Transcript

Michael Palumbos (00:47.5)

Welcome everybody to the Family Biz Show. I am your host, Michael Palumbos. 

Michael Palumbos (00:56.302)

super excited to bring Alex Kirby and Katie Jesunowski of Total Family Management to you today. These guys are really knocking it out of the park in terms of really having an impact with families and helping families to strengthen, which is one of our core purposes. They're helping them to strengthen their legacies and just some really great stuff with Total Family Management. So you're in for a great show. Alex, Katie, welcome. 

Katie Jesionowski (01:26.594)

Thank you. 

Alex Kirby (01:27.34)

Thanks, brother. 

Michael Palumbos (01:27.694)

Michael Palumbos (01:28.475)

So we have a tradition on the show that is kind of tell us your journey. And I'm not talking about from age two, I'm talking about like from college to where you are today. What did you do before total family management came out so we can kind of set the stage of your journey? So Katie, ladies first, do mind diving in for us? 

Katie Jesionowski (01:48.974)

Katie Jesionowski (01:49.474)

Absolutely. So I began my career in advertising. I spent seven years in media planning. And the way that I've always described that is that I was not making the ads, but I was making sure that you saw them. So it was a really good education for me that I've used in the rest of my career with understanding that the vehicle is as important as the message. And from there, I took about a year and a half off to have my twin daughters who are now 13. 

Katie Jesionowski (02:16.974)

And when they were almost two, I co-founded an organic kids snack food company with one of my closest friends that we ran for 10 years. She is like a family member to me today, which surprises a lot of people, because I think we're accustomed to hearing the opposite when friends go into business together. But that was a really great foundation for people development for me, particularly if you've ever seen how many snacks a small child can eat in a day. 

Katie Jesionowski (02:42.202)

So joining TFM was really easy for me. It's the kind of work I love to do personally. And in spite of thinking I would probably never be able to work for someone else again, because I'd worked for myself for so long, it was surprising how easy it was to say yes to working for Alex, which is probably the nicest compliment that I can give him. 

Michael Palumbos (03:01.676)

That's awesome. I appreciate that. really, it's nice that you've had that business background. You're going into this with, you know, going into this business with that background. And then on top of that, it's like, I got to have to imagine that, you know, your services, you know, I know this is the family business show. So a lot of the family businesses would relate, you'd relate to what they're going through and what they're doing. 

Katie Jesionowski (03:25.857)

Absolutely. 

Michael Palumbos (03:27.328)

Alex, you're up. 

Alex Kirby (03:29.39)

I grew up in your neck of the woods, upstate New York. So like, you know, grew up starting my car 35 minutes before I would actually go do something. I moved to Maryland after college. I still live there with my wife and son. We have another, another boy on the way. So it's really exciting. I spent the first decade of my career managing commercial relationships for a bank. And during that time I was facilitating. 

Alex Kirby (03:57.708)

what we call it transformational leadership with the HR team at the bank. kind of 10 years in people development there. After that, I went to work for a training and development organization who was my client. I was the VP of sales over there for five years. And I didn't, don't think I knew I wanted to start a company, but I also sort of felt like so much had changed through the pandemic that there was really an opportunity for companies like us who were authentic. 

Alex Kirby (04:27.584)

wanted to do it in the right way, that there was just a big opportunity created. So, hiring, for example, for us, Michael, like we're a hundred percent remote company. We find talented people all over the US. No better example than Katie. But in really short amount of time, we have talented people in 14 states. So I think part of the kind of story of TFM is 

Alex Kirby (04:54.272)

is how quickly we're growing and how different our company feels from maybe some of the old legacy companies that you've seen. 

Michael Palumbos (05:02.375)

Katie, where are you located? 

Katie Jesionowski (05:04.106)

I'm in New Jersey just outside of Manhattan. 

Alex Kirby (05:07.534)

Cool. Yeah, we asked Katie to come into the office four days a week from, just kidding. 

Michael Palumbos (05:13.39)

Michael Palumbos (05:15.613)

So let's talk about TFM, Total Family Management. What was the seed of this idea when you started? think it really, what happened? What was the seed that grew this and where we're at today? 

Alex Kirby (05:34.286)

Yeah, I'll take that one. spent 15 years in, you I just think of it as like 15 years in training and development. And so I had really seen the firsthand benefit, Michael, of coaching leadership programs, both with young people and with it really experienced executives who just wanted to grow and get better. We all know these types of people in 2019. I was the VP of, of this sales organization. 

Alex Kirby (06:04.142)

It just wasn't for me. Um, and I was traveling all the time. We found out my wife, Beth was pregnant. And when COVID hit, were the firm that I was with our delivery was 95 % in person or so. And then in 2020, just due to necessity, we pivoted to a hundred percent virtual. We thought it was going to be awful, but it really wasn't, you know, everyone adjusted. 

Michael Palumbos (06:27.842)

Right. 

Alex Kirby (06:34.22)

We were actually able to see our clients more. but then, you know, just going back to the founding of this company, I remember working in an annual priorities with a technology executive and in 2020, and this executive was really burned out. they were going through a divorce and they just weren't in a good place whatsoever, but outside looking in, you know, big, you know, big, executive. 

Alex Kirby (07:04.302)

And I just remember thinking like, why are we spending time on the vision of this company when the personal life is like in such disarray? Like we should almost start there. And then I guess for me, I also like kind of had a fear of that happening to myself. But when I went to look for help, I just couldn't really find any resources. So. 

Alex Kirby (07:31.45)

I think there's a lot of development resources for businesses, consulting firms and great groups like yours. But as I looked for something for like my family, I just was coming up short and I didn't want therapy. I just wanted something to be like someone to help me be strategic about my life and about my family. And I just kept going back to the fact like how could there be so few resources? 

