private schools and charter schools have have been in touch with us. But then on the church side, our plan has kind of been all right, let's go. We partner with Catholic churches and then probably extend it to Orthodox churches and kind of liturgical Protestants and then get kind of further down the line into um, you know, churches that operate in a very different manner. And so the hope is that down the line we, you know, we want to help everybody pray. And so we try to make it as open a space and as welcoming a space for for everyone there while being dedicated to our Catholic faith and Catholic values. Uh, but I think it does a great job of reaching people in in such a wide range of uh places in their faith, uh, you know, quite literally around the world with the apps available in eight different languages, using 150 different countries on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

You ran let's slow down a little bit. How much how many languages? How many languages and how many countries?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

150.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

We say 150 plus, but so so then um I'm curious. Uh, all the content is it live recorded, or is some of the translation AI, or how does it work?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

We are very ardently against using AI voices in the app. We think you should always pray with an individual. Yes. I see there's there's specifically one prayer app out there that is becoming more and more popular that has like an AI Jesus and things, and our our philosophy is is pretty hard against that. So we use real voices all the time. Now, do we use AI as prompts sometimes? So we don't let AI write the prayers and we don't let AI record or say the prayers. That can't be the voice or the actual author, but we use it as prompts or looking up, you know, we're writing the story of a saint, for example. Do we use AI for some of the, you know, gathering some of that information? Yes, but we don't use it outside of that. Uh but when we, yeah, so when we translate it, we have a team of contractors, different people that work, uh, some people work full-time for us in Poland, in Brazil, in Mexico, in Italy, um, in the Philippines that are actually translating the content and then recording the content, working with different voices and people to get that content recorded.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

So, how long was it after um the um the application was live? Did you go international?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

International started in the fall of 2021, so it would have been almost three years, just shy of three years when we started making the international push.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Let me give you a uh a comment that came back from a Protestant friend of mine. He is the uh chaplain of a local university and uh very thoughtful guy. Here's something he said it's impressed me too. When you're doing one of the devotions, and I'll often do um, where's the one here? Uh oh, come on. Come on. Uh here we go. This uh this daily gospel up here and it'll say it it's it's tended to be a semi-meditation on the front end. So it says, find a place where it's calm and blah blah blah. Well, with each instruction, there's plenty of time to do what they've asked you to do. So when they read the scripture, it says, and and you know, think about this. Well, there's plenty of time, you don't have to respond to me. And he noticed it immediately too. He said, you know, a lot of these apps, it's just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's it's like they're sort of projecting at you, they're not engaging you. And that's one thing I really the pace of this is done very, very well. And you can just take that along to your bosses and tell them, all right. That's great. The pace is done very well. Now, I do have another thing. Uh I'm sure it's in here somewhere, but I haven't been able to what version of the scripture is used for all the quotations in here.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

That's a great question. I I believe it's the revised standard version, the the Catholic RSV, but it could also be the New American Bible. I'm not 100% positive on that.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Well, well, I use RSV. Now there is a new RSV, which is a little more up, you know, to the language. You know, I'm still in the the thou thing. But uh, and then the other one was the um uh what was it? Uh the New American Bible.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

There's a new American Bible revised edition, which I believe is what we use for mass readings, for Catholic mass readings, but I'm only 80% sure about that.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

It's very friendly. I liked it. I liked it. And it's um it's um there are a couple out there that I don't particularly like. I won't mention to which ones they are, uh, but there's one that's very popular in the Protestant world that I think really shouldn't be called a translation, should be called a uh a paraphrase because there are whole phrases that are just a message or something like that. Oh no, no, it it it proclaims itself as a as a translation, but I don't think it is because there's so much idiomatic material that's added to it, you know, to give it a certain slant theologically. You know, I'm going, uh and when I just looked and it is the N it's the NRSV.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I just saw it in that in the app.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

