Alex Kirby (Total Family)

For my first interview on the show, I sat down with Alex Kirby, the CEO and Co-Found of Total Family, to talk about the exercise I went through with his company that inspired the very first episode on Family Values. In this episode we discuss why family values are essential for making major life choices, my personal journey in defining and documenting our family vision, the real struggles of balancing work and home life, and so much more!

Follow Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-kirby-tf/

Follow Total Family: https://www.linkedin.com/company/totalfamily/

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
Hello.
I'm your host, David Newsome.
And welcome to Coated in Gold.
This podcast explores the fractured yetbeautiful pieces of our modern lives.
I dive in to compelling storiesand speak with high performing,
multi-dimensional individuals to uncovermoments of insight and learning.
So let's get started.

(00:39):
Today, I am so excited
to bring youthe first interview on Coated in Gold.
When I first envisioned this podcast,I knew I wanted to tell my own stories.
But even more than that,I wanted to use this opportunity
to connectwith some of the incredible people
that have influenced meand inspired me along the way.

(01:01):
It's fitting that this first interview
springs off of our very first episode.
Go back and listen to thatif you haven't already.
That's right.
We're going back to our family values.
Today's interview is with Alex Kerby,
CEO and founder of Total Family.
Alex's service offerscoaching for families

(01:22):
to get them togetherand define their values.
This is the same exercisethat my family went through and ultimately
inspired me to think differentlyand more intentionally about values.
I sat downwith Alex to learn more about his company,
why family values are so important to him,
and learn more about the valuesthat influenced him early on.

(01:44):
I had a great timespeaking with Alex, and I'm so excited
for you all to hear our deepand wide ranging conversation.
So without further ado, let's jump in.
Alex Kirby, welcome to Coated in Gold.
Before we get started, I would love to
have you introduce yourselfto our community.
So I'll kind of let you take it from here.

(02:06):
Very nice to be here.
I am Alex Kirby,the founder and CEO of Total Family.
We are a family dynamicand governance company, primarily
in, wealth and family office space.
And I think we're knownfor helping families uncover their vision,
which is their values, their purpose,and their roles as you know.

(02:30):
As I know. That's right.
Thanks for being on the show.
Appreciate you and your time.
My family would
not have a documented version of our,
vision and values without you
and, your firm and your colleagues. So.
Thank you. Of course.
And, to get us started,I want to really dig in to.

(02:55):
And for those of youjust catching up with this episode,
in episode one of Coded in Gold,we talked about family values.
We talked about how my husbandand I developed our own family values.
I talked about my legacy, family values
that I grew up with in a mormon household.
And at this stage of life,
it feels pretty amazingto actually have a documented version.

(03:18):
And so I thought it would, like, be fun
to actually go and talk to the manwho has actually started,
Total Family, who helped operationalize
my family's, values and vision.
Which we're really grateful for.
So I would love to know and understand.
Alex, how total family came into being.

(03:42):
Yeah.
I wish I had, like, an amazing, sort of,like, entrepreneurial,
apple from the tree moment.
I actually really struggle with thethe story of it, but I think like the,
the, the big question for me was,
am I doing my best work at home
or at the office?

(04:04):
And I've always been, like,a bit of a workaholic.
I was working with a technologyexecutive in, in San Francisco.
And as we were tryingto, like, work through all of this stuff
for his business unit, he,you know, I knew I knew him pretty well.
He told methat he was going through a divorce.
And what year is this? What year is this?

(04:24):
Let's contextualize. Time to.
Yeah, this is 2019.So this is pre-pandemic.
I'm traveling like all the time.
And he's like, I'mgoing through a divorce.
And I'm looking at this board and I'mlooking at all of our documentation,
all the stuff that we're doing.
And I'm like,I have no plan for my actual life.
I'm now getting a

(04:44):
divorce and I'm a I'm a child of divorce,so I'll take it home for me.
At the time, I was already married.
And I think, like, like getting divorcewas always like a huge fear of mine.
I just never really wanted itto. To happen.
How old were youwhen that happened, by the way?
When I. When my parents got divorced.
Yeah, I was seven.

(05:05):
You were seven, I was nine.
Really? Yeah.
I have, like, crazy, vivid memories
from that time,as I'm sure you do, too. Do.
Super weird.
And it's also, as a parent, terrifying.
Absolutely terrifying.
Yes. Right. Yeah.
I like, remember
I told my mom the I like, rememberthe night my mom, like, left the house

(05:28):
and I told
her about it and she was like, no way.
Oh yeah.
Like, had the layout had the, you know,
all the stuff, like it was, you know,
and so 2019 then like 2020 hits,
okay, everyone'ssort of reevaluating everything.
And we my wife and I find out there werethat we're going to have our first child.

(05:51):
And then it's like,you know, the whole midlife
crisis thing of like,am I doing something I believe in?
Am I doing. Alex?
Whoa whoa whoawhoa, time out, time out. Midlife.
What are you talking about, man?
I feel like I'm starting to get midlife.
There's a big differencebetween these two tiles, man.

(06:11):
I'm a fast learner, and I think that.
Okay, okay.
So, like.
And I think ultimately,it's probably not the last
midlife crisis I'll have for sure.
Right? For sure.
But but I think that'sthe question is like,
are we doing our best work at homeor are we doing our best work
at the office and not to say that workisn't really important.

(06:31):
It is.
It's important to both you and I,
but maybe just shiftingsome of the ideas and resources,
and timespent being thoughtful on the work side
to the to the home side is, is,really the, the big idea for total family?
That's great.
And also, I, I just have to say,like one of the episodes

(06:53):
that's coming up is like,I think the next one that's dropping is,
an entire episode on work,and it's really workaholism.
Yeah.
Because that's the one thingthat I struggle with, like it is in my DNA
to work.
It is actually where I find flow,

(07:13):
like I am actually.
And this is not like a commenton my family.
This is a comment about,historically speaking,
about where I have found the most.
And itit pains me to even put it this way,
but the most ROI rightis like I put energy into work
and I've gotten a lot of like,good stuff out of it, right?

