We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful James Wright. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with James below.
Hi James, thanks for joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
I lost my son 10 years ago to suicide, and wanted to do something to keep his legacy alive, do good works in his name, and help to prevent another family from going through the horrors we faced losing a son. I knew I wanted to do this in his name but was afraid…I was afraid because I would be exposed. I had one job, and that was to protect my children and I failed. I lost my dear son. I started a website with the assistance from a friend who was the CEO of Vizisites, a web design and management company. It was then a few years later when I went through a EQ Emotional Intelligence and leadership course, where I was able to deal with the shame and guilt of losing my beloved son. It was during the 100 days of leadership portion, that I committed to starting and running a Not for Profit in his name. Kimonos for Kai was born.
It was my EQ journey of emotional intelligence that allowed me to asses what I did and where i was at the time, and realize that I had done the best with the tools that I knew at that time, and that allowed me to stop blaming myself and feeling the shame and constant guilt. It was after that introspection, that I was able to create my Personal Strategic Plan (PSP), and I broke it down into weekly goals and milestones, as well as a 30/60/90 checkpoints. By the end of the first 90 days, I had the initial paperwork filed, and the first few board members selected, and a direction of how we were going to help families save their teens and young adults. When we first started, we focused on the teens and young adults, but very quickly realized that although that was who we were trying to save, it was the “trusted adult” (parent, coach, teacher, grandparent etc) who we really needed to reach, and revamped our approach and how we were going to tackle the epidemic of teen and young adult suicides.
Kimonos for Kai is a public Charity and Grant based 501(c3) organization filed and chartered in the State of California and Federally.
Our vision and mission is suicide prevention and awareness for minors through a program of meaningful dialog and commitment to positive mental health with the reinforced message “You Are Not Replaceable” and “There Is Always Someone To Talk To.”
The target audience for Kimonos for Kai are adults who are connected to teens and pre-teens. Kimonos for Kai provides parents, teachers, coaches and instructors, other youth mentors, and health care providers with tools to guide meaningful conversations. Young people need to be encouraged with the message that “You Are Not Replaceable.” Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Kimonos for Kai provides support to children in crisis and pays for initial therapy to get them out of crisis. Kimonos for Kai also provide financial grants to support families who have experienced the loss of a child through suicide. This support includes resources such as counseling, grief groups, and financial assistance for funeral and memorial services.
James, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a retired Marine Corps aviator, and served 20 years of active duty and retired from service in 2012. I lost my son in 2014. Because I was a Marine for 20 years, I had learned to compartmentalize, and as an aviator, had learned to not trust anything dealing with mental health as that was a sure fire way to lose your flying status. So when my son Kai passed away, I did not seek any counseling or therapy. My family did, but I did not. The stigma of mental health was still too strong in my mind and I felt I didn’t need it to deal with my loss. I could get through it on my own. That was one of the biggest regrets of my life, and why the de-stigmatization of mental health is a core tenant with Kimonos for Kai.
I am able to share my story and help others who feel like I did that mental health help is no different than when you break an arm and go to a doctor to get it fixed. I had even gotten hired by a major airline and reported for training to learn how to fly an Airbus a week after the memorial of my son. I made it through the initial training and all the sims and flights, and that reinforced in my mind that it was a good call to not seek out mental health assistance. The problem which I did not realize at the time, was that grief is a tricky thing, and that it will come out when you least expect it, and it prevented me from starting Kimonos for Kai when I originally wanted to. I could have established our foundation much earlier and started saving lives and helping trusted adults with their teens through young adults, but because I had not forgiven myself, and was afraid of what others would say about my parenting and the subsequent loss of my son, I kept pushing the idea farther down the road.
It was my EQ journey of emotional intelligence that allowed me to asses what I did and where I was at the time, and realize that I had done the best with the tools that I knew at that time, and that allowed me to stop blaming myself and feeling the constant guilt. It was after that introspection, that I was able to create my Personal Strategic Plan (PSP), and I broke it down into weekly goals and milestones, as well as a 30/60/90 checkpoints. By the end of the first 90 days, I had the initial paperwork filed, and the first few board members selected, and a direction of how we were going to help families save their teens and young adults. When we first started, we focused on the teens and young adults, but very quickly realized that although that was who we were trying to save, it was the “trusted adult” (parent, coach, teacher, grandparent etc) who we really needed to reach, and revamped our approach and how we were going to tackle the epidemic of teen and young adult suicides.
Our vision and mission is suicide prevention and awareness for minors through a program of meaningful dialog and commitment to positive mental health with the reinforced message “You Are Not Replaceable” and “There Is Always Someone To Talk To.”
The target audience for Kimonos for Kai are those trusted adults who are connected to teens and pre-teens. Kimonos for Kai provides parents, teachers, coaches and instructors, other youth mentors, and health care providers with tools to guide meaningful conversations. Young people need to be encouraged with the message that “You Are Not Replaceable.” Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Kimonos for Kai provides support to children in crisis and pays for initial therapy to get them out of crisis. Kimonos for Kai also provide financial grants to support families who have experienced the loss of a child through suicide. This support includes resources such as counseling, grief groups, and financial assistance for funeral and memorial services.
Kai was a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu phenom, and it was jiu jitsu that he and I started doing together when he was 4, and continued up until his passing. Kai competed at an extremely high level, competing at Pan American games, Kids Worlds and many other prestigious competitions and always placed within the top three spots. So the jiu jitsu and MMA community is our roots with Kimonos for Kai (Kimonos is the formal word for the gi or top that we wear when we train or compete). We have several UFC fighters that help out with our foundation, and even have one on our board. So many of our engagements involve going to jiu jitsu or martial arts schools, and training or teaching a seminar, and then after the seminar, speaking with the trusted adults to get our message across and help them reach their teens.