The new revised standard version, huh? That's right. Well, I really like it. I'm gonna I may have to get a a version of that, a copy of that. My mine is the traditional RSV. It's been around a little bit, as you can see. But um, yeah. Um but um uh anyway, I really like I'm gonna I'm going to look at that because that really impressed me. Uh, and then I'm not a big fan of this other one that's so popular among certain evangelical churches, because it's it's it's too dead, it's too uh tilted in their direction. Uh and and you know, my wife and I will we'll be sitting there and they'll be reading this thing, and we'll go, do you see that in here? I don't see that in here, and uh so the whole phrases, and then some of the language is is dumbed down uh so that it doesn't have the impact and the majesty uh that uh that that it should have, in my view. But um so how long have you been there, Jane? Five years, six years?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I've been there uh almost four and a half.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Well a little bit, I guess I got a couple months until four and a half, but I had four years this past early summer.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

So have you met Jonathan Rooney?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

I have met Roomy, yes. I get asked a lot of have you ever met you know XYZ when I talk about working at Hallow, especially when I'm out speaking in the world. Uh I have not met Wahlberg, but I have met Jonathan Roomy. No Chris Pratt either, but I have met Jonathan Roomy. Actually, it was in like my third month at Hallow. He came on a retreat with us, which was really special.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Well, I've not met him, I do know uh Bishop Barron. Um, nice. I know Bishop Barron, and he's been a friend of Roomy's for about 20 years, actually. And he he apparently uh Mr. Roomy uh was in a desert, a spiritual desert for a very, very long time. Uh, and that this role that he had in the chosen, um, just sort of, well, it was providential, shall we say, and uh it's given him his um um his and you know, for the longest time, I would not look at the chosen, primarily because so much of what Christian media is is more or less propaganda, and I don't need that. And then uh when when uh Jordan Peterson interviewed Dallas Jenkins, the producer, and I heard that interview, I'm going, hmm, this may be worth a look. And so then I looked at it and I was really, really impressed. Um for such a small budget, they there was incredible production values, and then on top of that, they'd gone to great lengths uh to make sure that it was accurate, that the create real create viable backstories, and then have all the different faith groups, you know, even the Jews represented. And I love the way the fact that they portray Jesus as others would see him, not the other way around. How would you see him? And the thing that, you know, here I am with theological education, and I can tell you the thing that really impressed me about Rumi's portrayal, and I'm sure that it had a lot to do with the script as well, is that Jesus he just sort of took people as he found them. Okay, I'm gonna get to know you now. What's next? Kind of thing. He didn't go in and immediately make prescriptions on these people, he didn't prejudge these people. And to me, that's the power of this uh of the Christian faith is that he you know I was told that he, you know, you you grew up thinking, yeah, he takes you as you are, but that isn't often how it comes across. And yet when you see it, it's like, oh, okay. And of course, as we know, um he um engendered some backlash on some of that. Um he uh I like to say to people, you know, you have to generate some serious enemies to get crucified, you know, you know, serious. Uh you you know, they don't crucify Mr. Rogers. And that's true. And that's often how he's portrayed, this kind of nice guy. Yeah, go along to get along, you know. And the worst ones are those those uh uh those paintings from the late 19th, early 20th century where it looked like a good stiff wind would blow him over and uh pale, sickly, thin. This guy was a first century Jew. Probably had a pretty good physique on him, Nathan. He had to, you know. That's right. Come on, let's get real here. You know, but but but you don't want a muscular Jew Jesus. Oh no, that's no, you don't want that. You want some frail thing, like I'm playing. Um it's called it's called being dangerous, but not being a danger. And there's the difference. You know, Jesus was a very dangerous person. Uh he could wrap you up and you'd be like, Wow, what just happened? But but he was not dangerous, you know, very compassionate, very loving, uh forgiving, but um uh he would tell it like it is. And um have you seen The Chosen, haven't you? I have, yeah. Well, my favorite scene has to be season two where he's been invited to a Shabbat dinner by Mary Magdalene and Matthew, and I for there's one other there's one other disciple that's there, I forget Shuan. And they're sitting down to dinner, and there's a knock at the door and it goes up, and it's two Pharisees. And they they do a quick uh eye scan of the room and they're going, uh oh we don't want to get any closer. Yeah, you got a prostitute, you got a tax collector, you know, and who else we can't get any closer than this. But Jesus, you know, I didn't phase him. He says, Come on in and join us, come on and have a good time, you know. The look on those guys' faces, it was like, if we get any closer, we're gonna catch it. We better back up, back up, back up. And see, in this world, there are very few situations where there's that kind of straight line