“They will be the ones who see the trends just before everyone else does.” – Peter Watson

Commercial awareness is one of the most requested skills in law, finance and consulting. Yet too many people mistake it for simply reading the news. In this episode of the Legally Speaking Podcast sponsored by Clio, I am joined by Peter Watson, CEO of Watson’s Daily. Peter draws on 13 years in stockbroking, experience across financial markets and recruitment, and more than a decade spent helping people make sense of business news.

Together, we explore what commercial awareness really means, why law firms use it to distinguish great candidates from good ones, and how professionals can turn headlines into useful insight for interviews, clients and career decisions. Peter also examines AI and information overload, the growing value of emotional intelligence, the geopolitical trends shaping future opportunities, and the simple habits that make commercial awareness easier to build. This is a practical conversation for anyone who wants to understand business more clearly, communicate with greater confidence and become a more valuable adviser.

So why should you be listening in? 

You can hear Rob and Peter discussing:

– Application Over Accumulation: Knowing the Headline is Only the First Step

– Commercial Value: Law Firms Want People Who Can Connect Legal Knowledge to Real-World Outcomes

– Judgement Over Noise: AI Can Summarise Information, But Professionals Still Need to Decide What Matters

– Human Skills as Hard Skills: Emotional Intelligence, Reading a Room and Framing Advice 

– Consistency Over Cramming: a Realistic Daily Habit Beating Last-Minute Interview Revision.

Connect with Peter Watson here – https://uk.linkedin.com/in/peter-watson-5a275213

Transcript

There are shifts that are going on now that we have never seen before. 

You don’t know what you know and what you don’t know until you try and talk about it. If you’ve ever been in a position where you start talking about something thinking, yes, I know about this. And as you get further into it, you think, actually, do you know what? No, I don’t. You don’t want to be in that position when you’re in an interview or an important client meeting. So you really need to talk about this with other people.

Understand yourself. If you don’t do that you are setting yourself up to fight if you don’t understand yourself in your motivations You are not going to be able to convince anyone else. 

On today’s legally speaking podcast I’m delighted to be joined by Peter Watson Peter is the CEO of Watson’s daily one of the UK’s leading commercial awareness and business news platforms after building a successful career spanning stop-broking financial markets and recruitment Peter launched Watson’s daily in 2014

He had a simple mission, helping people understand what is happening in the world of business and why it matters. Today, Watson’s daily is supporting thousands of students, professionals, lawyers and business leaders by making complex economic developments accessible, practical and easy to understand. Peter’s financial markets, expertise, recruitment experience and passion for education has made him a trusted voice on commercial awareness, career development and the future of business.

Today, we’re exploring why commercial awareness has become one of the most valuable professional skills in an increasingly complex world. We will discuss how business news shapes decision-making, what employers are looking for when they assess commercial awareness, and how lawyers can stand out in a competitive market, and why understanding business has never been more important. So, finally, a very big warm welcome to the show, Peter. Hello there. I’m very excited by this. Very excited.

I’m equally excited. We’ve known each other for years and years and the last sort of few episodes, it’s been really a nice full circle moment for me as a host, getting to see people that we’ve collaborated with over the years and all the great stuff that you’re doing. But before I spoil too much, we have a couple of icebreaker questions before we get into you, your journey and all the good stuff you’re doing. So first one, what’s your favorite beverage and what’s preferred choice of footwear on a typical workday? So favorite beverage is

Brew Dog Elvis juice because it’s and I justify that by saying that it’s sort of grapefruit flavor So it kind of counts as your one of your five a day. So that’s that’s my favorite beverage the in terms of footwear Birkins I’ve got these Birkenstocks, which I You know, I do like a book. Well, I do well to two Birkenstocks to be precise. But yeah, there we go

And a piece of tech that you use every day that you now rely on that would have seemed unthinkable when you first started out your career? Well, well, if technically that would be the mobile phone because I’m quite old. that’s that’s that’s quite a good one. So, probably the mobile phone. Good stuff. All right. Well, let’s talk a bit about you, Peter. Would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey?

Let’s start with the university. I went to Cardiff University. Best university in the whole world. I there. did law and Japanese for my degree. So I did two years in Cardiff. I went off to Tokyo to university over there for two years, which was amazing. And then I came back, did the final year in Cardiff.

and then was released into the world. My first job out of uni was I was an interpreter for a one billion pound Japanese project. So basically it was a big Japanese company who were building a European headquarters. basically I was the interpreter for the head architect of the project, which was quite scary.

So did that, did that for a bit. Then I got the, I got a phone call from someone I knew at university and basically to cut a long story short, they actually recommend, they recommended me to become a stockbroker in London. So long, again, long story short, got the job, had an amazing time. And, know, so I’ve been, I was a stockbroker 13 years, four different investment banks, London and Tokyo.

And I advised clients, all big, you know, they’re all institute, all big institutions, know, banks, insurance companies on what stocks to buy and sell in the UK, European and Japanese stock markets. And I either did it, I either did it in English or Japanese, depending on what they wanted and how much they’re going to pay me. And yeah, it was, was, you know, it was really good. After that,

I’ve also been a stock, not obviously a stockbroker, but a headhunter for about five years, a few different institutions, all finance, mainly investment banking. I’ve recruited people from juniors, through to heads of &A, CEOs and all sorts of things. So there was that too, there’s that part of my career as well. And in terms of what’s leading to now,

is that I now write a newsletter which the sole purpose of this newsletter is to try to help people to understand, remember and use business and financial markets news because I think it’s kind of the scary news. I often say that people see it as the boring news but it’s the boring news that can earn you a lot of money.

