Family Coaching with Alex Kirby | E110
Bringing unity to families.
On today’s episode of Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners, Jason is going to talk to Alex Kirby, Co-Founder and CEO of Total Family Management. It is a company focused on family coaching and helping families through the dynamics and personalities that are in the family to create better cohesion and better family Wellness and long-term satisfaction for everybody. They explore the challenges of entitlement within family businesses and how purpose can be used to unify the family's values and goals. It also touches on the initial steps of onboarding with Total Family Management.
Episode Highlights:
1.16: Alex describes Total Family Management as a private virtual family coaching company that primarily serves clients from the wealth advisory sector, including family offices and state attorneys. TFM works directly with families, helping them manage various aspects of their family dynamics.
2.40: Alex highlights the importance of family in people's lives, emphasizing that it is universally significant. People often prioritize family above all else, and this aspect of life is unifying across different cultures and countries.
4.12: Jason wants to know how family dynamics change as young families evolve into families with teenagers and adults, and ultimately as the older generation, the patriarchs and matriarchs, transition into their senior years.
4.38: Alex outlines his approach to classifying people into four distinct life stages like the wonder segment, the balance segment, the harmony segment, the wisdom or legacy segment within families and these stages are akin to being sorted into different houses like in Hogwarts.
6.45: Alex highlights that having a clarified vision is crucial for a sense of direction and well-being, regardless of one's age or life stage.
7.56: Alex emphasizes the value of having someone to talk to about one's goals, values, and direction, whether it's young individuals shaping their future or committed couples unifying their goals and values.
9.20: Alex mentions his workshop called "Each of My Kids, All of My Kids," which focuses on identifying the skills, experiences, and attitudes parents want to instil in each of their children while they are still young. Alex and Jason emphasize the importance of starting early because it becomes more challenging to instil these values once children reach their teenage years and establish their own social circles.
10.50: Alex emphasizes the significance of reframing challenges as opportunities for learning and growth.
11.20 Jason agrees with the idea of framing lessons as a way to raise functional, capable individuals who can handle various aspects of life effectively because at the end of the day, what we really want is functional human beings.
Alex highlights the lack of resources available for long phase of parenting, where children become adults but remain a significant part of their parents' lives.
13.18 Alex says, maintaining a healthy, normal relationship with adult children and transitioning from a parenting role to a more peer-like relationship is an important challenge that needs to be addressed over an extended period.
14.02 Jason ask to talk about how to navigate the discussions and ensure a smooth transition and planning process for individuals and their families in this later stage of life.
14.52: To help clients build the necessary communication skills and comfort with the later stage discussions like medical issues, finance or estate planning, Alex suggests starting with lighter topics and gradually working up to heavier, more complex ones.
17.01: Jason is interested in understanding the common reasons clients seek coaching services and whether these reasons are related to existing problems or other factors that prompt them to hire TFM.
18.34: TFM aims to lower barriers for potential clients by offering a money-back guarantee if they complete three workshops and are not satisfied. This approach helps clients gradually become more invested in the coaching process, building trust and connection with their coach.
20.10 Jason wonders if part of the coaching process involves helping parents recognize their own baggage and potentially course-correcting their parenting approaches.
20:43: Alex emphasizes that their approach is not about fixing individuals. Instead, their coaches typically spend only 20% of their time speaking during workshops. They primarily set the stage by asking questions and allowing the conversation to unfold naturally.
23:52: Alex acknowledges that not everyone has the desire or autonomy to engage in family coaching, and individuals must choose to participate willingly. He notes that people often come into coaching sessions sceptical but tend to find the experience valuable and do not regret the time spent because it allows them to focus on an area of life they genuinely care about.
25:01: Alex discusses the importance of conducting exercises related to values and vision within family businesses. He emphasizes that it's crucial to involve all relevant family members in these exercises, especially when not all parents or children are involved in the business. The goal is to ensure that different perspectives and values are considered, and this may require adapting the exercises for different family members.
25:53: Some people assume their children can figure things out on their own, but these are the same children who may have had conflicts growing up and have since developed as independent adults. When they are brought back into the family business, it can lead to challenges as they navigate coexistence and business responsibilities.
29:02: Alex discusses the concept of passing on values and how purpose can be a unifying factor in families, especially in the context of family businesses.
32:02: Alex discusses the process of engaging with Total Family Management and outlines the steps clients typically go through to make the most of their time with the service.
34:04: Alex emphasizes the authenticity of their company and how everyone in their organization goes through the processes they advocate for, ensuring that they practice what they preach.
3 Key Points:
Jason and Alex discuss the challenges faced by business owners, especially when it comes to succession planning and family dynamics within the business.
Jason highlights several challenges and complexities that arise in family businesses when it comes to succession planning.