that's been dr that's been drawn in society, where these men really thought their faith was at stake if they got any closer. And and was it was in communion with these people. And I I say to people, you know what the two two biggest complaints of Jesus were during his time? They say what? And I say, Well, hanging around the wrong kind of people and going to way too many parties. And he hung around, he was down on the well, what was his response? I go where the sick are, I go where there's a need. You know, you know, I'm not gonna go where everyone's already redeemed and holy. I mean, they don't need me, you know. I'm going somewhere else, you know. And there's a sermon, there's a sermon illustration that I heard a number of years ago, and it's uh and they were talking about Jesus, and I remember the the the minister said, and there's Jesus sitting over there at a table full of sinners having a wonderful time, just enjoying their company, you know, and it that's and I and I really see that in the chosen, the way it's put together, and um, but the personalities are there. I mean, oh yeah, you got the personalities, and one of my I guess my next favorite scene, Nathan, is when is the calling of Matthew. If you remember that scene, he's walking through town and Matthew's in his booth, and they're maybe 25, 30 feet away, and he just looks to Matthew and says, Matthew, follow me. Now they had a couple of brief encounters before, but all of a sudden it's just like, oh really? Well, he has he has Simon Peter and he has um oh what what's Simon Peter's uh brother? I can't even think of the uh Andrew Andrew, I couldn't think. And they're standing there. Well, they just had some rather unsavory interactions with this man, and they knew what he was, and so Peter says to um uh Simon says to uh to Jesus, uh that's really different, Jesus. And Jesus says, Simon, get used to different. Get used to different and and I love that. I love that. Yeah, get used to different. Yeah. I'm breaking all the rules here. We're gonna do this differently.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yeah, and I think that the uh the thing that you're speaking to, I think, is uh This, what what Aristotle kind of calls the the virtuous middle, you know, the the mean being and the virtue. A lot of people struggle with this because it's so easy to live in the extremes, philosophically, psychologically. Just it's easier on the brain to just rush and live the extremes. This is why we're so polarized, I think, as a nation, as a society. But a lot of people want to do either one of the two extremes. They either take the Pharisees approach. And we have people like this in the broad Christian church, where people say, I can't associate with these sinners. Everybody that doesn't think exactly like me is evil and I can't talk with them. I have to cut people off if they see things differently than me, etc. And then you have Christians that go out there on the exact other side and say, Jesus says to everybody come as you are. He dined with sinners and prostitutes, and they stay around. They they may get baptized or you know, have a conversion experience and they say, Oh, I'm gonna change my life, but they still hang out with their friends who get drunk every weekend or still doing drugs or doing these things, and then they see themselves falling right back into it because they're put themselves on this island and think that oh, I can live this Christian life alone because Jesus did it, so I can do it too. And the you know, Jesus, when he sends out the 72, he sends people out in pairs, he never sends anybody out to say, Hey, you just go do it by yourself and uh I expect you to survive. And I always remind people that yeah, Jesus dined with prostitutes and sinners. He also had 12 closest friends, and 11 of them became saints. One of them was really problematic. 11 of his closest 12 friends became saints. And a lot of times when he was with these prostitutes and sinners, he brought those 11 future saints, huge saints, no less, along with him. He wasn't out there by himself hanging out with prostitutes and sinners for months on end or years on end, which a lot of people try to do. So there's this tough balance that challenges all of us, no matter which side you lean towards or tend towards, that challenges you if you feel like you're a little bit more isolated and want to go be on a you know in a Christian bubble and island that Jesus says, no, get out there and be in the world, but of the world. On the other side, you're not also supposed to just be immersed and in a culture and friend group and family or whatever it is that's just surrounded by sin and tempting you constantly to the point where you are falling away from your faith. So it's a hard thing to balance. That's that's why it's called picking up your cross, right? It's not a not necessarily a joy ride, which chosen does a good job of depicting that, I think, or just showing that it's difficult.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

The Aristotle middle, you know, understanding that um um is gonna say something about that. Um there well, you'd recall the uh the woman at the well, uh, once he those other guys had left, and he just says to the woman, All right, you're forgiven. Now go and don't sin again. Just now leave that life. Go on, it's over with. Right, and um, and uh of course they were ready to stone her to death. I loved it. Now, what do you think he he drew in the dirt? There's all this speculation when he wrote in the dirt, and then one by one they walked away. What do you think it was?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

That's a good question. I I definitely do not know. Do you know what it was?