So that’s what I’m trying to help people to understand it, make it less scary and to be honest have a bit of fun because I think a lot of people take themselves far too seriously in this kind of world. So I try my best to make it fun as well. And you’ve been doing a fantastic job and you’re obviously referencing the Watson’s Daily which is…

Phenomenal and I know you get up with a crack of dawn every day and you’ve been committed to doing it for many years providing tons of value particularly in the legal space as well to aspiring lawyers lawyers Etc But was there a particular moment you realized there was a gap in the market for a platform like Watson’s daily Well, I mean it started by the so when I was a headhunter I remember I started off something called Watson’s Wi-Fi Wi-Fi stood for what I found interesting, which I thought was hilarious at the time

That is brilliant, by the way. Just going to interject there and say that’s brilliant. Thank you. So we started doing that. basically, a lot of people for the company that I worked for at the time, when they had management coming in, they would come into this meeting. So I started off doing a note because everyone kept asking me stuff when I was at work. And I said, listen, why don’t I just do something on a Friday? And what I’m going to do is I’m going to tell you which businesses you should be calling.

to make some money, right? So that kind of got quite popular and we have managers used to come in from different offices to this, to this. So I thought it was pretty good. There was something there. And then when I was a headhunter, I was interviewing people and I thought a lot of them, there were a lot of people that I met that I thought you should know this.

In theory, your degree is this, you know all the theory, but you don’t know how to apply it in a practical situation. So I thought actually maybe I could use my experience and help people to do that. basically, initially, the idea of the newsletter was really to help people to prepare for interviews, really.

And that’s kind of how it started off. And then it got, you know, momentum, you know, there was a bit more momentum and it went from being a sort of word, you know, slash PDF document that I sent out to, you know, my mom and a couple of friends to something a bit bigger. And then, yeah, then, you know, in 2018, I thought, you know what, actually, I want to go all in on this. And so I did a complete rebrand.

I was told by the agency that Watson’s Wi-Fi sounded like a broadband magazine. So reluctantly, I had to change it. And I thought, well, what shall I call it? And I thought, well, my name is Watson. It’s my surname, by the way. So my name is Watson and it comes out daily. So why not Watson’s Daily? So there we go. That’s basically what happens.

And then after that, a few, a few, there were a few interesting, moments that really suddenly catapulted it out of nowhere. And, yeah, so that was it. But yeah, a lot of fun. Yeah. And obviously you’ve had your own show as well, and that’s been hugely successful, you know, chart topping no less, but I want to talk about commercial awareness. Cause I know it’s something you’re really passionate about. And again, once I educate our audience, we’ve got a whole spectrum of listeners from those trying to break into profession.

In the profession. And I think your definition of this and how you come at it, this will be really helpful. So it’s a buzzword. Everyone’s talking about commercial awareness, law, finance consulting, you name it, but how do you. Define it. And why do so many professionals misunderstand it in terms of what it means? are loads of definitions out there. but I mean, my, have a one sentence definition. so, it’s the appreciation and understanding of how companies.

and industries interact with the wider environment and how they make money. That’s it. mean, there’s a lot of, you know, I know that there are various definitions floating out, floating out around there, but I just think that really you’re trying to understand how companies think, how they interact with themselves, with the environment, with the industry, but also

how does it apply to you and your business or your company or whatever? I think that what is difficult, I think the main difficulty is there is a big gap between knowing what the news is and then thinking, and then actually applying it to you and or your career and or company. Because you never really get asked to do that.

until you get into the world of work properly. And I think that that’s what people find difficult because I think many people in a way start off by thinking that it’s, they always treat it like revising for a pub quiz. know, they, they’ll read things up, but the classic, classic advice is how do I, so how do I improve my commercial awareness? The classic advice is read the FT.

Now the problem with that is, that the FT is actually really hard to read if you don’t know what you’re doing. And pretty much everyone starts off, and I’m not including myself in this, by the way. And you start off thinking, right, I’m going to read the FT and you start from page one and you desperately try to get to the end. And you just can’t because it’s such, I mean, I think it’s the best, by the way, I’m not sponsored by the. I just think it is the best newspaper.

in the world. I’ve read so many, well, in English anyway. I mean, I’ve read it for so long now and it’s just so well written, so densely packed. But the problem is that because it’s densely packed and sort of assumes a bit, at least a bit of knowledge, I think that that makes it intimidating for people. So when they start reading it, they say, what is this? And then they kind of give up. So

So, yeah, so I think there’s a definite gap between what people think commercial awareness is and then how they apply the knowledge to their circumstances. And let’s bring it forward then, you know, in terms of the world we’re operating today, which is heavily shaped by AI, economic volatility, rapid tech change. Why is it perhaps more important than ever to understand commercial awareness, perhaps from years gone past?

I think the thing is it’s quite interesting how, so I I, you know, I do a lot of presentations and things like that, companies or universities and things like that. And it’s very interesting how the subject of what I’m talking about changes. And so for instance, I remember quite, quite back, I do remember going to, I think it was Manchester university ages, I mean, pre COVID and stuff. And I remember talking about GDPR.

