Very few speakers bring together hard-earned wisdom and energy the way Nathan Crankfield does. From converting to Catholicism at 13 to graduating from the US Army Ranger School and building the sales team at Hallow, Nathan has a wide range of experience that helps his audiences identify areas for growth.
Nathan uses personal stories and timeless wisdom to inspire people to strive for excellence in their everyday lives. Nathan has a unique ability to bring people to laughter, tears, and a deep desire to push themselves to glorify God in all that they do.
Nathan Crankfield was born in Harrisburg, PA, to parents who had eloped just a few months before his birth. He was his father's seventh child by five different women, leading to Nathan being raised in and around many broken homes.
At the age of 13, Nathan decided to become the first Catholic in both sides of his family, despite his mother falling away from her Lutheran faith and his dad being a self-proclaimed agnostic. Nathan went on to live a hedonistic life of drugs, alcohol, and pleasure before having a more profound conversion at Mount St. Mary's University as a freshman in college.
Nathan joined the Army ROTC at the Mount and would later be commissioned as an Infantry Officer. He went on to attend Infantry training, Airborne School, and Ranger School in Fort Benning, GA. From there, he joined the 82nd Airborne Division and led a platoon through a combat deployment to Afghanistan at just 23 years old.
A year after his deployment, Nathan was honorably discharged from the Army and joined the Dynamic Catholic Institute as a Parish Consultant in 2019. This is when Nathan began speaking at parishes and conferences across the country. Nathan had a brief stint in men's ministry at Benedictine College before taking a role as a Sales Lead at Hallow, the #1 Catholic app in the world.
Over the last four years, Nathan has been instrumental in building Hallow's sales team from 3 employees to more than 40. After multiple promotions, Nathan serves as the Sales Manager for Hallow.
In 2020, Nathan launched Seeking Excellence, where he serves as Founder and President. Seeking Excellence provides content, coaching, and community for young people to help them discover and reach their full potential. Through this mission, Nathan has published more than 400 podcast episodes through the Seeking Excellence Podcast and has helped countless young people to pursue greatness through faith and reason.
Nathan is married to his wife, Emily, and they live in Kansas City, MO, with their two young children.
Nathan's ideal speaking events are men's conferences, youth and young adult events, and parish missions. He also delivers corporate speaking engagements on various topics, which are listed below.
Catholic Talk Titles and Descriptions
Lead Like a Man: God's Plan for Masculinity. Many men talk about warfare and battle, but few have actually trained for and experienced it. In this talk, Nathan uses his experiences from Ranger School and preparing for war, along with wisdom from the saints, to talk about what excellent, holy leadership looks like for the modern man.
Making the Most of Manhood: Virtue as the Solution to Broken Masculinity. Today, men are often told that their masculinity is toxic. While we can debate whether toxic masculinity exists, we all tend to agree that masculinity today is in bad condition. Men are more lost than ever and seeking direction on how to live their manhood well. In this talk, Nathan breaks down the six stages of the masculine journey, giving practical tips on how each man can be more fully alive and engaged through embracing authentic Christian manhood.
Gratitude Inspires Greatness. In this talk, Nathan details his conversion story - the good, the bad, and the ugly. He highlights the mercy of God as his primary motivation for striving for excellence in all that he does. He juxtaposes his broken relationship with his own father, his relationship with his son, and his relationship with God the Father in a powerful way that leaves audiences feeling ready to give it all for God and for their family.
Relentless: A guide to handling stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. People today are as stressed and anxious as ever, but our faith has a lot to say about how we should manage these inevitable challenges in life. Nathan vulnerably shares his own personal and familial struggles with mental health, as well as several practical ways we can better handle hard times when they come our way.
The Enduring Yes: How to Build Fortitude for the Christian Life. In this talk, Nathan shares some of his deepest insights from his experiences in US Army Ranger School on how we can build the mental toughness, courage, and fortitude needed for the Christian life. As Catholics, we don't believe we say yes to God once and are saved. Sainthood is all about the ongoing, everyday surrender to God's will. This talk will challenge your audience to evaluate ways in which they are holding back from God and fully engage with giving everything to Him.
Corporate Talk Titles and Descriptions
The Empathetic A-Team: Balancing Potential with Performance While Maintaining High Standards. Many teams struggle with one of two extremes: they either ruthlessly cut employees who are underperforming, leading to a revolving door of miserable talent, or they retain constant underperformers and repeatedly miss targets while overworking those who do perform well. This talk is aimed at finding the middle of these two extremes that allows companies to build a culture where people can grow and thrive while still expecting and achieving excellence across the board.
Habits of High Performers. This talk focuses on the key ingredients for developing a culture and life of consistent, sustainable, and continually improving high performance. Nathan uses his own life examples of witnessing how the US Army takes ordinary civilians and turns them into Army Rangers with intentional training and development. This talk is designed to help individuals take their careers to the next level.
Excellence in Teamwork. When the team doesn't work well together, employees are disgruntled, and goals are not reached. Cohesiveness and synergy are essential for a team to work at its full capacity and potential. In this talk, Nathan outlines practical ways that teams can have some hard conversations about what is holding them back and identify ways they can grow and improve together.
Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout. Stress and anxiety are ruining many company cultures across the country. A leader who is overwhelmed by stress will inevitably treat their employees poorly. An anxious and burnt-out employee is soon going to be updating their resume and applying elsewhere in hopes of a better life. This talk aims at the core of the problems of stress and anxiety - how we can both limit them at work and manage them when they do inevitably show up.