(07:36):
Like whether it be promotions or asuccessful business or whatever it is.
I've, I've found it'sbeen a very rewarding loop for me.
Now, the challenge with that
when a family comes intothe picture is now you have to split.
You have to split.
If you want a successful family.
And it's funny,I, I listened to a quote from Indra,

(08:01):
the former chairman of PepsiCo.
And I've even seen some, like, internetmemes, whether it's Instagram or wherever,
where she's, you know, being interviewedand she's like, there's no such thing
as work life balance. Yeah.
No such thing. You can't.
There is no you can't balance them.
It is a prioritization exercise. Yeah.
And then she may have that written downlike because I know

(08:24):
we were talking about a little bitand she's an amazing thinker on this.
I totally agree with that.
And what's fascinating isshe actually says like,
and my husband has used this line on mebefore, right where, she's like, you know,
we have to leave our crowns in the garageon our way into our homes, right?
Like whatever role we were inthis even comes into like the process

(08:46):
that we went through with Total Family.
Yeah. Right.
The roles that we playwhen we step through that door,
you know, like, for me,when I leave this office, right?
I close this door, I'm closing the dooron my work life and I'm entering
really a sacred space with my familyand my role shifts like that.
And Indra's saying like, hey,so my husband would say like,

(09:07):
hey, you can,you can leave your crown in your office.
Or when I was on the road traveling a lot,he was like, when you pull the car
out of the garage,you can leave your crown in the garage,
just like Indra said, and then come inand be like a husband, a dad,
you know, like thethese other things, because there's times
it's just hard to shift.
It's hard.

(09:27):
It's hardto move from one role to the next.
At least it is for me.
Yeah.
I think that's the cool thing about familyor kids in general, too.
You know, like the familydynamic space has largely been reserved
for the ultra highnet worth billionaire population.
Totally. We're trying to change that.

(09:50):
But I think when you watch, like,any of these like documentaries
about famous people or celebritiesor whatever, like their reason that,
you know, if you're,
Taylor Swift, like,her mom is still her mom.
That's right.
You know, and I think there's somethinglike that's very sacred
about the relationships that we havewith our families that maybe outside

(10:13):
looking in like,
you don't have $1 billion,you would think like it's
going to change everything in your life.And it will certainly change.
Like a lot of things, you know, like
you don't have to probably vacuumif you have $1 billion, but you.
That's one of the things.
Like I was thinking like,you know, Jeff Bezos is probably like,

(10:33):
my kids don't listen to me.
Can you talk to them?
You know, just like every single one of usfeels that same way or or,
you know, if you're you'reyou're a billionaire
and your mom is still, like,kind of treating you like,
like you're a not a grown adultor something like that.
You're like, you know, like.
So I think that there's somethingthat's very human
about family in the rolesthat, that you're talking about.

(10:56):
And, your family is like, like, don't care
if you have $1 billion,if you have a crown, if that's,
you know, like what you did in thethe meeting today.
Okay.
So 2019, you have this conversation.
You decideyou're going to start total family.

(11:18):
We kind of startentering the pandemic reevaluate.
We all reevaluated our lives.Absolutely. For sure.
We stopped going into offices like lifereally kind of changed overnight.
And what's also interesting is likethere's this whole like push to go back
into office, like across the board,which is an interesting exercise.
I don't know how that'sgoing to pan out for folks probably.

(11:41):
Well. Yeah, I don't think so.
Well, you know, I should just saytaking people's
autonomy away from them is doesn'tusually end well.
Does it?
Usually end well?That's a great point. Right?
That's it.
You're absolutely right.
I mean, one of the things, Well,we can take it. You're an adult.
You're an adult.

(12:01):
I'm going to pay youhundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
But I need you here on Wednesdays.
You know, with not a great with, like,no reason behind it
other than we signed a 15 year officelease or something.
Sure.
I mean, it's all it's also interesting,too, like one of the things and my husband
and I were just talking about thisthe other night.
Sometimes corporate environmentslove to use.

(12:22):
And I recently read a book called Cultishright on Cult language.
Right. And I'm not callingcorporate environments cults.
I'm not saying that.
But what's also interesting is like,there's this, you know what?
You're in a certain type of a workenvironment when you're in a high
powered, high octane firm
and they start talking about like,we're all a family, right?

(12:46):
But what happens is, like,if you leave a firm for whatever reason,
or certainly if you're laid off,let's just take that, like folks
that are that get laid offfor whatever reason.
And then it's like they just vanished.
Like people don't talk to them.
It's almost like they've beenjust extricated from like the family.
Yeah.
And we all know thatthat doesn't really happen.

(13:07):
Like. Right.
So then why do they use those terms? And.
Well, it's obvious to mewhy they use those terms.
It's like, you know what?
Families can get awaywith a lot more than right.
You know, like, oh,just a working relationship.
And so while the sentiment like,I understand, like the good natured
sentiment of, okay, we're all a family,it feels good, we're bonding.

(13:30):
We're spending perhaps an inordinateamount of time with each other as well.
But then there's, you know,perhaps the less positive side of it,
which comes along with like, well,when I say, I need you to do something,
I expect you to be there the wayfamily is, which means any time of day,

(13:50):
you know, intruding in on,
you know, your family timewith your family or, you know, like, oh,
you should be at the school play and like,I've asked you to do this thing.
And now,
because we're family, I feel torn,like I should be doing this thing at work.
Yeah.
Which should not be the case. Let's.
I want to be clear about that.
Like, and I workI've worked really hard on boundaries

(14:14):
between work and life.
Yeah.
And that's not to say that I,you know, work less than 40 hours a week.
Like, that's just not true.
It's probably twice that.
But there are inviolable spaceson the calendar
where it's like, oh, no, I need to beat that school thing, or, you know,
I need to be at my son's swim practice or,you know, whatever the thing, maybe.

(14:37):
Yeah,something else to just share with you.
You might find it interestingjust for, like, this specific topic.
Yeah.
Is now we're in like yearthree of our cycle
and like like of being a company.
So for all of our peoplelike we all have our own families
and we can't be hypocrites and like,you know,

(14:58):
prioritizing our clients familiesover our own family.
So we're always very careful about that.
But one of the thingswe, implemented this year,
and we're doing itagain, is we basically just shut down
our coaches don't do sessionsfrom, December 15th.
So like, like,depending on when this goes out
December 15th to January 15thand then the whole month of July,

(15:23):
the whole month of July.
So it's bad as a mazing. Alex.
And we looked at like all of our dataand we, we found like a handful of things,
like one in July.
Like a lot of people are gone,
checked out,families are actually together.
Yeah, many times on vacationor doing whatever.