And I remember standing in front of them saying, hey, do know what GDPR is? And no one knew what it was. And I said, listen, you need to know this because this is really important. So I explained about, you explained what it was, what the impact is going to be, all that kind of stuff. So at that point GDPR was one big thing. I mean, I think that it would be fair to say that especially since COVID, Russia invading Ukraine,

know, President Trump, you know, causing a bit of a stir, should we say. Suddenly, all these things that kind of seem to be, it’s out there, you know, I don’t know, it doesn’t really apply to me. They really apply to you. I mean, this is, mean, another example was, I used to talk, you know, you sort of bang on about interest rates, right? I said, listen, I know that you’re going to think interest rates, who cares?

And the fact of the matter is they’re actually quite important. know, so actually what I’m trying to do is to try to maybe guide people who, you know, you might be sitting there watching the news. You listen, they always stick it in at the end. you know, the Nikkei did this, the F the FTSE did that, the S and P, you know, he’ll sit in there and he’s all just going, you know, and, and then, you know, they might talk about the interest rate. And I would say most people just don’t.

really think about it in terms of how does it apply to me. Some people might think about it in terms of what it does to their mortgage but there are so many more impacts and that’s what I’m trying to do is even taking something like that and then trying to explain it to people in a way that they can apply it to themselves and what the implications might

So let’s keep it specific then obviously we’ve got a large legal audience and sort of thinking about lawyers advantage. You law firms are ranking commercial awareness. Obviously I see it from a recruiting side as well as one of the top attributes that they’re looking for in prospective candidates. So why do you think commercial awareness has become a critical skill for young lawyers? Because at least one of the reasons is because I think it distinguishes a great candidate from a good candidate because I get the impression that, you know, law firms will say,

You know, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll kind of say, well, we expect you to know the law and understand the law. mean, after all, that’s what you’ve been studying for quite some time until this point. However, we need you to understand where this applies within the real world. And, you know, I mean, I think another kind of brutal way of looking at it is law firms aren’t charities. They have to pay money. And actually some of them.

pay a lot of money. And so really, they want you to apply what is your knowledge to what is going on in the real world, so they can make some money. So, you know, that’s what it that is, I sounds very mercenary, but that is what it is. And, and I think that, you know, that’s why it’s not because they think, we want to round well rounded. I mean, you know, there is a bit of that, but really,

I think what it’s all about is can this person sitting in front of me use their knowledge to make us money? Yeah. And I know that sounds brutal. No, but I think it’s important, know, for profit businesses. That’s why they’re in business. Otherwise there’d be a charity. You mentioned at the top around your recruitment background and obviously you spent years recruiting candidates from junior analysts to CEOs. You know, what’s been the biggest difference you’ve noticed between candidates who actually stand out?

and those who continue their skills. And I think you’ve also done or got a book or something around this as well. Yeah. Yeah. So. So I think really in terms of standing out, I think it’s people who have the ability. I’m not going to say the cliche, but they have the ability to think flexibly. They able to. So I think, you know,

Obviously we live in the real world. we don’t live in a laboratory and so things happen that aren’t foreseen. I mean, just, just ask Boris Johnson for instance, you know, I mean, the, all those things, all those things happen and you have to react because you can’t just do it. Let’s have a time out. Things have to, things have to happen. So you have, so I think, for me, I would say that the, for the re for the roles that I recruited.

I think, yes, you kind of, you want to tick all the boxes with regards to the skills that are needed, but in an ideal world, you kind of looking for someone with a bit of, a bit of an X factor, a bit of, you know, a bit of an appreciation, a bit of a flexibility of thoughts in an ideal world, but it’s not, but I would also say, by the way, that not every job at every company requires that.

and a Taipei personality. Some jobs are, some people just want to go, they want to do their job. They ideally maybe bit of mental stimulation and go home. And that’s fine as well. But I’m just saying that I think that for the people that I interviewed, that’s what I did. also actually, would just quickly ask that for the first time when I was at

I was Robert Half, so was accountants and stuff like that. I covered the interim market as well as the permanent market. And I found that fascinating because I had never even thought of doing something on an interim basis. And because I thought, why would you? mean, if you’re really good, why wouldn’t you stay in a company, you know, get a pension and holidays and all that? But it was fascinating speaking to them. And I think that they had a different

They have a really different view of work and quite an interesting outlook because it’s almost like they get parachuted in to address a specific issue. They use all the experience that they get to sort of sort it all out and ideally then, you know, bring someone in permanent to replace them. And then they ride off into the sunset. I mean, I think that’s a very, I didn’t really, it didn’t really occur to me, but actually meeting these people was amazing. So,

Yeah, I you know, I mean, there’s, also, as I say, different strokes of different folks. And I think that, you know, it’s not for everyone, that kind of thing. And it can be quite stressful, but it was very interesting to meet these types of people. Yeah. And you’ve had a wealth of experience across different sectors and you’ve probably, this leads nicely to where I want to go next and see the wealth of interviews. What are the most common mistakes students and indeed professionals make when discussing commercial awareness during their interviews? Well, I think the worst one is not doing enough.

not doing your research. mean, there’s nothing, obviously I’ve interviewed people to join my teams and there’s nothing as an interviewer, there’s nothing quite as galling to be sat opposite someone and they don’t know much about the company and or the role. You kind of think, let’s just pack up now and just go home.

