Pay Yourself First: A Millionaire's Roadmap with David Bach

Hey everybody, this was an amazing episode with uh New York Times best-selling author David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire. That book has sold over two million copies, and we brought So I'm not going to delay this one, ladies and gentlemen. I present to you the amazing, the brilliant financial strategist himself, Mr. David. You're listening to Mick Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation.

I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get unplugged. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged and today's guest is a Titan of financial wisdom. He is a true innovator who has revolutionized the way millions approach their wealth.

And legacy. He is an author of multiple New York Times bestsellers. He is a speaker who transforms lives, and he is an authority whose insights are not just impactful, they are truly game-changing and life-shifting. Please join me in welcoming the visionary, the transformative, the brilliant, mister David Bach. David, how you doing today, brother? Wow. Well me Mick, you can come over to my house any day with that intro. It's nice to see you. Thank you.

No, I am I am honored to to have you on. We met through Um a a really good mutual friend of ours, Roger Sitkins. So shout out to Roger Sitkins um for this episode. I'm truly honored to have you on. Thank you. He's a good man and it's it's an honor to be on. As I told you before we started, he speaks super highly of you.

So that is why I'm here. It is my pleasure and looking forward to helping your guests because I know you've got a he's he's told me you have an unbelievable community. Congratulations to you for this podcast. the show. Nah, thank you for that. And and when you have amazing guests on like yourself, it makes it easy to to have a community because every episode is truly about my guests and the amazing things that they've done in their career.

And the impact that they made of others and that's why again I'm I'm honored to have you on. And you know, David, I start every show by asking my guests one simple question, and that question is what is your because?

That thing that's deeper than your why. I like to call it your true purpose. So if I were to say David Bach, now in twenty twenty six, what is your because? Why do you continue to do the things that you do? Yeah, it's a beautiful question to ask. Uh so I believe in God. We'll start there.

And I I think that everyone is put here with a gift from God. Whoever your God is. I know it's not always politically correct to say the word God on a show, but like everyone's got I I think most of us all have a true norm. Um, I really believe we're put here with a gift from a higher power. And I I think the hardest thing in life is to figure out

For some people, what that what that is, what that calling is. I was blessed because I figured it out at a young age. I had a moment when I was teaching an investment class. like thirty three years ago. It kind of gives me chills to think about this. But I had a moment teaching investment class where I was a financial advisor, but while I was teaching this class, I literally had like a spiritual moment where it's just like, this is what I'm meant to do. Like Like if if I could just teach you.

people to be smarter with money.'Cause I loved you know, you and I are getting to talk over over you know, online, right? We're having this amazing ability now where we can speak from anywhere in the world. And I'm in Florence, Italy. I don't actually even know where where are you? Where are you located? Greenville, South Carolina. Okay. So, you know

We're doing this over Zoom, right? But like in the old days, like I would be in a classroom and I would love that moment where I could see people's eyes. Get it. Where you're like, I just I just said something and they got it, right? They understand. I can't I can tell I'm changing their life. And so

I think that my purpose has been, and I've been doing it for 33 years, is to free people financially. And it's I actually think I was putting here to free people financially, not for the money's sake, not for the stuff's sake.

I believe when I free people financially and when I help people free themselves, then they can hear the word of the higher power. Because I think what happens, this is just my belief, is I think when people are struggling and living paycheck to paycheck, they're in so much pain. And they're so financially imprisoned that they're that they can't always hear their call.

And so I just think that I happen to be put here. I don't know why. I think that's what I think this is what God put me here to do. And I'll tell you, you know,'cause nobody ever starts these shows with this kind of a question. This book, The Automatic Millionaire, Why I Decided To Put It Off for 20 Year Anniversary Day.

uh I want my because was I wanted to reach one more generation, one more time before I retire. This is it. I'd like to you know, I'm doing the mic drop here. This is the end of my my journey of thirty three years of teaching. But I will tell you an amazing story. I d I've this is not a story I've talked about before. I I I I can't remember ever sharing this story. Finish the automatic millionaire book. And it was done.

And I woke up at three o'clock in the morning and it was like I had this dream that I had to end the book untie this. Had to end the book on giving back. It gives me chills. And I woke up and I went over to the computer in the kitchen area and I'm typing away and researching what what you know what would this chapter be about? And I wrote this whole chapter at the end of the automatic millionaire book on giving back. And I turned it into my publisher and my editor's like

You your book's called The Automatic Millionaire. You can't end it on telling people to give the money. And I said, Well, that's the whole point, right? Like it the whole point of financial freedom is to be so abundant that you can also give it back. And help other people. So that's been my because. That's an amazing story and and that's something as much as I've been a huge fan of you even before Roger introduced us and he was like, Hey, have you heard of of David Bach? I'm like, Uh yeah.