Total Family Management offers a transparent and straightforward process for clients to engage with their coaching services, with a focus on providing ongoing support and flexibility to address family dynamics effectively.
Tweetable Quotes:
“Waiting until the final stage to address important family dynamic and communication issues may not be the most effective approach.” – Jason
“Parents often possess the answers to the questions asked during the coaching sessions but may not have explored them before. The goal is to create a safe space for discussing important family matters. “- Alex
“If parents care enough to participate in a conversation or coaching session about their children, it demonstrates a significant commitment, which is a crucial step in addressing family dynamics.” - Jason
“People who seek out programs like Total Family Management are self-selecting; they are actively looking for ways to improve their family relationships. This self-selection process contributes to the success of such programs, as the participants are genuinely motivated to have healthier relationships. Jason acknowledges that the success rate of programs like Total Family Management may not be representative of the success rate if everyone were included.” – Jason
“Many business owners express a desire to pass on their values to their children, but they may not have a clear understanding of their own values. By going through the exercise with the patriarch and matriarch of the family, they establish a common language that can be used to discuss personal and business matters.” - Alex
Resources Mentioned:
Full Transcript:
Producer: Welcome to the Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners' pod cast. You will hear about industry insights with award winning financial planner and entrepreneur, Jason Pereira. Through the interviews with different experts with their stories and advice you will learn now you can navigate the challenges of being an entrepreneur, plan for success, and make the most of your business and life, and now, your host, Jason Pereira.
Jason Pereira: **** Alex Kirby, the CEO of Total Family Management. Total Family Management is a company focused on family coaching and helping families through the dynamics, and personalities that are in the family to bring better cohesion and better family wellness and long term satisfaction for everybody ****, and with that, here is my interview with Alex. Alex, thanks ****.
Alex Kirby: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Jason Pereira: So, Alex Kirby, tell us what it is you do?
Alex Kirby: Thank you for having me on. I know you're a family man yourself, as we just saw your, your, your son begin and get some toast. Um, it sounds like you're agreeing with the toast.
Jason Pereira: I, I agree with his, uh, his cooking. Yes.
Alex Kirby: So, your family is a private virtual family coaching company. Most of our clients come from Wealth Advisor's Family Office of the State Attorney. It's like, well to say broadly the wealth space, but they are paying for us directly, and we're working directly with families, mostly heads of households, but all kind of shapes and sizes. You know, we have, we have single young people. We have people in committed partnerships with no kids. We have people with adult kids that are trying to manage those relationships, so it runs the gamut with private virtual family coaching.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. Okay. So, let's talk about what that is. I mean, you know, the term coaching can explain a lot of things, but what is family coaching, and why is it good?
Alex Kirby: So, I came - my backgrounds is, is consulting people development, and there is a lot of these frameworks that are used in the business world that are applicable to families, if you just think about them as teams. As soon as you make the switch that a family is a team, however you define it. You know, we have lots of mixed families, and, and divorces. There are multiple divorces, and kids, and stuff. It doesn't matter. However you define a team, and then you can apply concepts to that team. So we just view a family as kind of a family without a coach, and the reason that it's important is because when push comes to shove, when you go and look at data, if you ask questions. In any country that you go to, people will tell you the most important thing in their life is family. Why they're working is family. If you're - there's lots of great **** talks on this. If your plane is going down, and you survive, what do you come out thinking? I care about being a dad.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: I care bout my kids. I care about my legacy potentially, and this area of life is so universal, it's actually unifying as a concept. Like you could go to two countries that are fighting over everything and say, "Man, teenagers, huh?" And they go, "Yeah, I know. You know, they're so entitled" or whatever. So, its actually extremely unifying as a topic.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. I'm going back to when I hear things, and one generation complains about the next one, and how it's so much worse than they, when they were. I go back to that, **** it's true or not. Famous quote by, uh, Socrates, about how just these days spend too much time with their friends, and, uh, goofing around, and not enough time studying and being diligent. It is, uh, we all like to think we were better than they were as just kids. We were never better. We're –
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: We're, we're all the same highly evolved monkeys, basically behaving the same way but in a different place in time.
Alex Kirby: Right.
Jason Pereira: So, all right. So, basically, yes. It's universal. It's a priority. It's absolutely something that, you know, anyone that's going to parent, people say it's transformational for their lives. I get that. Now, basically, so that's, that's the, the general, the generality. I think it was apparent and, and basically relates to the fact that it can be a challenge especially once they get out of the younger stages, and they, you know, the things that they're **** and whatnot. So, talk to me about, I guess, **** a different kind of life stages approach, right? So, tell me what it's like for a young family, **** families with teenagers, and then adults, and then when that would be the patriarchs and matriarchs become seniors. Like, how does this - what are the bigger concerns. How does this evolve over time?