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Well, I don't know, but one of the things like uh bully that that he was writing their own sins in the dirt.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Oh, I have heard that before. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Which he could do.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

And that that would have shocked that he'd have shocked. Whoa, this guy, don't get too close, you'll get burned. Seriously. Um, but yeah, I I have a feeling that that was that's probably c similar. I I could just see him doing something like that. You know, not you know, not calling anybody out per se, because he, you know, he did. You know, the time that he really called people out was oh Jordan Peterson uh had had done this research on what really is taking God's name in vain. And he went back to the Hebrew, went to the Old Testament, and it's it's not really using the oath, it's using God's name to feather your own nest, to further your own career. So if someone says, I'm a Christian this or I'm a Christian that and add your trade to it, that is using God to verify or support what you're doing. He said, That is what it is. So if you think about that, that's why he was so hard on the guys who were selling the animals for the sacrifice and the money changers in the temple before Passover. Because they were doing a good service. They were with anything, but they were within the temple grounds, which means they had the approval of the temple leaders and they had sort of the uh the the uh the right real estate, so to speak. Uh, and that's why he was so bad on it. No, do it outside, don't do it in here. You know, it's okay outside, but don't use the god, don't use God as an excuse. You know, it's like being it's like being in a national park and being the approved vendor. You know, you've got the inside track, you know. And they had they were an approved vendor. Yeah. And I and it just dawned on me, yeah, that that's what these guys are doing. You know, because in and of itself, they all had to have an animal sacrifice, they all had to do this. That was part of part of Jewish life. And then it just dawned on me, oh yeah, this is why it's where they were, not what they were doing. And because they had the they had the emperor of the temple on, you know. Who knows? The Pharisees are probably getting a cut. I mean, the temple leaders are probably getting a cut. They probably were. That would make sense for sure. Now I want you to think uh think a little something. What is an experience you had as a result working for Hallow that you thought was maybe like wow or unexpected, or really gave you a sense of either accomplishment, or maybe you thought, whoa, I've certainly stepped into something. Um, you want to share anything with us, please?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Man, I think there's been probably countless ones getting to speak at different opportunities. I I mean, I get to lead retreats at times for principals or for teachers at a school. I'm speaking next week in Phoenix to a room full of superintendents, and that's been really life-giving for me because you know, my faith journey, I became Catholic at a Catholic school. And so my family really I was baptized Lutheran. My dad was baptized the same day as me, but was raised by a Southern Baptist mom, but really never practiced his faith up until the time you know I was after after I was out of college, he started to really kind of discover his own faith and is still very much on his own journey with that. But um, I we weren't going to church at all by the time I was 10. And so when I became I turned 13, I was in eighth grade, I became Catholic at my Catholic school. And so for me to be able to give back and work with Catholic schools and help them on their mission and help them to form students in prayer, which is what really ended up changing my life later on in college, is uh just beautiful. I mean, just all of that, just that experience that that's what I get to wake up and do every day at schools and now with parishes as well, is unbelievable and certainly extremely impactful in my life and in my daily morale, my purpose and all of those things in my faith journey. Um, getting to experience and travel and do that as well. Now, now getting to see the company, this wasn't true necessarily in 2021, but now getting to represent Hallow in different places, you know, meeting different people. I just met somebody at my new office and said, Yeah, I work for Hallow. It's a Catholic prayer meditation app. And they're like, Oh, I have the app, I've heard of it, or I've used it before, things like that. Now that it's so much more known, the brand has grown so significantly over the last four years. Uh, it's really cool and just exceptional experience. You get to work in a place where 7,000 people apply, you know, and just for a handful of a dozen, a dozen plus open jobs in just a matter of a couple weeks is really amazing. It's hard to not be extremely grateful when you see when you when you stop and think, I'm glad they don't use this in a toxic way because they could if they wanted to become toxic and say, you know, we could replace you in a heartbeat. You know, how many people want your job? They never fall flash, obviously, in our faces because it's really a great place. But to just stop and and with all humility recognize that and and think about that myself sometimes. If I you know, every job's gonna have its frustrations. I always say I'm in the 99th percentile of job satisfaction, but it it's just amazing to just stop and think sometimes, like, man, people if my job came open, a lot of people will be very excited and be applying for it in a heartbeat. And so uh working at a place like that is just really cool, it's really fulfilling.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Well, you know, I can tell you're really happy where you are, and the fact that the fact that you love your job and you like what you do, you're in quite the minority in the workforce. Certainly. Um, you're very blessed, Nathan. And um, to not only are you blessed with job satisfaction, but you're blessed in a way you're enable to represent our Lord and in a in a way that's meaningful, um, in a way that really impacts other people's lives. And you're on the leading edge of a new way of delivery. Um there's um right, I I met two young men. Um, I just did a podcast for them. They have this AI thing where they will go into a church or organization or a school, and they will essentially uh input all the history of say all the sermons or any other content that's been done there and put it in this AI app, and you can just call stuff up and it'll come and it'll create stuff for you. It's like incredible. Uh it has to be loaded in, of course. It's you know, it's really a curated large uh large language model, is what it is. But uh these two young kids, I mean, you know, I think they're what I know I have grandsons their age, probably, but um, you know, that's um I I was fascinated by that. And the thing is called tapos, t-a-p-o-s. And and there's a theological meaning for that, and I forgot what it is, quite frankly. Maybe you know, but um it's it's it's tapos.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