He goes, Well he's a good friend of mine. Let me do an email introduction. Like I I've I've loved how you don't shy away from your faith.

And I think that's why I'm bonded with you as well, because I I believe in the same thing. For the person that's watching or the person that's listening and they're and aspiring whatever it is that they're trying to become, why is it important if you are a believer that you don't hide your faith because I think sometimes naturally we feel like we're gonna get judged or people are not gonna wanna do business with us because we do carry our faith.

You know, even though I just opened up and shared like something so personal, I don't go around telling people that they should be sharing their I actually don't'cause I'm not a I'm not a preacher. Um I don't know that that's my role. I think What's really important is that you live an authentic life. There you go. I think living a true authentic life, authentic whatever that means for you. Mm-hmm. Right. And I think one of the things that happens as we get older.

is that hopefully our life becomes more and more authentic, right? Like in a beautiful in an ideal world we'd be authentic in our twenties and our thirties. But you know, life is one of these things as you get older, you know if you have older grandparents, you notice they don't really care what people think anymore. There's just something funny that happens around your fifties where you're like, uh and so I've just I always ended my speeches on saying God bless.

No, I've been doing ta speeches for thirty three years and people are like, Why why do you have your speeches? I'm saying God bless you. I'm like, I don't know why. That's just what came out the first time I started talking as I am with God bless you. So I've had a lot of spiritual moments in my life that have really made me a deep believer in a higher power. And

I I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing that. And if you feel that way, it's okay for you to share it. Like, why should you go through life and not be who you really are? Right. Agree. Totally agree. And that's why again like you, I don't I don't know if you need to necessarily force faith or force belief on people, but I also don't hide from it. Right. So like if I If we're at a luncheon and I pray before my meals, I'm gonna pray before my meals, right? Like if

If I see something and I'm like, Okay, I might have done it this way because, you know, my faith teaches me this, like I'm also gonna say that. But I I don't force that on people. So I totally get what you're saying there. If it your work

Often centers on empowering individuals to achieve financial freedom, right? What does true financial abundance? mean to you beyond just the monetary figures? It's freedom, right? It's literally the freedom to do what you want to do, the way you want to do it, how you want it So, you know, I'm doing t you're my fifth podcast today and you were put and you were put on the today's podcast. First of all, you we were introduced and this is the only day of the month I'm doing podcast.

Uh and uh like you, you also have a schedule because you've got freedom. And I told my team I'm not doing any more shows until May. And I have the freedom to be able to decide exactly how I want to live my life. Now I I created that freedom, right? So like you know, I will go spend the month of March.

skiing in Switzerland and I live in Florence, Italy, and I'm you know, for all intents and purposes I consider myself retired at this point. This is like for me putting out the automatic millionaire is basically like a way to get back. It's like a charity project. And I created that financial freedom. It wasn't handed

But I think what I've been very conscious of is using money as a tool to make my life as free as possible. And the interesting thing, Mick, what I've seen is that money doesn't always make people free. I have a lot of wealthy And a lot of my friends the wealthier they get, the more complications it

And, you know, I have so many friends who've sold businesses and then they start another business, they never stop working. I have friends that, you know, they have one home, then they have two homes and they have three homes and they have a plane. And we're these are sort of like obnoxious conversations. But like I've seen how money doesn't always freeze. And on the other side of that, I know d you know, when I was a financial advisor, I worked with teachers.

And I had a lot of teachers. People always say teachers don't make a lot of money, and they don't make a lot of money, but I had a lot of teachers that were financially free that they had saved and invested automatically for thirty years and they would come into my office and retire in their middle.

And they had bought an you know a small home and they paid off their debt and they were financially free. And so what you know, the automatic millionaire book was about how ordinary couples, ordinary people built financial freedom on an ordinary angle.

And that to me is the whole secret, right? Like so many people who are listening, they think I have to be have to make a lot of money to become an investor. That's not true. You could today you can start investing, you change. You know, it's never been easier for anybody to start. I love the message and the intent and you know, like right here I have my copy that you and your team were gracious enough to send me of the book and I already had a copy.