Alex Kirby (07:58.048)

when you can go up to any stranger in any city in the world and ask them, what is the most important thing to you in your entire life? Family isn't the only answer you'll get, but it's very, it's overwhelmingly the most common answer. And we define family like really broadly, that could be like, you you're a media family, that could be like, you know, step parents, that could be best friends. Like we define it broadly, but we just felt like there was a gap. 

Alex Kirby (08:26.06)

between what people knew in their gut was important, where they were spending their time and where they had resources. And Katie and I both played sports. So we felt like a family was a team, but sort of a team that didn't have a coach. So when we created TFM, we just say we're the official partner of families, the official coaching partner of families. 

Michael Palumbos (08:49.614)

I love it. I love it. Katie, when Alex approached you, what were the things that he said that made you say, I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm in? 

Katie Jesionowski (09:03.81)

Yeah, I mean, a lot of what you just heard, to be honest, if I am somebody who enjoys this work, as I said, so, you know, personal development for me has been really important, particularly in the last, I would say 10 to 15 years. And this was something I had never considered, never heard of. So to be in that world and then to be surprised by something in that world, I think was really what did it for me. 

Katie Jesionowski (09:31.394)

because I wasn't considering myself an expert, but I certainly felt aware of what was available to me to help improve myself and my family. And it was really fun to think about something completely new. 

Michael Palumbos (09:44.706)

Got it. You know, so I will share with you and Alex and I have talked about this, but one of my very first clients, probably one of the first five or 10 clients when I first started 22 years ago, 23 years ago, we did all this incredible estate planning work where we, you know, and back then we had an estate tax issue. we, you know, we were really, you know, it was for estate taxes. We were doing some really good things. 

Michael Palumbos (10:14.374)

but they had a family cottage where the family had gathered for every summer in upstate New York. And Alex was right down the road from you, little York Lake. Yep. And so he wanted to put, they bought, know, him and his wife wanted to put the cottage in a trust with enough money so that the kids could take care of it and have that place go forever. 

Alex Kirby (10:26.818)

Very nice. Freshwater guy, so I get it. 

Michael Palumbos (10:45.922)

Mom and dad passed very shortly after we put this plan into place. It was just one after another, six months apart. within a year, the cottage was out of the trust. The money was out of the trust. The kids didn't want to be together. 

Michael Palumbos (11:04.014)

And they never asked. We never had the conversation. And so very early in my career, I felt that. And I went out looking for ways to do, you know, talk about these things. And we've been talking about it. And so I mentored with Jay Hughes, James Hughes, who wrote Family Wealth Keeping in the Family and a whole bunch of other books. And just, you know, that led me to the Purposeful Planning Institute. But for those families that I served, which were 

Michael Palumbos (11:32.79)

middle market, family owned businesses or lower. A lot of them were mom and pop across the kitchen table, hiring somebody at $25,000 or $50,000 to do values and vision and mission of the family and where am I going, just was out of reach. I've been looking for this for myself and you both happen to know and I'm. 

Michael Palumbos (12:00.716)

This is not an endorsement, but my wife and I are going through this process and my wife and I are enjoying the process. And my wife was resistant to the process. And after the first meeting, she's like, I don't get it, whatever. After the second meeting, she goes, I understand why we're doing this now. And we're really excited about, we have adult children and we... 

Michael Palumbos (12:28.942)

want to do some different things with them. And if we aren't intentional, where are we going? So I really appreciate this. some, I don't want to, I'm excited about what you're doing. So let's talk about. 

Alex Kirby (12:43.606)

No, well, Michael, mean, just to like, that point, you know, the, you're talking about with that early client was not, know, if you're only looking at the problem through a wealth lens, did everything that you were supposed to do through the wealth lens. And I know we talked about non-financial domains of wealth and financial domains of wealth, but most of the financial advisors we work with. 

Michael Palumbos (12:55.15)

Thank you. 

Alex Kirby (13:09.386)

are looking at things through the wealth lens because that's the one they know and understand and they're good at. But a lot of times we just find like when we hear those stories, you I just hear like you did your job, but there was a whole nother thing going on over here that maybe a lot of people involved didn't understand. 

Michael Palumbos (13:29.97)

We didn't communicate. never asked the kids what do they want? And it's so easy to do that. And what if they said, what if the kids had said to mom and dad, we don't want to be joined at the hip in this cottage. That would be brutal for us. Wouldn't that eye-opener for them when they think that everybody's happy and hunky-dory and they want to be together forever and they're not. Maybe I could have done something intentional before I passed. 

Alex Kirby (13:58.592)

Yeah. Well, mean, like Katie and I have our own families. Our families are far from perfect. Of course. Right. And I think when you say it's easy, it's like, and we hear this like, this is the soft stuff or this is the easy stuff. I just don't think that's true. And it's very, very hard to talk to your own family. We're all, and everyone in our company is comfortable helping other families. But then when you go to talk to your own kids or your own parents or your own whatever, 

Alex Kirby (14:27.864)

there's just something different about it. so having like that objective kind of person in your life who can be on the sidelines, they're not really in what's going on, but they can sort of point out things. I think it's really helpful, so. 

Katie Jesionowski (14:41.4)

Yeah, I would also add, you know, it's really just the incremental small improvements. You sometimes it's not going to be the difficult conversation about the cottage before we lose our parents. If we had backtracked, if we had zoomed out 10 years and started those conversations, you know, how does that change? What happens in the future so that you can really see the progress that you made? It's not in one conversation. It's really over time. 

Alex Kirby (15:10.732)

That's, that's an amazing point by Katie. And I think the solutions that are in the market right now, typically at the higher end of the market, they involve like a retreat or like we're doing this for two days, or we're going to solve all our problems in this period of time. And, know, to Katie's point one, like we're not really there to solve anything. It's really a little bit over time. We meet with families typically on a quarterly basis. So it's like. 

