EP260: Homeschool, Hustle, and a Heart Attack with Chris & Dina Croy

In this episode, Dr. Nate Salah sits down with Dina and Chris Croy to explore their journey of balancing faith, family, and entrepreneurship. From homeschooling their children to overcoming business challenges, the Croys share how their experiences shaped their purpose and legacy. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation filled with actionable wisdom!

 
 Key Takeaways To Listen For

• How identifying and complementing family dynamics can strengthen a business
• Pivotal moments that reshaped the Croys' business and personal lives
• Powerful insights on why relationships trump resources in business success
• The mindset shifts essential for overcoming entrepreneurial challenges
• Life lessons from unexpected events that redefine purpose and priorities
  
  
  

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

• The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber | Audiobook and Paperback
• It's a Wonderful Life

About Chris & Dina Croy

Chris and Dina are seasoned entrepreneurs and homeschooling advocates with over two decades of experience balancing family, faith, and business. Starting in the photography industry, Chris built a creative career while Dina, with a degree in accounting, managed the financial aspects of their ventures. 

Together, they transitioned into a scalable service business, teaching their children entrepreneurial values, financial literacy, and the importance of discipleship. Their journey reflects a deep commitment to creating a legacy of strong family ties, community impact, and faith-driven purpose.

 Connect With Chris & Dina

• Website: See2it Clean LLC
• LinkedIn: Chris Croy 💦 | Dina Croy💧

Connect With Us

Master your context with real results leadership training!
To learn more, visit our website at www.greatsummit.com.

For tax, bookkeeping, or accounting help, contact Dr. Nate’s team at www.theincometaxcenter.com or send an email to info@theincometaxcenter.com.

Follow Dr. Nate on His Social Media

• LinkedIn: Nate Salah, Ph.D
• Instagram: @natesalah 
• Facebook: Nate Salah
• TikTok: @drnatesalah
• Clubhouse: @natesalah

Transcript

[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
Hello, my friend, welcome to this episode of A Call to Leadership. I've got a treat for you today. For those of you who have considered homeschooling as an entrepreneur, a business owner, a person of faith, and have dealt with struggles in life. You are going to be truly encouraged by this couple's story. Chris and Dina Croy, dear friends, and those individuals who you just want to see make it in this journey. They've got an incredible story to tell of life. Life in the world of raising children through the homeschooling environment in a Christian family, businesses, successes, failures, health issues, and a heart attack, and how they overcame by the power of their faith in God. Can't wait for you to join us. Let's go. Chris, Dina, thanks for being on the show. 

[00:01:00] Dina Croy
Good morning. We're glad to be here. 

[00:01:02] Chris Croy
It's great to be here. It's been a while. We've been working on this for a while. 

[00:01:05] Dr. Nate Salah
I know. And here we are. Yeah. You two have an incredible story of your, not only your business, but your family and your life. We want to unpack some of that for our, our listener and our audience member for encouragement. Uh, you've been so gracious to be transparent in your journey. Of course, we spent a lot of time together in our leadership development mastermind group. Yeah. You two have very different skill sets, and I think it's a great place to start, you know, when, when, first of all, working together, husband and wife, a family and homeschooling family at that over the years, you've got a lot of moving parts. Somebody listening right now is like, okay, you have my attention. When did you two realize that in your business that you had to, um, you had to give up some control? Chris, this was more for you. 

[00:01:55] Chris Croy
Yeah. Well, you know, we started out if I can go back a little bit, you know, when we got married, um, I was a photographer and just starting that business back in the late nineties. And of course, when you're a creative person, um, and you're an entrepreneur, you, you feel like you have to do everything. And in the beginning you do have to do everything. And while I was, I love the, The creative aspect. I loved, I loved, I honestly, photography was very good for my ego. People tell you how great you are and how awesome you are and all this kind of stuff. Um, but over the years, my photography business did fine, but I wasn't really a great business operator. That was a real weakness and that became apparent pretty early on when you say now my wife has a, um, she's got a degree in accounting, right? So she's actually educated and, and, um, and she was all on board and she helped out every way she could. She always did the books for us, right? That became apparent that I was terrible at that. And so. But we kind of just labored through the process. The business grew, revenue was fine, but we were so many fires I was always putting out and you know, there's a real aspect of entrepreneurship, uh, or business. I would say then I probably owned a job more than I was building a business, you know, honestly, but revenue was fine and, uh, it was great for several years.

[00:03:20]
 Um, but it became pretty clear. That there's a lot of things that I'm just not very good at that are required, you know, I read the book, the E-Myth, right? And the E-Myth. Was basically that you need a you need a entrepreneur and I think I had the entrepreneurial ideas You have to be a technician I was good at doing the work, but maybe the most important part of any business is the management and that's what I totally suck at And so we always talked about my wife doing more but we were having babies right and then and then we began the homeschool journey So we kind of labored through it but when we shifted from that world into the business that we're building now together, um, we really set out to say, okay, how soon can I get out of the way of the business growing? Right. And revenue being what it is and cashflow being tight, you can't just hire and outsource what you know you need. And as our kids got older, anyway, my wife really stepped into taking more of a role and that's where we are now. So there's things she does now, um, that are off my plate. And then in a couple of years, we hope to be replacing ourselves too with people that are even better than we are at that. But yeah, management is not my strong suit and turns out to be the most important part. 

[00:04:37] Dr. Nate Salah
So, so Dina as a, as a supportive spouse, how long have you two been married? 

[00:04:40] Dina Croy
Almost 30 years. Almost 30 years.

[00:04:41] Dr. Nate Salah
So you, you know, Chris pretty well. 

[00:04:44] Dina Croy
Yeah. And we've been friends for 45 years. 

[00:04:46] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Wow. Okay.

[00:04:51] Chris Croy
40 years, 40, 40 years. That's a good, that's a good 15 years old we met. 

[00:04:54] Dr. Nate Salah
Because that's, that seems to me has to be a difficult, that has to be difficult for a spouse sometimes to recognize perhaps some of those areas and to lovingly help. What's that like? 

[00:05:10] Dina Croy
So first of all, I pretty much thought Chris hung the moon and stars for the first 15 years of our marriage, and then I realized he is more stubborn than me. And, you know, uh, I, you know, I, I was just slow. I was slow to see, um, some of the areas where he needed my strengths. Right. And, um, it, there was a process because honestly, it took us time for me to realize that, you know, we fit very well together. And like you said, we both have very different personalities and our methods, you know, I'm definitely more the detail oriented accountant kind of brain. And, and he's, um, just so intelligent and has so many strengths that I didn't see that he wasn't good at these things for a long time because I was kind of enamored with him. He's my husband. Right. And so, um, Our accountant actually looked at us one day and Chris was like, missing bills and things were late and he looked, he looked at me and he said, wait, hold on a second. You have an accounting degree and you have the photographer doing the accounting. What, what is wrong with this picture? So, so we obviously made that change pretty quickly and it was just a small piece that I had. So did I answer your question?

[00:06:24] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Yeah. And so, so it's, it's great. It's great to have someone from the outside also helping, right. Especially when. You're married. Yeah, some of those pieces and understanding that because you as a husband, I mean, you want to be the hero. 

[00:06:41] Dina Croy
And he is. 100%. 

[00:06:44] Chris Croy
Yeah, well, the idea of being the provider, right? Now as Christians, and this is some context for me because when we got married, um, we're not raised that way. So we knew we, what we wanted to do in, in, in the big picture, right? Raise our kids in Christ. Our wedding vows, right? And that all, we all, we were in full agreement on all that. Yes. But obviously doing it's different executing in anything, right? Like I understand what has to happen in our business, but I struggle with doing the right things in the right order, you know, so that's just the, that's the limitations that to some degree we all have. And, um, she wrote me a letter not too long into our marriage. 

[00:07:25] Dina Croy
14 years. It was our 14 year anniversary. 

[00:07:28] Dr. Nate Salah
When you've been married this long, that's not too long, right? When you've been together for almost 40plus years. 

[00:07:32] Dina Croy
And I only remember because I can see the note. Well, there was a letter she wrote. On the back of our vows, I gave it to you.