But what I actually I had multiple copies. So what I did was I I gave a few copies that I had already to some family members and they've already been asking me questions. Like one, just the fact of what you just said. that investing doesn't have an age requirement or a dollar amount, right? And I think it's really important for people to understand just that concept as well. Like could you talk to us about

you know, the one step plan to to live and finish rich. Like give us a couple of insights of things that we could do today. to be on the path to being the automatic millionaire. I love that you're you're sharing this with younger people. That was my whole purpose. So like I I've got two kids, right? Twenty two now, Jack's twenty two, and my younger son's James is sixteen. Now they started reading my book.

you know, before the updates. Uh in the book I I use all these examples of compound interest. I show things like, you know, if you save ten dollars a day or twenty dollars a day, what that can be worth in decades. I show you how it can be worth millions of dollars. And I talk about, for example, opening up a Roth IRA. So let me tell you how you can teach how you can make your kids multi millionaire. Right, so for anybody who's listening, everybody wishes they had started young.

Help the people you love start younger. So like my my boys, James said to me when he read the automatic millionaire and he read it at twelve. He's like, Well, Dad, wait, this IRA account, you've got this example here in the book, and the person starts at 19. I'm 12. What happens if I start? I was like, Well you'd have a whole lot more money.

And so he's like, Okay, well, how do how do we do that for me? So I said, You know what, you bring up a good point. I opened one for your brother at fifteen, but I could open one for you at twelve. And so, you know, like you have your own business. I have my own business. I put these kids on the payroll. I opened up

Roth IRAs and James, you know, basically by he's he's now got I'm just giving you like real life examples of things you can do for your kids. I started James with a Roth IRA at twelve years old. This kid, if he just saves twenty dollars a day now, we just mack we just do a Roth IRA for the rest of his life.

Till he gets to a six and we put it in an index fund like the S P five hundred and I go through in the book you know funds to use. Realistically he's gonna have over ten million dollars in a Roth IRM when he turns tax free. I mean, you want to talk about a great a great uh a great way to start your life. And so, you know, he is gonna be provided he you know, and I'm gonna I'm gonna keep doing this for him and helping him for the first ten years, but I'm I'm teaching him to fit.

Right. Like teach the kids to fish now. Help them fish. Like right now I'm throwing the f rod and I'm baiting it and I'm helping them pull it in. 'Cause I'm putting them on the payroll. But eventually when they get their own jobs, they'll start paying themselves first automatically. And the conversation I have with my children is you have to pay yourself first. When you earn money, whether you're self-employed or you have a job, you have to keep.

the first hour a day of your income. Automatically Saving that money for the rest of your life. If you do that, you'll never worry about money again. That's a genius tip. Those are genius tips. And what's funny is because of this book and one of the books that I gave was to my youngest son who's in grad school at the University of Miami and he asked that same question about Rothara.

IRAs and he goes, So Dad, we haven't started this yet. Is this something that I should look at? And we immediately just went and did it. Like there was no questions asked. So that was his Christmas gift. Believe it or not. Believe it or not. Because of you. By the way, by the way, by the way, I'll I'll tell you a true story. My kids opened up their Christmas gift. This was wrapped. They were kinda like, Oh God, seriously dad, I'm giving a book.

And then I'm like, And there's a little note in there, you're getting a Roth IRA contribution this year And they were like, Oh, that's cool, you know. So Yeah. I'm with kids. I can promise you there's no greater I I shouldn't say no. There are a few greater Christmas gifts that you can give your children than contributions to a Roth R. Like I I promise you because it's the gift that continues to give and grow. And so like

It doesn't matter what that number is, it grows so much exponentially over time that your kids will thank you probably when you are no longer here, like that contribution's gonna mean so much more. And it's a way Utapass legacy, but then also the importance of what it means to your children. So, Dave, thank you for bringing that into part of my tradition now. I love that. Well, you know, what you just said, Mick, is is so true. Like I

I'm a product of my grandmother who taught me how to buy my first stock at age seven. And, you know, she and so so that that experience changed my life because at seven years old, my favorite restaurant in the whole world was McDonald's.

And I love to play Monopoly and we're at McDonalds because my parents would never take me, but she would take me to McDonalds and I'm having my Big Mac and she's you know, my French fries and my apple pie and she says, you know, I'm gonna teach you today how to play Monopoly for She said there's three types of people those like you who come here and spend money, you eat, you spend, you're called a spender, a consumer.

