How to Create a Full and Prosperous Life with Lloyd Watts

Today we are pleased to welcome Lloyd Watts. Lloyd is the Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Audience, Inc., an award-winning technology business that he founded in 2000. He is also the author of The Flow of Time and Money: How to create a full and prosperous life.

Thank you for joining us today, Lloyd. We are thrilled to have you with us. Can you start by telling us a bit more about yourself?

Thank you very much. I´m very pleased to have the opportunity to connect with the American Chronicle readers. I am the founder of Audience, a technology company that makes noise reduction chips for cell-phones, and the author of The Flow of Time and Money, a book about creating a fulfilling and prosperous life. I believe in living my life to the fullest, and to me, that means: Doing things that I love to do, enjoying my relationships with people that I care about, and building a great future that, each day, becomes my present. I feel very fortunate, and I love what I do.

How did your business experience help you to write The Flow of Time and Money?

In The Flow of Time and Money I use simple diagrams to explain the key ideas of how money and time work, and describe simply and clearly the four stages on the path to financial independence: Youth/Education, Capital Accumulation, Small Deals, and Big Deals. When I began writing the book in 2000, I was founding Audience, (at the beginning of my first Big Deal), having done three Small Deals. I have lived the formula that I offer in my book, and that is why I am so passionate about the book. This is what it really takes to succeed, and this is how every successful person I know really did it. They took ownership of their future. They developed habits of investing their Time into their education, health and relationships. They lived within their means, accumulated capital so they could invest their Money into something substantial that they could own, and got better and better at it over time until they became an overnight success after 20 years of hard work. It was my experience of joyfully living that process, and seeing it make my dreams come to reality, that made me want to write it down and share it so that others could do the same.

Can you tell us a little about the book?

The Flow of Time and Money starts by showing how Time and Money really work, using simple diagrams to illustrate the way that time and money flow into our lives, and how they flow out of our lives (in the form of expenses and various ways of wasting them). I also emphasize the ways that we can re-circulate the time and money in our lives by making Investments in our Life Assets (Education, Health, and Relationships) and Material Assets (Real Estate, Businesses, etc.). By understanding both time and money in a common framework, I show how we can build a life of wealth and fulfillment that allows people to provide for their needs, improve the quality of life for themselves and their families, and give them the strength to make their greatest contribution to the world.

What made you decide now was the time to write The Flow of Time and Money?

I began writing the book in 2000, and the reason for doing it at that time was simple: I was ready to write at that point. I had built up enough life and business experience that I felt I could credibly contribute on the important subject of how to make a successful, enjoyable life, in a way that would go beyond anything I had ever seen written before. I published a preliminary version of the book in 2000, but it was really too early to publish at that point – I had not established the success of my first big deal (Audience). That is the main reason why I published the full production version of The Flow of Time and Money in 2008 – I felt that Audience had become successful enough that I would be credible as an author in this subject area.

The intention of the book was to describe the timeless principles of how to succeed and create a fulfilling life, regardless of the prevailing economic conditions. It was really a coincidence that I happened to be ready to release the book in late 2008, during the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. In some ways, that has helped to draw attention to the book – people are much more aware of their finances than ever before, and may be open to making changes in their financial habits. In other ways, the meltdown has made it harder to promote a book about timeless principles of success – many people are in a kind of financial shock, preoccupied with disaster recovery, and not thinking clearly about building sturdy foundations and how to avoid disasters in the first place.

In the introduction to your book it says, "Unfortunately, the principles of time and money are not taught in schools, and most people are launched into adulthood without a clear understanding of how to live their lives to their full potential". Can you expand upon this statement?

I feel fortunate to have gone to a wonderful high school that gave me an excellent traditional education, and prepared me very well for my University education, which led to a successful engineering career. But the subjects of time management and financial management were simply never addressed. I don´t remember the word "dollar" being used once in my high school education. The closest thing I saw to a book on time management in high school was a book called "How To Study". And yet, the greatest opportunities and the biggest problems for most people in their real daily lives are in the areas of money and time.

Of course, there´s a reason for this. The decisions about how to live one´s life are personal ones indeed, and it would be very difficult to get consensus at a school board about what philosophy to teach. But the end result is that high school students are taught nothing about the principles of financial and personal success – and I think that is a missed opportunity to help people who could benefit tremendously.

I have found in my seminars that high school students do respond to a whole-life view, especially when they see it will lead them to the wealth they idealize. But their natural tendency is to think very short-term – "Should I drop out now, or graduate and then get a job" – with relatively few thinking about University or what may lie further ahead. I have developed a set of diagrams to help them see the impact of the choices they have in front of them.