[00:07:39] Chris Croy
And she said, why won't you lead me? And I was like, well, because really the way we joke about it now was that we were both raised feminists. And so I didn't really know what that biblically. I didn't understand what that meant. And I used to say to her, are you sure you want to be let right? Because she's a pretty strong personality. She's very driven. She's very, you know, everything she thinks she shares. I tend to internalize things, right? And so I was like, well, I'm not sure I know. What that means or that you want to. And so it began for us a deeper dive into what that actually means. How did you feel when you read that? Well, my first response as a man was ouch, right? There's a saying I always have is you can't say amen. You got to say ouch. Right. And so, um, she wasn't saying that to do anything other than share with me that she, um, There was insecurity in how I was doing things. So we were building a photography business and, you know, and I'm like, Hey, I got ideas."

[00:08:42]
 Right. And it was pretty easy in those days. I could go to a bridal show and book 12 weddings. Right. And, and I could do what I do. The other thing that I still quote today, and when I talked to young couples getting married, my own kids or anybody else, she used to say to me, you know, when I married you, I put all of my eggs in your basket, but I wish you wouldn't swing that basket around so crazy sometimes. And I was like, cause you know, as an entrepreneur, Nate, I know, you know, you come home with ideas. Ideas cost money and your wife is fully supportive of you. But also she's like, honey, and this is what, this was her. She's like, I love that idea and I support you, but can we pay for our daughter's scoliosis treatment? Or can we fix the rotting deck in the back of the house? You know, there's a real, there's real financial things attached to that. And so what I realized was I was providing sure. And, um, but I, but I was also creating insecurity for my wife. Right. A godly wife and my wife does not want lots of stuff, but she would like to know she would like to know, you know, how's the next six months looking? Because we have these immediate needs or our kids have these needs and I'd be, and I'd be like, as an entrepreneur, Oh, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. We got it. We got it. We got it. And I didn't, honestly though, sometimes I was thinking, I don't know if we got it. 

[00:10:02] Dr. Nate Salah
Right. You believed you had hope. And it's interesting. It's interesting to see you talk about. Lead, you know, first of all, yes, you get the note and says, will you, you know, will you lead? It can be like a cut to the heart. And at the same time, if you understand the place it's coming from, it's coming from a place of, I believe in you. 

[00:10:23] Dina Croy
And it was wrapped in that, I'm always careful to wrap it in the beauty of what we have and what we've been given and where I believe we're being called. And I wanted him to be called higher, you know, I want it because I see more in him than who he sometimes sees in himself. And that's huge. I want him to see what I see the good stuff probably more than the bad. 

[00:10:46] Dr. Nate Salah
And that and that's so it's so endearing. Uh, and for that matter. He wants you to lead too, because this is where, you know, the two shall become one, and it's not that, and this is the thing about you talk about feminism, uh, some things came out of the feminist movement that were good, some not so good, right? And here's, here's what, here's, here's some of it that I've unpacked. One, uh, we're equal, right? That's equality is, is essential. One area that came out of it that I don't agree with is that we're the same. We're not. Right. We're different and that's okay, too. It's totally cool to be different. I love difference. I mean you talk about like diversity, right? There's like you've got two diverse people. One's a male. One's a female your husband and wife in this relationship, right? And there's areas where you're equipped and empowered to lead so much better than Chris is And vice versa. And so in the areas that, that, that you're called to lead, lead well, lead higher than the standard that you set for yourself, because God has set a much higher standard for you.

[00:11:49] Dina Croy
Yes. And it's taken, I'm sorry, it's taken a long time for us to kind of flesh this out because I was so focused on raising kids, educating children. The business was just, you know, bringing the money and let's just move forward. But now I'm enjoying it more and I'm becoming more invested. And so I am becoming. A little bit more of a leader slowly, but surely finding my strengths and, um, learning to stay in my lane. 

[00:12:16] Dr. Nate Salah
And that's important to know what your lane is. First of all, we're figuring out.

[00:12:20] Chris Croy
Well, and, and, you know, coming through, um, the ups and downs of. The photography world. And then we, we were doing a lot of video marketing for world. And I got to take my kids with me while I traveled such rich experiences through all that. Finding your lane is also sometimes you have to occupy every lane until you can afford to replace you or outsource. Right. So we always grapple with that. And then what was born out of that for a while was, um, a scarcity mindset, right? You know, sometimes we're saving pennies. Pinching pennies and then. Preventing growth, right? But. 

[00:12:56] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, yeah. Pinching pennies and missing nickels.

[00:12:57] Chris Croy
Missing nickels, right, or missing dollars. And, uh, and, and that was, um, that's part of where we are now in the business that we're building now, which is an entirely different world. You know, we transitioned from the creative business to, I wanted to, we wanted to teach our kids entrepreneurship as homeschoolers, because I've always believed an entrepreneur, you've got to learn everything. There's nothing you don't learn if you try and build a business, everything, accounting, bookkeeping, tax law, negotiations, customer service, scalability, marketing, you name it. So we thought, yeah, systems. So we thought this would be a great way to start as homeschoolers, an all encompassing sort of approach to it. And, um, I also knew enough through my experience to know that I don't know how to build a million dollar company. I know what to do. But I don't know how to do it. And there's a big difference there. I could tell you what you need to get to. And I know the KPIs of my industry of our industry and, and that kind of thing. But I've got some real, I, you know, we, we both talked about this. I have some real limiting self beliefs, right. That, that hold me back sometimes. And so us getting to that next level with this business was a seismic mind shift. In how I think about myself and about what I'm able to do. And so we work and we're still working through all that now, but that was part of that process. 

[00:14:22] Dr. Nate Salah
Well, and it's important and just almost thematically looking at this, this, this position of leadership and knowing you had mentioned when we first started, there's a lot of things you don't do well. There's a lot of things all of us don't do well, but there's a few things we can execute on very well. In fact, that Steve Jobs said this, when he came back to Apple, he said, you know, Apple's been executing wonderfully on, on all the wrong things or many of the wrong things, right? Like that's, that's what a great, what a great way to, to illustrate entrepreneurship, because as entrepreneurs, we often, we have to execute, but we're executing wonderfully on a lot of the wrong things because we're not, that's not our, our genius.

[00:14:59]
 And to your point, even with the family dynamics, I remember the same conversation I had with my wife. Years ago, very strong, strong woman and growing up in the same sort of like culture as you, Chris. I'm like, well, I don't want to, I don't want to overstep and I don't want to offend and I don't want to be too much of a man. You know, I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be too like old school manly. Like this is, this is the way we're doing things. And she called me out and she's like, Hey, You need to lead our family. Yeah, yeah. Good for her. Oh, uh, and how do we do that? Okay. Okay. Okay. Let me, uh, let me reprogram some of my things. And you know, she's like, Hey, I want you to lead us in Christ. Um, your son wants you to lead us in Christ. You're the person for the job. And, and at first, same thing, like, oof. And then of course, you know, there can be like, well, I thought I was, you know, or I am. Yeah, I'm, I've got it together. I'm like, well.

[00:15:47] Chris Croy
Well, and and tnat. I think providing. Is where we, we, we fall into that, we default that right way. 

[00:15:54] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, it's your default, right? Oh, well, you know, you got money, your bills are paid, right? Even if they're not, even if everything isn't perfect, we're, we're surviving. 

[00:16:01] Dina Croy
We all play to our strengths. 

[00:16:03] Chris Croy
And she said, she'd always say, you're providing very well. Not, no complaints. However, as a wife, you know, and I'd be like, ouch, you know, that can't say man got to say ouch thing and I, uh, 15 years ago, we, God called us to homeschool our kids. And that was a, a real reflective shift and how we were doing everything. And I went to this first homeschool. 

[00:16:24] Dina Croy
You really stepped into a leadership role when we start homeschooling.

[00:16:27] Chris Croy
Well, yeah. And I heard a speaker at this first conference and we were there at that first conference, not even knowing how to homeschool. We're like, do we need to put desk in our dining room? I mean, how do we do this? And all the veterans had been doing it for years said, oh, you can do whatever you want to do. And we're like, oh, okay. But the speakers that I heard there. We're speaking one. I heard just specifically speaking to me as a man, as a husband and a father really laid out this idea that hit me right between the eyes. And in terms of the homeschooling journey, it's not about academic prowess can be, but it doesn't have to be. It's not. It's about discipling your family, your kids and discipleship was not a word that really thought much through and discipleship meant it. Not just writing a check for curriculum or just providing for your family however big your house is or whatever discipleship is actually walking alongside your children and Pouring into them when they were young it's looks different And so we both got on board right away with homeschooling But then there's some redefinition of roles right because my wife's you know, she was going Going to jump into actually educating our kids.