(15:43):
So we were like, we're having low,
like low session rates during that time.
And then the holiday season pairedwith the start of the new year
was like our highest reschedule ratebecause people would be like,
oh yeah, of course we could do a workshopon December 20th 7th or January 3rd.
And then, you know,they get to the date and they're like,

(16:07):
I want to move this outa few weeks or whatever.
And what that has allowed,like our team to do,
I think is be generally like offkind of at the same time.
Yeah.
You know, if our clientswant to meet during that time
and it's an emergency,we'll, we'll figure it out.
If we have things to do as a company,like we'll figure it out.

(16:27):
But if if someone is like,hey, can you, you know, just a random non
time sensitive meeting like, hey,can you meet July 25th?
We're like, can you do August 3rd?
And they're like, yeah, sure. Yeah.
And then we communicate all thisto our clients in advance.
So everyone knowsand I think like more seasonality.

(16:49):
I can see companies starting
to think about seasonality morebecause every business has like
they're really busy timeand they're less busy time.
And right now,
the answer from most companies are like,we need you at your best every single day.
20 473 65
and if you think about sports or somethinglike that, you know, they have a playoff

(17:10):
season, they have an off season,they have all these different things.
And and so we're trying to embracelike seasonality a little bit.
So wewe all get time with our own families.
It's so interestingthat you mention that because,
I'm in the first year of my own companyafter kind of,
you know, being a career,
corporate citizen, shall we say, insome ways a corporate citizen.

(17:33):
I've always been an entrepreneurat heart, but,
I guess my last few have been goodcorporate citizens in some ways.
I'm in year one, and this year now,I didn't do December 15th
through January 15th, but I did saylike December 15th to the end of the year.
We're out. Yeah.

(17:55):
And it's just and it feels good.
And I also took time like,for Thanksgiving this year.
I took and I took two solid weeks.
We did some international travelbecause one of the.
Right.
So this comes back to what we developed
and explored with Joy at,

(18:16):
total family like our vision state.
Is our VP of coaching.She's one. Oh, yeah.
Yep. Joy and fantastic.
Our experience was amazing.
And we came up our vision statementis to explore experience and impact.
And so, you know,one example of us actually living
that like recently is likemy husband is from China originally.

(18:37):
That's where he was born.
It's very important for me
to have my son see very largeamounts of people who look like him.
Okay. Right.
And so,we were in Asia for two weeks recently,
and that's part of thatexplorer experience.

(18:58):
You know, maybe not so much impact,but like, definitely the first two
were checking those boxes.
Not that they're boxes to check,
but like it felt really goodthat we did this exercise this year
and that we are then in taking intentionaltime to go do these things as a family.
Yeah, it brings a level of, depth to it

(19:19):
that, you know, it'sone thing to do an exercise, right?
But if you just did the exerciseand you leave it on a sheet of paper,
or in the case of total family,you just leave it in your portal. Yep.
You know, which I'm looking at right now.
But, you know, you look at your portal
and it's like you haveyour vision statement,
you have your values,you have all of your sessions,
you've got these beautiful quotesalso that Joy pulls out,

(19:42):
which is a wonderful keepsakefor us as we're going in.
And I'm looking at like, oh gosh, myhusband said that in that session.
And it's excited for you to see, like whatwe have coming and the technology
foreign to you, because like so many ofour clients have expressed interest
of writing letters to their kids.
And having a place to keep them.

(20:02):
So we already have some clientswho do it on their anniversary.
Every year they write a letterto their kids on their anniversary.
Yeah, it's like a cool ritual.
But then the question becomes like,do I just store it in Gmail?
And then like, I get targetedads about my private letter to my child?
So we they wanted to play it.
So we're going to give peoplethat call it.
It's like a little legacy letter thing.

(20:24):
But I want to point to your purposestatement, explore experience
and impact because I think it'sa great purpose statement.
Purpose statement are intentionally broad.
They are supposed to be inspirational.
And a really good purpose statementis something that you will never achieve.

(20:46):
You just always aspire to.
So you're never going to be like,well, we've explored experience
and impacted enough. You know, it's like.
Right. Yeah, it's.
Something that you two canyou and your partner can,
can look at as a North Star,
always to make sure that you're goingin the direction

(21:07):
that you want to be goingin. You're aligned with your purpose.
So I think it's a really,really beautiful purpose statement.
Oh thank you I appreciate that.
Not surprising coming from a marketer.
My husband is not a marketer, though.
And we did it.
We did it together, I think,
yeah, I think it it came for us.
It came out really well.
I think, yeah, it's,it's an accurate reflection

(21:29):
of, like, who we areand who we aspire like to be.
Certainly.
And, you know, these various rolesdo you use these tools in your life? Yes.
Well, you know,
my my wife, is very patient.
And, you know,you can imagine in the early days of this,
testing all of these ideas out,

(21:53):
you know, we've we've iterated through
thousands of conversationsat this point. Wow.
So when you talk about vision, it's likewe're trying to really hone in on
something that works for peopleand where the, you know, version
one of this was three years agois not where it is today.

(22:14):
And we expect it will continue to evolveas we learn from our clients
in like our broad range of experienceswith families around the country.
Like we're learning thingsfrom families constantly.
But they're one of our companyvalues is authenticity.
And so everyone in our companyhas gone through revision with their own,

(22:37):
partner or spouse,
to the extent that, like,you know, they were comfortable doing it.
Sure.
And, and for a while, like
we had a couple peoplewho their spouse didn't want to do it.
And so then they couldn't do it.
And we were like, unsure what to do.
And then finally we just said,you know, go through without your spouse
because at the end of the day, like,

(23:00):
they shouldn't have to decideif you get a vision or not.
Tell them like nine out of ten timeswhen when you tell your you're like, I'm
going on without you.
The spouse is like,wait, no, okay, how come? Right.
My husband initially didn't want to do it.
Yeah. Yeah. He was like,
what vision?
What what I like had a real hard time,like wrapping his head around,

(23:23):
you know, it's it's at the end of the day,
like his
view was,don't you just live these things?
Isn't your life just an exampleand an outward expression of these things?
Anyway, what is the point in, like,actually going through an exercise?
Yeah.
And I mean obviously likeI wanted him to participate.