That's awesome. So there's a lot of great things happening for sure. I think I think there's a great movement and and just a renewed energy and and fervor and zeal in in the church, broadly speaking, that is really cool to see. It's a really special time, and and I think that you know, our our CEO, he was just saying at our quarterly uh in-person meeting a couple weeks ago or a month ago now. He was saying about how like his whole dream when we st when he started Hallow and vision for the company was just that we'd start to see just a slight turnaround in just this ever decreasing, it seemed ever decreasing for the last 75 years in church attendance, belief in God, you know, activity, conversions, all these things was just constantly going down. And he said he just wanted to see it turnaround and see if Hallow could maybe be, you know, the the 50th footnote in in world history of of why that happened. And he's like, I feel like we I feel like we've done that. It like we've started to see the turnaround, and things have started to actually go back up. Bible sales were up like 23%, I think it was last year. There was a stat that came out recently, and church attendance going up, belief in God, belief in church, practicing religion, all that amongst young people starting to turn around and increase. And so to be, yeah, we play a small role in that, but to play a small role at a company that's playing uh a role in that is is really fun. So you know definitely blessing.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

You probably know this, but um, young men are converting to Roman Catholicism at a ratio of five to one. Did you know that? Men under 35, young men. Um, in fact, uh, back when last year, when leading up to the election, um the Washington the Wall Street Journal did a whole uh series on the manosphere. The manosphere, these young podcasters and all this, and they're being attracted to those, you know, the Joe Rogans and that group and all that. So yeah. Sure. And and they're going to faith and they're going to conservative faith. They want the structure, uh, they want something meaningful in their life. Um, so anyway, I just well, you're obviously enjoying yourself, son. This is great. We're having a good time, yeah, for sure. Um, and so what's coming up for you? Going to going to any uh events or or any trip soon?

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, so I have the the Catholic Leadership Summit, is what it's called for NCA, which is a National Catholic Educational Association. That's here uh next week in Phoenix, and so I'll be speaking at that on behalf of Hallow uh to the superintendents there talking about prayer and just maintaining how prayer can help fuel us with joy for the mission because a lot of superintendents, principals, teachers, they're burnt out and they get exhausted and it's it's a tough and demanding job. And so get to encourage them a little bit, which I'm really excited about, and then yeah, have some great things lined up next year. I'm doing multiple men's conferences. I speak at men's conferences, I speak at youth conferences, speak at churches, and I do corporate speaking. And so I've been very blessed with just an increasing opportunity year over here with that. Um, looking forward to launching more people in my coaching program in January, and we're very excited to be settled in Kansas City as well. So it's uh 2026 is gonna be big.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

So we didn't talk about your coaching program. Let's talk about that. Now, this is your own program and your own material. Uh, and as I understand it, it's a leadership program or a vocational program or some combination.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Yeah, there's sort of a leadership track to it that I do sometimes on on kind of more of the executive coaching side, but the the overall you know organization, the the thing that I run on the side is called Seeking Excellence.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

