Connor and Fletcher Watson, leveraging connections and revolutionising brand content

**Mark Bouris** (0:00)
Fletcher and Connor Watson, welcome to The Mentor, guys.

**Fletcher Watson** (0:02)
Thanks for having us.

**Mark Bouris** (0:03)
Two brothers.

**Connor Watson** (0:04)
Yes.

**Mark Bouris** (0:04)
Pretty cool. Yeah. I didn't realize you had a younger brother.

**Connor Watson** (0:08)
Really?

**Mark Bouris** (0:08)
No, I didn't realize. And he's pretty smart, too.

**Connor Watson** (0:11)
Yeah.

**Mark Bouris** (0:12)
Little bit. Little bit, oh! Oh, I like it, I like it, I like it. He's a sportsman. Yeah, he's a little crack. No, no. Yes, he is, come on, yeah, come on. Now, I know your mum, I've never met your dad, but I know your mum, and great mum, and pretty, pretty switched on. I mean, I met her with Connor a few times. And Connor's sort of, you know, I have to disclose, I'm on the board of the Roosters have been for a long time, and he's one of our key players, been playing with us for many years, and I'm a Connor fan.
And he has come to me on a few occasions with little business ideas that he's had, even when he was at Newcastle, he had a bit of a business idea, and he's been sort of trying to sort himself out for his future, which is what all sports athletes should do that. But in his case, he's liked it because he's got his brother sitting aside. So we know what Connor does. Fletcher, can you give me an idea of what you have done in the past?
What's your deal?

**Fletcher Watson** (1:13)
So I mean, I left high school, I didn't even finish year 12, so I did term year 12 and gaped it. I didn't really enjoy it anymore. And I was at Knox with the kind of left, but I was at Knox too, it's the boarding school. And I wasn't playing rugby at the time, I was injured, I sort of done my shoulder and kind of just fell out of love for everything. And so I went back home, moved back to the coast and started working for mom and dad. So they have like a supply company and they work all through government, sort of health, all that sort of stuff and just did that. And I actually went to acting school for a few years, did that. I still do the acting stuff on the side when it sort of pops up, but it's been a bit harder the last few years as we, you know, we started the company and it's gotten a lot busier. But yeah, I just started working for mom and dad and realized that I actually kind of enjoyed watching, not just like, yeah, just enjoyed watching them have their own company and sort of run their own thing. And obviously they had the association that runs off the business. And there was that sort of, yeah, it was fun and it was good to see. And it was something that I kind of fell in love with. I didn't think I was going to be like a business owner or anything when I was young. It wasn't really something that occurred to me at all.
But yeah, and then I ended up really randomly. It was through another guy on the board of the association that...

**Mark Bouris** (2:23)
What do you just talk about what the association is?

**Connor Watson** (2:25)
Yeah, it's Cultural Choice Association. So it's a charity that we started back in 2017

**Mark Bouris** (2:33)
18

**Connor Watson** (2:35)
18, yes, 18
You know better than me. Sorry, but yeah, we unfortunately lost our younger cousin in 2017 to suicide. And from that point on, we started the association to assist in the prevention of Indigenous youth suicide because the numbers are too high and it affected our family. We didn't want other families to go through it. So we started that.

**Mark Bouris** (3:00)
And by the way, equally, your family, you are Indigenous boys, proud Indigenous boys. So that's as opposed to being white fellas trying to do that. You have Indigenous background. So that should be made clear in the film in the very beginning, which is one of the reasons you've done this.

**Connor Watson** (3:17)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. My cousin is Indigenous. We was Indigenous as well. So that was a big thing for us. Yeah. Just looking at the numbers and just real. I mean, suicide generally and mental health is an epidemic in society.
And then even more so in rural communities and then Indigenous communities on top of that. So we started that to try and bring awareness to the issue and help in prevention in some way. And yeah, it's been going for nearly getting close to 10 years now, which is, it's been a good journey. It's been a tough journey. I think non-for-profits are really hard. Just trying to keep them sustainable, as you know, compared to other businesses where you're sort of selling a product.