(23:46):
Right.
And so I said like,okay, let's just get through a session
like let's startwith let's commit to 90 minutes.
Right.So like the first session is 90 minutes.
And it's like,okay, let's just start with the first one.
And I also have to saylike it was really hard
to get to carve the time outlike it would be on the calendar.
And I moved it a couple of timesand it was just like, oh man, like,

(24:08):
it was just
really challenging to go from, like, I'mgoing a million miles a minute at work.
And then it's like,oh, timeout 90 minutes.
And it's like,
I have to step through the thresholdfrom like, I have to take my crown off
and like, but put it down in my officewhere it's like, I'm not used to that.
It's like, oh,I need to be a dad right now in my office.
And it's like, oh, okay.

(24:29):
That was reallythat was a really tough transition.
You know, one of the things that we,
I feel like is true is families
very often get our, like, leftover energy,
right where we're like,we're grinding, we're going
in, you know, you gotnothing left at the end of the day.

(24:50):
And then that's what your partneror your kid or your or whoever gets.
Yeah.
And and you know,that isn't always the case, but,
I do think there's power in, like,a 10 a.m.
Wednesday meeting to the extentit can work
for, for a couple when we try to like it'svery easy to schedule with us.
It's all virtual,like we have a lot of clients who are

(25:12):
people are travelingand doing different things.
It's an hour to 90 minutes like, you know,but you do it at 10 a.m.
it's like a different level of energythan when you come home.
You get the kids down,you do all this stuff.
It's 10 p.m.,
and then you go to havethis really important conversation
with your spouse or partner andyou're like, I can't do this right now.

(25:35):
Well, yeah, that wouldn't work outwell for us.
So, so I think there's a bitof like shifting energy
to like this type of work,which it's really important work.
Right.
It's probably more importantthan whatever conference call you moved.
Yeah. Right. Yes. Yeah.
I think the second piece of it is likedoing it in bite sized pieces for people,

(25:55):
you know, after you go through visionfor you and your partner, it's like,
maybe you want to see your coach againnext year.
Maybe you want to see your coach againsix months.
Maybe you wanna see your coach againin three years.
It doesn't matter. You did great work.
You kind ofare already in the 99th percentile
of people who have done family dynamicswork.
Yeah.
And and I think this work beforetotal family was largely

(26:19):
like two day in person offsite,you know, exhausting,
you know, ten hours at a time of blah,blah, blah.
It's like, no wonder people didn'tenjoy it that much.
Well, you think about it.You think about it.
If you were doing an offsitewith your family, it's like
like for that amount of time,like it's like Thanksgiving times,

(26:42):
like it's a multipleof every Thanksgiving.
And we all know. Right.
Like what Thanksgiving can be like.
Not because we don't like our families,but it's just like,
you know, hey,I think there was even a, a quote
maybe I think maybe the DalaiLama said it or something.
And he was like,if you think that you've achieved
enlightenment,go spend a day with your family.
Right?
It's like that, right?

(27:02):
It's like, okay, it's
just like these people that know usso well, we know them so well. And,
yeah,
it's it'sit would that would be exhausting.
I can't imagine. Like, it's a workout.
Like, it's like a workout,kind of where, where you think about,
you know, like, I got a workout today
and then you're like,I don't really want it right?
You know?

(27:23):
But then after you do it, you're like,you feel good, I feel great.
Yeah. So.
So it's definitely that for peoplewhere they're like,
you know, this conversation,I don't know, I get a lot I could do.
And then they do it and they're like,
that was really like,
that was the best conversationwe've had in like three years.
Sure.
You know, and and our coaches just havethis like amazing ability to just listen.

(27:46):
Joy and I were talking about thisyesterday.
It's like the sense of feeling listened to
is getting rarer and rarer and people
and so like when when you say something
or like when you say to your partner or,or one of your friends you like,
I had a really rough dayand they're like, what?
What was hard about it? You're like.

(28:09):
Whoa, what? Yeah, yeah.
Like usually their response is,yeah, me too.
Like join the club or whatever, you know?
And so I think our coaches
do like a really good jobof making people feel listened to.
And it's just like that is a, ajust a cool feeling to, to give people.
It is and to your point,
my husbandand I hadn't had conversations like that,

(28:32):
you know, one on one
expressing like thingsfrom our own childhood and development
and how it informs,like our view of the world today.
Like there was just a lotthat got unpacked very quickly,
over the
course of like an hour or 90 minutes.

(28:53):
But that got put to use, like right away.
Sure.
And you could, you could feel the sense oflike, oh, we're moving somewhere.
We're getting somewhere, right? Yeah.
And that was the beauty of thatand power of like that structure.
You're, like, looking for,like you're grabbing the stuff,
but you're looking forward the whole time.

(29:14):
Totally.
You know, you're like, I'm not tryingto solve all this stuff back here,
but it is a part of me
in one way or another.
And we're always trying to look forwardfor these conversations.
And then through the lens of like,you know, whether it be kids
or a new marriage or,you know, legacy or whatever, but,

(29:35):
yeah, I love,
I remind me of your values,what we're presents.
Yeah, they're right here.
I know you're going to look at love.
Total family detail, love.
Kindness, joy, responsibility and purpose.
Can I make a comment about the familyvalues episode that you did

(29:57):
your first episode of Coda?
Sure. Oh, yeah. Please.
Because you talkedabout the evolution of your mom
and your sisterwho had been like anti-gay marriage.
You weren't sure if your momwas even going to come to your wedding.
Sure. All that kind of stuff. Right.
And so the question is,there's like two options.
It's either their values changed,

(30:17):
which is possible.
But I don't think that's what happened.
That's correct.
Because you have loveis one of your values.
And you said this unconditional love thing
was something that was like, intrinsically
in your upbringing, unconditional love.
So I think what happenedwas your mom and your sister
when they looked at their own values,they picked love for you,

(30:41):
for their son and their their brotherover all the other stuff.
And I think in
values like we start with 72 words,as you know, they're all good words
integrity and loyaltyand adventure and presence and like,
no one would be offendedif you called them any of those words.
But when push comes to shove,you have to pick

(31:04):
the ones that are most important to youthat you're going to live
by no matter what.
In tough times, hard times, easy times,
and that decision was probably hardfor your sister and your mom.
But they picked love as their value,and that one superseded all of them.
And so I thoughtit was a really cool story.
Thank you.