And so I've been podcasting now for five years. Seeking excellence. Seeking excellence. That's right. And and is there a website?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah, seeking excellence.us is the website. And so yeah, and so uh been podcasting for five years. I've done over 400 episodes focused on helping people to live to their fullest potential. And so I have what I call my six pillars of excellence mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, and professional, which I kind of view as like my life report card. And so the goal with the program, with the excellent life program that I coach people through, is giving them uh videos to go through, exercises that they go through, recommended reading that they go through, and then us meeting monthly to talk about being intentional and growing in those individual areas. And so there's things like go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

No, I was gonna say these meetings are one-on-one.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Correct. Yep. Okay. Go ahead. That's right. And so, yeah, having people go through exercises like a financial audit. So going through and helping them to create a budget if they don't have that. Um, if if giving is important to them, especially people coming from a faith background, helping them to set up and be intentional with their giving. Uh, for people going through the physical pillar, there's different like actual exercise challenges. There's a week of sleep challenge of just making sure you're getting good sleep and um doing having good, healthy sleep practices, uh, lowering your stream time, um, reading challenges, all kinds of different things that you go through throughout the course of the program, being intentional with your relationships, um, learning more about emotional intelligence and learning more about your spiritual gifts, you know, learning about prayer, meditation, all those sorts of things. And so a lot of times it's taking people that are kind of in the feel like they're doing well in several different areas, but see that they have a lot of room to grow in some other areas. But I what a lot what I do a lot is taking people kind of from that good to great, um, and taking people who are kind of, you know, typically not just like totally lost and kind of like a mess in life, but feel like, oh, you know, my career's going well. I, you know, I go to the gym pretty often, but man, my spiritual life, you know, my mental health, my uh sleep, you know, my screen time, like just I have some areas that really need some shoring up and need some fixing. Um, and so always just focused on where are you at currently? What's your vision for your life? And have exercises and videos that help people to walk through that and really get clarity on those things. And then how can we start to move towards that vision in these key areas of your life that matter most?

SPEAKER_02 38:19

When did you decide to do this?

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Uh so the like I said, the podcast was five years ago. I launched the program for the first time in 2025, and so I started to really write it up kind of mid-24 was when I started to create it.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

So you're uh you're you're a philosopher and a guy and a guy with armed muscle, um, law enforcement. And now you're into this. So what was what was the um what was the ins what was this the the inspiration for doing it in the first for the podcast five years ago? I mean, because because this curriculum has now grown out of the podcast, is what you're telling me.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Correct. Yep. And the the philosophy really came from just my my own life experience of of m coming up in a place where I'm my dad's seventh kid by five different moms. My oldest two brothers were in and out of prison. My oldest brother did almost 15 years in federal prison. Um, just saw a lot of brokenness on both sides of my family growing up from drug addiction to alcoholism, divorces, all kinds of things. And so by the time I get to college, you know, I had kind of the foundations, the beginning stages of a faith life, but really just had this desire always to want to do something great, to want to go and make a name for myself, to do something impactful, to do things that matter, to avoid a lot of the same mistakes. I just I felt like a lot of people in my life and and role models or just adults in my life had just repeated a lot of the same mistakes. And I had seen it through all so many siblings, you know. Being the seventh, I have one brother, two brothers who I would say I'm pretty proud of. But for the most part, it was a lot of just us, cousins, aunts, uncles, like we're just repeating the same things over and over again. And I just had this profound idea that's really quite simple that well, what if I didn't do that? What if I didn't do the exact same things that I see are leading to these outcomes? And I started following down that same path, but luckily at 15, 16 years old, I I had a pretty hard pivot and U-turned on a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Was there any particular event that precipitated that?

