Reach with Fergus Watts and life after AFL

The episode begins with host Evan introducing Fergus Watts, former AFL player for Adelaide and St Kilda, founder of Bastion marketing agency, and current CEO of Reach. Watts describes Reach as creating environments for young people to develop social and emotional resilience through self-understanding and working through emotional barriers. He emphasizes that 50% of mental health issues occur before age 14, linking this to the brain's rewiring during adolescence. Reach recruits about 80 young people annually, training them as facilitators who then deliver 90-minute school workshops and camps; these facilitators are typically under 25, leveraging peer-to-peer engagement. Watts details Reach's social enterprise, Wake by Reach, which works with corporate clients like PwC and Deloitte to fund school programs and provide career pathways. He shares his AFL career, cut short by 12 operations in 18 months after a severe ankle injury, and how this taught him to handle public failure and use it as strength. Watts states he hasn't had mental health diagnoses but credits Reach's early involvement for helping him through business challenges. He argues the youth mental health crisis was exposed, not caused, by the pandemic, due to insufficient preventative work earlier. The conversation touches on drug addiction as a symptom of deeper issues. Watts mentions the Round for Reach campaign with Melbourne Football Club and the upcoming Larapinta Trail fundraiser. Listeners are directed to reach.org.au to get involved, either as facilitators under 25 or by encouraging schools to hire Reach. Watts concludes with an analogy comparing emotional development to lifting heavy weights, urging openness and seeking support.

As heard by us

A former AFL player's injuries open into a grounded conversation about failure, emotion, and work with young people.

Watts thought his AFL career might run for 15 years. Instead, it ended after four, following a broken, dislocated and ruptured left ankle and 12 operations across 18 months.

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Why you'd press play

You can hear Fergus Watts turn a shortened AFL career into a practical way of thinking about failure.

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