Alex Kirby: Yeah, we have lots of different ways that we sort of, like classify people. But one, one super simple way is we have four areas, and you can kind of think about getting sorted, like, **** the word style into your house. All right? So, the first, the first group we sometimes refer to as the wonder segment, or the wonder group. Wonder to us is, you don't have the time to commit. All right? So you could still potentially be living at home. You could be living on your own. You could be married without kids, or you're moving around without a lot of commitments, and to us that's a time of having a really clean slate. Right? So, you're thinking about you want to be strategic about the directions that you are going, take advantage of the fact that you have a clean slate. The next area we refer to as the Balance Segment which is kind of a funny word for it. Another, another word for it is In the Thick of It, and that's where you are, Jason. I know that's where I am. It's raising young kids. It's when these, these kids are in your house, and it's just an all consuming activity. After that is Harmony. We refer to it as Harmony. Some people refer to it as the Golden Years where the kids are getting older. You have less obligations. You might have more money, more freedom. It might be a time in your life when you can actually go do some of the stuff that you want, and then the last piece is Wisdom, or Legacy where you tend to be more reflective. You tend to be thinking about some of the more existential matters related to life, and there's, there's a million different, like, ways to classify life stages. There's a lot of different ways that we look at our clients, but if you look at those four segments, I think you can kinda pretty easily put yourself in one of those buckets.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. Okay. So, you put those in the buckets, let's talk about the approach, right? So –
Alex Kirby: Sure.
Jason Pereira: Right. Start off with the early stage, one we can talk about. So what are the bigger concerns or problems that arise there, and how, that are common, and you know, what are the methodologies or core ways that you help coach through that?
Alex Kirby: Yeah, so there are a couple of things that are kind of universal when we look at, when we look at the families. The first one is, is you do financial planning right? We see vision comes before planning. Okay? And the definition of vision for us is purpose, plus values, plus goals, and that is applicable across our entire client segment. So, when we're talking about vision, it doesn't matter if you're a young person, or it doesn't matter if you're, you're in one of those later phases. If you don't feel that - if you don't have a vision clarified, you're going to be unsure about your general direction. Okay? And I think another thing that's very confusing for people is goals get substituted as vision. So, some people will say, "Oh, my vision is retirement", or "My vision is to get the kids out of the house".
Jason Pereira: No, that's, that's, that is a goal.
Alex Kirby: ****.
Jason Pereira: ****. Like what are you gonna do with your time at the end of that?
Alex Kirby: That's ****.
Jason Pereira: **** as a financial planner where I was, I always joke at this too, there is two, there is two retirement plans. One is how I'm gonna financially get there, ****? And two, what is it you're gonna do with all that time, and, and where is your identity, since by then ****, 'cause you're gonna lose some of that when you basically retire?
Alex Kirby: Yeah. That's right. So, for those people in the younger phase, they tend to have a feeling - they almost have so many options, if you can - it's almost, it's very, very hard to do.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: But, if you can go back to what it was like when you were 23, 24 years old, maybe you grew up, and you know from the time that you were 9 that you wanted to be a financial planner and a pod cast host, but that's not everyone.
Jason Pereira: Well, not quite, but close.
Alex Kirby: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, having this, having someone to talk to about where you're trying to go, what your goals might be, what your values are, is really helpful for, for people at a young phase. If we have people in committed relationships, that's also a time where they're like unifying their goals, and unifying their values. As if, yeah, hopefully, well it doesn't have to be – you know, I think one of the things with us is our conversations are extremely energized. You know, there is so much positivity to build on. It doesn't have to be, well push and pull, or, or this isn't fun. Our clients leave our calls with energy to go do whatever we're talking about. It's, it's not, and never intended to be like - the values conversation specifically is always positive. It's always positive.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. Okay, so that's the early stage one. Let's talk about later stages, and you can pick wherever you want to go, whether it's like kids with teenagers, or kids when they're basically out there forging their own identity and that parent is now an empty nester, and maybe I think I see from experience how empty nesting can - especially if it's a stay-at-home parent, really mess with their sense of purpose and the dynamics. So, talk to me about the, the challenge and coaching techniques around that.
