Seeking Excellence with Nathan Crankfield

What percentage of Americans today are satisfied with their jobs?    What does the average Americans personal financial situation look like?    What causes more people to leave the Church:  the sex abuse scandals or the Church's stance on divorce?    The answers might surprise you! In part two of this series, I dive deep into some stats regarding work, personal f...

How do you maintain motivation to workout through the ups and downs of life?  How can you avoid the extremes of binge eating and excessive dieting, instead striving for a balanced, consistent, healthy lifestyle?  What role does mental health play in our physical health?  Lindsay Fullerman, founder of Fit From Faith , and I discuss all of these questions in today's episode. We also t...

What's the opposite of love? Elie Wiesel said that it is apathy. The opposite of love is not hate, but rather being indiffernt to the suffering, pain, or general existence of another.   What's the opposite of excellence? It's mediocrity. And what does mediocrity look like?    Over the next several weeks, we will be taking a deep look at modern day mediocrity. We will dive into the s...

Life is full of suffering. We all go through significant challenges, but there's no doubt that some of us have a bigger cross to carry than others.   Cody Byrns was doing all the right things. He was serving in his church and living his entire life for God. Things in his life were going just as he had expected, until everything suddenly changed.   Sitting at a traffic light one day,...

Masculinity is good. Masculiity is needed. But masculinity is far too often missing.    How can we reawaken the men in our lives, and maybe even ourselves, to be what God created them to be?    Today's guest, Jason Ball, helps men to do just that. He shares many insights and practical tips on ways we can understand the true power of masculinity and learn to live wild at heart....

"A Crucial Conversation is a discussion between two people where stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong" -From the book Crucial Conversations   Almost nobody is really ever prepared when having a difficult conversation with a friend, parent, spouse, or someone in the workplace. We value these relationships, and yet when they are most in jeopardy (i.e. during crucial conversat...

My journey to becoming conservative was truly unplanned, much like the journey of Pro-Life advocate Abby Johnson. Abby once worked in a Planned Parenthood, all the while strongly advocating for abortion "rights".    In March of 2019, a movie was released called Unplanned, which documented her experiences of personally having abortions to witnessing them that ultimately led to her being a...

If you enjoyed my episode with Carrie Gress, the author of Anti-Mary Exposed, you are going to love this one with her close friend Noelle!  Noelle Mering is a fellow at the Washington D.C. based think tank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She is the author of the book,   Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology (TAN Books, Spring 2021) order through...

Grewing up, I knew the world expected several things from me as a young black man. One of them was the assumption that I would be a lifelong Democrat.    And for a while, I obliged.  I was a huge cheerleader of Obama in 2008. I registered Democrat when I turned 18 in 2011. In college, I argued liberal viewpoints against my conservative friends.   Even after college, I cont...

Have you already given up on your New Year's Resolutions??  Come on, man! We're only two weeks into the year!   Regardless, it's always good to do a check in on your goals and progress toward them a few weeks into the year. Today, we want to talk about crushing your ever elusive fitness goals this year.   What motivates someone to prioritize health to the point of getting to the gym...

I've had many conversations with good Protestant friends of mine about the similarities between Catholics and all other denominations. The saying I hear most often is, "we all pretty much believe the same things anyway, right?"  Wrong.  That's a hard pill to swallow. It can be an even harder pill to administer. We don't like showing people where we are divided. We're divided enough, aren...

Noble Gibbens is a West Point graduate, former Army Ranger, lifelong entrepreneur, and a devout Christian husband and father. He runs the EQ Gangster, which is a movement to help high achievers unlock their full potential by becoming more emotionally intelligent.  This is Noble's second time on the Seeking Excellence Podcast. And we go much deeper into some areas that we are both very passion...

I was baptized Lutheran by my Lutheran mother and Baptist father before being sent to a Methodist preschool. In kindergarten, I was sent to a Catholic school. Eight years later, I chose to become Catholic and was confirmed in the faith.  I was only 13 when I became Catholic, so it was more of an emotional decision. I was moving toward what seemed more familiar. However, when I was in college,...

It's that time of year again! We want you to review your goals from last year and set some new ones for 2022. In this episode, Nathan walks through the 7 pillars of excellence and ways you can set goals in each one.  Some tips for goal setting: Make sure your goals are specific, measurable, and time bound  Set goals in different areas of life, e.g. physical, relational, financial, and sp...

Shoot me an email at nathan@thosewhoseek.org or message me on Instagram @ncrank23 if you'd like to participate! Send me your email and phone number. God bless!

Are you looking for a challenge for 2022? It seems like every year, we all put some sort of physical fitness goal on our list of New Year's Resolution. At the beginning of 2021, Fr. Meyer committed to a consistent, gradually increasing physical fitness challenge. It improved multiple aspects of his life, helping him to grow in virtue and holiness.  In this episode with Nathan, Fr. Meyer break...

This episode finishes the basic philosophy of how to set up a strong financial defense. This includes topics like credit cards, budgeting, paying off debt, and much more!  If you haven't yet, go back and listen to part 1 first! Part 3 will be coming soon. Stay tuned!  If this episode was helpful for you, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving a review! Be sure to follow us o...

Trusting in God to direct your life ain't always as easy as it sounds. We constantly hear about surrender, and for good reason, but it's critical that we recognize that giving your life to God is filled with challenges, doubt, fear, and uncertainty.  In this episode, Josie breaks down the ways she has struggled with trusting in God's plan for her life. She also shares the way God has continue...

Many people have asked why I curse so much on a Catholic podcast. Many more have critiqued and complained about my direct style of challenging people's beliefs, assumptions, mindset, and lifestyles. I often get messages of people sharing the ways that I have offended or angered them by the way I have expressed myself.  In this podcast, I address all of the above, seeking to shed light on the...

God calls us to be good stewards of all the things He has entrusted to us. Jesus certainly emphasized the importance of being a good steward of the money you have. How we handle our money can affect our relationship with God, relationships, mental health, and many other areas of our life.  In this episode, I lay out some of the fundamentals that have helped me to gain more financial literacy...

Recently, I wrote a blog about the relationship between personal finance and discipleship. It was the fruit of some reflecting on the years when I was a consistent follower of mainstream evangelical churches. I noticed how many young Catholics were being drawn into these churches and finally think I figured out what moves them toward the young, funny, wealthy, ripped-jeans wearing pastors.  W...

Life is hard. It's harder when you're weak hearted and fragile. The adversity we go through gives us an opportunity to grow in strength and wisdom, but it's not our default to actually improve through difficult situations. So how do we actually develop a mindset and outlook on life that allow us to grow through hardship? Find out all this and more in today's episode! 

This isn't some nonsensical rant about the importance of self-care, self-love, and/or self-prioritization. This is about doing the things that are necessary for bettering yourself for the sake of those around you. Giving of yourself until your totally drained and wasted isn't good for you or the ones you love and serve.  It's tempting to sacrifice what's best what seems good right now. A huge...

We all know some people who just seek to immediately fill every desire they have. Perhaps, we even find ourselves grabbing that extra donut or spending some extra money when we really don't need to.  Delayed gratification is one of the greatest marks of a mature man or woman. Do you have the ability and discipline to hold off on what you want now in order to have a better, healthier, wealthie...

A conversation with Fr. Casey Jones, the Pastor of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Naples, Florida about the reality of spiritual warfare.  We discuss popular forms of Spiritual Warfare that people face today such as physical temptations, the presence of evil spirits, the embodiment of evil in our society, and the popularization of a number of different heresies.  Are you wondering what yo...