Those who work here for minimum wage have a job. And those who own the place, they're investors. And I'm going to teach you how to own this place. And she took me home, opened up the Wall Street Journal, circled the stock symbol MCD, took me down to a brokerage firm and helped me buy my first share at McDonald's. And that single lesson changed my whole life because that started at seven and it ch it's like we're wearing glasses.

Right now, right? It's like you all of a sudden know that the whole world is available to invest in instead of just being somebody who spends money or works somewhere. That lens changes your life. And I did the same thing with my kids. My kids like Shake Shack. Their first talk was Shake Shack. Right. So go these are the lessons that you think it's a one time lesson, but here I am now spent the last thirty three years teaching lessons that started with my grandma.

Um, you know, I've got ten New York Times best selling books out. It started because my grandmother at McDonald's said, you can be an investor. You can start now. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, I wanna highlight a couple of things in the book. One of my favorite chapters, and we're gonna get to my favorite chapter, but one of my favorite chapters is chapter Learn to pay yourself first.

There's so much wisdom in that chapter that I think it's really important. I'd love for you to kind of highlight that chapter a little bit for the viewers and listeners because that that chapter made me reflect and and really put some different practices. in place and and I've been doing well for a long time and I think I still learned a few things conceptually.

Yeah, so the idea behind paying yourself first, and it's really like an idea that's been around for a long, long time. I've probably popularized it more than most people, but the idea is when money comes in, the first person who gets paid is you. And typically what happens when money comes in is everybody else gets paid first and you get paid last.

So the government, when you you earn a paycheck, the government pulls money out of your paycheck and they do it automatically. They don't say, you know what, David, Mick, what you guys should do is you should budget and save money and then send us a check.

They only say that if you're an entrepreneur, which hurts a lot of entrepreneurs, by the way, because they don't always save for taxes. But everyone else their money's taken automatically. And the government did that because they knew Americans couldn't save money to pay taxes. And the government couldn't run if they didn't take the money automatically. Then the states started taking money automatically. Then the gyms were the first companies to take money automatically from

Besides the government, because the gyms found out people would go sign up for a gym in January and they stopped going in February. So if they didn't get your automatic ability to pull the money out of your checking account, they were not gonna be able to stay in business. Then everybody else started doing it The phone companies, rent, mortgage, utilities, everybody takes your money automatically. I'm holding up a phone for those of you who are listening.

And I say, you know, phones are money magnets. They automatically help you save and invest or they automatically pull money out of your pocket. Today you're having money automatically pulled out of your pocket by a bunch of different companies. So paying yourself first is you change the way you think about your money. You basically say, you know what, I'm gonna be selfish here.

Like if I if I'm gonna work ninety thousand hours over my lifetime, and that's what the average person works, ninety thousand hours over your lifetime, it would be a shame to get to your sixties and have nothing to show for. And so my message has been the first hour day of your income is your freedom money. That's the money that pays yourself first.

The second hour of a day of your income, if you're gonna go past that, and I talk about it in the automatic knowledge book, is security. You save thirty minutes a day to build a security account, emergency purposes, and then you build and then you save another thirty minutes a day of your income for your drink. You do those two things, th those are the three places to automate your money.

And you're done. You just go back to doing what you do, focus on your career, focus on your income, focus on your family, and everything will work in the background. Amen, brother. Amen. So my favorite part of the book.

Is when you start answering questions. Right. It's like y you're you're answering the questions that you always get and you're and you're putting your logic behind it. And I thought it was a brilliant concept uh for And and one of those questions Talks about

your mantra of live rich now. And and you were talking about how you get the question, Well, David, is it possible to live rich now and in the future? And more importantly, like how do you start to prepare yourself for that? So I'd love for you to break that down of how you can live and I'm using air quotes, live rich now, and also prepare yourself to live rich in.

I can totally uh this is one of my favorite questions. By the way, Mick, later give me your number. I'm gonna send you personally a picture. that I just had created a piece of artwork that says live rich now. It just got put in my kitchen. So live rich now means it's actually not about the money. It's actually about what does it mean to live a rich life.