Alex Kirby: Yeah, so if, well, well we can just take all three of them 'cause they, they're all applicable. So, when you have the kids in the house –
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: – one of the things that parents are constantly talking about is, I want my kids to be blank. Hard working, not entitled. I want them to be self-sufficient. Right? And so, we have an example of one of the workshops where we talk about this, is we have a workshop called Each of my kids, All my kids, where you talk about the skills, the experiences and the attitudes that you want each of your kids to have while you have time to instill some of that. Right? When they're really young you can't really instill anything. Once they have tons of friends, and they're sort of like in the teenage age, you've kinda lost them, but not entirely. But, it's helpful for parents to talk about, hey, what gets through to this kid? Right? How do they like to be talked to? That's different for almost every kid. What are they driving towards? Are we, are we like in tune with what their goals are and what's important to them? And then, even just some, like, nuts and bolts stuff, like what do we want them to be able to do when they leave the house? Right? Do - have we ever taught them to change a tire? Or, balance a check book? Or, do they know what an HVAC system looks like? Or do they know how an airport works? Right? Can they walk into an airport and like get where they're going? These are fun things that when you talk to parents about it, when they have the time in that phase, they're like, they might come up with 50 things. They're like, all right, but we've got 10 years. So, this is sort of a fun little, like, Bingo game you can play. So next time you - we just made this, made this joke with a family, but like next time your tire blows out on the road trip instead of being, like, really ticked off, you'd be like this guys is so exciting, like, we can all learn how to change a tire, and it's just like a different framing for some of the stuff that people tell us are, uh, are struggles for them.
Jason Pereira: ****I'm having a hard time thinking the re-frame of one tire is that quick. But yeah, it's as you say that, I think back to a number of like any **** stories, or any things on the news where, where one situation on the news where they asked a woman how often she changes her furnace filter, and she's like, "I have to change a filter?", and of course, ****
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: **** like caked with black, and so it's - yeah. It's these - life is hard. There is a lots of small things that we take for granted that we figured out, or were told, that basically is a living ****. I've been thinking about teaching my kids about stuff. It makes excellent sense that we frame that, and then 'cause again at the end of the day what we really want is functional human beings ****.
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: That's what we're looking for.
Alex Kirby: And also just the fact that, like, our parents are in there talking about it. That means they're gonna have success with it.
Jason Pereira: Right.
Alex Kirby: If you have, if you have enough - if you're taking the time to talk about your kids in this way, it means one thing, and you really care, and that, that's a huge factor in life, getting reasonable human beings out of your house. The third phase, so you want to talk about the empty nesters? One of our workshops is about roles. So we use roles to talk about some of the changes that you are talking about, and so roles, one way to think about it is, you know top roles commonly are parent, spouse, very common.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Alex Kirby: But then you get into your role as a professional, or a sibling, or whatever. What happens in retirement, as you know, is there is a huge void that happens when you go from spending 60 hours a week being a partner of a law firm to now you're just home. Right? But roles is a way to look at that problem, and kind of preemptively be like, "Hey, I'm talking about retiring in a couple of years, and I'm wondering, like, how I'm gonna to use this 250 hours a month that I used to be doing lawyer stuff. Another kind of way to think about roles in this phase is a lot of our clients become grandparents in this phase. So, grandparent was a non-existing role, and many times it jumps to one or two for those, those parents. So, roles are a way to think about those problems preemptively, but we also find that there is a lack of resources in what we call the long phase of parenting. There is lots of talk about how to keep your kids alive when they're infants, and how to make sure they're not spoiled, and how to do all this different stuff. But when they get to be adults they're still your kids, and they're still your kids for a lot of years. And how, how can you have a healthy, normal relationship with your kids, where you step - you're way less of a parent, and you're way more of, "Man, I just want this person in my life, and I want to have a great relationship with them". It's like super healthy. How do we do that over a long period of time.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. We'll come back to that point after. I wanna finish our, kind of, evolution of this, and let's go to that kind of a late stage, so we have people in their lat, in the later stages of life, way fewer days to be ahead of them than before. Uh, they've been retired for several years or, you know it's, or ****, we'll come back to this. Something else I wanna come back to on succession planning, but we'll come back to, uh, you know, their, they've been, they're retired for several years, what do they kind of accomplish there, 'cause I mean now, it's sort, you know, we, guys like me are converging to have conversations about their estates and what happens next. How does, and that leads to a lot of family turmoil. So talk to me about the tactics and how that stage differs.
Alex Kirby: I think a lot of people struggle to communicate in this phase of, of their life, you know, I'm thinking about our older clients. This could be stuff related to medical. It could be money or estate as you talk about, you know, these are tough topics to work on, right. You don't just at Thanksgiving, it's not something that comes up, like, hey, if I ever have a terminal illness, here's how I'd like you to play it. Can you pass the, the turkey or whatever. So, you have to kinda build up the muscle memory over time to get people having these conversations, and one of the ways we found to do that is to start with much lighter topics just to sort of work our way up. If you think about, like, the estate stuff, Jason, that's, that's the heaviest weight in the gym.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: So if you just walk in, you're like where's the heaviest, what's the hardest thing to lift in this entire gym. I'd like to start there. We, there is much easier places to start that people really care about, and when you think about legacy, it isn't just the money. Some things that we've, we found a lot of families get, get value out of is we have a workshop called favorite things, and in favorite things, we had heard from, uh, clients who had lost people. They're like, man, I just wish I knew my dad's, like, favorite movie.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: I wish I knew the books that he liked. I wish I knew his favorite city that he ever traveled to in the world. And topics like this get, like, kind of the momentum going so that you can work your way up to those harder conversations around legacy, improving communication, all that kinda stuff, 'cause if you can't talk about your favorite movie, talking about your estate plan and your, your trust structure is gonna be a pretty heavy lift.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, thinking of my life, about, like, I mean, sure everybody's had it with their parents where suddenly the parent tells this story later on in life, and you're like what? What do you mean you did that during your life, right.