[00:17:38] Dr. Nate Salah
What, were they currently in the school system? 

[00:17:41] Dina Croy
Our daughter was in third grade, and our son was in kindergarten, and then the two littles were just at home. So they finished that year, and then came home. 

[00:17:50] Dr. Nate Salah
And how was that transition, in terms of even explaining, of course, you're third grader more than anything, of like, hey, we're, you're not going to be going back.

[00:18:01] Dina Croy
Well, we actually, so first of all, God called us to this. I'd been praying about it. And I finally went to Chris and said, Chris, I think God wants us to homeschool. And he said, thank you, Jesus, because I was not going to bring it up to you. I didn't want to, but he had, right. And so of course we did what we do when we bought McKenna a book, cause she was an avid reader about this girl who started homeschooling. And, and she immediately, of course, is like, you're going to homeschool. And we're like, well, I don't know. And, and so. So, you know, she was all on board. I think she transitioned well. 

[00:18:33] Chris Croy
I'm sorry. We actually used to threaten her with homeschooling before that. Like if you don't get your act together, we may homeschool you. 

[00:18:40] Dina Croy
It was a joke. How did we know? We didn't know. We had no intention of homeschooling. Like only weirdos do that. And here we are, right? Joining the 

[00:18:46] Dr. Nate Salah
weirdo revolution. Absolutely. And, and what were some of the reasons why you felt called to that. 

[00:18:53] Dina Croy
I mean, truly, we did not have an intention. We thought our school was fine. We thought they were doing well. I was looking forward to the kids all being in school. So Chris and I could go to lunch together and I could work on the business more. I mean, we had a plan. 

[00:19:06] Dr. Nate Salah
We are all figured out. 

[00:19:07] Dina Croy
We did. And it was because. 

[00:19:09] Dr. Nate Salah
It's a huge. Undertaking. Yeah, it's a major life change. 

[00:19:12] Dina Croy
Yes. And so it was truly and I don't know if you want to include this or not, because it was truly God whispering in my ear and I was in the kitchen and I am not kidding. I was just like doing this. And finally, I said, fine, I'll pray about it. I told the God of the universe that He's putting something on my heart. I'm like, okay, fine. I'll pray about it. 

[00:19:31] Chris Croy
I'll, I'll, yeah. Right. Back to you. 

[00:19:32] Dina Croy
Yeah. Yeah. And probably for a month. And then sure enough, um, I told Chris and the next day a friend came over, a younger friend who didn't even have kids old enough to start schooling yet came over and said, Hey, there's a homeschool conference. Would you, would you want to go with me? I'm like, okay, Lord, we're doing this. And so. 

[00:19:51] Dr. Nate Salah
And were you working outside of the home at the time? And so you had the photography business at the time, Chris?

[00:19:54] Chris Croy
Photography business. We moved into a big house, um, uh, that we justified and it worked out. I'm not, I, but it was cause we could have them customers and employees in a different level. And so. And was this public school or private school? Public school. Okay. So public school. So we didn't have any particular gripes about the school. I mean, McKenna was a little superstar. Yeah. Uh, Hamilton had just gone for one year of half day kindergarten. So he was cool. And he was like, yeah, stay at home. Yeah. You know, whatever, but that's how I go back to that first time that I was challenged about discipling your children, right? Because we were talking, we were already having this conversations, like, you know, four kids, if we're going to play, it's going to play two sports and all these things. What are we going to be doing for 10 years, 15 years, just driving them around and then making them food.

[00:20:42]
 You know what I mean? We just thought about that way, but I didn't know. We didn't know, but that wasn't us thinking about not doing that, which is like, it's going to be really. Yeah. hard to do all these things that we thought you're supposed to do. And, uh, because I worked from home, it was great because even when they were going to school, I could have lunch with them every day. And I sort of loved all that we were, we were very blessed to be able to always be around each other a lot. My business allowed me to work from home and then work weekends or travel, but it was the discipleship thing. And then I was challenged by that same speaker. He says, if you read the, if you open up the Bible and read the word of God, it's got a lot to say about education.

[00:21:21]
 But never once as a reference, Caesar or somebody else, you know, to do that. That's right. It was about, it was mostly letters to the father, right. To be, walk alongside your children day and night. And we're like, and that really struck us. But again, we're thinking in the way almost everybody else does. How do you do that? Right. And then God began to show us that because of the kind of business I have, I can really roll them into experiencing it with me, which was great. And I like to be the dad is like, Hey, there's a meteor shower. We're going to get up at two in the morning. And she's like, good for you, dad. You do that. So I was the fun homeschool.

[00:21:58] Dina Croy
We did it. I did it with you once until we're all laying on the ground and we realized there was something flying over us. Oh, it's bats. There are bats flying right over our heads and we're all laying on the ground. So. We, we exited pretty quickly and that became a dad job. 

[00:22:11] Chris Croy
And I really believe that, and I don't care who you are, whatever you do for a living, you can open that part of your life with your kids and teach them so much. Right. And so dads have a real opportunity to share and also share the struggles, right? So we would tell our kids, so one thing we want to teach them, right. The word of God, financial literacy, because we didn't grow up with that. So we burned through some money in our early days because we just, you know, and service, right? Serve.

[00:22:42] Dina Croy
And it was the four L's. Love the Lord, love labor, love learning and love liberty. That was our goal in teaching. 

[00:22:49] Chris Croy
And even on the days where I remember I come home because wives of course feel the real pressure of homeschooling their kids. And there were days where she'd be like, Oh, I don't know if I did any, I don't know if I did a good job today. I'd be like. Did you love him? Yeah. I said, that's better than any day in public school. 

[00:23:08] Dina Croy
He was the most encouraging. 

[00:23:09] Chris Croy
If you teach him the book of Proverbs, that's, if you only had one textbook, that's the best textbook in the world. And so, um, I loved encouraging her because she took it on wholeheartedly. But it's also, but there's still times where, same thing in business or in homeschooling, where you go, you look around and go, Oh my gosh, are we doing a good job? Are our kids going to be okay? You know. Nate's kids are super smart. How about, are we doing enough with our kids? You know, that happens. That's natural to compare. But once she got her feet underneath her, she was an awesome homeschool mom. 

[00:23:40] Dr. Nate Salah
Indeed. Yeah. And the homeschool environment is it's from the outside looking in, you know, some, some people are concerned about whether or not there's going to be social interaction and the education quality and all this other stuff. 

[00:23:54] Dina Croy
A little too much. Honestly.

[00:23:54] Dr. Nate Salah
Maybe more, more social interaction. Yeah. However, what one of the, there is that. One, and we, of course, we homeschooled our son and it's not easy. It's not easy. And that's the thing. However, the cost it comes with is worth the reward. It's worth the sacrifice, if you will. And so much of what you're describing, that environment allows you to do. It allows you to fine tune and tailor the academic experience. And so for us, I mean, just having that, that ability to tailor it to your children's strengths is it's so life giving for them and to give them that. And, you know, you can have some flexibility in how you do it. And of course, as you know, homeschooling isn't there's no summer break, right? I mean, there is, but there isn't. It's year round. You're, you're, you're, you're educating them. This is the brain doesn't stop learning. It's three months out of the year. 

[00:24:43] Dina Croy
It's what we do in life. Is it not? I mean, when you graduated from school, you didn't just stop learning the most of most of the things I learned that are worthwhile. I learned after college. And really in the past 10 years, so teaching our children to have that kind of hunger and thirst for learning, I think is important. And I think that you're very good at inspiring that I assume in with your son, you know, I don't know a lot about how he was educated, but it appears you do because I know how much you inspire us in our business and in our entrepreneurial journey.

[00:25:14] Dr. Nate Salah
Absolutely. And that learning environment that you foster and create, that's lifelong. That's a lot. That's a lifelong. And here's the other part about it. And I went to public school. I don't know if you guys went to public or private school. And so no knock on public school. However, my experience was it was it was a social community. A lot of a lot of social idea and not for everyone. For, for the vast majority of high schoolers, you want to be accepted. Uh, so there's all different and we didn't really have much money. So I couldn't wear like the cool clothes. Like everybody else said, you remember those days, like when somebody come in with some Zcap or elferri or God knows what else.

[00:25:51] Dina Croy
See we don't even know what that is.