That used to really get me and especially these days. mean, there’s no excuse. There’s so much, you know, there’s so much stuff out there. And I think that, you know, this materials, I think that, you know, websites and things they have improved. mean, I would say though, that actually, I suppose this might be a bit controversial, but I actually think that the best way to research a company is not really their website is actually linked to

And ideally not the official stuff that you still looked at. So, I’m sure you’ll probably appreciate this. but, the given, given your backgrounds, but. Yeah. When I was a headhunter, I was constantly trying to find people. was trying to find people with certain, certain set of skills. And it was very hard because quite often it’s the people that don’t want that.

don’t want to be found are actually the goals that you’re looking for. so, you know, I actually was going on there to look for people. And I think that, you know, why that learned by doing that is there are ways. So I was also trying to map out companies as well. So I would look at a company, I would go on LinkedIn. would, by the way, I’m not sponsored by them either.

They go on LinkedIn and I would map out, you know, what their, their trading team or something like that. So then have a, you know, sort of try and get my own market map. And then I would look at that and then I would think, you know, is this team, is it a revolving door? Do loads of people leave? Do, do they all leave and they go to the same place? Do they, are there certain people that stay there in, in, you know, in position? So.

What that would imply for instance, is that you’ve got two senior people and they are very hard to dislodge. People stay there for three years or something, realize that this is gonna be impossible to move on. So they go somewhere else. So mean, I’m just giving you an example. This is a way, I mean, I always say, I always describe this as to candidates as using LinkedIn backwards because most people see LinkedIn as basically, right, my CV, stick it on LinkedIn and just,

know, and watch the good times roll. It’s not quite like that. if you understand the more you understand how recruiters actually use it, I think the more effective you’ll be in terms of the way that actually you express yourself on there and, you know, and make sure that you’ve got the skills that they are actually looking for. agree more. I think it’s bang on the money. One thing you talked a lot about is lots of information and

AI and information overload. You know, it’s said many times we’re drowning in information, but actually craving wisdom. So we have all this information available on every LLM, on every website, on every source. Has AI made commercial awareness easier to develop or has it made it harder to distinguish meaningful insights from all the noise? It’s very difficult. think, I mean, so on the one hand, you know, anyone could put in, you know,

Please can you find me the top stories of today or something? mean, I don’t know. I think that there is a delay, so you can’t, I don’t think you can actually do that. But I’ve tried, I’ve tried because the thing is, that, you know, I don’t want to get up before, yeah. I don’t want it to, I would like to spend a little bit more time in bed. And I did try to sort of at one point to use AI.

I went through, I, so just as a, you know, for people that don’t know, so I get up at 4 a.m. I, in order to write What’s in Staley, I read the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Times, Telegraph and Guardian. I pick out the stories that I think are going to be most impactful and that comes from basically my time as a stockbroker because I used to have to do that all the time, all day, all the time. And then, you know, I come up with where I got the story from, bit of a synopsis.

And then I say, why is that important? And that is the, a lot of people call it the so what section, where I say, you know, what the impact is on the, you know, on the company, on the industry, on the region and things like that. so yeah, so I, so I don’t want to necessarily get up before AM all the time. It ain’t natural. It’s certainly not natural for me. But I tried using AI.

And initially, and I found this a lot with AI. Initially, I’m like, my God, this is amazing. This is amazing. You know, I’m going to, this is going to change my life. I’m to be able to get, get up at 5am or maybe even 6am, know, and, know, re really live it up. and the more I looked at it, the less good it was. And I, and this is from someone that wanted it to work.

I wanted it to work, but I just thought actually I spent more time correcting, editing, making it sound like me, but actually I’ll just do it myself as always. And that’s what basically what happened. I, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s what’s happened. I do however, think it is very useful for things like, you know, summaries and stuff like that.

which can be very useful. mean, I think, what’s it called? forgot the name of it now, but there is one where you kind of put in an article and it’s completely, it’s absolutely wild. It makes a podcast out of it. makes a video out of it. It makes a presentation out of it, all in a matter of minutes. Now, whether those things are actually any good, I would say they’re 80 % good. But the problem is, I mean,

And for some people, that’s good enough. You know, if you’re revising for an exam or something and maybe you like to hear things, you know, a podcast version, then that’s probably quite good. You you might do it on the, you might do it on the commute and stuff. You might find that useful, but if you’re actually properly using it, you really want a hundred percent outcome. It’s not going to do it for you. It’s almost going to do it, but it’s not quite. Yeah.

No, okay, fair comment. And, you know, it’d be interesting to see how that plays out as time goes on, of course. Law firms are investing heavily in training on the technical skills. How are law firms investing in helping their lawyers develop commercial understanding and business acumen? And perhaps what more could be done to assist them? I’m working with, at the moment, at least one law firm. And basically,

I trained their lawyers. So all the way from their juniors right through to their senior partners on commercial awareness. And what they have done is they give me their, you know, did they say, look, here are the areas that we cover. Here are the clients within those areas. We want to see the news from that, you know, from that point of view. And, you know, I, I really enjoy that because it’s actually

It’s kind of like when I was when I was stockbroking because, know, I would not let’s add 20 to 30 clients. Each of those clients would have different investment horizons. You know, the the pension funds guy would would say he’d buy and hold for five years. So he’d be interested in certain types and certain aspects of stories. You have the hedge fund guys who, you know, they’ve got the concentration span of a goldfish.

And they want results by the end of this week. want stories that will earn them money by the end of this week, in two weeks, in one month, you give it all that sort of thing. So you knew all the different things and you just presented the stories that you had to give in the way that they’re looking for them. Because it’s no good giving them a story that is interesting, but they can’t do anything with it.