Alex Kirby: Hundred percent.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, I mean, –
Alex Kirby: Hundred percent.
Jason Pereira: – and sometimes it's, like, related, it's a medical stuff which is funny 'cause, like, I mean, I remember one time I, my father, you know, he had, when I was first born, and he was running a business, he had a, it was a very stressful time, he ended up with a short, short period of Bell's Palsy where half his face froze. And this is all stress induced. I'm just looking at him, like, you know how stressful my job is, like, you never told me that this is something that is potentially gonna happen, like, c'mon.
Alex Kirby: Absolutely.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. I know.
Alex Kirby: Absolutely.
Jason Pereira: So, okay, so let's talk about, we, we've gone through all those stages, and yes. So I guess, you're absolutely right, you know, just hitting them with the, here's the final stage stuff before we gotta have that better family dynamic around open conversations is probably not the best path to success, and I think, you know, it's funny 'cause we often detect in that conversation that there are issues, right, and if there are, and, and sometimes they won't even have the conversation because of the issues that exist, right, so, you know, you're either a mechanism for getting, get, for getting to that point where they can do that, so I guess that, that brings up a, a question about when, I was gonna come back to that later, but we'll bring it up now. When do you typically get retained? Is it because there's a preexisting issue? Is it, like, I know you get a lot of referrals from financial advisors and whatnot, but, like, what is the impetus for your hiring?
Alex Kirby: Yeah, I, I don't think we totally know just yet. I think many times when people hear family coaching, they're like, oh, I got this family that's super messed up. You should talk them, right. That's like, that's like what people, 'cause they're thinking of it through the therapy line. But in actuality, it's way more like personal training, so if there's a family that just is one, into this type of personal grown stuff that is really healthy that really cares about each other. We're a mechanism to help them stay that way, and many of our wealth advisor clients have had, 'cause the marketing's very confusing in a well space, right, like people, a lot of firms say we help clients with values, and we help them with vision, and we, we do all these things, and when push comes to shove, you're like, well how do you do that? They're, like, well, we don't totally do it. So fam, people are looking for this, so most of the time, the first clients that we get from a wealth advisor is someone that's saying, hey, do you have anything in the nonfinancial domain? We're really looking to improve our communication. We really wanna make sure we're on the same page with our adult kids. We really wanna, we just raised these kids. Now they're 14 years old. We feel like we're disconnected. Does your group help with any of that, and that's where we kind of get brought in.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: Uh, but we don't totally know, like, what makes someone say, yes, that we're in. We're trying to lower the barriers. Uh, one of the ways that we do that is if you go through three workshops with us, and you don't like it, just tell us, and we'll give you your money back. Our first year is eight workshops. We, a lot of times, one spouse kinda wants to do it more than the other one, right, it's like, c'mon. Like, can we just, but, like, I don't know, it sounds dumb or whatever. They get in there. They feel a little bit of that connection in the first session. By the second session, they're really bought in, and they trust their coach, and by the third session, they're usually all in and telling other people and their family or their neighbors, hey, this is really, really cool and helpful for us.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. Excellent. So I mean your bottom line is, is that it's, I guess there's gonna be just like anything else, you got people proactive versus reactive, right. People will get away from the problem versus people who are like, you know what, I think this is valuable. I'm gonna take it now and, so, yeah, it's, a…
Alex Kirby: We're definitely not diagnosing.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. Exactly.
Alex Kirby: You know, like, like the, the, the, one of the main things that delineates us from therapy is therapy has a treatment plan. They're diagnosing and they're looking for a treatment plan. We're not diagnosing at all. Our main thing with a family is helping them uncover vision and success. Like, do you know what your family vision is? Most families do not. Let's start there, and it's a really healthy conversation, and everything kinda branches from there.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. So that's the, uh, let's move back to some of the questions we base, or some of the things I wanna touch upon that came up earlier. So, let's turn back to something that occurred to me. Now, and this came from conversations with others. I mean, at the end of the day, we all are, you know we all get raised, and we all come up with our own baggage and our own examples of how to be a parent, right. And that's good and bad, and, you know, the average parent does not read a parenting book and they just kind figure it out on the fly. Not to say parenting books are all right. I'm sure that when people come to you, the parents have their own baggage about how they relate or don't relate well to their kids. How much of that, how much of your time is spent kinda like unpacking that and kind of like hopefully, like, nudging or course correcting into something basically, maybe they didn't even realize it was a problem, right. How much of that is just basically is you fixing the adults versus fixing the child to some degree. Maybe fixing is the wrong term for it.