Alex Kirby (15:40.312)

four meetings a year for as long as we can possibly do it. And over time, we're gonna get to some of that stuff, but it's just hard to show up and be like, all right, we're solving this problem. Everyone sit down. It doesn't really work like that. 

Michael Palumbos (15:56.866)

That's really important to point out to people. I think it's a lawful lot like going to the gym. You don't walk into the gym and start bench pressing 500 pounds. You work your way up to it and do those things. And you're right, a two-day family retreat might make some people's eyes pop out of their head as they were like, you want me to do what? 

Alex Kirby (16:19.892)

I, 

Alex Kirby (16:20.583)

yeah. you were like, you were sharing in your session, there is just an emotional component to all this. When you're talking about the thing you care about the most. So doing it for like eight hours is a lot. It's really a lot. So spreading it out, doing it when you're in a good head space, creating like, you know, an avenue that is respectful of the subject matter. 

Michael Palumbos (16:34.252)

Yeah. 

Alex Kirby (16:45.526)

is something that we're constantly focusing on. Because I can't do that work for eight hours for my own family. So I don't see how we would expect anyone else to. 

Michael Palumbos (16:55.904)

So I think we understand the mission of TFM. Let's if I can paraphrase it, but it's to enhance the family relationships, to enhance the family's legacy, to enhance. Do you have a written, what is our mission at this point? Yeah, what is it? Share it if you don't mind sharing it. 

Katie Jesionowski (17:19.766)

Yes, we show up and help families. That's and show up. You know, if you really think about what that phrase means, it means more than being present. It really means, you know, in the way that the person I'm showing up for needs. And that might be different for every single client. And we we have, you know, guidelines to what we do, but we have an incredible team of advisors that are knowledgeable and flexible and empathetic to. 

Michael Palumbos (17:22.04)

Go help families. 

Katie Jesionowski (17:48.716)

whatever situation they're in. I think it's really showing up for us means, you know, going in with intention, with a TFM intention, never, you will never ever, ever hear anyone in this company say there is a TFM way to be successful. It's just the opposite of who we are and what we want to be. We help families define their values and then align those with the rest of their life. That's really our goal. 

Michael Palumbos (18:15.662)

Great. And so if a family has an advisor that they're working with, the TFM advisor, they're not coming in as therapists or counselors. They're just there as facilitators of this process of these conversations to, and they're just showing up to help the family. And what's really neat is, 

Katie Jesionowski (18:38.862)

Exactly. 

Michael Palumbos (18:42.24)

all of these conversations then for people that, you we're not, we don't have a screen to share, show everybody the software and whatnot, but there's, you know, all of these great conversations are held online, correct? Do you mind talking about, you know, I just finished up meeting one where we were just talking about the different roles that Victoria and I play in our lives. And we were just like astounded at how many different roles we play. Number one, we were also astounded at 

Michael Palumbos (19:12.078)

One of the things that our advisor, Cynthia, did that what I just thought was magical was when she asked us to pick the three to five, this isn't the word she used. I want to say most important, but that was not what she said. She goes, the ones that are important to you and then explain why you're picking those kinds of things. 

Michael Palumbos (19:38.402)

And what was really important, it was a really good distinction. My wife said, she picked these three cause she was most proud of these three roles. And I picked these three to five roles because they were the ones that were most important to me. And so just right there opened up a conversation that, you know, we both have said, we're to spend some time understanding, you know, you came at things from what you're proud of. 

Alex Kirby (19:48.6)

Mm. 

Michael Palumbos (20:06.196)

I came at it from what's important to me. I'm curious what's different and then what's the same. If I talk about them, what I'm most proud of. And now what's, what's most, and then she talks about what's most important to her. That's a really interesting conversation. 

Alex Kirby (20:20.278)

Yeah. Our advisors are amazing. They impress us every single day, just with their empathy. And so many people just don't have someone to like listen to them. You know, there's just with how distracted it feels like everyone is like, you know, someone truly listening to you, you actually notice it. But they talk, you know, between 20 and 30 % of the time, our advisors. So they're really asking questions. 

Alex Kirby (20:49.302)

And a lot of our families are like, got a lot going on. like, I don't have time to like prepare for these workshops. It's like, you don't have to prepare. You have all the answers. All we're doing is just kind of facilitating. know, many times, like you describe you and your spouse going through it, our advisors will just sit back because the two of you are like on an awesome path talking about something in your own way. There is really no place for us in that conversation. We're just there to. 

Michael Palumbos (20:56.268)

Yeah. 

Alex Kirby (21:17.378)

you facilitate it. You asked about the technology. Our big thing for families as a whole is it's just very, very hard to see your family getting better. Like there's no metric that you can look at, you know, that you can't like, you can't judge it by height, you know? And so it's also hard to like see the work that you've done over time. So we talked about some of these retreats and 

Alex Kirby (21:45.976)

All that kind of stuff. lot of those things get written on post-its and filed away in drawers and never looked at again. And when you talk about goal setting, like everyone has it in a different way. So we have an amazing CTO who has been with us since the beginning. He does, like, if you really want to be amazed, you you see what, what our CTO Mike is capable of. And we're just building this technology to support everything that our families are trying to do. 

Alex Kirby (22:16.078)

So when we hear awesome things, like if you said something really fantastic about your wife, we might just capture that in your portal, in your family portal. So three years from now, you know, when you're like a little mad at her or whatever, like, forgot, like she was really supportive of me in that really hard time in my life, I forgot that. Or tracking goals or having a place to look at values. So you don't just do the value exercise and then it like, 

Alex Kirby (22:43.928)

totally disappears and you never talk about it again. So we use our technology to sort of help families make progress because six hours a year adds up. I would argue that most families don't really spend a ton of time being strategic. And so six hours a year being strategic over a period of four, five, six, seven years, you get a lot done. And when you look back at all the cumulative work, it feels really good for people. 