So similarly with this, you know, the way I coach now is I’m trying to give them what they need in order to make the money. Now I can’t, I I can’t do loads of this because there’s only one of me and it does take quite, yeah, it does eat up considerable time, but it is fun and that’s how I’m doing it at the moment. Today’s episode is brought to you by Clio.

If you’re spending more time managing your practice than practicing law, it’s time for a change. Clio is the intelligent legal work platform built for modern solicitors, combining context aware AI with trusted legal research to help you work smarter, not harder. Switching is easier than you might think. Clio’s dedicated migration teams handle your client and case data every step of the way so you can focus on what matters most, your clients.

Plus award-winning support 24 5 by a live chat phone and email means help is always on hand when you need it. Visit clio.com forward slash UK to find out why thousands of UK solicitors trust Clio. Now back to the show at the moment. Let’s look forward then future in the coming years, five years. I know it’s so hard to tell, but what skills do you believe will separate the highest performing professionals from everyone else? Being human.

as in so emotional intelligence, knowing how people work and react. I think that the the so-called soft skills are going to become so much more important and they’re going to become hard skills, actually, you know, to be able to read a room, to be able to understand how clients think, to be able to give people what they want in the way that they want it is easy to say.

but difficult to do. And I think that the problem at the moment is I think that there are fewer opportunities for people to develop skills like that. And especially at the moment, because I would say, there’s a lot of stuff about youth unemployment. I think that they, so I got some of just done as GCSEs for instance, right.

People are talking about summer jobs and things, things like, know, hospital, things that you might have done before. Like I did, I worked at Sainsbury’s again. not, I’m not specifying it. I worked at Sainsbury’s, did the tills, did the trolley pushing, did the, did the cheese, did the cheese at the deli counter, did all the stuff, and the ham. And I did all the, all this stuff and it helped me. It helped my confidence. It helped me talk to people.

I mean, okay, look, I’ve never been a shy, retiring wallflower, but you know, in a, an actual, in a sort of grown up context, it was a very good experience. And I feel the young people are going to find it harder to get that kind of experience. So, yeah, I think that those kind of, that being human is, and that, and what it is to be human and to understand your fellow human beings is going to be a rarer and probably more

premium Quality, I think going into the future I forget how many episodes we’ve done well over 500 and Probably a large chunk of them. I say this time and time again. We’re no longer B2B or B2C It’s H2H human to human connection. That’s what we are craving. That’s what we’re to be needing moving forwards And it’s nice that you’re echoing that

Here. Okay. Business trends through Watson’s daily. You spend hours. You mentioned up at 4 a.m. every day, analyzing business, economic development. What’s the biggest trends professionals perhaps should be paying attention looking forward? Obviously, I appreciate AI is going to be part of that. Is there any subsections or anything else you would say trends wise that people should really be thinking about in 2026? The geopolitical situation, because I say it’s going to sound boring, but it’s anything but boring.

If you take AI aside, because I’m sure it’s been done to death, I do think that having a greater appreciation of the shifting sands of what is happening, you know, with regard to the relationship between the US and the rest of the world, let’s be honest. So the US, the UK, the US versus Europe, US versus the Middle East, you know, and then the Middle East as well, you know, what is happening there? You know, the

The war, I think, has shifted perceptions of what countries had previously taken for granted. Now, all of this is very sort of high level stuff, but the way that filters down is where does the investment go? You know, are you going to see more people moving to Dubai, for instance? And, you know, are they going to, is it going to be expats? Is it not going to be expats? Are they, the expats on the way out?

is it going to be locals? You know, that sort of thing. I think actually, although it does sound a bit too top down, I do think that it is very important because there are shifts that are going on now that we have never seen before. And I think to have an appreciation of how that works and how it impacts you is extremely important and well worth keeping in mind.

if you are trying to sort of map out some kind of career path. This might sound a little bit overwhelming to people. They’re listening to this and they’re thinking, wow, there’s so much business news out there every day, so much going on. Where should they start? What practical habits would you recommend them to improve commercial awareness consistency? I think start with what you know. so first of all, think about how much time can you devote to this?

That’s the thing. So everyone will say, how long does it take to be good at commercial awareness? What do I do? I say, well, the thing is you need to be, you need to think practically, you need to think about how much time can you devote to this? know, can you do 10 minutes a day? Can you do half an hour? Can you do an hour? Can you do two hours? I think the best thing to do is to think about what is the minimum amount that you can absolutely 100 % guarantee to be able to do.

every single day and stick with that and if you can do any more any other days then that’s great but what you don’t want to do is to leave it and then revise it and think that you’ll be okay because you won’t it’s or you might you might luck out but you probably won’t it’d be like going into an exam that has three questions and there’s nine you know there’s nine topics that you they could be and you’ve only learnt you know you’ve only learnt three

There’s a high percentage that you’re not going to know what’s what you know, that you could work. never know. Anyway, the point is, say, first of all, you start off. What can you do? What, you know, what, what amount of time can you do and stick with that every day? And I mean, every day, mean, you know, seven days a week. The second thing is think about what sources do you have access to? I’m very much a fan of newspapers because I think that they are consistent. They are.

very much, you know, they have quality standards, whatever you might think, you know, they have editors, have teams looking at them. So you say, think of the time, think of the sources, and then, you know, and then try to pick things up from there. You know, do what you can with the time that you’re allowed. Another thing you can do is, I would say, if you’re looking to gain sectoral knowledge, start with what you know.