(31:25):
Wow. Geez.
I know I told you what I thought about it.
I like that choked upbecause I just thought it was so.
I just thought it was really nice. Yeah.
It's interesting.
It's those moments in life.
It challenged a belief that I had held.
Yeah, that I think humanssometimes slip into where

(31:48):
it's like, oh, yeah, you know,you hit 40 years old and you're locked.
Like, you're not changing.You're not like.
And it's interesting too.
Like, I don't think that they, you know,
a mindset shift might have happened,but their values absolutely didn't change.
Right.
Like they didn'thave to change their values
to show up in this wayfor for me and my husband and our family.

(32:09):
Right.
They didn't it was perfectly alignedwith their values.
In fact. And,
but it was also a,
like a lightning bolt for methat like, don't ever count people out.
Like, don't, don't, don't bet on peoplenot changing.
Like, it's easy to make those assumptionsin everyday life.
Like,oh yeah, you know, people don't change.

(32:31):
You kind of say it like in passingand it's like, no big deal.
But then there's some of these,like really big moments in your life
where it's celebratory for youand you don't really know how all of
the chips are going to fall.
And then
they fall and
they completely, like, surpriseyou in these beautiful, unexpected.

(32:54):
I feel like inthere is just like, forgiveness
and giving people a little bit of slack
back. And,
we tend to, like, very muchsee our own change.
Like, I'm not the same person I was lastyear, ten years ago or whatever.
But then when you look at someone else,it's like same old David. No,

(33:17):
totally, totally, totally.
Oh, that's so true.
We're constantly,like applauding our own change in growth.
And but thenwhen we look at the other side
it's like oh it's just uncle Tomor whatever, blah blah blah blah like
and of course some people don't change.
That's true to
but I think like being open to it.

(33:40):
Sure.
You know where you can vote againstgay marriage
and then come back and say,
you know,if I could do that over, I would.
Yeah.
And then to have that person say,like, it's okay.
Yeah.
Instead of nope, you voted.

(34:01):
But yeah. Yeah, sorry.
You know, like I think like all of usjust like giving each other,
like, we're not going to forgiveour family members.
Who we going to forgive, right?
I think, yeah.
And just like, like just giving each othera little bit more slack, I think it.
And and allowing for that growth in

(34:23):
people is really, really helpful for sure.
Let's go back to we've been talking a lotabout like how this works.
Sure.
So maybe you just kind of give usa breakdown like okay, how does it work.
Lay out what the process looks like.
From an operation,you know, just how does it work?

(34:44):
Yeah.
Usually, I mean, most of the timewe get hired by,
well, firms, family offices,sometimes employers.
Okay. And then we have two offerings.
We have the coach led kind of VIPoffering that you went through,
or you jump on a video call with a human
led coach,and they go through our vision process.

(35:07):
The vision process that you went throughis six sessions over,
you know, 4 to 6 months,
an hour to 90 minutes apiece.
We try to tell people like, do itwhen you have energy.
Don't do it when you're stressed,when you're in line for the airport, like
like there is really nono deadline, right?

(35:29):
Right. Like when,like you could do it in two weeks.
Do it in two months. Whatever.
And at the end of those
sessions,you're going to have a defined vision
for both individuals and for your family.
And then we also have a softwareonly offering that is kind of geared
towards people who are looking to makea lower level of investment

(35:52):
but want to dip their toe intointo doing some of this.
And, and, everyone has accessto our coaches after the fact.
Why the wealth management space first?
And to be clear, I think what you justsaid was we have this offering.
We rolled it out for wealth managementfirms initially.

(36:13):
You now have a digital versionthat's really open
to anyonewho wants to participate in this way.
Which I think is awesome.
I don't think that's how you started, butlike, talk to me a little bit about like,
how you started, why wealth managementand then its evolution.
I mean, I think,
I mean, personally, I think it's awesomethat it's open for everyone.

(36:33):
Yeah.
The wealth
managers, and the family office is likewhen we originally started
talking about vision and valuesand all this kind of stuff,
someone told me they're like,
oh, you're doing it's family dynamics.
And I'm like, what?
What is that? What's for sure?
And and so, you know, this,this family dynamics and governance space

(36:57):
that is largely in wealth managementand family offices is established.
Right.
The the kind of, like foundingfather of a lot of this work, I think, is
Jay Hughes, who created the five forms
of family capital in 1998.
And a lot of people have picked up

(37:17):
Jay's work Ultra High Net Worth Institute,Jim Grubman and colleagues
who wrote while 3.0and a lot of this work has continued on.
But I think for us, the
the problem wasn't we need another model,
we need another framework,we need another something.
It's like, how do you actually do it?

(37:39):
Because most people listeningprobably are like,
does my firm offer family dynamics?
Like, sure. Does my firm offer values?
And the answer might be they might to
a very small segment of their population.
Right. Or they don't do it at all.
And Ithink for us, what we found in this work

(38:02):
is that, like the stuffwe're talking about, wanting
what's best for our kids, wanting goodrelationships with our family members,
wanting to have some like that has nothingto do with money once, however,
so we had an establishedkind of framework in the wealth space,
but we we as a company felt like,you know, it lacked scalability,

(38:23):
it really lacked technology,and it lacked consistency
because if if you're relyingon the advisors to do this
and you have a firm that has, say,100 advisors, sure.
You know, working with David,I might get this thoughtful
or unbelievable discovery processaround values and set it up.
But if I go, you know,to a different person who doesn't see the

(38:45):
benefit of it, I have a totally differentclient experience in the space.
Yeah.
And then I thinkultimately why we found a home
there is they have some challenges coming.
The wealth managers and like
everyone talks about the great transferSheryl Lee just put out.
It's like 164trillion. Is that sure? Sure.