[00:25:51] Dr. Nate Salah
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just saw a kid wearing Adidas shoes and I'd have to get tracks from, from Kmart because it's like, no, I don't want to wear those shoes. And mom'd be like, you're wearing those shoes. I'm like, all right. I'd rather go barefoot than be, uh, you know, ridiculed. And so there's a lot of inefficiency. Uh, in our, in our educational experience. And again, I mean, there's, there's a lot of benefit to public education as opposed to no education at all. 

[00:26:16] Chris Croy
Well, I always said that the one thing our kids didn't learn right away was how to stand in line. They figured it out. They figured it out eventually. 

[00:26:23] Dina Croy
The ice cream truck comes by and the kids are like, Oh yeah. Oh, that's what we have to do? No problem. 

[00:26:27] Chris Croy
Yeah, but we were very intentional because again, we would tell our kids we don't have the money to go to Disney World, for example. And here's why, right? Show them the numbers, right? I think that's a great education. And then when, when my kids got a little bit older, I could say, Hey, if I'm going to take McKenna and Hamilton with me on a photo shoot. Which means I don't have to hire an assistant then, or take McKenna. Then if you guys can help out more at home, because they're gone, that's all part of the family economic thing. So what we really framed it as is family economics, which just means that, yeah, dad might get the paycheck, but how my wife Dina actually spends the paycheck or budgets, the paycheck, or turns that roast into soup for a week, all those things are incredibly valuable.

[00:27:16]
 And our culture has dismissed that. We tell women today, you're only worth anything if you have a W2, right? And what, what a, what a industrious wife can do, you know, or during the feast times, but also the famine times, right? And so, hey kids, this year, we're going to, we're going to go to five parks this summer and have picnics as opposed to going to Disney World. They still have the experience in the, with family and understand that economics are a real thing. Because then what I tried to parlay that into for them as they got older was to my daughters. If you want to stay home and raise your kids at home, which we think is the best solution, but it's a choice, there's an economic attachment to that, right? And to my son, the same thing. So, you know, we had these conversations and I'll give you an example if I can. We went to Washington, D. C. to photograph a law firm. I did a bunch of video work and a bunch of photography and I brought my Ken and Hamilton with me and this law firm was, um, probably 70 percent women, very successful, very highly paid.

[00:28:18] 
You can see all the Lexus is in the parking garage and earn and deserve every penny of it. Right. They were engineers who became patent lawyers. Right. And my daughter was, I put her in charge and she loved it. She was like 14 at the time. I think I go, honey, you're going to be in charge of scheduling all the lawyers and telling them when to come down and, and she was like, Oh, So she, she got to be that right now. My son was my lighting assistant and all that kind of thing, but actually made the listen to McKenna. I said, you know, do you think, um, because we go into these offices and these very successful, very, very nice, smart women, many of them had just the pictures of their kids on their cubicle wall. And, um, we're working 12 hour days, right? So they're paying daycare or private school or whatever. And their Lexus's were sitting in the parking garage and they would, they would share, they were working five, six days a week. So multiple six figure earners to be sure. And I said, do you think you would rather make that kind of money? Right. And with that comes sacrifices. You can't have it all. You can, if you're going to choose that direction and you won't be around your family as much, or if you're going to choose like your mom did, you won't be able to make as much money as, you know, my wife has two degrees. I have none. So I always say she probably had the bigger potential, but I didn't have the desire. 

[00:29:33]
Didn't have the desire. But I said to her, my daughter go, would you rather your mom had been home with you all these years and teaching you and all that. And, um, She goes, Oh, I'm so glad mom stayed home. So she got to actually see it and experience it. And that was my hope in through the homeschool discipleship journey was to show my kids through our ability to travel, you know, What opportunities were out there for them. There's nothing holding them back. Right. And I would love my kids no matter what they chose, but that. I think in and for family and for children, if possible, the real value, but there's an economic spreadsheet. You could put that if you want. Oh, yeah. And so we, we kind of broke that down for him. Did a lot of Dave Ramsey, financial literacy, basic stuff for them. And at least my first two kids who are now married are pretty frugal and married young. So yeah, savors. 

[00:30:26] Dr. Nate Salah
Taught them the way. And you know, some kids might say, no, I would have rather you've gone to work, right? I mean, in your case that worked out, that was a win. And at the same time, you know, what I'm hearing and in our experience as well is that fine tuning of the, of the educational environment and academia also fine tunes their future. And that's so critical. You know, you've heard, uh, and not only their future, but also it challenges us as parents to step up. Yes. In a big way, and I'm sure it's challenged you along the way, Dina. 

[00:31:00] Dina Croy
Learned so much, but this whole journey, what I loved was the richness of it. Our, from the day we brought our kids home from school, it has been a family team effort. And so Chris jumped into this role of we would do family devotions in the morning, and he's so brilliant that he would cover five subjects. political, you know, socio economical, all of these things going on in the world. And I'm just like checking the box. Okay, guys, time for a hike, let's go. But in general, but the reality is it was a very rich, beautiful life. When you're an entrepreneur. You know, what is the old saying? You work 12 hours a day, but you get to choose which 12 hours of the day it is, and Chris was very good at intentionally being available for us and making opportunities for us to travel to, uh, we went to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and we traveled for a month. We traveled to Colorado for a few weeks, and so we've done He took the kids on to California and to Detroit and Washington, D. C. and all of these places and they had opportunities to sit at the feet of extremely successful CEOs and multi millionaire Leaders also they met a recovered drug addict drug addict.

[00:32:11]
 That was one of the biggest drug lords like in Hawaii or something I don't remember but you know our kids they were not sheltered. They were protected But they were not sheltered in a way that would hinder their growth. And, um, this, I think that I was just gonna say this. So the whole entrepreneurial journey, while it has had its challenges, it has been an amazing life experience for all of us. And in the end, well, of course we all want security and we all want. A few nice things and nice vacations and that the richness of the past, you know, McKenna's 25, 25 years of raising kids has been amazing and I wouldn't trade it what I've done some things differently as an entrepreneur, I probably would have jumped in a little sooner and been more of a help instead of just literally passing it all off to him, expecting him to do everything, but we learned.

[00:33:05] Chris Croy
Yeah, we did. And, um, I think I've always said homeschooling is like the entrepreneurial response to education. I agree. Right. Which means you're going to do it all in the beginning and even don't know how to do it. Right. Same thing when you start a business. Um, very few people start a business with all everything and all their ducks in a row or get married or have Children. Right? Yeah. And the transition from the creative world of photography where it was all me. Right. Right. I used to say, fortunately, it never happened. But man, if I ever had gotten sick or hurt, I'm refunding a lot of money for that weekend because I'm doing high end weddings right all around the country. And, um, fortunately, it never happened. But as God began to give us a clear vision for what this new business will be, what its purpose is. Besides funding the rest of our life, because this is our retirement. We don't have a 401k. We don't have, you know, um, a large savings account. Uh, so this business will be what funds the rest of our life.

[00:34:01] 
And we'll talk about the heart attack and some of those perspective things too. But I told my kids ago, I'm much more excited about something as unsexy as window cleaning. In terms of scalability and the ability to create potentially millions of dollars of revenue than photography ever was. So while photography was great for me, my ego, we now build a business where no one knows my name and that's okay because what we can do in our community, what we can do with the people that we bring into the company, the culture we, we build, um, is far greater in a service business. You know, so we kind of put that in front of our kids when they were younger teenagers, like, Hey, we're going to do this and we're going to show you how all about it. And they've all worked at it in various forms or another. And my son's on a job today, although he's moving into firefighting now, he's still a good tech.

[00:34:50] Dina Croy
Uh, he doesn't have work on other places. Hey, dad. Yeah. What you got for me now? 

[00:34:55] Chris Croy
Yeah. Hey, it's, oh my gosh, you're a great technician, son. Get up. So, yeah. Love it. 

[00:34:58] Dr. Nate Salah
Well, you, you've hit on so many things, and one of them that, that keeps coming back up is time. We only have so much time while we're here. Mm-hmm. And eventually we'll be at the end of this journey. And on this side of heaven, you look back and like, well, yeah, what was the greatest impact? What's my greatest impact? And truly, your greatest impact, at least the way I understand it, is your family. It's your number one ministry. And that's who we're called to serve first, before anyone else, before the business, before our community, before anyone else. Yeah. Because tomorrow's not guaranteed. Right. In fact, right. You did have a heart attack. You didn't expect it. No, you weren't planning for it. You didn't say, well, here's on this date on the counter. What day was it? 

[00:35:44] Dina Croy
July 14th, 2023. She remembers for sure. 