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Yeah, I got I got in big trouble. So I got caught with with uh weed in my room when I was 15 years old, and uh my mom busted me and uh found out about my promiscuous lifestyle and all kinds of different things all at once. It was this huge blow up. Now, did I get in a ton of trouble? Not really, honestly. When I look back at the punishment I received for how bad I was being, it was pretty light, but it was enough, it was enough for me to say, okay, I need to start getting things on the right track.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

So you were you were not you you weren't entangled with the law at that point then, just just your parents.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Just my, yeah, just my parents. That's right. Okay, so um that was a huge, that was a huge turning point, but all of that was a driving force for me to just be a blank slate when I was in college and just say, okay, how can I become this this person, this vision that I have for my life when I'm 30, 40, 50, 60 years old? How can I actually achieve that? And I just had the growth mindset to say, I think it's possible. I don't know how to get there, but I have these four gears before I'm thrust into the world to try to figure it out. And so Army R O T C no doubt played a huge part in that. My time in the Army played a huge part in that, going deeper in my spiritual life and uh really just kind of starting to piece all this together. I did a lot of reading, listened to a lot of podcasts, YouTube, all these things, and just sought out mentors, whether in person or virtually at a distance, you know, through books and um other media that I consumed to just learn about life and just strive to uh see what excellence and success would look like for me.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

So that's interesting. It was just your self-determination. I am not going to repeat the mistakes of other members of my family. I see the results of their choices, and I'm not going to do the same. That's essentially what you're telling me. And you had that one jolt that that was God's wake-up call, I think. Like, Nathan, I'm getting your attention, son. Um, I'm sure that's what it was. Um 100%. Um that's and you were smart enough and and aware enough to take that counsel. Because there are people who will see it and oh no, I'm just you know they always think they're gonna be able to somehow avoid the consequences. Um you can't. They're called natural consequences. Um they um it was you know, we uh we we you know we look we look to an example of uh King David. Well, David is the man out of God's own heart, however, he was an egregious sinner, yeah, egregious um murderer, adulterer. And God forgave him for those things, but he had to live with the consequences of those things. A terribly dysfunctional family, you know, everything else that went with that. Um yeah, he you have to pay the piper, so to speak, if you engage in that kind of behavior, you know. So well, I wanted to know what that I wanted to know how that all came. I would have never thought that you came out of that background. You have really, I would have never thought that, Nathan. I tell you, yes, you you are a success story, my friend. I'm I hope I hope I hope your parents are proud of you. Um I I really do. Uh, because they should be thank you.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Um it's been, yeah, very, very blessed for sure, as you know, as we mentioned earlier. I'm very blessed, man, without a doubt. And I think I think back to that I I talk about that moment when I was 15 often uh when I'm giving my testimony and sharing my story, which I am blessed to get to do frequently throughout the year, um, and speaking events and through the podcasts and other platforms. But I had you know my best friend at the time who we got in trouble. Both of our moms were kind of conspiring together, and and we both got in trouble. And he went the other route of continuing down, continuing partying, and all those sorts of things. And I went the other route of pushing into my faith and discipline and trying to reject those things and figuring it out along the way. And uh I I see both things, both the grace of God and my choice to cooperate with it. And so I believe very fervently in both of those things that that God gave me a lot of grace and he helped. And all I had to do was say yes and start to participate and not reject it and do a lot of hard work that came along with that. But uh I recognize that that God did the heavy lifting, but you still have to participate in it. I think a lot of times people get angry with God or reject God because they think, oh, like why didn't God come to save me? And it's like he did, he gave us the same opportunity, the same off ramp, and one of us chose to take it, one of us didn't. And I just had to do that many times in my life, and I didn't always do it, and I haven't always done it well, and I failed a lot of times along the way, but I especially I turned 32 years ago, and and this is my um uh I turned 32 this year, and so I this is my 10-year anniversary of getting out of college was this summer. And so just to think back to college me and where I'd hoped to be 10 years down the line, it's it's really beautiful uh and extremely moving. It often moves me to tears to think now being in the house that we just bought and having the two beautiful kids that I have, our dog, the job that I have, and everything that we get to do now. It's it's really amazing. God has blessed us in abundance for sure.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

You are blessed, my friend. Uh, we we need to do this again when you've written your book, okay? I hope that we go soon. All right. Okay. For sure. We've been having a delightful conversation here, Nathan and I. Uh Nathan is the national sales manager for Hollow, and uh, I use the app. I'm sure he does too. And I want to thank him for his time, and I want to thank the audience for their time. And next week, somebody else of equal or more interest. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for listening today. Join us for our next episode when I'll have another thought provoking leader as my guest. Guest comments and opinions are their own. The recording is copyright by the eight principles, all rights reserved.