(39:06):
I saw that number right.
But the great transfer is causingproblems.
It's not the problem in and of itself.
No. And in the problem that it's causingis most of these wealth firms
don't know the spousethat doesn't handle the finances.
Correct.
Which is why most of them leaveafter they their spouse passes.
They're like, this firm doesn't know meand they don't know the kids.

(39:30):
And for us, these conversations
are not only important,but they're a really great way
to establish relationshipswith the rising gen in with the spouse,
because you don't haveif you're someone with $50 million, right,
your wealth manager is saying, okay, well,this conversation about inheritance

(39:53):
is really hard.
So like, we should sort ofwe got to work our way through it.
But in actuality,
lots of
conversations in family stuff are hard.
The the $50 million inheritanceconversation feels like the hardest.
Sure. So so maybe we don't start there.
Maybe we start about talkingabout our values and establishing

(40:15):
some common languageand getting the communication going
amongst the family with the wealth firminvolved there in partnership.
Because like we want continuity,we want to be good partners
for the wealth firmsthat embrace our ideas.
It's not every firm
you know, as you know, that thinks familydynamics is important,

(40:35):
but I think the firms that dothink it's important have found it
to be a competitive advantage,a way to to get to know their clients
on a much deeper leveland use the great transfer
as like an opportunityinstead of something to be scared of.
I'm going to put my marketing hat onfor a moment
in my work hat a little bit,and kind of just step through.

(40:56):
You talked about a bunch of thingsin the wealth management space, and
I want to kind of like just
set, foundational kind of
context, for, for some of those things.
One, I find it funny, like, yes,there's this great transfer coming,
but like 20 years ago,I think Cyril still had a report then,

(41:18):
or like, certainly has been aroundfor a long time, but, you know,
they've been talkingabout the great wealth transfer forever.
And that number seems to growevery time they publish something.
So now, now it's like 160 trillion,whatever it is.
Before it was a little less than that,but it's really the same concept that,
you know, boomers are, you know,kind of aging out and like, there's

(41:41):
going to be this transfer of wealthfrom that generation to the next one.
And it's primarilygoing to be moving from, you know,
call it the, you know, wealth creatorto the spouse and, you know,
they think that that is, you know,mostly going to benefit a lot of women.
I think that was also in that report.
Yeah.
But when we go back like to the history,

(42:03):
the historical contextof wealth management, wealth management,
at least in the independent wealthmanagement space, not necessarily so much
talking about wire housesand broker dealers and like the big banks,
but in the independent spaceit was okay, we're fiduciaries.
And I think it really started comingonline probably somewhere in the mid 80s.
And it was investment managementfocused, like, okay, we're fiduciaries,

(42:24):
we're putting your interestsahead of our own first.
And it was investment management focused.
Then let's call it the next iteration
of wealth managementis, oh, financial planning comes online.
And they realize like, oh gosh,we start doing financial planning.
You get a designation,a certified financial planner designation.
And there's like an industry starts

(42:46):
building arounddeeper levels of engaged with people.
Right.
And so
now we're not just talking about money,now we're talking about a financial plan,
which obviously can be deeply impactedby someone's values.
Sure.
And then like this next iterationthat's coming along
that came along is like,oh, holistic wealth management.

(43:08):
It's the integration of like, you know,financial planning, investment management
and who you are as a person in a family,right?
Yeah, yeah.
And I think where it's also headed,I have, you know, the benefit
of having conversations with these clientsand something's still missing for them.
And I think that that missing pieceis around

(43:32):
this component of,oh, gosh, I really wish my wealth manager.
And there's also a deep levelof skepticism, too, about the industry
still, like they might have a fantasticview, a wonderful view of their advisor.
But there's stillthis like just under the just beyond that,
there's this like levelof skepticism of the entire industry.

(43:54):
And so
my mind starts working on that problem of,well, gosh,
that is an opportunityto, you know, to solve that.
And how do you do that?
And the way that you dothat is by like deeper relationships.
Yeah.
And, you know, and maybe tightening upyour service model a little bit.
And this is like one of the likethis is an obvious way

(44:16):
to get there with clientsand the beauty of it too, just like you
said, is by bringing in an outside
party to do that and partner with a firm,
you are going to get that consistency
instead of like adding it to anotherto do for a wealth manager.
Yeah.
And so I think thatI think it's beautiful.

(44:40):
Thank you.
I mean, you know thethe work with families I
so you talked about like like the quotesthat Joy pulled out for example.
Oh yeah. Right. So like
imagine that
after you've been workingwith Total Family for 40 years.
Wow. You know, like imagine thethe level of understanding

(45:01):
that not onlyyou can have about yourselves,
but that you can make sure gets reflectedin your estate plan
and your financial plan andand having it not be like,
like miserable
to go through those things rightwhere you're, you're actually
like you're instead of itbeing a one time miserable event, man.

(45:23):
I'm never like, got our estate plan done.
Don't want to ever think about it again.
Instead of it being that it's like
you know once a year for an hour
we contemplate our legacy
or we talk about wherewe're trying to go as a family.
And if you do that for an houra year, for 30 years,

(45:46):
you're going to create somethingthat's meaningful
for both you guys to useas a roadmap for yourselves.
Or if you're not there, you know,and so holistic is like a word,
obviously, that everyone like, throws out.
I don't even totally know what it means.
But I ultimately think, likethe clients are looking for people

(46:06):
to understand them on a deeper level. And
implement that in some way, shape or form.
So like if I looked at, you know,
well, you know, if I think about, explore,experience, impact, like, wouldn't
it be cool if your financial advisor

(46:27):
for your financial firm was like,how much are you guys
allocating in your budgeton a go forward basis for exploring?
Totally.
And you're like,oh, I never thought of that.
I guess, like, you know, X amount a year.
That's right.
And then all of a suddenyou start to get a plan that like,

(46:47):
feels much more like an extension of
of you guys than just Davidand his partner
want to retire one dayand pay for college.
And you know, it'sjust like a generic thing.
Totally.
Instead of like, so love, kindness, joy,responsibility, purpose.