Alex Kirby (23:12.266)

And that's like what we were trying to do with the technology, both keep them organized, but then also let them see their progress. 

Michael Palumbos (23:19.256)

Love it. You talked about values for just a second, writing our values down and not just going through the exercise. Why is it important for a family to have that conversation about what do we value? 

Alex Kirby (23:40.992)

I can take that Katie. Katie, Katie will probably, we do a lot of yes, yes. And in improv when we're creating our workshops. So it's always a yes. And, but values for me is like priorities. You can't have 20 priorities. If you have 20 priorities, you arguably have no priorities and the exercise in figuring out both your priorities and your values is forcing yourself to like. 

Michael Palumbos (23:58.008)

Mm-hmm. 

Alex Kirby (24:11.054)

pick an answer. None of the words that you see on our value list are bad. It's like honesty, integrity, adventurous, loyalty. These are all wonderful words and things to be, but you can't take a, you know, we start with 72 words. You can't take 72 words and go to your kids or your spouse and say, we've got to be all of these. That's kind of impossible. So, 

Alex Kirby (24:39.702)

We ask people to whittle it down, talk about why it's important to them, combine them as a family. And then also just with the, you'll hear this from our group all the time, like we're just trying to get it 80 % there. You know, your values can change. You can come back in next quarter and say, you know what, I actually think it's this. It's not intended to be rigid. It's intended to be like really, really healthy. 

Michael Palumbos (25:03.854)

That's great. 

Katie Jesionowski (25:05.166)

Yes, and keeping on the sports analogy theme, which we seem to love more than the average group. You if you think about your family as a team, my husband, my daughters, myself, you're thinking about how you can improve yourself individually and then how you can improve collectively and establishing values for a team keeps you moving in the same direction. So that at any given moment, if we're thinking about 72 words, which 

Katie Jesionowski (25:33.57)

direction of the field of the court are we running in? You know, we're always more effective if we have a goal in mind and values are goals, right? Just because one of my goals in my family is to be authentic or to focus on humor, you know, or playfulness doesn't mean that I'm always ready to do that, right? But in the big picture, if I'm movement, forward motion toward those values, then we're all moving in that same direction. And you just, 

Katie Jesionowski (26:03.713)

Everything's better. 

Michael Palumbos (26:05.71)

Yes, and. 

Alex Kirby (26:08.194)

There we go. 

speaker-3 (26:09.57)

Go! 

speaker-3 (26:09.754)

Michael Palumbos (26:10.766)

would add to that as you're talking, it's really starting to come together a little bit more for me. And that you use the sports analogy, Katie, and there's no successful team that's ever won the Olympics, you know, without a coach, there's no successful, nobody's gone to the Superbowl without a coach. And so really, at the end of the day, what the TFM is, you know, that process is that it's not an advisor. 

Michael Palumbos (26:39.446)

It's the family coach. that, there's, there's certain, you know, the coach knows, Hey, you know what, you might want to work on that jump shot. And so the TFM coach looks at it says, Hey, you know, can bring it back around to say, remember that value that we talked about here? You know what? Here's an exercise that you might want to think about as a family that you could take through and 

Alex Kirby (26:41.058)

Yeah. 

Alex Kirby (27:02.848)

I think... 

Michael Palumbos (27:03.852)

guessing at that. It's not guessing at it, but I know that the software and the modules that you have built inside of there, you have a path, but everybody's path is different, but there's a resource that's available for the family when they want to and need it and the coach can see it. 

Alex Kirby (27:20.29)

Yeah, the coach sees stuff that just the players can't see when they're in the game. Right. That's like, you know, anytime a coach has pulled you off to the side and just like pointed something out, you're like, that's what's happening out there. Like I couldn't, I couldn't totally see it. but to tie this back to the wealth and some of your clients, you know, when you're talking about things that you want to pass on values is very, very high on the list of most of the people that we talk to. 

Michael Palumbos (27:24.419)

Yeah. 

Alex Kirby (27:48.79)

And it usually manifests, like we hear it in different ways, just like I've worked so hard. You know, hard work is what got me to where I am today. That is something I want my kids to have. Like we hear that type of stuff constantly. And so values is one of the things that like with any of these exercises, it's not really about you, the person who's doing the exercise. If we're talking from the legacy perspective, it's about the people that 

Alex Kirby (28:17.558)

are around you, the ones you might leave behind, the ones that are gonna miss you, to have some way to be like, man, let's not forget about how hard work, how important hard work was to my grandfather, my grandmother, my mom or my dad. 

Michael Palumbos (28:35.842)

Yeah, for years. I'm always, I'm guilty of the, it works so well, I stopped doing it routine. But for many years, I would ask clients, know, if you had knowledge, your values, and all of your assets, and you could only pick two to pass on to your children, I can tell you to a T, not one of my clients, no matter what they were worth. 

Michael Palumbos (29:02.988)

said the assets, it was always the knowledge and the values, but I didn't have a method other than throwing out some conversations without a process, without a coach, because I was always busy worrying about the assets too, and they're getting the assets ready for the heirs, we've done family meetings, we've had some really great conversations, but without a process. 

Alex Kirby (29:25.931)

Michael Palumbos (29:27.232)

And so what I love about what you're doing with TFM is bringing in 

Michael Palumbos (29:31.618)

that process for people to be able to follow and open up some conversations. the, you know, me and as the advisor, now it's like, it's doing that. What we, I could care less about assets under management. We're a firm that believes in relationships under management. And our real goal is to strengthen the family or strengthen the business or strengthen the legacy. And it's like, you know, yes, that's just how we get paid is managing money and doing all of the planning work. 