We all have different motivations for getting into the helping field: We all know this on some level—that when we approach a helping act from a place of service; when we help with the pure intention of helping, it feels good. It feels good to know that we did our best to help in the best way that we knew how—regardless of the outcome or how it was received. We take solace in the fact that we did our best and our intentions were pure. With our foundation, we unfortunately, mostly hear about those we didn’t save because we are helping pay for funeral and memorial services, but we set up our foundation and knew that if we were able to save just one child, one family from the tragedy of suicide Kimonos for Kai would be a success. We do receive emails and letters occasionally letting us know that from our resources and talking points or speaking engagements or seminars, that a child was saved. So even when it seems bleak, we are able to keep going because we know we ARE making a difference.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I lost my son, I knew I wanted to honor him and keep his legacy alive through doing good works in his name and help prevent another family from going through the pain and heartache I went through. I was a career military officer in the United States Marine Corps as a pilot, and after I had retired from 20 years of active duty, got a corporate flying job and then one week after my son’s memorial had been hired and began initial training with the airline.
I was NOT a businessman, and did not know the first thing about starting a business or not for profit. I did know about leadership and getting people to work towards a common goal or objective. However, I had not forgiven myself for losing my son. I had one job and that was to protect my kids, and I failed, I lost my son…
So I never quit when I set out to accomplish something… I may fail the first few times, but will not stop until I accomplish what I set out to do. Part of having been in the military for 20 years, and practicing the art of Brazilian jiu jitsu for over 17 years, I have learned to be comfortable being uncomfortable. This is a great trait and practice to have because it ties into resilience. That never quit attitude.
I first started out slowly by having my friends company Vizisites help me design a website to begin honoring my son and letting kids know that “You are not replaceable”, “There is always someone to talk to” and finally “Suicide is a permeant solution to a temporary problem.” This however was just a start, I knew that a website was not going to be enough, but because was not a business person, had no idea how to form a business or even the right direction to go, I used another talent, and that talent was networking. I started talking to friends who then introduced me to business owners and Not For Profit CEO’s and I started picking their brains. I asked question after question, and during my EQ emotional intelligence, was slowly forgiving myself and realizing I did the best I knew how when my son was alive. When the 100 days of leadership portion of the EQ leadership portion, we had to create a Personal Strategic Plan (PSP) for something we were passionate about and wanted to accomplish. It was during this time that I took what I had learned from friends, business owners and not for profit CEO’s how to begin the process of creating my own not for profit to honor my son and help those families struggling with their teens and young adults in crisis.
At the end of the 100 days, I had filed all the state and federal paperwork for the not for profit, had the first few members of my board, and we began fine tuning our vision and mission. We initially targeted the teens themselves, but very quickly had to pivot in order to reach the audience (the trusted adults) who would have a bigger impact on what we were trying to do. We are now a few years down the road and have grown exponentially, and have been saving lives! We constantly adjust, and refine our message, speeches, seminars, and talking points.
It was because of the resilience and never quit attitude by myself and my board that we are where we are today. Without it, we would still be just an idea and a website with no real substance to be able to help those families in need.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
My initial business partners and Board Members, came about through prior friendships, networking and a bit of luck. It started by talking to a Marine Corps friend who recommended a lawyer friend of his to maybe run by him some of my ideas and get his take. He heard what we wanted to do, and immediately, became our foundation’s law firm pro bono, and through him, he introduced us to someone who was an executive at Easter Seals many years ago before he retired from there.
I set up a Zoom with him, and learned he had also lost a sibling to suicide, so our foundation was something he could get behind. Due to his extensive knowledge of his previous involvement at Easter Seals in a high capacity, he was able to walk us through basic things we needed to do, (we at this point did not know what we did not know). Through his help, he recommended various ways to set up a board, and how to get off the ground, and he has stayed on as an advisor to date.
We figured out that we would need people with business sense, fundraising experience, publicity, and various other talents, as we would all be doing everything on our own with limited to no staff. I would not be able to pay my board, and it would be a voluntary basis only. In fact we decided that initially until we were able to raise enough funds, each Board member would have to donate $500 a year as well as the time to put into the foundation getting us off our feet and expanding our message. This actually really helped us, as it filtered out those who were not going to be truly dedicated to our vision and mission.
My first Board Member I invited to our foundation was a high school friend who owned multiple dental companies, and was extremely adept at business. My second Board member was a friend I had met during my EQ journey and was all in on what I wanted to accomplish. Also, because my son and I had been very involved in the Brazilian jiu jitsu and MMA community, we were able to bring in some very high UFC fighters to help promote what we were doing and help us with seminars and fundraising. In fact our final board member contacted us after seeing what we were doing and said he wanted to be a part in whatever capacity we could use him. He too was a UFC fighter. When he initially came on, he was not brought on as a Board Member, but as a spokesperson, and helped us with seminars at MMA and Martial Arts schools. We then realized that he was also very good at business, and electronics, and was not only value added as a spokesperson, but also contributed amazing ideas for our growth and how to navigate the social media and grassroots efforts.
So my (5) Board members came about through previous friendships, networking and a bit of luck. Each member brings something unique to the table and as a whole allows us to expand, grow and get our message out to the audience who needs to hear that there is help for their teens and young adults.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kimonosforkai.org
- Instagram: #kimonosforkai
- Facebook: Kimonos for Kai
- Linkedin: Kimonos for Kai