So, mean, the most common one I’ve done, and I did a video in this ages ago where I was, I live in Guildford’s, right? And so I was walking up Guildford High Street and I’m looking at the shops on either side. And so I’m saying for instance, there’s &S. So &S breaks down into foods, non-foods. In non-food it’s been, you know, quite confusing, the offers and all that kind of thing, quite confusing, they’re doing, they’ve they’ve

They’ve sorted that out. They’ve got a cardo on the case, although maybe that’s looking a bit tenuous these days. But they’ve also sorted out their non-foods because it used to be, you know, the clothing and stuff was very narrow in terms of what they had. But now they’ve got, you’ve got different brands in there. And it means that there’s more reasons for more people from different demographics to actually go into &S because they might be going in for, you know, as we all do for, you know, Percy Picks, of course.

and then come out with Percy picked in a bath towel and maybe a t-shirt or something like that. But it’s checked. So anyway, so I’ll go down the street and literally in my head, that is exactly what I’m thinking. I know that sounds weird. That’s probably why most people don’t walk with me up the high street. But I’m there. I’m like thinking, OK, who’s that owned by? Who’s that owned by? Is that a subsector of a company?

Is it owned by private equity? Who bought it? You can do this all the time because you know, Wikipedia is always on you if it’s on your phone and you can look, if you don’t know, you can quickly look at it. And then suddenly you start to get a framework because this is the idea of what I’m trying to do generally is to give people a knowledge framework. And then once you get this knowledge framework, you can just add extra bits onto it. But the final thing that is really, really important

to really drill this into your head is to discuss it. You don’t know what you know and what you don’t know until you try and talk about it. If you’ve ever been in the position, which I bet you’ve never been in this position, and I’ve only very occasionally been in this position, where you start talking about something thinking, yes, I know about this. And as you get further into it, you think, actually, do you know what? No, I don’t.

Now, the thing is you don’t want to be in that position when you’re in an interview or if you’re in an important client meeting. So you really need to talk about this with other people. And in an ideal world, you need to talk about it with people that actually know what they’re talking about, because there’s, there’s a certain amount of value in blasting out what you know, you know, and it’s good because it gets it out there. But really what you want is people that might challenge you or might give you an extra point of view.

because that just adds to the richness of your knowledge. And actually it’s funny how when you’re talking to like say a small group of people about this kind of thing, that you remember what they say more than what you’ve read because it’s coming out of their mouth, you know, and you’ve had a discussion about it. So although it’s difficult, you know, because let’s face it, it may be a bit of a niche, a of a niche to the topic of conversation.

If you can find like-minded people, it will really help you. And, you know, I do think that that is very important for you, your confidence in the knowledge and the ability to deliver it in a concise and appropriate way. Little masterclass there, folks. Thanks for sharing that, Peter. Very, very in-depth and helpful. Maybe a quick case study now to perhaps back this up. An example of someone who transformed their career opportunities through

actually investing in improving their commercial awareness? What were the lessons maybe our listeners can take away from that particular story, if there’s one top of mind? I’ve had in the past, I’ve been very fortunate to have had a lot of Watson’s Daily ambassadors and I am looking for some more and I’ve had a lot of stories from people that I’ve taken on and there’s one guy that’s for instance, I won’t say exactly what he said and where he went, but

He started off and he started off as Watson’s daily ambassador. And I said, look, look, you know, if you do, if you can help me, I will help you. Right. So anyway, so was really good. Did loads of like, he did some writing for Watson’s daily, like, special reports, not the day because I, do the daily, but it’s a special reports. He did some podcasts when I was doing the podcast every day and he was part of the social media team as well. So we put out a lot of stuff that, you know, back then. And he said, you know,

He went from getting no, no, no, nothing, you know, not, not, not even, not even sort of facts schemes or anything like that to getting a lot of offers. And, and then, you know, he went and worked for a very big company for quite a lot of money and he’s, done very well and he, and he loved it and he’s really doing well for himself now. And he said like doing the podcast was like, he said it was just like,

doing the partner interview. So what I was, what I’ve always tried to do, and I haven’t done this for a while, I must admit, you know, I talking, talking to what’s his daily ambassadors on a podcast is what I’ve tried to do is to get them our articles, ask them to talk about one topic from that day’s what’s his daily. I talk about another topic and what happens is what I’m trying to do is over prepare them for the podcast. There’s our podcasts were probably about 15 minutes long.

And I tried to over-prepare them because I said, my, unusually, my objective with this podcast is to make you sound as good as possible. I want people to listen to this podcast and think we’ve got to hire that person. So that’s basically what happens. And it was, it was really good. And I mean, look, they’re not my kids, right? They’re not my kids, but I do feel a certain sense of like so nice to see these people and I know what they

you know, the issues that they had when they started and to get to know them and they, you know, they get involved and it was just amazing really. And I’m so massively grateful for the help that I’ve had. You know, they’ve all contributed in some way. I mean, I see things still on Watson’s daily and I think, yeah, that was done by this person. This was the idea that that person did. Honestly, it’s absolutely brilliant. And I think that I’ve also been

very occasionally I’ve been stopped on the streets. mean, the most bizarre one was quite recently. was watching an England match at Twickenham or Keir Viva stadium. And there’s, think there were, it was 81,000 or 71 or 81,000 people on that day. And this guy came up to me and he said, are you Watson Staley? And I went, yeah. And he said,

Well, you know, thanks for the podcast. You do this daily. It was so nice. thought we were the chances. What are the chances of that? So that was quite cool. But I think that, you know, until I’m asked to do like strictly, I don’t think I’ll call it fame, but it was quite funny. And it’s just nice. You know, sometimes I, you know, people will come up to me and they’ll say, I’ve got my dream job. I couldn’t have got it without you.