Michael Palumbos (30:01.42)

But at the core, this is what's important. And I know it's important because I know it from my family. And if it's important, like you said, you can ask a million people that question, what's most important to you? At least 80, 90 % of the time, my gut would say that it comes up family. Not always. 

Alex Kirby (30:20.332)

Yeah. And I feel like the advisors, you know, to us, like, especially advisors like you, and there's a lot of them that are thinking about, that are trying to respond to the changing demands of their clients. You can't find a report written by McKinsey, by Fidelity, by anyone that is not pointing in this direction. And so for us, we view you as part of the coaching staff, whether you're the head coach or we're the head coach, doesn't really matter. 

Alex Kirby (30:50.154)

It's kind of just having this group of people on the sidelines collectively looking out for the family. The saying like, all right, so you, okay, you got the legal docs, you got the, you got the financial docs. We have, you know, the quote unquote soft stuff or the non-financial stuff. You're going to get to a pretty good spot. If you have a well-rounded coaching staff. 

Michael Palumbos (30:56.802)

Yeah. 

Michael Palumbos (31:12.61)

Yeah. No, and it's a, I used to, when I first started, used to, you know, describe to clients, I'm kind of the quarterback that gets everything, you know, in the right place and the right time. I'll make sure that it all happens. And then over time, I realized I'm not even on the field. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm on the sidelines helping. And you're right. It's not just one coach. It's the, it's the accountant was the tax coach. It's the 

Michael Palumbos (31:37.422)

the estate planning attorney, the business and tax coach and the financial advisor and the family coach. It's all of those people working together. And that's a really unique thing. There's that word right there, collaboration. I didn't say the word, was in my head. Collaboration, when the advisory team can collaborate. And that's one of the things Alex and Katie and I have talked about is the fact that how do we... 

Michael Palumbos (32:05.528)

take the information of what is important to the family and make sure that the other teams, the other advisory teams are collaborating and know what's important so that when they're putting a technical thing in front of them, it might not fit this family's objectives or their values. And you really need to know that. 

Katie Jesionowski (32:26.572)

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good point, Michael, because, you know, we say a lot internally, as the coach never takes the game winning shot. You just it's just good to remember that, right? We we can guide you and coach you and encourage you to be in the position to take a game winning shot. And that's what you ultimately want for your family. I just want to feel like I'm in this right and I'm I'm headed for a successful outcome. 

Katie Jesionowski (32:53.454)

And it's just, it's a great reminder. You know, we're, all on the sidelines, just cheering them on. 

Michael Palumbos (32:59.15)

Love it. So let's talk about for a second, a little bit nuts and bolts about, you know, how the program works. I know we've, we've done some big picture, but it starts off with a four meetings in 60 days. If I'm not, if I get that right. And that's called connect. Why don't we, why don't we take some time to talk about connect. 

Alex Kirby (33:24.078)

Alex Kirby (33:24.338)

Every family starts the same way. So usually they're coming to us through, sometimes it's through an employer and we're working with employees in a company, but the vast majority of the time it's coming from a wealth partner, an RIA, someone like yourself, Michael. We start with four private virtual workshops. That's with our advisor and then with the, typically it's like the patriarch and the matriarch of the family. 

Alex Kirby (33:51.982)

In those sessions, they're 90 minutes a piece. They're over about 60 days, but we just have tons of schedule flexibility. Like you do all your scheduling in our technology, as you know. Um, and so there's lots of flexibility. We're trying to just meet families where they are, when they can do it. Uh, the first one is a get to know you because you just have to do that. You know, can't jump into someone's life and try to like, pretend like, you know, what's going on. Um, the second one, which you just had, I think was, was vision. 

Alex Kirby (34:22.252)

where we talk about roles that people play and we call it vision because it's like, it's really, really hard to like, just answer the question. What is the vision for my family? It's a, it's just a very complicated question, but when you break it down into roles and you're like, well, what is my vision for me as a dad? What does success look like as a dad? What does success look like as a, as a son or daughter? It's a little simpler. It's like, you can kind of see it. The third one is values. 

Alex Kirby (34:52.161)

So we sort of felt like we wanted to get this one in early because every business in America, including us, has values. And I think families have intrinsic values, but they're not always written out to where they can point and agree and talk. And then the last session we call roadmap, where we're exploring some big questions, we're doing a little bit of goal setting with the family. 

Alex Kirby (35:18.792)

and we're setting the stage for the ongoing relationship, which is four meetings a year. If the families will have us, they'll stay with TFM and their advisor from now until, you know, whenever we stop adding value. And I think that's the real difference in what we're trying to do here. It's not a program. There's no specific end date. If you only do four sessions with us, you're going to be better off. 

Alex Kirby (35:47.926)

If you stay with us for 10 years, you're also going to be better off. But just like you, you know, you alluded to like staying in shape. That's just an ongoing battle, right? Being healthy is just like an ongoing battle. So there isn't really a point where you're like, my family is communicating perfectly. Like I've never heard that. So it's just like constant work and, not giving yourself a hard time and just like focusing on it. 

Alex Kirby (36:13.624)

for a period of time, which we hope is a long time. We hope to support families for a really long time. 

Michael Palumbos (36:19.598)

Michael Palumbos (36:20.681)

Katie, anything you want to add to the connect process? 