Alex Kirby: Yeah. It's definitely not fixing.
Jason Pereira: Then ****.
Alex Kirby: You know, we, we're not trying to fix anyone. We, our coaches talk for 20 percent on average of the workshops. So if you, if you kind of think about what that means, it really just means we're setting the stage asking a question, and it's, it's kind of taking off from there. A way to think about this for the parents is you have all of the answers that we, to the questions we're gonna ask you. You may have just not answered them before, right. We're creating a space to talk about some of this stuff. There is a study that they did in freakanomics. Is on there, freakanomics podcast.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Alex Kirby: And the actual the pre, did you see this? The predictor of, if you are going to be like a "successful parent," was not which book you read but just the fact that you read one. Just the fact that you, –
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: – you actually cared enough to do it and open the book. And I would say that that's the same, the same thing as **** of our families. If you care enough to show up and sit on a call and talk about your kids, that's like, that's 90 percent of the battle.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, it's, it's a known phenomenon. It's, it's the known of phenomenon of, like, expressed intent versus demonstrated intent, right, and we can all say we want to quit smoking, lose weight, basically be better parents, make more money, do all these things. We can all say that 'cause this talk is super cheap.
Alex Kirby: Mm hmm.
Jason Pereira: At zero, right, but the actual act of investing your time in something shows a commitment, and basically, it, it's funny because in a lot of ways these programs or books or whatever are self-selecting, right.
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: Because I'm sure, and you're self-selecting in a lot of way, right. People who come to you are eager to have a healthy sit, or healthy relationship or a course corrected relationship versus those who don't, so. I'm sure your success rate, while I'm sure is wonderful, is not represented of the success rate if you took on everybody in the world because everybody in the world wouldn't have the desire to do it, so, so yeah, it's, it's a tough one.
Alex Kirby: There's, there's an autonomy component, right, like, we –
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: – you, you, I can't make you talk about your family values.
Jason Pereira: No.
Alex Kirby: Right.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Alex Kirby: So, you gotta show up. You gotta do it. I do think we do a nice job of winning, everyone comes in skeptical. No, no one's like family coaching makes 100 percent sense to me. I can't wait to jump on and talk to a stranger with my wife even though I'm busy all the time or blah, blah, blah. But it's really the ROI on the time. When people leave the workshop, the No. 1 thing we hear is that was an amazing use of our time.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Alex Kirby: They do not regret the time they spent in workshop because it's time spent being a little bit more focused on the area of life that they, they blatantly care about more than any other area, so it's really just a healthy kind of experience, and, and yeah. It, it's, it demonstrates a level of intent. But I don't think it skews our results too much anyway.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. So one question I wanna turn to. I wanna turn the entire focus now to the core of the, of the podcast which is business owners, right, so let's talk about business owners. I mean, when we're talking about business owners usually, it's not specifically about the wealth but it's usually about the succession issues around the family, right, so one kid's involved in the business. All the kids are involved in the business. You know, there's always a dichotomy between, if it's not 100 percent of 'em, there's gonna be problems, and if it's 100 percent of 'em, there's gonna be problems.
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: So, I'm sure that that has to add enormous amount of complexity and new areas for conflict that basically are not present in families that don't have businesses. Can you speak to your experience there?
Alex Kirby: Yeah, I mean, I think that if you, again, just move this lens back over to the business, you know, for these business owners, have they done vision and values and strategic work on their own business, right. If they have, then they probably saw the value of that activity. So now we're just moving it over to a slightly different entity, and the people are changing. Right. That's why it needs to be done as a kind of a separate exercise. If the so if one of the parents is involved in the business and a couple of the kids, then you're missing perspectives, right, like if the mom or the dad is not involved in the business, but they are running the show on the family side, you're missing a perspective, so that's why you wanna do the exercise slightly differently. Then when you take the concept of, of vision, which again is purpose, values, and goals, we want to start with that head of household, that patriarch and matriarch, the decision maker, whoever's running the business. Many times are the owner of the business, and they are, like, own 100 percent of it. We wanna do that exercise with them and their spouse.
Jason Pereira: Uh huh.
Alex Kirby: Because they talk to us. We hear from business owners. I want to pass on values to my kids, right, which it, we hear all the time. So our next question is, do you know what your values are. And they don't always know what their values are, so going through the exercise for that kind of patriarch and matriarch. That's the example for the next layer down to say, hey, we did this. Now we want you to do it, and we're gonna have this common language that we can talk about a bunch of different things both in the personal life and the business. I think they do need to be separate though.
Jason Pereira: My ****.
Alex Kirby: I don't know, I don't know if that answered your question.