[00:35:48] Dr. Nate Salah
July 14th, 2023. It wasn't marked on the calendar. Hey, Chris is gonna have his heart attack today. We need to be ready for it. We need have, we need to have spent, invested wisely in, in the most precious resource. Those who we love throughout our lifetime. You did that. Yeah. But you're still here, would you learn from that heart attack? 

[00:36:08] Chris Croy
So a heart attack or a terminal illness, anything like that. There's a lot of to the recovery and it's not just a physical. There's a spiritual emotional thing, which I wasn't. That was surprising. You know, I didn't understand that you go through a lot and.

[00:36:26] Dr. Nate Salah
Because you don't even remember the initial part of the recovery. 

[00:36:27] Chris Croy
No, I'll ever do. I do.

[00:36:29] Dr. Nate Salah
What was going on? 

[00:36:31] Dina Croy
Well, his, he had come home from an F3 workout, and our son, just by the grace of God, we had just moved into a new house, but his room was uninhabitable, so he's sleeping in our living room. And if he had not been sleeping in our living room, when Chris walked in the door, and he just said, Hamilton, I need to go to the hospital, and he doesn't remember any of it, he, and we are seven minutes from the hospital. 

[00:36:52] Dr. Nate Salah
And an F3 workout, they're pretty intense. Yeah. Right. Yeah, but I 

[00:36:55] Dina Croy
mean, it would have happened either way, it would have happened either way, but, and he drove him immediately to the hospital. So first of all, I'm so thankful that that was the case. All of those things working together so that he got there. And we just moved 

[00:37:09] Chris Croy
there. We were two minutes from the hospital. 

[00:37:12] Dina Croy
Yes. That was awesome. Exactly.

[00:37:13] Chris Croy
A blessing. 

[00:37:13] Dina Croy
Um, so surgery, they didn't know if he was going to make it. It was, it was hard. It was really, I mean, I had a piece about me because of my faith and I know that he knew we loved him. We knew that he loved us. We knew he was in the Lord. So in that sense, it was very easy. Seeing him come out of surgery and, um, being all intubated and tubed up and not being able to speak and, or communicate in any way, um, it was hard. It was painful for the kids to see and walk through that, of course. And they, but they were so supportive. Our kids just came And they were there. And that's another one of those moments where you go, okay, we're rich. 

[00:37:54] Dr. Nate Salah
And you were and before before you weren't conscious. You were having to hold it together. Yeah. Do you remember that? 

[00:38:01] Dina Croy
I will tell you that it was truly. I felt the Lord's presence so sweetly that at night when I would go home, I would climb in bed. And I would have some tears in my eyes, but I literally felt like the Lord was just holding me. I felt like I was resting in the lap of my Savior. And I, some people may think that sounds crazy, but it was the most beautiful, amazing experience. And we had those. You stepped in and set up, um, some helpful things for us and everyone was so generous and helping us get through that season of unknowing, you know, not knowing what was going to happen, but I knew that I didn't have to worry about some certain financial things. And my kids were taking care of the house and. You know, you can tell him what, about what the kid said about the business that day. 

[00:38:50] Chris Croy
Yeah. And somebody in our community from our church stepped in. Yeah. So it was a blessing to see, to learn about it later. Cause I was kind of out of it and, uh, I do have some vignettes. I remember being out. So I was, I was probably out for five or six days, two or three more than probably the normal, but I think. As I heard it when I was waking up, I became a little belligerent because I'm strapped down. So they were like, I think we should sustain them a little longer. 

[00:39:16] Dina Croy
And they said that could happen. And they said he may panic. And I said, well, Chris does not like to be tied down at all. So he will probably panic. And he did. But there are vignettes.

[00:39:24] Chris Croy
I can remember people talking, whatever, like even the, the nurses and the doctor, I think right before the surgery, I can remember him talking in a real. Heavy Italian accent or whatever, but in my recovery, it was still being out. I do remember one thing, a couple of things. One, my wife praying blessings over me in my ear. Men, find yourself a woman who will pray blessings over you when you, when you can't. 

[00:39:51] Dina Croy
I literally, can I just add to that? I literally every day. Every day I went in to see him and I would immediately get right in his face and I pray and I tell him I just say, honey, come back, just come back because they didn't know if or when he was going to wake up. Everything looked fine. He should wake up, but you don't know. And I would just pet his head and I would get close and I would just Honey, please come back. We have so much more life to live. 

[00:40:15] Chris Croy
And then I do remember some of those things. Were you in a coma? Was he in a coma at the time? So you kept me sedated for five or six days. Sorry. Yeah. Um, because The way I, I think the way I responded when I first was waking up and, um, now the other memory I have, uh, my kids being, or I can remember hearing that. So the truth is, if you're in a coma, you can hear people talking, you just can't respond. And, um, they were talking about the business, how to keep it going. And my son's like, well, we got these jobs and, and whatever. And then McKenna, I remember my daughter, McKenna saying something like, uh, Boy, dad, I bet you wish you're awake.

[00:40:51]
 Cause we're about to burn this thing to the ground. And I remember thinking to myself, laughing, going, that's very funny, but I can't respond. I'm just like, I'm still like this. And, um, I remember my daughter coming in one night by herself and praying in my ear for me. And so. All that stuff, and any family would do that, I think, or most families would do that, but that reminded me, um, that the richness of family is just that, right, that you would do anything for each other, you know, when we raised our kids, we told them we would do anything for you, we would die for you. And, um, um, and that's true, right? Soon as you have a baby that day one, you're like, I will do anything in this world to keep, to protect this child. Right. As they get older, of course, and, and you go to that, um, when they're, I've always said that when my kids were in the daddy phase, where the, where you come to the, you come home, they're like, daddy's home, right?

[00:41:45]
 I'm like, that's primed real estate because you're, you can't do anything wrong when you're daddy. Right. Everything you say is, is, is the gospel truth and, and they, they worship you. Right. And then about 12 or 13, it goes to dad and that's not a bad thing, but when they go to dad, now they have some questions. They may, they may not believe everything you say. They have some pushback. Right. And that's, that's normal. And, uh, my kid, my kids all went to dad, but through my illness, um, through that heart attack, uh, boy, I saw them rally for, for my wife. And for us, because the heart attack also made something clear. The business we have now would have wasn't couldn't keep going.

[00:42:28] Dina Croy
Because you were everything to it. 

[00:42:30] Chris Croy
Yeah. I'm, I'm still everything to it. Right. My wife would have known what to do. She couldn't have plugged into keeping the marketing stuff going. My son was moving into firefighting. And so, um, you know, which is great. We're so proud of him for that. Right. He's, he's always been that kind of young man. And, um, so it wouldn't have gone on. And so while we knew that before the heart attack, the heart attack was sort of a rubber stamp on, you know, his life. Get this thing to the next level so that if this were to happen again, because mathematically speaking, my wife will probably outlive me if if that's because that's the laws of averages. And plus, I've already had a major heart attack. So I want that. We want this business one for to fund the rest of our lives and whoever. Lives longer until we die. That's number one, right? But then also how we want to take this and transform our community through things, initiatives that we have, we've prayed about and talked about.

[00:43:25] 
That's, you know, so the heart attack was just a reminder. It's time to spend money for me coaching, right. Getting coaching in my industry. Um, you know, so that we're hitting, cause we know we, now we see some real traction. But it's just a matter of doing my things in the right order. So, so we're very excited. I know I am too, uh, the role she's taken and, and what the next couple of years are going to bring, but the heart attack puts it all in perspective because had I, had I passed away, it wouldn't have been a thing that could really keep going. 

[00:43:56] Dina Croy
But thank you for asking that because it's a good reminder. The it's, it's great to be able to look back and see the big picture of how beautifully our family and our friends and our colleagues are doing. all pulled together. And it really felt not to be contrite, but kind of a, it's a wonderful life feeling when you look and see all the people who love you and care about you. And, um, you've affected their life in some way, in a positive fashion. We didn't have anyone come up negatively, so we're hoping it's all good.

[00:44:26] Dr. Nate Salah
Well, it's interesting. I, we were just, we just had that on last night. It's a wonderful life. And I was talking to my wife, of course, many people have seen it many, many times over. And I was talking to her about. Uh, good old George, like it took him forever to figure out that he was never born, like, bro, I mean, how many people do you have to see who don't recognize you for you to get through your skull that, and I'm like, yeah, but that's not just George Bailey. Yeah, it's, it's, I think we can all identify with sometimes it just. It's like you have to, you have to, uh, either you have to see someone else experience something like that to wake up or experiencing yourself to recognize.

