Pay Yourself First With Time?

Alberto Riehl: Hey, guys. Alberto Riehl. I’m here with Miss Sarah, and we are actually at a couple’s retreat for the weekend. I gotta show you something. It’s pretty cool.

Alberto Riehl: So she surprised me with this place. Very remote. We have about 150 acres by ourselves. We’re in Northern California. Look. We’ve got bees. See those? Those are bees right there.

Alberto Riehl: We gotta get out of the car. We’ve got a nice little Volkswagen. You gotta unlock this thing.

Alberto Riehl: We always talk about … in our program, about pay yourself first with money. Right? It’s one of the principles. If you haven’t read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, definitely a huge recommendation. Get it. That’s all you need to know to become financially independent.

Alberto Riehl: One of the principles they talk about is pay yourself first. Right? While most people out there pay all their bills … They get paid, and then they pay all their bills and utilities and everything that they need to pay, rent, mortgages. Then, at the end, their crumbs they leave for themselves. Right? Most of the time, they have nothing left over for them to do.

Alberto Riehl: So another concept is pay yourself first with time. So what does that mean, exactly? Well, most people do the same thing as they do with their finances. They are dividing their time up 100 different ways throughout the day, going to work and driving and rush hour traffic and – I gotta close the gate now – rush hour traffic and doing all the other stuff that they have to do. I got it.

Alberto Riehl: Then whatever crumbs they have left over of time they dedicate to themselves, they dedicate to their marriage. Right? To their partnership. That’s not the way it should be. You should pay yourself first with time, in time, first.

Alberto Riehl: We’re doing a couple’s retreat for the weekend. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, sister. Couldn’t have done it without you. They’re taking care of the baby, baby Riley. We have also a five-year-old and a seven-year-old. Gotta close this. Uh-oh. That’s gonna be tough to do as I hold this. Gotta make sure we’re secure here. Hold on a second.

Alberto Riehl: All right. So we have it nice and locked now. See? There’s the bees on the other side, and here is the road to our place. You have to drive – I think it’s about 10 minutes – to get in there. I’ll have Sarah help me a little bit. Here, could you point it at the road there?

Alberto Riehl: Actually, if you can point it at me, look kind of far. You can see me okay?

Alberto Riehl: So this place, Sarah found, and I think we’re driving … I think it’s – what, almost a 10-minute drive? – into the middle of nowhere. Super private. We’re the only people onsite.

Alberto Riehl: So we’re talking about paying yourself first with time, not only money. While most people do everything, again, running around to work and back and rush hour and all that stuff, and then whatever crumbs of time they have left over, they dedicate to their most important relationship, which is their marriage or their partner, whatever they wanna call it.

Alberto Riehl: In reality, we should pay ourselves first with time and set the time apart first. This is a good example. We’re spending the entire weekend up here in Nevada City, which is in California, by the way. Just found out about that. Very old city. It’s an old mining town. Been around for – what? – about 150 years, since the mid-1840s, something like that.

Alberto Riehl: We get to spend all weekend together. We’re learning a bunch of different – what do we call them? – practices for communication, for … What else, honey? Couples type stuff, to make connection stronger, communication better. Ooh, look, this is starting to get a little rough here.

Sarah Riehl: I was watching this. It’s gonna get a little …

Alberto Riehl: Is it bumpy?

Sarah Riehl: A little further.

Alberto Riehl: But, man, so many people out there work so hard, dedicate their time to a career, climbing up the corporate ladder, and then they take their eye off the ball. They take their eye off the real important stuff, the stuff that really matters. Right? The family, the marriage.

Alberto Riehl: Of course, today, over 50% of marriages end up in divorce. Then you gotta get expensive attorneys and split everything up, and everything you worked for is gone, anyway.

Alberto Riehl: So we’ll show you here in a second as we … This is starting to get kind of rough. Good thing we got an SUV. We’re gonna be going to our little private … What do we call it, honey? Love nest?

Sarah Riehl: Like the Blair Witch Project.

Alberto Riehl: I’m gonna go ahead and stop.