Jason Pereira: No I think, I think it's, you, you're defining boundaries, right, and this is the problem, right. I often say, when I'm gonna talk about wills or, or businesses, and people are like, oh, you know, my kids can figure out how to do that. It's like, are these the same kids that you had to break up in fights continuously while you were, while they were kids, right.
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: And I'm like, especially when kids start coming into a business, right at the same time and they're adult. It's like, these are kids who were on top of each other their entire early lives, went their separate ways, became and grew as individual adults, right.
Alex Kirby: Mm hmm.
Jason Pereira: And now you're putting 'em back into a situation where they gotta coexist.
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: And, two things, a) for, well a couple, three things really, a) they haven't done that in a long time, so God knows if they're gonna be able to do it, b) there's baggage between those two. Well even if they love each other, there's baggage, right, and then c) there's also this sense of, and then we'll come back to this entire thing, it's a big issue in succession, is a sense of entitlement, right.
Alex Kirby: Hmm.
Jason Pereira: They're, whether your pacing yourself as the first born and therefore you should have more, more of a say whether it be he worked in the business longer, or you did, they'd be like, or, it, it comes up all the time. You know, one, one kid works in the business; therefore, they think that the other kid shouldn't get the same proportional share of the estate, or one care, one kid helped take care of the parent more than the other one and therefore they shouldn't get a proportional share of the estate, right. The family dynamics will eventually turn at that stage into money dynamics, and that is –
Alex Kirby: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: – that can lead to just, that just basically turns the conflict bout to 11.
Alex Kirby: Yup.
Jason Pereira: Right, so, you know, keeping them separate, that's gotta be quite the challenge though.
Alex Kirby: I love boundaries. That is just a way to talk about it. So if we go back to that definition of vision for a second, which is purpose, values, goals, we hear 1) that people, uh, wanna pass on values. We hear this all the time. Wh, I actually don't believe values get passed on. I think people just have their own values.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: And then I think they combine them with their spouse if applicable and then they come up with values for their specific household. For example, my values for my family, my household, are not the same as my two sisters, right. We have different ones. And if someone told us we had to have the same, it prob'ly wouldn't work, right. They married different people, all those things, so I actually don't think values need to get passed. Goals, also if people are gonna have different goals. It, you talked about one person in the business, out of the business, worked in it longer, different life stags, etcetera, so they're gonna have different goals, but purpose. I actually think purpose is an underutilized way to create unity in a family. Purpose to use is north star. It's like 100 years, right, and it has flexibility in it, so an example of a purpose statement that we loved from a family was work hard with a kind heart. Okay I, that is a, that's not something that you achieve. That's something that you look out to. It's aspirational, and all the kids can fulfill that purpose in their own unique way while having their own values and having their own goals but using purpose as a way to unify and purpose as a way to potentially, you know, when you start talking about passing on that business asset or passing on chunks of money or things like that. Purpose is a way to unify instead of trying to unify goals and values, which I think a lot of times are a lot harder.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, totally. So, let's talk about what it means to get involved with you. Right, I'm gonna go back and say what are the first steps in onboarding with you and going through this experience with you?
Alex Kirby: Yeah, and I know you wanted to ask about entitlement too, so we can go –
Jason Pereira: Yeah, I'll come back, we'll come back, –
Alex Kirby: Okay.
Jason Pereira: No, let's do that now, okay, –
Alex Kirby: Yup.
Jason Pereira: – so we're here. So entitlement, right, we'll, we'll pick this out right now, so, the entitlement issue, uh, you know, I kinda joked that, and I've unfortunately seen this countless times in my practice where, and, and actually this was, this was another story. I was talking to someone who helps with succession planning, and they have a succession plan in the advisory space blowing up right now because the kids feels entitled to basically have the business handed to them, right, and not have to pay for it. And it's, like, I always say, I joke around that my kids are gonna grow up knowing that they're entitled to nothing and that if I choose to leave anything to them, that is my choice, and it is a choice that's gonna be made based off of my, how I feel about what they've done, right, and, and whether or not they are deserving, and that's not to be mean or cruel, it's just to say that I think the alternative of you're gonna get everything, just plays with people's heads, man, uh, –
Alex Kirby: Mm hmm.
Jason Pereira: – so, I mean, tell me your, your viewpoint on this and how you helped cope with it.
Alex Kirby: Did you grow up in a, a slightly worse situation than your kids grew up in?
Jason Pereira: Uh, it was good to me. Uh, like, all families good and bad. I think economically yes, I will say that.
Alex Kirby: Yeah, we hear, you know, we hear, it's funny, like, if you're a first gen immigrant, –
Jason Pereira: Second generation, uh, first generation born here, by, so my parents were both immigrants, yeah.