[00:45:08] Chris Croy
Oh, And I'm in the hospital and I, I'm aware of people that have no family coming to visit them. Right. And I, and, and, uh, I just remember telling my wife that she, in, in, in our entrepreneurial journey, there were times where she were, where things were tough. We're not sure where the cashflow is coming in and she's. Pretty nervous, and I would say to her, honey, we're not gonna live under a bridge. She goes, you don't know that. We might just end up under a bridge. No, we know 

[00:45:34] Dina Croy
enough people, we wouldn't be under a bridge.

[00:45:35] Chris Croy
Right, we, yeah, and, uh, We have enough rich relationships, we'd be fine. Right, and, and, we've been blessed because of my, My nature as and being involved in Christian community and Christian business leaders. I've got to know a lot of wonderful men and families who are gospel focused, but also successful entrepreneurs. And, um, I've asked him, Hey, can I sit at your table? Can you share in people? And some of these men, you know, have been very generous and sharing their information for us. And I was able to sit my kids at their feet. And you know, when my kids were younger, they probably didn't see the value in that. But I'm like, trust me, if this guy says he can meet with us at 5 a.m. on Thursday, we should definitely take that meeting. But, but it's 5 a. m. I go, trust me, you'll understand more later on that, what that person might be able to offer you, not just in their wisdom, but also their connections, right? That their connections are a part of relationship building, a network of people.

[00:46:31]
 So what, what we learned through the heart attack too, was that. Had I passed away, there had been a lot of fires to put out our community of people would have come alongside because they called me. They told me as much. Hey, if something had happened, I would have reached out to Dina. Right? So, you know, there's a rich, that's, that's where your richness and wealth comes in. It's the wonderful life sort of story too. And when you're young, like our kids, they don't necessarily see that when they're 17, but as they get older and they can tap into that community as well for, you know, so I think that was became apparent. 

[00:47:03] Dr. Nate Salah
There's no more valuable currency on the planet and I, I've struggled to, to identify more valuable currency being in the financial services sector all these years. People say, well, it's your savings account. It's now your digital currency account or whatever, your, your, your retirement, your stocks, et cetera, et cetera. I found no more valuable currency than social currency, relational capital, the capital that we develop through the relationships we have, the depth of, uh, Connections where we're not meant to be alone. That's part of part of where we run into troubles when we run into when we isolate ourselves or when we don't, when we don't spend time doing some of the hard stuff. Like you said, Hey, you know what? It's 5 a. m. I know this is important to ROI on this relationship and others recognize that like, wow, you know, you, you got up at 4 o'clock in the morning or 4:30 just to just to learn for me or spend time with me.

[00:47:57] Chris Croy
That's powerful. You know, Nate, and I'll give you a plug here, because when you started the mastermind group and invited me into that, I was so thrilled. And I said, Hey, can I put my son at this table too? Because wow, what can you imagine? I was imagining what it'd be like if I had that. And you said, sure. Bring them on in. And so for the first couple of years, he was sitting in those meetings and he saw the emotional journey that all these entrepreneurs were going on. Remember there was some, there were some hot seats where people brought in their partners, right? And it was a hash out the hard parts of it. And there were tears. And my son was like, Slack job going. Wow. I go. Yeah, entrepreneur entrepreneurship is hard. And he and I tried to form a partnership, but we went through the same process of it's hard to come to agreement because we're built differently. We, we, we value things differently, but because I think that we were both at your feet in that in that room was so beneficial. Uh, my son now, I think, gleans real value from that today because he, even though he's not in anymore because he's doing firefighting, he's like, man, how's Nate doing? How's Sal? And you know, he'll ask how people are doing because they all, huh? 

[00:49:07] Dina Croy
How's PJ? 

[00:49:08] Chris Croy
How's PJ going? Right. Yeah. So, uh, and so when the homeschool entrepreneurship thing that I tried to blend together, I would ask, can I put, can I bring my kids to this meeting to a man and a woman? They said, sure. We'd love to see them there. So they, we had these, uh, Sometimes I'd meeting with CEOs of companies about marketing stuff or whatever. And they'd look at my kids and go, shouldn't you be in school? They're like, we are in school, sir. 

[00:49:32] Dina Croy
Well, remember the law firm, he, the CEO actually asked you to lunch because he wanted to know what it was you were doing and you had your kids with you.

[00:49:39] Chris Croy
And I told my kids always ask two questions. That CFOs or CEOs would find and so my daughter asked a question about cash flowing a law firm with that many billable hours and he's like, my own lawyers don't even ask me that, you know, I said, that's how you learn. And by the way, if. Now you've got a relationship with somebody that might be, that could be valued just in life, but also down the road as you seek other opportunities, you know, so, um, that's been a real blessing of building that community and being able to plug my kids in as much as I possibly could along the way.

[00:50:10] Dr. Nate Salah
The community, the community is such an important part of this story. And of course, when, when Hamilton, uh, your son, uh, went on his way and then we, uh, we, we, we saw. Dina come and become part of the mastermind experience. And then you began to be poured into, well, let's, let's developed as a leader. 

[00:50:34] Chris Croy
What did the circle tell me? Oh, well, the circle told you it said you're fired. You're fired. 

[00:50:39] Dr. Nate Salah
You're fired. We, uh, Dina, you have, you now have the, you now have the, the calm, right? 

[00:50:45] Dina Croy
And I've pulled it once or twice. I pulled the I'm the CEO card a couple of times and, um, but you know, this whole, everything we're talking about here, it's rich. I mean, being an entrepreneur, you could be an accountant, get your CPA, go to work for a firm, be there your whole life, have a steady income, and your life would be fine. If that's your choice, for us, we were willing to take the risks, both with our children, you know, how we raise them, their education, all those things, and entrepreneurship, because it's so rich. The highs are high, the lows are lows, but in those lows, we usually grow closer to God and each other. 

[00:51:26] Dr. Nate Salah
And that's a good, that's a good point to make in terms of how you're growing, what you're doing to invest and reinvest who you're surrounding yourself with. I was just talking my wife about environment and nature nurture type stuff, right? You're, you know, once your traits are set and you get through life. You know, from there, it's, it's the skills and the environment that you're in, your environment plays a critical role. I mean, critical role in who you become is you've heard the saying, show me your friends, I'll show you your future, right? It's, it's real. It is 100% the the, and we have to make a determination and make the choice of what environment, what seats at what table we want to sit at, because that is what will create the, you know, we're pliable one, one of the blessings of humanity is that we're our, we're pliable. It's also one of the dangers. mm-hmm Is that we're pliable. Right. And so. How do we want to be molded and shaped? What are the, what are the influences around us? And I know, Dina, even you coming into the Mastermind environment, you were embraced. And because you had some self limiting beliefs. You have, we all do. You have some doubts, even in your own journey.

[00:52:41] Dina Croy
Absolutely. I do because the reality is I went to college because I wanted to get my MRS degree. And that's just truth. I wanted to get married. I always wanted to get married. I wanted to have a family. I never told anyone. 

[00:52:53] Dr. Nate Salah
My MRS. My MRS. It took me a second. I'm like, well, what's that? An educated man. 

[00:53:02] Dina Croy
Well, I, I, I just knew I wanted to stay home with my children, but I didn't tell anyone that because that was socially, leave. You know, not acceptable really in the 90s to say I want to stay home. So I got my, you know, career started and set but the day that we had McKenna, I literally looked at her and I thought I am never Going back to work and so when it was there was a little bit of conflict in me when it was time for me to step into the business because I wasn't I'm not finished being the stay at home home educating mom, you know, and.

[00:53:39] Dr. Nate Salah
Which is which is a role that it's it's a very difficult by the way. If you stay at home, you don't stop working, you don't, you don't, you don't leave the work world. You simply, it's a different role and responsibility and it's incredibly important. And I grew up in the nineties and for those of us who did grow up in the nineties, yes, there was a, you may forget there was a huge push say, well, if you're not a career woman, You're kind of taking a page, you should get a pay cut. You're just, and that's, and that's wrong. That's simply wrong that to have a less than view. If you're a career person, more power to you. If you're a person who wants to stay at home and raise a family, more power to you, you know, but don't. Despair or don't look down on someone who simply wants to be the person who raises their family. What a great honor if that's what you're, if that's, if that's your lane. 