How easy is it considering our challenging economic times to follow the principles outlined in your book?

The principles outlined in the book are timeless, and don´t depend on good times or bad times to be successfully used. Living within your means, putting aside 10% of your income to establish your ability to invest – these are all things you can do in a frothy bull market, or in a market collapse. In fact, in an economic downturn, prices are at their lowest, when everyone is terrified. This is the time to be making investments, with the money that was being put away or grown during the rising markets. In 2004-2006, I was in a position to purchase real estate, but I felt that prices had gotten too high. I waited until much later when the market had gotten jittery, and found a seller who was eager to let go of his property at a below-market price.

Great fortunes have been born during all of the previous historical downturns. The opportunities for exceptional bargains are greatest during these periods. I prefer to use the Path of Mastery analogy from my book – there will be periods of growth (which are fun and exciting) and periods of consolidation (which can be discouraging). The Path of Mastery says "Just keep on working, in rain or in shine." The sun will come out again, and the continued work through the consolidation period will pay off handsomely.

You´ve included illustrations, graphs, and tables in The Flow of Time and Money. Why do you feel these are important in helping people understand the concepts from the book?

The basic concepts of managing money are usually taught by people with an accounting background, and they use the most concise way possible to express what is going on: Lists of numbers. income, expenses, assets, and liabilities are just lists of numbers, which mean something to the accountants, but are meaningless and intimidating to most people.

I have found it much easier to explain the way that money works with pictures, using the analogy of a leaky bucket. Your income is like water flowing into the bucket from above, and your expenses are like the water that leaks out through the holes in the bottom of the bucket. Your assets are what you keep in the bucket, which for most people, is: nothing. You can only keep water in the leaky bucket if you put a special cup inside the bucket, where the money won´t leak out. That is the principle of Paying Yourself First 10% of your income, and putting it in a protected place where you won´t be tempted to spend it.

When people see the diagrams, they realize how simple everything really is, and then the numbers don´t seem at all intimidating.

You discuss several sources for creating and accumulating wealth in your book, but some of them seem like they would be difficult for the average American to invest in: real estate, business ownership and business creation. Do you have any advice on how the average American can get involved in these areas?

Certainly. The first rule is to aim small when you are just getting started. You don´t have to be Warren Buffett or Donald Trump on your first try. Even they had to start with small deals and work their way up to big deals. If you are thinking about real estate, the smallest thing you can do is probably a 1-bedroom condominium, in which you make a 10% down payment. If you can get someone to rent it out for more than your mortgage payment and taxes, you have a cash flow positive deal, and in some parts of the country, that may be possible right now with a very small down payment. Finding those little gems is the name of the game.

If you are thinking about businesses, remember that not all businesses require large down payments or large up-front investments. They require the intelligence and creativity to spot an unmet market need that you can serve well. Modern technologies are creating new opportunities every day for businesses to be formed with lower and lower costs. My own publishing business, for example, is able to produce a book with no inventory costs, because of the new Print-On-Demand business model. This simply didn´t exist two years ago, but now, thanks to CreateSpace.com and Lulu.com, a new author can be a publisher without having to buy a large inventory of books, and can promote and sell books directly on Amazon.com. The economics of the Print-On-Demand business model are amazing. These new technologies create incredible opportunities as they displace old ways of doing business.

So, my advice is to start small, and be creative about finding the good deals that are out there if you look for them.

If you could only provide your readers with once piece of advice, what would it be?

Have the courage to take control of your life and make your dreams come true.

Where can readers purchase a copy of your The Flow of Time and Money?

They can purchase the book at the website

and at Amazon.com.

Do you have a website or blog?

www.flowoftimeandmoney.com and www.lloydwatts.com.

What is up next for you?

I am very much enjoying promoting the book. Doors are opening in a delightful and unexpected way, as more and more people hear about the book and realize that it can really make a difference in their lives.

I am also very dedicated to my company, Audience, which is achieving some remarkable success in the cell-phone business. The next few years promise to be very exciting for everyone at Audience as we really deploy our noise reduction and voice quality enhancement products into the global marketplace.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thank you so much for the opportunity to connect with your community at American Chronicle. I hope that your readers will be inspired to take action and really improve their quality of life by reading The Flow of Time and Money.

Thank you for spending time with us today and for sharing the ideas behind The Flow of Time and Money.

Thank you and best wishes!