Like what's actually most important to you? You you started off by asking me my but what what's your because. What does it mean? Like you wake up today, what does it mean for you to actually live a great life? What does that look like? I meditate a lot. I wake up in the morning and I meditate. And I meditate in the morning and then I listened. I I I do a meditation this morning from a guy named

very famous person named Sagguru. And and and this is just kinda like today's answer, right? So I'm listening to this meditation, I do my morning meditation, and I watch a short little video from Sadguru. By the way, there's a great app. You can download this app. It's uh that's available for free. It's got all these little videos in it. So I watched this video and he says, uh, you know, when you wake up, the first thing you should be like is like a little kid, like, oh my god, I woke up.

I woke up! How amazing is it? I woke up! Then imagine if you did that and then you went downstairs and you saw your wife or your kids and you're like You woke up too. Oh my God, we both woke up. Okay, like that's an example of living rich. I came downstairs and I told my wife that story, and I gave her a big hug and a kiss, and I'm like, I woke up and you woke up! Millions of people didn't wake up today.

And we get caught up in this world of like all these things we think we have to have be and do to live rich. And it's a lie. You're alive today, you're healthy, you're here, you got somebody in your life you love, you should when this podcast is done and the show's over, you should go tell them.

I love you. Like you're alive and I love you. Man, this is so cool. We're both here. We're both getting to do this thing called life. That's what Liverch now looks like. Now, people are like, this guy's frickin' nuts. No, I'm not. Like, seriously, there there are people who are not gonna wake up tomorrow. You know, I'm fifty nine years old, I've had three best friends die in the last three years.

Three best friends under the age of fifty-seven. Average age of your widowhood is fifty-nine. We the men, we don't make it as long as the women do. And so every day above ground is a blessing. And man, if we don't wake up and treat it like a blessing, then we just lost out. Right. Man, Dave, one I could talk to you forever. I I want to do something because I believe in the book so much and and everybody that's listening, you you know that I always do this with

I love. I'm gonna buy twenty copies and you tell me where you want me to buy them. I'll buy them on Amazon if you'd rather it be Amazon. But I'll I'll buy twenty copies. And the first twenty people that message me, automatic millionaires. You're gonna get a copy of the book because

It's important. It needs to be a part of your daily reads. I will tell you what it has changed for me is that I do read the book or different pieces of the book multiple times a week because I will hear something or see something on T V if I'm watching you know, anything on an advisory level or financial level, I'll go to the book and say, okay, well, what would David really do? Right. And it it might sound cliche to a lot of people, but I it's true because there's so much wisdom in this book.

that I don't need financial advice from everyone. And and I'm not saying Dave's a financial advisor, so that's definitely not what I'm saying. But I'm saying is there's enough pieces in this book that can help you along your journey, no matter if you're new or if you're seasoned. There is advice. So I think David I need to do that because it means something. It can help me. Trust me, it can help any. So thank you.

For someone who's like, I don't have enough money to buy the book, go to the library. Libraries are still there. They're still giving books away for that you can borrow for free. And you know, books change it. Here's the thing about books. A book like The Automatic Millionaire can change your life, but at the end of the day, you actually have to change.

You know, your life changes when you change. And so you can listen to the show, you can get excited and get motivated, you can hear a great idea, you can read a book, and

You have to do it. Everything I've spent my life doing is about action. It's about it's about getting you to take action. Because without action, we were just a form of entertainment. And I don't actually I mean look, I love being entertaining, but at the end of the day, I really want you to change your life. That's that's why I did this work. That's why because. أحبه أحبه أحبه أحبه أحبه أحبه

All right, Dave, where can people find and follow you? Thank you. First of all, love being with you. This is really fun. Uh they can come over and visit me at DavidBach dot com. So go to DavidBach dot com. Everything's on my website. I'm on social media, Instagram, Facebook, X but just come on over to the website, check it all out and Yeah. It's really been a and I've got and I've done a lot of podcasts. So if people want to watch more shows, they can go to YouTube, they can find

There you go. And I'll have links to everything in the show notes and descriptions. David again, honored to have you on. Thank you for the wisdom. Thank you for what you've done. Um, in my household that you didn't even know that you were doing. I'm truly, I'm truly am it I don't even know the right words. Like to say I'm honored doesn't do it justice. To say I admire you doesn't do it justice. Just know there's a special place in my heart.

Thank you. You you you just touched my hearts. God bless you. Thank you. Um I really enjoyed this. Have and continued success. Keep doing this because you're doing a lot of good work. And and so keep it up. I appreciate you more than you know. And to all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

That's another powerful conversation on Mick Unplugged. If this episode moved you, and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs that spark, and leave a review so more people can see. Because I'm Rudy Rush, and until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay unplugged.