[00:54:31] Dina Croy
And it was truly the most amazing, home educating our kids. And so the last 15 years have been. It has been the most amazing journey and I've loved it. And now I am over the past year, I'm beginning to embrace going into business because the rest of our lives are, it's growing and, and moving along. But, um, I'm excited. I'm excited about what this next. Couple of years brings and I'm excited about our relationship, how it's trained changing. And, um, I appreciate so much this talk we're having because it's reminding me of that big picture because I do tend to get caught in the details and I forget to look up at the sunrise.

[00:55:15] Chris Croy
Yeah, she, um, there was a season, um, when we were We were downsizing. So photography was kind of dying, right? We saw the writing on the wall and we were thinking about, you know, doing other things, but we had the downsides from our big house in St. Louis County. We got the blessing of moving out to a smaller house, but on a hundred acres. So our kids got to spend the crux of their life growing up on 120 acres on the Mississippi river, which means we could blow stuff up and burn stuff. And it was all awesome. And hike every day. And hike every day. And that was a great place to homeschool too, you know? But. When we were downsizing, um, people would say, well, why don't you just go back to work? Right. Because she, again, she's got two college degrees. I have none. And, and, um, she could step right back into the work world and made a good income. Um, and we were like, wait, wait, wait, 

[00:56:05] Dina Croy
wait, you kind of looked at me like. No, no, no, no. 

[00:56:07] Chris Croy
No, no, no, no, no, now when we had our first baby, just part time, no, the first baby where we had the conversation was because I was starting a photography business. So, you know, not making much money yet. She was already had been a bank auditor and an accountant. So I was like, you know, maybe for another year, you could stay at home while I get there. She's like, figure it out. Cause I ain't going back to work, which is actually a good motivation for a man to whatever you're. Yeah. Trying to do career or business get your act together because baby's here and and it was great because mom's like, you know And she said they will forget about me the following Monday and have a new name plate on the door So they don't need me. They don't not gonna miss me so that process of downsizing was people were saying a lot of They met well, I mean nothing wrong, but they're like well just Go keep the house. You don't want to sell the house. I'm like, the house is the last thing we wanted to keep. 

[00:57:03]
It's just a thing in the name of our children, right? It was just two extra bathrooms. We never used anyway, so downsizing people. But that's kind of the pressure. You feel like you don't want to give up material things. Absolutely. Actually, giving up material things is a perfectly good way to go. If it means keeping the more important things together in the dynamic of your family. 

[00:57:22] Dr. Nate Salah
And sometimes it's good to just purge. Yes. Yeah. Hit reset on some of those material things. It's actually can bring you even closer together. In fact, we, when we, and I'll do the end of this, we, we downsized on not on because we wanted to, but because we had invested in a business that Was, uh, almost bankrupted us and we went from a really big house to a little villa and we were just talking about this the other day and it was the closest we had ever been when we were together in a tightly knit environment. And all that material was. Not even a consideration. Sometimes, sometimes that's a good thing. 

[00:57:57] Chris Croy
And I would say, I'm sorry, honey, go. 

[00:58:00] Dina Croy
I was gonna say the reminder that it's not the end and it's not always going to be like this, whatever it is. And so what do you want most out of life? For us, it's been freedom. To do and live our life as we choose with our family and with our friends and colleagues. And it's a different, it's a totally different mindset when you're an entrepreneur. Everything's different. And like Chris said, carrying that into home education. It's the same thing. It's the entrepreneurial. 

[00:58:31] Chris Croy
And now that the window's closing a little bit on homeschooling, we've got a 17 year old at home still, our why is shifted and the why of the business we're building beyond our own financial goals. Like I always said, I'd like to hand her a decent car once in a while, which we were able to do this last year. Um, instead of all the turd balls we've been driving, however, um, in that process of Downsizing materially now, it can cause a lot of stress and we've had stressful times to be sure, um, as we downsize with our kids and we began to homeschool and do other things. I believe it drew us closer together and our family closer together. And had we just only gone up. I don't know, you know, who knows? I'd like to think we would have adjusted accordingly. She's always saying she's willing to try, you know, I don't want to be rich, but I'm willing to give it a shot. 

[00:59:21] Dina Croy
People say it'll ruin you, but I don't know.

[00:59:24] Chris Croy
Um, however, now we have a why behind our current business too. And so in the service business that we're building now, we want to do, be able to, to take work with nonprofits and take kids coming out of foster care. Cause this is where my heart is. Cause that's my upbringing was, was, you know, Without a father. So, and plug them into a company that, that will offer them not only a good job, but actual mentorship mentorship. So that second seat. Sort of say foundation, but the second seat in the truck is a chance for someone who can grow with the company and move to the first seat. And then also my wife's got a real hard for kids coming out of sex trafficking. So there's some real opportunities that we believe and we're actually working on building a network of other, um, Christ centered service companies because in this world where everybody wants less employees, a service business like ours, you need people. And I, and I, I'm looking forward to hiring people, um, but we can't do that unless, until we're, this is where you're helping us, right, where, where your numbers and your systems and everything else to get to that place, but we're, we're on the cusp of that too, so. 

[01:00:29] Dr. Nate Salah
And your heart is in the right place, you know, your heart is to serve, and we know that the greatest among us is the servant, and it's interesting you bring up wealth. When Tara and I, my wife and I were earlier in our relationship and we were talking about the future and she had made the comment, she said, well, you know, when we get to a certain amount of comfortability dollars wise, she even threw out a number, she said, I just want to give the rest away. And I was like, say what? And that challenged me, that challenged me, but I began to embrace that construct later because what she meant was we want to be generous with the time, the talents, the treasures that we have been entrusted with, because look, it's, we're stewards, we're shepherds, one day we won't be here. One day, we'll be standing in front of God and what we want most is well done, good and faithful. Yeah. Servant. That's what we want to hear. 

[01:01:26] Dina Croy
And on this side of heaven, how great does it feel to pour into someone's life and see them make different choices or see them prosper, whether it's mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever direction that is. But being able to pour into someone else's life, there's richness in that. And it's a joy. 

[01:01:46] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Because you're not, there's no, there are zero, zero U Hauls following that hearse, right, to the cemetery, unless you're Egyptian and ancient Pharaoh and you want everything buried with you. That's not happening anymore. Right. The only, the only real valuable commodity that's going with us are people. 

[01:02:06] Chris Croy
In fact, the only thing that you might recognize in heaven that you had anything to do with might be very well your children or the ones that you share the gospel with or whatever. That's the only treasure you may recognize in heaven. It won't be the stuff. But I also know that what we want to do, the why now is we need money to do it. Yeah. Right. So we can't, you know, if I'm working with a seat at the table and Bob Sturgis or other nonprofits and they say, Hey, I've got a young man who'd be a great candidate for you. He's recommending to us. Um, We can't hire a charity case, but we can hire someone's recommended that, hey, they got a spark. We'd love to pour into that young man and get him a good job and then a pathway from that seat up, right? And then we, so we want to offer more as a company than just a good job. And, um, so, but that takes profitability. It takes profitability. 

[01:02:54] Dr. Nate Salah
It takes money. And people make the mistake and say, Oh, you know, especially in some Christian circles. Money is, you know, money's evil. No, it's no, no. In fact, it's necessary. It's the blood flow that runs through your business and your life. It's not that money's evil. It's the love of money. That's the root of all kinds of evils, by the way. Anything you make your idol can lead you down dark roads, period. It could be chocolate. Hey, look, I love chocolate. Hey, I'm sitting right here, Nate. I mean, come on. You know, I take people to Hershey, Pennsylvania. I'm like, let's eat some chocolate. 

[01:03:28] Dina Croy
Still a little salty. Right. We missed that trip.

[01:03:29] Dr. Nate Salah
Right. Yeah, exactly. Like I still have PTSD from all the chocolate. You go to Hershey, you're going to get chocolate. That's the key. The key is that we want to be financially healthy. Why? Because that gives us a resource that we can use to build up all of the blessings that we have. By the way, that's the whole parable of the talent, right? The, you know, the one person. Took what they had received money wise, buried it because they were afraid, right? They didn't, by the way, not only that, they didn't trust. That's the big thing. They didn't trust that they could multiply and increase what they were entrusted with so that they just were sloth and lazy. Like you don't want to be that person. The other two multiplied and increased what they were entrusted with. This is the whole story that Jesus tells about this process for us, this model. And by the way, The two who multiply to increase what they were entrusted with, even though the, the, the amounts were different, they received the same reward. Come and dine with your master. The other one's like, look, and by the way, good and faithful, wicked and lazy.

