Welcome to another episode of Incorporating SuperPowers. My guest today is Kolby Kolibas. Kolby is a filmmaker, a best-selling author, and his audio book’s getting ready to come out. But what we’re here to talk about today is really his passion mission and that is A Life Worth Living. It’s all about mental health and teen suicide prevention. I’ve known Kolby for quite some long time. He’s family to us. He gave our daughter a shot on stage, he took a gamble on her when she was seven years old and put her on his stage. It’s just created this very unique brotherhood, and bond, between Kolby and our family. I’m just honored to continue to be a part of that journey Kolby. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
My brother I am honored, my man. I’m going to take these glasses off so people can see my squinty eyes, so I don’t look so cool like I’m at the beach. Hey as we get started my man I just want to tell you how honored I am to be on today’s show, and just to spend a couple minutes with you, and to talk to your audience, so thank you so much for having me on.
Well you know the path that you’re walking is one that … I mean I’ve known you from back when you were doing the supplements. You had a huge, huge … All I see is the monkey.
Healthy Primates.
Healthy Primate, okay. You created Healthy Primate, it blew up and you got … I’ve just seen and watched your entire journey with Healthy Primate, to Meltdown in the Desert, to the work that you’re doing now. Which, in my opinion, I think your journey, everything that you’ve done has led you to this because you’ve got this God given ability to create stories, share stories, and deliver it in such a way that it has an impact. Talk to me a little bit more about A Life Worth Living. Tell me about what is it and why did you start it?
You’ve got it my dude. If I have to walk around here in a minute I will, so I’m in the house now working from the house. For people that are watching this we’re in the middle of kind of a media frenzied pandemic called the coronavirus. No man is safe, no women or children, so my house has a little bit about getting sick. Where I live I’m in a huge construction zone where they’re digging out internet. I live by Zion National Park, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere but in the middle of somewhere beautiful. So I’m going to walk here so you don’t hear all this construction noise.
A Life Worth Living, when you look at this I’ve been creating films since I was 16. I’m 44 and it started with me making skateboard movies. I’ve always been into the creative side of things, right? I don’t know, was it 2018 I went through a really nasty divorce and had to reset, which seems to kind of be the case, right? It’s I found myself … Walked away from a job in a film studio, separated, didn’t have my kids with me, and I was trying to find purpose. Just going to get a job was not something that I was super excited to do and I was trying to find something that would give me drive.
I was sitting at the house. It’s about a year later and I’m at the house. I’m recently remarried, right? So my wife, her oldest daughter is 17 and asked if we had seen a Facebook live where a student in her class had ended his life. I said, “No.” And I’m like, “I’m not interested in seeing that either.”
Yeah.
She goes, “No, no, no, it’s not him doing it. It’s his manifesto of why he was doing that.” I still said, “No, I’m not interested.” That year there were 12 kids, the ages from 17 down to 11, that decided to end their life. And I don’t live in a big place Justin. I live in a place that’s … It’s Washington County’s our school district. I heard there was an 11 year old kid who hung himself and I was like, “What’s going on? This just doesn’t make sense to me.” Then I..
But then it doesn’t make sense to a lot of people.
Decided. Well I decided to dig into it man. I decided to grab a camera and start talking to people. What I found out was this is a nationwide epidemic. It’s not an epidemic that’s happening just in the state where I am. That we’re looking at over 75% of kids that are ages 18 down to almost eight years old are out their struggling, and have thought about or have even tried to go through the act of ending their life through suicide. So I started traveling around the US man, interviewing experts, and kids, and families, and communities that were impacted. Instead of focusing so much on why … The stories of the kids that have gone through with it it’s talking about what are people doing to prevent that and giving kids reasons to choose life first?
So yeah, that turned into a non-profit to raise moneys to help families that are struggling, or families that are king of going through that, or kids that need to get therapy. We’ve partnered with a handful of world-renowned therapists and therapy programs to really bring help to families that are struggling, and kids that just want some answers.
For those of you that are listening to this this is something that we tend to not want to look at. Like Kolby said he didn’t want to look at this at the beginning. Didn’t even want to read about it. Didn’t want to even look at it. It’s because it’s hard. It reflects back to us of knowing that we could probably do more to help other people but we don’t want to look at it. Kolby before we go on break where can people go find more information about the organization?
It’s lifeworthlivingtoday.org.
lifeworthlivingtoday.org. Go take a look at Kolby’s mission, and what they’re doing, and the lives that they’re saving. This is not just some small undertaking. I’ve continued to watch this project grow, and build momentum, and it’s having an impact. Go take a look. We’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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