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

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Hey, everybody. This was an amazing episode with New York Times bestselling author David Bach, author of the Automatic Millionaire. That book has sold over 2 million copies, and we break down some really cool financial tips, some investment tips, some strategies. Hearing David's because it is so game changing. 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 Bach. You're listening to Mick Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mick takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstoppable. 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, Mr. David Bach. David, how you doing today, brother?

Wow, Mick, you can come over my house any day with that intro. It's nice to see you. Thank you.

No, I am honored to have you on. We met through a really good mutual friend of ours, Roger Sitkins. So shout out to Roger Sitkins for this episode. I'm truly honored to have you on.

Thank you. He's a good man and 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 told me you have an unbelievable community. Congratulations to you for this podcast and the show.

Nah, thank you for that. And when you have amazing guests on like yourself, it makes it easy 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've made of others. And that's why, again, I'm honored to have you on. You know, David, I start every show by asking my guests one simple question, and that is, 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 2026, what is your because? Why do you continue to do the things that you do?

Yeah, it's a beautiful question to ask. So I believe in God. I'll start there. And 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 think most of us all have a true north. I really believe we're put here with a gift from a higher power. And I think the hardest thing in life is to figure out for some people 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 33 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, if I could just teach people to be smarter with money, because I loved, you know, you and I are getting to talk over 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 you are. 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 I get it. Where you're like, I just, I just said something and they got it, right? They understand. I can, 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 put here to free people financially, not for the money's sake, not for the stuff's sake. I believe when I free people financially, when I help people free themselves, then they can hear the word of the higher power. Because I think what happens 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 can't always hear their calling. 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, because nobody ever starts these shows with this kind of a question.

This book, the Automatic Millionaire, why I decided to put it out for 20 year anniversary edition. I want my, because was I wanted to reach one more generation one more time before I retire. This is it. I'm like, you know, I'm doing the mic drop here. This is the end of my, my journey of 33 years of teaching. But I will tell you an amazing story. This is not a story I've talked about before. I can't remember ever sharing the story. Finished 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 on tithing, 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, 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 was like, you, your book's called the automatic millionaire. You can't end it on telling people to give the money away.

And I said, well, that's the whole point, right? Like 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 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 David Bach? I'm like, yeah. He goes, well, he's a good friend of mine. Let me do an email introduction. Like, 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 believe in the same thing. For the person that's watching or the person that's listening and they're an 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 forward.

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 faith. I actually don't, 'cause I'm not a preacher. 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, 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 20s and our 30s. But, you know, life is one of these things as you get older, 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 50s where you're like, and so I've just, I always ended my speeches on saying, God bless you. I've been doing speeches for 33 years and people are like, why do you end your speeches on 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 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 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 we're at a luncheon and I pray before my meals, I'm going to 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 going to say that, but I don't force that on people. So I totally get what you're saying there. David, 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 to do it. So, you know, I'm doing, you're my fifth podcast today and you were, and you were put on today's podcast. First of all, we were introduced and this is the only day of the month I'm doing podcasts. I, and I like you, you also have a schedule cuz 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 give back. It's like a charity project. And I created that financial freedom. It wasn't handed to me. 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 friends and a lot of my friends, the wealthier they get, the more complications they create. 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. These are sort of like obnoxious conversations, but like I've seen how money doesn't always free people. And on the other side of that, I know, 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 30 years and they would come into my office and retire in their mid 50s. And they had bought a, you know, 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 income. And that to me is the whole secret, right? Like so many people who are listening, they think, I have to be, I have to make a lot of money to be an incoming investor. That's not true. You could today you can start investing your change. You know, it's never been easier for anybody to start investing.

Yeah, I love that. And I love, 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 had multiple copies. So what I did was 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 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 sharing this with younger people. That was my whole purpose. So like, I've got two kids, right? 22 now, Jack's 22 and my younger son's James is 16. Now they started reading my books, you know, before the updates. In the book, I use all these examples of compound interest. I show things like, you know, if you save $10 a day or $20 a day, What that can be worth in decades. I show you how to 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 multimillionaires, right? So for anybody who's listening, everybody wishes they had started younger. Help the people you love start younger. So like my, my boys, what Jam said to me when he read the automatic millionaire and he read it at 12, 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 now? I was like, well, you'd have a whole lot more money. And so he's like, okay, well, how do we do that for me?

So I said, you know, you bring up a good point. I opened one for your brother at 15, but I could open one for you at 12. 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 now got, I'm just giving you like real life examples of things you can do for your kids. I started James with the Roth IRA at 12 years old. This kid, if he just saves $20 a day now, we just Mac, we just do a Roth IRA for the rest of his life till he gets to a sick. And we put it in an index fund like the S P 500. And I go through in the book, you know, funds to use. Realistically, he's going to have over $10 million in a Roth IRA when he turns 60. Tax free. I mean, you want to talk about a great, a great, a great way to start your life. And so, you know, he is going to be provided he, you know, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep doing this for him and helping him for first 10 years.