[01:04:33]
 Like that was the terminology for the two different types of servants. They're all servants, but wicked. I don't want to be a wicked and lazy servant. I want to be a good and faithful. I want to use the time, talents and treasures I've been entrusted with to multiply and increase by the way. I'm not responsible for the quantity, I'm responsible for the quality. Let the quantity be multiplied and increased according to God's riches. Right. I'll leave that to God. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to, I'm not going to not measure it. Right. At the same time, My focus is the quality of all the giftings I've been giving and maximizing him for his purpose. 

[01:05:16] Chris Croy
Amen. That's exactly it. I think of the story of Jesus walking down the road, the beggar sitting off to the side. And, you know, the way that story is described is, you know, Jesus is surrounded by people. It's pretty popular at this point, right? And he's making his way and the beggar cries out and says, cries out Jesus. And Jesus stops the crowd and parts the people and walks over to him and says, Stand up, dust yourself off and ask me what you want. And, uh, because I've gone through this process to part of my personal struggle. My wife has been a witness to this is when I fall into the self limiting beliefs or the trash talk sometimes that, that can be awfully strong is. Feeling like I don't deserve something and the deserve versus not deserve thing. That's a theological kind of thing because I don't we don't deserve anything However, the grace of God is is this and buddy Jesus said stand up dust yourself off and ask it But what is it that you ask for which he doesn't deserve and he says I just want to be healed hmm, and Jesus heals him and I've thought about that a lot because You know, the why behind what we're doing, does it, I'm not so interested in, you know, I know the word legacy to me that that's, that's a word that I've grappled with, you know, I think I had a dream with my kids in the beginning that they all be a part of the business and we take this thing on and, and my son would take it and run with it, but I had a hard time communicating with my son how to do it. It's not his fault that we just. We were having a hard time connecting on that. And so when that didn't work out, I had to, we had to sort of mourn the loss of the dream we had that initial dream was, wouldn't it be great if all my kids and their spouses helped this thing become a thing. But that was really more ego. Yeah, that really wasn't. 

[01:07:06] Dr. Nate Salah
That was your dream. 

[01:07:08] Chris Croy
That was my dream. It wasn't their dream. And, and I, you can't make them have your dream, right. Provide an opportunity, but, but, you know, they're watching us labor through growing a company and they're like, I don't know if so inspired to do this either, which I totally understand, right. You know, they're seeing us, you know, slowly getting there and, and whatever. And so, um, I, I understand why my kids are like, yeah, I think we'll do something else at some level. And they, and, but the door's always open to them. But so legacy for me is. Not that my name's attached to it, that anybody knows who I am, you know, in 20 years or 50 years, if this company still exists, but the why is if we can love and serve and be a, transform our community through reaching out, if three young men come into our company and, and we can help them improve their life, I'm celebrating, right? If we can write a check for sex trafficking rescue. Then I'm celebrating, you know, so the.

[01:08:02] Dr. Nate Salah
 Legacy. And as I'm glad you brought that up, legacy isn't about transferring wealth. It's not about people remembering your name, right? 100 years, 200 years, 200 years, unless, you know, unless you do something that's, that's massively, um, societally valuable, either, whether it's something on the, the effective or ineffective side, right? You'll, you'll, you'll likely, you won't be remembered history. However, and the same thing about fam, family businesses. Even for years, I, I always told my son, look, this business is not for you. If you decide that it's something that, you know, you want to pursue, we'll kick it, take the can down the road. But I don't want, I don't want to pressure you. I don't want to pressure you with, you know, Taking over the family business because you may be called to do something completely different and actually took offense to that, uh, side note, he's like, well, dad, you don't want me in your business. I mean, truth, not unless you're called to it, right? Yes. Yeah, that's it. And so he's, and then he would say, well, you know, sell a financial corp, you know, we don't want to lose the name or sell the business. I'm like, it's just a, it's just a name. It's paperwork. Yeah. It's a spreadsheet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's legacy. Legacy is obedience. Legacy is obedience to love radically, love purposefully, That's the legacy and guess why because your name is written in heaven rather written there than than in any history book 

[01:09:30] Chris Croy
That's right on any day. 

[01:09:30] Dr. Nate Salah
That's where legacy is man.

[01:09:33] Chris Croy
Our two oldest kids are now married and we have a grandbaby and one coming in a month It's great because in their 20s now that they've moved out and started their lives and stuff They'll call up and say hey, thanks for the way you raised us And I'm like, see, don't ask them when they're 17, wait till they move out, have a kid, you know, but, but, um, and we see that we see the fruits of how we raise them because they're marrying well, you know, and, and they're having babies and those things don't make it or break it. But. We're so happy because they also live close by. So we get to see the grandbabies almost every day. 

[01:10:10] Dina Croy
 And they want us in their lives. They want us. Isn't that the best compliment? 

[01:10:13] Chris Croy
Yeah. Our daughters call up my wife and go, would you go out to us to, for coffee? And my wife's like, I go, see? 

[01:10:18] Dina Croy
My daughter just called and she said, can you meet me at Costco when you're done with your call? I'm like, okay. Well, she has the baby. Yes. I'd love to see both of them. You know, it's a rich life. 

[01:10:28] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, that's where legacy manifests itself in a meaningful way. 

[01:10:32] Chris Croy
And we're seeing that because as the, as the door closes on being parents of children at home, if possible, now God may take them somewhere. But right now, we've been praying against that for. All right, children, listen to your mother, listen to your mother, children. 

[01:10:51] Dr. Nate Salah
Make sure you play this in as part of the podcast for them. 

[01:10:53] Chris Croy
But for now, we're enjoying that we all go to the same church. We get together regularly because we all live close together. And um, my kids have married wonderful, godly young people. Which is really in the end, If they're going to get married, is that anything else really matter? It's environment back to environment. Right. And our kids had married wonderful young people and we know their families. So the community just gets richer as we grow older. And, um, yeah, if the business is a multimillion dollar company, when we die, and then it gets sold off and they put the money, it's all a spreadsheet. It doesn't really matter. But what we do with it while we're alive is part of the why. And I was encouraged young men who would think about a business. I always say. Why do you want to start a business? And if they say to me, they want more time and money. I'm like, well, that's the wrong reason. Uh, eventually that might be the case, but, you know, to understand that that arc is a lot slower than a career. And I can share all that just from the scars that we do have. 

[01:11:52] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. And those scars are. are part of, uh, the character building that we're all called to. Thanks for being here. 

[01:11:59] Dina Croy
Oh, thank you for having us. 

[01:12:01] Dr. Nate Salah
It's been good. We'll have to do it again because I know there's so much more to share as you continue to, uh, define and redefine how God continues to use you, uh, and not only in your family, your business and your community.

[01:12:14] Chris Croy
Well, Nate, we appreciate you too for, you've been a great mentor to us actually, and, and Hamilton and in the mastermind group. So, uh, this is a privilege. Thank you for what you do. 

[01:12:24] Dina Croy
It is. And having, um, this group, it's not even like we're in each other's lives on a daily basis, right? But I feel so supported and encouraged and to have people who I respect as individuals and also as business owners, um, look at you and I'll, I'll, I'll Say it again because I think I've told you before but having at the last January retreat when y'all said You need to be the CEO and I thought I I don't even know what that means I mean, I have a business degree. I don't know what that means and Travis sat next to me at the pool and he looked at me and he goes You know, you can do this and so I would encourage anyone to surround yourself with those people that aren't blowing smoke, but that have the knowledge, wisdom, experience that are willing to pour into you, encourage you and call you on the carpet when you're not not on the right track.

[01:13:19] Dr. Nate Salah
Well said. That's a good place to stop. Yeah. Thanks again for being here. Thank you. Well, my friend, we did it again. I'm so glad you joined me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. If you've been with me on the show, listening in, you'll know this, but if you're new, you may not know that I created a free course for you that you don't need to provide an email address. You don't need to go anywhere, but to stay right here in the podcast. I created the very first six episodes of the podcast because I wanted you to have the kind of value that you need to take advantage of. Image of to thrive as a leader. If you haven't done that yet, listen to episodes one through six and I'll see you on the next episode. I'm Dr. Nate Salah and this is A Call to Leadership.