Sarah Riehl: Okay.

Alberto Riehl: All right, guys. So we’re still going. Still going. Been going for a few minutes here. We’re going deep into the forest. What is this? Pretty cool. Sarah found this on Airbnb. Amazing what the Internet can do for you nowadays.

Alberto Riehl: We’re still going. Still going. The middle of nowhere. Going to our romantic spot. Okay.

Alberto Riehl: Yes? Okay. So, guys, we’re almost there. Now, this is the first time that this car was rented. They gave it to us. It’s a Volkswagen Atlas. It’s a pretty cool SUV, actually. First time that Budget rents it out. It had, like, six miles on it. We’ve been taking it rough roading, so everything will be cool. Don’t tell Budget.

Alberto Riehl: This is the first time we do anything like this. We’re gonna show you … Now, this road’s a little tricky at the end. Actually, the first two times, we got stuck in the middle of it. We couldn’t make it. So I’m gonna put it into first. We gotta get some speed here. Here we go. Here we go.

Alberto Riehl: Gets the adrenaline pumping every time. Whoa, I’m getting better at this. Look. Oh, we made it. We made it. Look at the view. Can you see the view? Gotta get it out of that gear. Look at our little perch. You can see our nice, beautiful glamping tent to the right. We’ll show you inside in a second.

Alberto Riehl: Look at our … This is our favorite part. To the right, we have our own private waterfall and swimming hole. Nobody around for 150 acres, guys. We’re the only ones here. Check out the view. It’s sunset time. We’ve got our fire about to happen over here. We’ll go for a little swim in a little bit.

Alberto Riehl: So, guys, Alberto, Sarah, coming to you from the middle of nowhere, Nevada City. We’ll see you on the next one.

Alberto Riehl: Pretty cool place, right? So we’ve never done anything like this. It’s called mobile glamping. They set it up in a private … We asked for a private, secluded area, and here it is. We’ve got a couple chairs for the beautiful view. You can hear the … We’ve got a grill right there. There’s the waterfall, right behind us. It’s just a really cool place. I’m gonna show you our fire over here.

Alberto Riehl: Sun’s about to set, and there’s the waterfall. So it’s pretty cool. So I’m wondering, when was the last time that you did something like this? There’s our waterfall. Nice little swimming hole. Let’s see if you can see the sunset, starting to shine through now. Ooh, it’s bright. There’s our fire. Just started the fire.

Alberto Riehl: One of the things that’s cool is that we had to get on a plane to come over here. We had to, obviously, get this place. We had to drive an hour and a half from Sacramento. You fly to Sacramento, then you come up here.

Alberto Riehl: But there’s something that happens when you make that extra effort to do something in your life. There’s a book, another book, I recommend, Deep Work, and they talk about when you really wanna get something done and get value out of something. They show it as an example, J.K. Rowling, when she wrote Harry Potter, she would go to the most expensive place in London, hotel, and stay in there ’til she wrote it.

Alberto Riehl: Just the effort of you doing that lets you know, lets your subconscious know, that you’re serious about it. So, because of it, it just gives it a lot more weight and a lot more importance.

Alberto Riehl: So it’s something that’s very important now. Things can be a little bit challenging sometimes. There’s a bunch of kids and a bunch of stuff to do, and maybe you can’t take off an entire weekend. Maybe … Just maybe drive somewhere. Drive somewhere for the night. Start out with maybe just a couple hours or maybe …

Alberto Riehl: A date night for a lot of us is kind of a big deal, but it’s gonna pay dividends, just like all the other philosophies we talk about when it comes to finances. Pay yourself first with time will pay huge dividends in the long run, and we all know when things are solid at home that it’s a lot easier to work and be in the positive mindset, which is what we need to perform out there.

Alberto Riehl: So, guys, Alberto Riehl, and we’ve got Sarah over here. She’s taking some pictures as we are getting ready for our sunset, calling you … or talking to you from the middle of nowhere in Northern California, and we’ll see you on the next video.

Alberto Riehl: Remember, pay yourself first with time.