That is what makes getting up at 4 a.m. worth it. You know, when on the days when it’s not hot, when it’s cold outside, it’s dark outside. I know people are going to think this is so cheesy, but honestly, it’s that. That is what makes it worth it. know, so there we go. You’re making an impact, aren’t you? And, know, it’s a great sort of legacy that you’re building. And yeah, but of industry fame, why not? Here’s to that. leaders, senior leaders.

What can they do to create more commercial awareness within their organizations? How can they encourage curiosity, learning, enthusiasm across their teams? That’s a really good question. I’ve never been asked that before. I would suggest that if they possibly can, and this is difficult to do because, you know, the bill of the hour is still there. So they’re very, they’re very sort of conscious of time. But I just think that if they take the time.

to have a chat with their, if it’s possible, with junior staff or just within their teams of how they do it, how they see a story, how they break it down and how they use that to make money. I think, and tell them, by the way, one of the reasons why I got this particular work is because I said this.

to this client and they reacted and they did this is to give. So I think if they can try to share the way that they think and the way they do it more with their stuff, that would be great. But I know that it’s not always possible, but I think if there’s a way to sort of create a space where they can just sit and talk about this stuff, you know, that I think that would be really valuable because you could have.

everyone in a room, know, like your juniors and more senior people talking about the same kind of thing. And they can then try to help them in the way that they think about these, you know, about these issues, about the themes. And I think that would sort of accelerate their education and make them more likely to make more money for the company sooner.

And, you know, it help them get over that kind of, how do, how does this even apply? You know, I think that would be, I think that would be great if they could do that. couldn’t agree more. That knowledge sharing is super powerful. let’s stick with education then to just mention it. Do you think universities, law schools, professional training programs are doing enough to prepare students for commercial realities of modern business? I’d say no. The reason is they’ve got so much other stuff to do. The thing is it’s a bit.

In a way, mean, it’s not like financial education. mean, I’m a big believer of this whole movement. think, know, Carla Hoppe and lots of other people doing stuff with regard to helping educate people and campaigning to educate people from an early stage in terms of financial, like, you know, their sort of domestic balance sheet has been seen to be a nice to have.

but is now coming into the mainstream. I suspect that, you know, something like commercial awareness is probably going to stay within the nice to have. but I think that there’s a lot of scope to use it. mean, when I actually, when I first started out, there was a school. So I met this guy in a park and I told him what I did. And he said, God, that’d be really interesting. He said, I, I, I teach sit for right in this.

school in Lancaster actually. anyway, so I basically got in front of someone, the guy who’s head of economics and business studies at the school. And he said, wow, this is great. You really liked the stuff. And what ended up happening was they used to use Watson’s daily or what was known back then, you know, with some wifi. And they used to use it as the economics in the real world class. They used to actually base a class on it.

and the idea was that they used that as a discussion topic, they used that as a springboard as it were, and then talk about it. Now I must say I haven’t done loads of stuff with schools since then, but I do think it is something that they certainly could do and it would be nice if they could and I think that you know maybe in economics and or business studies classes it is something that they could do.

I’ve have said to my son, he’s hopefully going to sixth form. You know, I’ve said, yeah, what do you think about that going into your school? said, no, don’t do it. Don’t do it until I’ve left. So I’m not allowed to go to his school. But, know, like you say, I do think it’s something that is a really good thing for teachers to be able to do because they can say, look, this is the theory, but look at this is what’s happening in the real world. Because I remember

Yeah, I would have thought that things like interest rates and stuff are just something that your average student is not that interested in. But when they see what happens and why it’s going up and down, what the reasons are behind the decision, suddenly it comes alive and means that you remember it. So it’s a good thing.

And it’s really, yeah, once it’s relatable to them and they can see the impact or what happens, I think it amplifies things. Okay. Let’s talk about future proofing careers for a couple of wrap up questions. If you were advising a graduate, a trainee, trainee solicitor, young professional entering the legal industry, what would be your top three pieces of career advice? Your top three? First of all, understand yourself and your motivations. If you don’t do that, you are setting yourself up to fight.

Because if you don’t understand yourself and your motivations, you are not going to be able to convince anyone else. I mean, you might be able to, but the problem is that you’re quite possibly will end up, you’ll be able to fake it for a bit, but then it will catch up with you and you will end up in a difficult situation. So I think number one is understand yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, what your motivations are. mean, that whole thing, I mean, the classic questions of

why law and then why this firm is so it’s so kind of it’s not overdone but it’s it’s an obvious there are obvious things you really need to get to the bottom of that actually you know you were saying earlier about how you know stories about people that i’ve known who improved their commercial awareness and so on there was one there was one person and she said that she thought when she went in she thought

she had a really good why this fuck yeah why lauren were this fuck but then she you know she didn’t quite get there she you know she got very close to it but didn’t quite get there actually this is up to a few people i know and they’ve they’ve gone out they’ve become paralegal you’ve done paralegally maybe done something else then they come back and then they say the difference i’ve asked them what is the difference between you not getting a you know an offer and you

getting an offer and they all said it was because of the it was the motivation because they could then having been away from it and and sort of really thinking about it and then coming back they understood themselves better in the workplace of what they could offer and why they wanted to be there so that is what happened so that’s a number one I know that sounds a bit corny but really I think that is the first that’s the best thing secondly I think you know be