Years, but I'm teaching them to fish, right? Like teach the kids to fish now, help them fish. Like right now I'm throwing the rod and I'm baiting it and I'm helping them pull it in because 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, 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 Roth 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 this year. So believe it or not, believe it or not because of you.

By the way, by the way, by the way, I'll tell you a true story. My kids opened up their Christmas gift. This was wrapped. They were kind of 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, well, that's cool, you know.

So, yeah, I think for, for everybody that's listening, especially parents with kids, I can promise you there's no greater, I shouldn't say no, there are a few greater Christmas gifts that you can give your children than contributions to a Roth IRA. 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 is going to mean so much more. And it's a way you to pass 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 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 McDonald's because my parents would never take me, but she would take me to McDonald's. 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 real. She said, there's three types of people, those like you who come here and spend money, you eat, you spend, called a spender, consumer. Those who work here for minimum wage have a job. And those who own the place, they're investors. And I'm gonna 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 of McDonald's.

And that single lesson changed my whole life because that started at seven and 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 stop was Shake Shack. Right? So these are the lessons that you think it's a one-time lesson, but here I am now spent the last 33 years teaching lessons that started with my grandmother. You know, I've got 10 New York Times bestselling 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 want to highlight a couple of things in the book. One of my favorite chapters, and we're going to get to my favorite chapter, but one of my favorite chapters is chapter three, 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 really put some different practices in place. And I've been doing well. For a long time. And I think I still learned a few things conceptually there.

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 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 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 is taken automatically. 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 you. Besides the government, because the gyms found out people will 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 going to be able to stay in business. Then everybody else started doing that. 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 an investor. 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 going to be selfish here. Like if I'm going to work 90,000 hours over my lifetime, and that's what the average person works, 90,000 hours of your lifetime, it would be a shame to get to your sixties and have nothing to show for it. 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 your day of your income, if you're going to go past that, and I talk about it in the automatic millionaire book, is security.

You save 30 minutes a day to build a security account, emergency purposes, and then you save another 30 minutes a day of your income for your dreams. You do those two things. 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 you're answering the questions that you always get and you're putting your logic behind it. And I thought it was a brilliant concept for you to do that. And one of those questions talks about your mantra of live rich now. 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 the future.

I can totally, this is one of my favorite questions. By the way, Mick, later, give me your number. I'm going to 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 started off by asking me my 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 do a meditation this morning from a guy named, very famous person named Sadhguru. And this is just kind of 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 SAGuru. By the way, there's a great app. You can download this app. It's that's available for free. It's got all these little videos in it.

So I watched this video and he says, 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, 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 someone in your life you love. You should, when this podcast is done, then 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 Live Rich Now looks like. Now, people are like, this guy's freaking nuts. No, I'm not. Like, seriously, there are people who are not gonna wake up tomorrow. You know, I'm 59 years old. I've had three best friends die in the last three years. Three best friends under the age of 57. Average age of your widowhood is 59. 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.

That's right. That's right. Man, Dave, one, I could talk to you forever. I want to do something because I believe in the book so much. And, and everybody that's listening, you know that I always do this with books that I love. I'm going to buy 20 copies and you tell me where you want me to buy them. I'll buy them on Amazon if you'd rather be Amazon, but I'll, I'll buy 20 copies. And the first 20 people that message me, automatic millionaire, you're going to 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 TV. 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 in this scenario? Right. And 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 I'm not saying Dave is 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's advice. So I think, David, I need to do that because it means something to me. It can help me. Trust me, it can help anyone.

So thank you.

Verse 22 means a lot.

I love that. And by the way, for 21, 22, and 23, I'm sure you can get the book in the library. Right? Like 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. 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 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 why I did this work.

Right.

That's why because.

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. All right, Dave, where can people find and follow you?

Thank you. First of all, I love being with you. This is really fun. They can come over and visit me@davidbach.com so go to davidbach.com.

everything's on my website.

I'm on social media, Instagram, Facebook, X.

But just come on over the website, check it all out.

And, yeah, it's really been, and I've

got, and I've done a lot of podcasts, so if people want to watch more shows and go to YouTube, they

can find all kinds of shows with me.

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 in

my household that you didn't even know that you were doing.

I'm truly I'm truly am, 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 for you. Thank you.

You just touched my heart. God bless you. Thank you. And I really enjoyed this.

Have and continued success.

Keep doing this because you're doing a lot of good work. And so keep it up.

I appreciate you more than you know. And to all the viewers and listeners, remember, you're 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 find there. Because I'm Rudy Rush. And until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay unplugged.