(47:08):
Like,how can we find ways to bring that in
and make investmentsinto the other areas of capital,
but then also do it in a way that,like it's just not one off.
It has to be.
It has to be in your client experienceand implemented through
and part of youryour deliverable as a firm.
You know, your values,

(47:30):
at least for me.
Right? Like
I probably wouldn't have donethe exercise had we not met.
Right?
It's like one of those things like we justit was very serendipitous
and just like lightning struckand it was like, okay, this is great.
This the timing is good,
but it's not likeyou don't think about your values.

(47:50):
I thought about my values a lot.
My husband and I have hadlike conversations about it in the past,
and I think the first timewe actually started having
those conversations was likewhen our son was born
or when we were close to,you know, him coming into the world.
It was like, okay,
you start having those like, oh gosh, whatis this experience going to be like?

(48:11):
And you're dreaming a little bitwith your partner and you're like,
oh gosh, that's going to be so cool.
And like, oh, it's going to be so hard.
And like you're sharing these things
because it's still just the two of youand your life hasn't completely to.
Be the best parent.Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
Then like, your
world changes and you're taking careof a little person, right?

(48:31):
And, you know,you're you're moving through that.
But what about going through
this exercisefor people who don't have children?
So. Right.
Like some folks, I mean,there's even some reports out there
that, you know, more couples are choosing

(48:53):
not to go, you know,actually the route of having kids, right?
We see it certainly in other countrieswhere the replacement rate
of like having children, like even for thefrom an from an a kind of economic
standpoint is like not sustainable.
But in my mind and I know
in your mind too, like I don't knowthat we would agree on this.

(49:16):
Right.Like values are important for anybody.
It doesn't matter what your familymake, family make up is right.
It's like a definition of a familyisn't like two people in a child or like.
Right.
So, like,
how might someone
think about itwithout the lens that I've applied to it,

(49:37):
which is like, oh, okay,my husband and I and our.
Child, like. Right.
Yeah.
I mean, we have a lot of young people
who are in their 20s that have no kids.
They might not even have a partneror a serious relationship yet.
We have, people who are olderthat haven't had kids.

(49:59):
So I don't thinkit's like you have to have kids
to get benefit from this in any way.
But I'm speaking from a perspectivethat, like, it's hard to remember
to, like, once you have kids, it's like,
you know, like, I don't.
You totally forget about whatwhat it was like before that,

(50:19):
as I was having dinner with my almost twoyear old at, like 445 yesterday,
I waslike, well, I've been doing it for 45.
But but I think values are a decision
making framework for anyone.
And, you know, there's
I have this amazing mentor who'sthe chief strategy officer of our company.

(50:43):
And whenever we have like, big decisions,he always says, like, what must be true?
Like like what do we know
that we can hold truewith all these other things
that are out there that are,
that are changing and unsure ofand uncertain and all that kind of stuff.
So if you think about some decisionsthat that people might have to
make, like,you know, what city am I going to live in?

(51:07):
Who am I going to marry?
Where do I want to go to college?
What do I want to do if I don't have kids?
What am I going to do with my money?
Like those types of decisions?
If you know what your values are,
then you can use that as a framework.
When you're thinking about big decisions.
I don't think it's like, you know,
values are going to help you decidewhat is for dinner tonight. No.

(51:31):
But it's like if Iknow what's important to me,
I think very often when we
make a decision that feels weird,
like it feels like this doesn't feel right
very often it's going against our values.
And if they're not labeled,

(51:51):
like if you haven't gonethrough the exercise of doing your values.
Right.
You're like,I think this is against my values,
but I don't totally knowwhat my values are kind of thing.
But if you have it as a frameworkand you're like, why does this feel off?
Oh, it's not really kind.
This isn't really a kind thing to do.
A kind person wouldn'tdo what I'm about to do, and that's why

(52:15):
it feels weird to me becauseone of my values is kindness, right.
And so I think it's a decisionmaking framework and something that like,
you can hold true to your yourself
and anytime you have a big decisionirrespective of kids.
Well, I think back,
I could have
absolutely used this exercise in my 20s,

(52:37):
probably could have saved mefrom some poor decisions. 100.
Right?
I mean, I mean.
Yes. And I also think what's interesting,like a bit of hope
here, like some of the thingsthat I'm seeing trending,
I believe I read an article the other daythat was about,
the shift, like there was this shift

(52:59):
in the finances,the health of the finances of millennials.
Right.
And there was like this,like doom and gloom before.
I don't call it five, ten years ago,
that like millennials are not preparedfinancially.
They're worse off.
They're not likeall of these things. Right.
And then I just read something likein the last couple of days that said like,

(53:20):
oh my goodness, it'snot as bad as we thought, right?
And what's fascinating to me is, well,what if like,
even as a societyor as a culture, we started valuing,
I'm going to say value and,you know, values in the same sentence.
But like, what if we changedhow much we care about Institute

(53:43):
and going through a processto develop what our own values are?
Because as we see like,you know, people are going to church less,
right, like there's fewer institutionsthat are helping families
know and understand what their values are.
And I'm not saying that
whatever, I'm not going to open upthe can of worms on church.

(54:05):
Right.
But yeah.
What if as a society, if societyis getting more secular, which it is,
then there needs to be a replacement,right?
The conversation should come up.
And so my mind goesto, gosh, how is the society?
Can we, like, normalize this behaviorand get it to a place

(54:27):
where, like, gosh, you know,when when you turn 21,
this is something that you need todo, right?
And it's just like one of those thingslike, oh, okay.
When you're when you're 16 years old,
you need a checking account or something,or you when you're 18 or whatever it is,
it's like one of those thingsyou must have this to like, right.
And I'm saying checking account
that's going to be completely obsoleteby the time my son's.

(54:48):
Like. Comes of age, but
one of
those things, there are alwaysthose things where as you come of age,
you go through some practice,call it a ritual or,
you know, some type of a ceremony likethis should be one of those things.
Yeah, I love it.
And like we you and I have,

(55:10):
kindness and responsibility
as, shared values for our families.
So we do.
You and I do. Yeah. Yeah.
That's.
My families are our growth presidents.
Kindness and responsibility. We did for.
All of it. We actually had community.
And then, like, one day,my wife and I were driving and I was like,

(55:31):
which value do you feel like?
Doesn't really fitwhat we're trying to do?
And she's like, why did we pick community?I'm like, I don't really know.
Like it's not likewe don't really love. Sure.
But we were like we originally had had itand then we removed it. And
but you know, when you meet someone,
it's always like, what do you do?
Right?