Be open. Be open. So have a plan. Have a kind of a plan because it’s always best. You know, I think it’s always better to have a plan than not. And because if you have a plan, you can really think about you can see opportunities. If you don’t have a plan and you just say, I’ll just leave it to fate. Let’s see what happens. You might get the most amazing opportunity because you don’t.

doesn’t look like it’s not an obvious opportunity. There’s a chance you might not take it. And if that is the case, you know, it’s an opportunity loss. You don’t get loads of opportunities in this life. And so the ones that you do get that align with what you want, they are worth grabbing with both hands. I think that, so yeah, so I think that you need to have a bit of a plan, but be prepared to change because things,

You know, life changes, priorities change, motivations change all the way through and you have to adapt. And I think that’s, that’s the second bit of advice I say. So have a bit of a plan. Third one, go all in, go all in, you know, especially if you’re at the beginning of your career, just, I mean, I know this is probably not going to be massively popular to say, but I think that

going in and say, I want work-life balance from the off. It’s, I think you’re again, you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed because you know, there’s a huge gap between academia and the real world in terms of the, you know, in terms of the, company, you know, your career, there’s a huge gap and it takes a lot to bridge that gap. And there are times you can’t always get that within

that, know, nine to five or whatever it is, you can’t always get it within that. And I think that you have to sort of, you have to prioritize your career for a bit at least and review. This is the thing. So you either, so I think that sometimes people say, well, I’ll just, yeah, I’ll just do whatever is fine. And they think like that for ages and they stay in and they keep doing it because that’s what they do. And it’s very, it’s all encompassing. mean, I think that law,

is seems to be a very all consuming kind of job, you know, and it’s very difficult to switch off. And I think you do that and then you get to a point and you think, hold on, what have I done? I’m eight years down the line. Ooh, I didn’t think I was going to be here. But that’s what happens if you just let fakes happen. But so what I would say is in order for that to stop happening is maybe to sort of review yourself, maybe once every

I think once every year is a bit too often, but maybe once every two years or something, you know, maybe even before, let’s say you’re going to start having a family or something, maybe before a big event like that, you know, I think that that it’s another thing to sort of think about your priorities and to think holistically. Don’t just think about the job, you know, because the job is just one aspect of your life. You have to think of where the job fits in with your life.

your family, your aspirations, where you want to be. Do you want to have, be able to go off on an amazing holiday, do want to go off on skiing holidays and a few other holidays a year and do whatever you want socially and just never worry about money, in which case you’re probably going to have to do pretty long outs. Or are you going to be, do you want to see your family more, in which case, for instance, don’t

apply to these kinds of firms, you know, go to those kinds of firms, because you at some point you are going to come across her. and so one, one, one sort of one other thoughts I would add to all this is that I really believe that you don’t know what it’s like to do a full time job until you’re in it. It’s so hard to understand because it’s unlike anything. I mean,

you know, just think about that was that guy a few years ago who I think he used to be, I think he in the Delta Force or something like that. Right. So was an elite US military person and he committed suicide. You he was at an investment bank, committed suicide. You’re thinking, hold on a minute. How can someone do that being under the pressure that he was under doing, you know, in his previous job to now? And you think,

you know, there’s different types of pressure. And I think that, I mean, obviously to do something as dramatic as that, that’s not the job is not the only thing. There’s clearly, there’s a lot of, you know, things have gone into that and situations and stuff. But my point is, is that you just, you just don’t, you just don’t know. you know, you, yeah, I mean, you just have to think of your priorities and you have to think of how things are changing and,

It’s very, let’s say it’s very difficult to understand what pressures of the job are until you’ve done it. you be, be just beware yourself and don’t try and do too much right from the off because it’s, it’s exhausting. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, isn’t it? A career. you know, it’s been really, really, really good conversation. So a couple of final questions for I’ll let you go, Peter. If you had to complete this sentence, how would you finish it? The professionals who thrive in the next decade will not necessarily be the smartest. They will be the ones who

They will be the ones who see the trends just before everyone else does. Like it. If our listeners want to follow you, learn more about you, Watson’s Daily or apply to be a brand ambassador, where can they go to find out more? Yeah. So just, yeah, thank you very much. Yeah. You know, Watson’s Daily follow the socials and things, you know, if you want to know about the careers side of things, I’ve written a book called A Career That Fits.

It is on Watson’s, it is part of the Watson’s daily subscription, which starts at 9.99 a month. you could do, you can look at that and you can, literally I sat down and I wrote everything I know about recruitment, about being a candidate and across all sorts of different industries and seniorities and stuff like that. And in order to try and help people, because all the news that we’re seeing at the moment is quite sad. It makes me feel sad, you know, about the

youth unemployment and stuff. yeah, there we go. And there we have it folks. Peter’s helped thousands of professionals understand the business world, effectively actually making these complex commercial economic developments easier for you to understand and actually go out and apply to help you get better jobs, to promote well within your organizations and just do so much. So Peter, it’s been an absolute blast finally having you on the Legally Speaking podcast sponsored by Clio, wishing you lots of continued success with Watson’s daily and indeed future pursuits. But from now, from all of us on the show. Over and out.