Katie Jesionowski (36:25.134)

I would add, we talk, Alex just alluded to it a little bit, that this, they're called constant work problems. So you think about your health, your vitality, your relationships. You know, an example I sometimes give is, if I said to my daughters, on Wednesdays, you can tell me about your day. Then I can't really expect them to come to me if they have a problem, right? I have to constantly be finding ways to show up for them, particularly 

Katie Jesionowski (36:54.176)

as teenage middle schoolers, right? So, and I would also say to the point of, you know, for work with us for as long as we had value, everyone in the family is constantly changing and evolving. And so that communication process continues to change and you might need a completely different way to be successful. So the values exercise, the values workshop is one that we envision families coming back to many, many times, you know, how have they, or your 

Katie Jesionowski (37:23.372)

vision, your roles, know, you know, someday I will retire and that will be a main role for me. I won't be caring for my children in my home. So thinking about this as an evolution and not just work that I should do and then I'll be great is a really healthy way to look at it. Just like, you know, your long-term fitness or health goals. 

Michael Palumbos (37:43.126)

Yeah. 

Alex Kirby (37:44.13)

And there's also, you know, just on the, the thought of a, a partner or a coach staying with you for a long period of time. You know, we don't want to drop in and try to solve something and then leave. We're establishing a foundation with our families that when they encounter things, we can lean on. And we may have known the parents or we may have. 

Alex Kirby (38:11.402)

understood this issue and that it was there for a long period of time. It's really hard to just swoop into a family, get a lay of the land of all the really complicated moving parts and bring a solution to bear because most of the time, like people aren't really looking for a solution. You know, they are looking for just help, like talking through it and getting through it and whatever. I think I don't think you'll see a model like ours that 

Alex Kirby (38:40.392)

is looking for a cost effective way. Cause you alluded to like how expensive some of these other options are. So we needed it to be, to work in the economic model of financial advisors so that we could stay with families for as long as possible. 

Michael Palumbos (38:57.134)

Yeah. It's interesting. I want to talk about the values piece of that. Cause Katie, you alluded to something that I want to make sure that people get. And that's our families are constantly changing. When you and your husband, you and your spouse get married, you chose each other because the values aligned because you know, everything, you know, is, is working for you. And then you had kids, those children are separate human beings. 

Michael Palumbos (39:27.286)

and figuring out what they value. It's great if you can pass on your values to them, but there may be some things that are different. Victoria and I have seven children between the two of us. Not all of our kids share the same values. So one of the things that we're looking forward to through this process is to find a time when we can get all seven kids, and some of them are already married. One of them already has children and get them talking about 

Michael Palumbos (39:57.024)

what is, we call ourselves the pale Morch Gang, Columbus Morch Hour Gang, and what are the values that we share so that when we're doing things together, when we're making sure that we're zeroing in on the values that we share, because if we don't do that, if we're trying to force our values on these independent thinking human beings, 

Michael Palumbos (40:24.172)

That's where some of the conflict comes. And the joy for Victoria and I is we read a book called, come on, Peace, The Anatomy of Peace. And it talks about being in the box or out of the box. as we read the book, we sat there going, we're in the box with our kids. We have these expectations. We have this, what we think their journey is supposed to look like. And we need to get out of the box and just be okay. 

Michael Palumbos (40:54.158)

loving them and watching them. And so my son, Alex, know this, Katie, you might not know this, but my son was in a motorcycle accident, became a paraplegic in 2022. And he runs a business that I'm not really always okay with. But that's his choice. he has his reasons and things for doing that business. And it's... 

Michael Palumbos (41:23.738)

becoming more and more, you know, it's in the cannabis industry. And so it's becoming more and more thought-based, but I grew up in the war against drugs era. So it was a little difficult for Victoria and I to make that shift. And we stopped judging. We stopped trying to tell him, you know, take all these skills and put them into, you know, a business that doesn't have all of these connotations. 

Michael Palumbos (41:50.19)

And we were just with him and his fiance for dinner on Sunday, so this week. And we just were with them. We just showed up, Katie, and we just talked. And Connor looked at the two of us and said, this was really nice. It's nice to be friends with you. I hope we can do this more often. You know, I'm like, that's all I ever wanted. At the end of the day, 

Alex Kirby (42:16.182)

Yeah, of course. 

Michael Palumbos (42:19.95)

It's all I ever wanted. It's all we ever wanted. So values matter a lot. And I appreciate all the things that you're doing here. 

Alex Kirby (42:29.89)

You know 

Katie Jesionowski (42:30.254)

It's 

Katie Jesionowski (42:30.474)

interesting. sorry. Someone recently pointed out to me something I'd never thought of once, which is your relationship with your children after they're out of your home is much, much longer than your relationship with them when they're in your home. But of course, how can you have that perspective when all you're doing is chasing them around your home, right? So it's such a gift to think of. 

Katie Jesionowski (42:58.03)

everything you just said and the opportunity there. And it's also alluding to the very first story which you told, which is, you know, ultimately succession planning, right? And how valuable that is and what a dialogue that is, because I think the mistake would be, you know, succession planning is a monologue. This is what will happen when I'm no longer here. And it's just absolutely not. If you want to pass on what 

Katie Jesionowski (43:27.192)

the majority of us do, which is way more than the estate, right? So to look at it like a dialogue and the opportunity for a dialogue, we always recommend that the heads of the household come through TFM together. And then we open up the conversation for all the reasons that you're describing. You and Victoria have come to this realization because of the conversation, because of these books that you're reading and that's how that happens. 

Katie Jesionowski (43:57.039)

And we see that as a really effective way to just improve that dialogue. 