(55:51):
And it's like so entrenched.
It's like money status.
It's totally.
What area of town do you livein? Oh, gosh.
You know, and it's like, yeah,they're very judgmental questions.
I feel like, yeah.
Of course.
If like,I know this is like pie in the sky,
but it's like, if you could just be like,oh, what are you like,
what values did you you know,I don't know how you could ask that

(56:14):
without like, it being like totally weird,but who knows?
But like.
If there's new things, new thingsalready always start out is.
Totally.
Totally right.Like when people started, when.
I mean, I remember when Apple came outwith the Newton, right?
Right.
It was basically an iPad,but from another era.
It's true. The first time no. One ever.
Adopted AirPods, I was like,I will never wear those like I.

(56:37):
Was wearing it. Totally, totally.
But that I think like thatvalue structure, like aligning around
these valuesis just a deeper conversation,
you know, for for people to haveit isn't about judgmental status stuff.
And you feel the judgmentin those questions.
Like, you probably meet tons of parentsjust like we do.

(56:58):
You know,we have a birthday party tonight.
And like the question you all get is,what do you do for a living?
Where do you where where do you live?
Champagne and like to be like, actually,you know what?
Let me just tellyou what my values are like.
Okay, okay.
I'm going to issue a challenge.
You go ahead and do that,and then you report back how.

(57:19):
Actually we'll see how it goes. Yeah.All right. Cool.
Oh, and one to talk to me.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I think to your point,
like changing these things in a culture
and these social normsis really challenging.
Yeah.
I was having a conversation yesterdaywith a group of people that really believe

(57:41):
that society, the world we are
in this period of,
I want to say rebirth, but like,
we're in a, in a period of deeptectonic change,
like we all feel likethe Earth is moving underneath us

(58:03):
and we don't really know, like there'sa lot of fear about what the future holds.
And it doesn't matter who you are.
I think everyone feels this wayin some ways, and it's because there's
just the rate of change is so greatright now.
And I think at some point,
maybe it's 20 or 30 years from now,we'll look back and say like, wow.
Crazy time.

(58:24):
That was rough.
But like,look what happened on the other side.
And so I was having this conversationwith people that are actively engaged
and trying to sort move humanitythrough this time period,
which is really big, hairy,audacious goals that they have.
That's a very big goal. Yeah, huge.

(58:44):
But what I also got out of it
was like this deep sense of like,oh gosh, you know what?
Everything is going to be okay.
And it's going to be okay because we havepeople on the planet doing that work.
Yeah, right.
Like that'snot my particular zone of genius, right?
You know, like, I don't know howI can actually participate

(59:07):
in some of those big shifts.
But I do I am deeply gratefulthat there are people who exist.
And so I want to also extendthat gratitude to you.
I think, you know, like developingnot just like the framework,
but like a companythat can operationalize values

(59:29):
at scale is like beautiful work.
Like this is not,
This is not something, you know, someone
you know, you want to come in and be like,oh, yeah,
how much do you want to sell your companyfor sure, right? Like,
this is
like somethingthat, like, can operate at scale.
You're building
something that certainly canoperate at scale, but like what happens

(59:52):
when you operate at scale withvalues is a change in humanity.
It is a change in society.
In culture as we know it.
It's moving things in the right direction.
And so like hats off to you.
It is certainly benefitedme and my family.
And I just want to like thank youfor being uncoated in gold.

(01:00:12):
This has been like fantastic.
You have anything? Actually, yes.
I want you to tell our community, like howthey can learn more about total family.
I also know you have a podcast.
So like we have a podcast called FamilyBook Club.
And the idea behind Family Book
Club is like, as media and all this stuff,

(01:00:34):
has kind of like, you know, everyone's
watching different showsand more splintered.
I co-host it with Emily Bluefrom Hue Partners
and we just talk about great books.
And we encourage familiesto read the same books and, like,
just start to buildthat conversational muscle memory.
We have season two coming out,and we have all the authors of the books

(01:00:54):
coming on season two.
So we're really oh, that's awesometo, like, talk to the authors.
It's going to be great.
Total family Bio is our website.
Okay.
You can pretty muchget everything you need from us there.
I would say that in our blog,
there's very rich contentand don't feel obligated

(01:01:17):
if you're a person who,like, wants to learn about this.
Like you can do some of this stuffon your own.
You know, we share our values list.
We share a lot of this stuffbecause our purpose as a company
is to help people uncover their visionand support them along the way.
You know, so
like the shift that you're talking aboutis the shift that we're trying to create

(01:01:38):
in people, in conversationslike this help normalize it.
You know,I think the one thing that we're fighting
and I'll leave, I'll leave withthis is like the idea that having
a conversationwith your partner about values or vision
or something like that meansthat there's something wrong.

(01:01:58):
Is there something thata lot of people struggle with, like,
oh, you and your partner talk to a coach?
Are you guys okay?
And you know.
The shift for us is
no, it's actually an area of my lifethat I care about deeply.
So I'm going to be proactivein preventative
and make sure it never getsto a bad place.

(01:02:19):
Right? Right.
And so I think I like the idea thatthere's something wrong with your family.
For you to need any of these familydynamics resources
is something that we're just, like,trying to fly in the face of,
because 99% of our clients are successful,happy,
healthy, wonderful peoplewho are just, like, doing their best.

(01:02:40):
And they're looking for, you know,someone to bounce ideas off of or someone
to listen to what they're sayingor help them clarify ideas or something.
So lovely.
So total family.io and so happy that you,that you went through it.
Well, thank you again.
I know it's going to benefit my familyfor perhaps generations to come.

(01:03:03):
Certainly years to come. Sothank you, Alex.
Thanks for coming on.
Thanks for listening to Coated in Gold.
I've been your host, David, listen,if you liked this show,
please give us a reviewon Spotify and Apple Music.
And if you're watching on YouTube,leave us a comment
and dying to hear your feedbackand keep the conversation going.
You can always followCoated in Gold on our socials

(01:03:25):
for more updates on upcoming episodes.
Links are in the descriptionor show notes.
Thank you and take good care.