Alex Kirby: Okay, all right, so your parents definitely thought that you were entitled, right.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: Because they maybe came over. They had to go through all this stuff. They're in, like, a one-bedroom apartment. Now you're in a two-bedroom apartment, and they're like, I can't believe Jason's growing up in this two-bedroom apartment. He doesn't really know what it's like. That same feeling I think is true of like Sam Walton and his kids even though he's talking about billions of dollars they're still having that same feeling, so I think just like this feeling of wanting our offspring to be like normal, respectable, healthy, loving, kind people, whatever we define it. It's just like a natural feeling that, that we have, but entitlement is a con, we call 'em constant work problems, right, so if the, so, like, if you think about if I said to you and to your listeners, oh, we have an entitlement workshop. Thirty minutes we'll get your unentitled, like, just come on in, sign up, it's three easy payments, right.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Alex Kirby: No one's buying that, right.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Alex Kirby: So, so entitlement, communication, these types of problems I think are ones that we wanna break out into little pieces and work on over a really long period of time just like if you're trying to lose weight or you're trying to be healthy or so whatever. You wanna look back and be like, man, when we started this sharing and we really felt, like, this person, like, didn't appreciate everything that was coming their way, and now we feel like they have a whole new, after 5, 6 years, they have this whole new way of looking at it, but it just happens slowly over time with like a really smart long-term strategy that involves being able to communicate about this stuff openly. You know, an option to start the conversation is to actually talk to your kids about the fact that you feel like they're a little bit entitled, right, that's a way to just open a conversation up, and it's not one that you're gonna fix right there because it's not like they're gonna sit, like, go, oh, yeah, I am entitled, and now I will change my ways, right. Like it's, it's a slow journey of a constant work problem.
Jason Pereira: Yup. So let's go back to the entire engagement, you know, when they start engaging with you. What are the steps and the process they go through to kinda like get entrenched and start really kinda making the most of, of their time with you?
Alex Kirby: Yeah, it's, it's very, very easy. Our site is totalfamily.io. You go right to the page. You sign up. We're extremely transparent on everything we do. The first year with the family is 2495. That's eight workshops and access to our technology. Some advisors to pay for that for their clients. I would say that's, that's on the rarer side.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Alex Kirby: Uh, prob'ly like 10 percent of advisors. Most of the time they're bringing us in as a resource. The client's paying. After you pay, uh, depending on, like, your availability preferences, you get assigned a coach. Right inside our platform, you schedule your first session. Uh, usually people are scheduling out, like, a couple weeks, depending on their schedules and stuff like that. We'll do eight sessions in that first year and then after that they're staying in our software, and they just go kinda ad hoc on the workshops. You can buy 'em, uh, one at a time or four at a time. It's just very common for families to do our first foundational year and then go quarterly. After that, sometimes families will just have more going on or they'll be busy or etcetera, and they'll just maybe schedule them one at a time, but just like a personal trainer or like a gym or whatever, it's okay to stop 6 months and come back. You know, these are really big important problems, so you should work on them when you have energy and not everyone wants to do this type of work every single year, so we try to just say come in, do the foundational year, then over time create a pace that is gonna resonate with your family because you're really not gonna regret these types of conversations whether you do one, two, three, or eight a year, but super easy and, and everything's backed by our brand promise. If you sign up and don't like it after your workshop, we give you your money back. We believe in our experience and, and what we're trying to do as a company.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. All right. Well thank you so much for taking the time, Alex. Really appreciate it. It was great learning about this, and I hope, you know, you're, you're, well you're doing some wonderful resources for, for doing this because honestly, when you think about all the time we spend organizing and working on and bettering and taking classes on different things, that fact you don't do it with the people that matter most to us and make sure that we're having healthy relationships with them all, it's, it's a mess, right. It's a definite mess, so glad to see that you're doing what you're doing. Where can people find you?
Alex Kirby: Totalfamily.io is the simplest way. Then you can see our social pages and, and stuff like that. We go on a lot of podcasts. We have an awesome executive team and really great coaches all around the country, so I think we're pretty easy to find, and I think you'll find that the company itself is extremely authentic. I go through this stuff all of our, everyone in our company goes through our stuff, so we're at, we're not walking around saying, Jason, you're, you're family needs values, but we don't, and I think you'll feel that in, in working with us.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. Thank you so much. Alex, 'preciate it. So that was this weeks episode of financial planning pertaining to business owners. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you are hearing this and it's resonating with either you or the needs of your clients, I sincerely hope you reach out to Alex. As always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review in Apple Podcast, Soundclass, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, take care.
Producer: This podcast was brought to you by Woodgate Financial, an award-winning financial planning firm catering to high net worth individuals, business owners, and their families. To learn more, go to Woodgate.com. You could subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify, or find more episodes at JasonPereira.ca. You can even ask Suri, Alexa, or Google Home to subscribe for you.