Alex Kirby (44:03.778)

Yeah. And if you're, you know, for me, speaking for me, a good way to get me to not do something is to mandate that I do it. And so I think for values, giving your adult children the autonomy, like they already know what your values are. They lived with you for a really long time. Right. Right. So, so you can say what you want, but they know what your values are. And 

Alex Kirby (44:32.898)

when they get to choose their own, you can come together with your own separate values. And there's always going to be something, some level of crossover. Hey, we picked honesty, you picked integrity. I learned that from you, because this happened or that happened or whatever. That's very different than sitting your son down and saying, integrity is what you must 

Alex Kirby (45:02.69)

B, this is what you must do. This is how you must live your life. I don't think anyone is going to respond to that. And we find that when we bring people together, there's way more similar, like the words aren't always identical, but you see these like kind of, know, interweaving of similarities between like someone being adventurous and someone being creative and someone being, and it's actually like really, really, you know, a nice exercise instead of going through and saying, this is how you have to do it. 

Alex Kirby (45:31.08)

I just don't think people will respond to that. 

Michael Palumbos (45:35.052)

You and I have spoken, Alex, a bunch of times and I don't, I'm putting you on the spot here right now, so I apologize and feel free to say no. Is it possible to share, are there any stories from families that they have said it's okay to share any of these stories? Are they, other people have had aha moments or is that off? 

Alex Kirby (45:56.236)

I mean, I think, you know, I think we have a number of aha moments. I'll share one and then maybe Katie can also share one. I was talking to a client who sort of akin what we were doing to preventative healthcare. And they were kind of looking at like, you know, the healthcare system and they described it as a sick care system. You know, like you get sick, you have an illness, something happens and now we go to treat. 

Alex Kirby (46:26.67)

And so I think for us, you we're an early intervention tactic. We're not therapy, right? We're not experts. We don't deal with people who have any type of disorders. We're not dealing with trauma. We're not dealing with medication. We're not dealing with all of these things. But we had a client that said, we're here so we never end up going to therapy. And I thought that was like a really cool 

Alex Kirby (46:55.958)

way to look at it. Because there is nothing, you know, there is a connotation with therapy that you're like, you're going for a reason. No one wakes up and is like, I should just randomly go to therapy today, right? There's something going on. But for us, we're coming at it like, you know, from a totally different perspective that there is nothing wrong with your family. There's there is absolutely nothing wrong with your family. We're just here to facilitate some conversations. And as you build up that muscle memory, like our 

Alex Kirby (47:26.048)

I think what we're seeing already is when people leave our workshops, they're better able to communicate at dinner or in your example, like you're just a little bit more aware of how you are with your kids or something like that. So that preventative care sort of thing kind of jumped out to me as a recent story that we heard. 

Michael Palumbos (47:48.632)

Love it. 

Katie Jesionowski (47:49.932)

Yeah, I would add, I immediately thought of the values discussion, particularly around a client that we've met through a financial advisor partner. Many of these families didn't necessarily grow up with the success that they have. And so the values conversation is really thought provoking. I think, you know, Alex mentioned before, I want my kids to be as hardworking as I was. 

Katie Jesionowski (48:16.832)

at least a component, there's probably luck and a lot of other factors that came into play, but that was a component for me that I recognized that got me here. But maybe having an easier life is like taking that away from my kids, right? And that's so common. That's what a lot of people struggle with. So, you know, I can think of at least one person who really looked for the value and I think ultimately landed on growth. 

Katie Jesionowski (48:42.062)

if you could be somebody who's just trying to improve, to stay curious. And that was kind of an encouraging way to instill that in his children in a different way than he experienced, but acknowledged the new set of cars that they had dealt without making them feel bad about it. There's nothing that your kids can do if you have a better life than you did. So why not cultivate something out of that? 

Katie Jesionowski (49:10.188)

instead of, like we said, mandating a set of values that no longer apply. 

Michael Palumbos (49:14.99)

You talked about growth and there was something else you talked about the people wanting to, they're always trying to achieve more in the side of their family. And I want to just share a concept so that people catch this. Dan Sullivan runs a program called strategic coach and he's been coaching entrepreneurs for years. And one of the things that he noticed was for human beings, because we're always comparing ourselves to somebody else, it's a never ending battle to where you're trying to get to. 

Michael Palumbos (49:45.078)

And so it's like the, your goal is the horizon because as soon as you get from, you know, the, Hyundai to the Honda, to the, to the Lexus, to the, you know, to the whatever, there's always somebody else that has something more or that looks better than you or whatnot. And so he gave me this really cool tool and it really changed my life. And he called it, you know, he called it, don't live in the gap. The gap being that where I am versus where I want to be. 

Michael Palumbos (50:14.946)

but make sure that you turn around and do a 180 and look at all the places that you came from and all the things that you did. And that's what TFM does for families is helps them to look at, yes, there's a goal out there, but we're going to build up these muscles. We're going to put this stuff together so you can see all of the work that you've done through the years and capture it all in one place. I was with a family right before my meeting on Wednesday with 

Michael Palumbos (50:45.33)

I can't know who is my, who's my coach. Cynthia. Thank you. I'm just sorry, Cynthia. 

Alex Kirby (50:52.408)

Cynthia. 

Alex Kirby (50:56.014)

Sorry, Cynthia. Michael doesn't mean it. 

speaker-3 (50:58.922)

I 

speaker-3 (50:59.074)

don't 

Michael Palumbos (51:00.204)

with a family friend that we've known for years and he's in hospice and 

Michael Palumbos (51:11.264)

I wanted to sit there and make sure that we talked about all of the things that we did. 

Michael Palumbos (51:18.324)

And we got a chance to do some of it, not as much as I wanted to. It was a big room with lots of people. But that point of, know, when somebody's sitting in hospice, they're not ever wishing, I wish I worked more. He smiled when we talked about the camping trips that our two families took together. He smiled when, you know, just telling the story about the raccoons and my mom stepping on a fuzzy slipper thinking it was a raccoon and... 

Michael Palumbos (51:47.394)

just the rain that just came down the whole week we were there and the last day we're leaving it, finally the sun comes out. But it was the time that we spent together. And I love the fact that you guys are cataloging and that might be one of the other things to catalog. What were the experiences that we did as a family? And so talking about cataloging and these conversations, how many, when you started it was four, it was connect. 

Michael Palumbos (52:16.62)

modules that you built out to have these conversations. How many modules do you have today? 

Alex Kirby (52:23.886)

Uh, well, I think it's like somewhere like a family could go through 12 years, um, of stuff with us without, without repeating right now. Yeah. Um, but we, you know, just a couple of things on, um, you know, to your, to your, your friend, we say, you know, you see this quote all the time. It's like, it's always too late or it's always too early until it's too late. And so for these questions, you know, these questions, it's like, 

Alex Kirby (52:54.922)

I don't think anyone is going to regret the time that they spend doing this type of work. And that's just something that we are really, really proud of. You you alluded to someone in hospice, you hear this from people who have gone through, survived plane crash or had any type of near death experience. They come out with a clarity of what's important to them. And it is not more money. I wish I bought a nicer car. 

Alex Kirby (53:21.366)

I wish I worked more. I just haven't heard that yet. Not saying no one has ever said it, but I just haven't heard it. And so for us, we're having these types of conversations, in the moment, might be hard. It might be like, why are we doing this? But you won't regret it because we've sort of built this thing. I don't think you've seen Living Legacy, but it's kind of coloring in around 

Alex Kirby (53:48.79)

what a will and a state and a trust might look like. And one of the components of that is like stories, because when we lose those amazing people, we lose those really, really great stories. And we've all lost people in our lives, everyone in our company and are just like, God, I wish I had like asked that person what they were most proud of. I wish I knew what their favorite movie was. 

Alex Kirby (54:13.334)

You know, there's just like things like that that I think are really powerful and then cataloging for them. So right now you can go through our stuff for about 12 years, but our. 

Michael Palumbos (54:25.902)

12 

Michael Palumbos (54:26.193)

years, you'll be able to go another 30. 

Alex Kirby (54:28.44)

Definitely. Our creative process is really robust. And because we have all these smart advisors from all different walks of life, we're constantly getting ideas of like, hey, we need to do something here for in-laws. Hey, we need to do something here for if you're adopting a child. Hey, we need to do something here if you're in interracial partnerships. And all of these ideas, just like, we're just gonna keep going and looking at the problems like that. 

Alex Kirby (54:56.418)

But there's also, as Katie kind of alluded to, some of our workshops you can go through multiple times. Roles change over time. Values can, you can double down on that. We have a workshop about gratitude. I think some of our families are gonna do that once a year. So it's 12 years if you did all that new stuff. 

Michael Palumbos (55:16.316)

on the planet. 

Michael Palumbos (55:20.428)

Yeah. 

Alex Kirby (55:25.518)

But I think we probably have enough content to serve people for a good amount of time. 

Michael Palumbos (55:33.582)

I told you when we met, I felt like we were kindred spirits because I had been on this path. You just channeled everything that I'd been thinking about to be honest with you and saying, but I have another role. I was serving families and I didn't, you I'm not a tech person and putting this stuff together, but Alex, Kirby, you complete me. 

Alex Kirby (56:00.974)

Thank you, Michael. 

Michael Palumbos (56:02.99)

And I mean that in just the way that I said it. I'm so excited for what you're building and what you're creating and it show up and help families. That's an awesome purpose. And how you measure that over time is the impact. The impact that you're gonna have on people for many generations. 

Michael Palumbos (56:29.854)

Is going to be incredible. And I couldn't be prouder to be going through this stuff and, know, working with you guys. And I just think it's an amazing thing. don't, I don't think you're right. I don't think anybody could go through those first four things and walk away saying that was a waste of my time. You know, so, so powerful and what you're doing. how do people get ahold of you? 

Michael Palumbos (56:58.446)

How do they find you? How do they register for this program? I will say if you have a financial advisor and you're listening to this, tell your financial advisor about this so that they can connect you with this piece and that can collaborate with TFM. But why don't you tell people what the next, how do they do this? 

Katie Jesionowski (57:24.312)

Yep. So I would say if you're, if you're out in the world and you're looking for information or a little bit of commentary on what we're doing, LinkedIn is your best bet right now, Total Family Management. And all of our email addresses are first names at TotalFamilyMGMT.com. So that's the easiest way to find us right now. And that's a really easy way to get a lot more information as we continue to grow the brand and 

Katie Jesionowski (57:53.492)

know, thankfully get opportunities like this and to get in front of more people. It just gives us a chance to share the story. 

Michael Palumbos (58:02.082)

Love it. Thanks, Katie. Thank you. Alex, any parting words? 

Alex Kirby (58:07.776)

No, just, mean, I think it advisors like you are the ones that are going to continue to be less commoditized, get referrals from existing clients, grow organically, connect with both financial and non-financial decision makers and the next generation. I just think this is the direction that your industry is going. 

Alex Kirby (58:35.022)

And just credit to you for being out in front of it and thinking about your clients in the same way that you think about your own family. Because that's really all we're doing too. 

Michael Palumbos (58:46.006)

Keiji, yeah, boobaloo, you've been talking too much here. I'm gonna have Christina edit that one right out. Katie Janowski and Alex Kirby from Total Family Management. Thank you both so much for sharing with us today. You can also find Total Family Management out on the internet. If you're looking for their website, it's out there. My name's Michael Palumbas. I'm with Family Wealth and Legacy. 

Michael Palumbos (59:12.34)

in Rochester, New York, and you've been listening to the Family Biz Show. We really appreciate you guys, and we look forward to you coming in and tuning in to the next episode. Have a great time, everybody.