Most people focus on growth first.

But what if the real problem is that the financial foundation underneath the growth was never built correctly in the first place?

In this episode of Make Your Wealth Work, Jason K. Powers and Joe Pantozzi break down one of the most important concepts in long-term financial strategy: building wealth in the right order.

Using a simple framework — Protect, Save, Grow — they walk through why so many people stay financially fragile even while earning good money, investing, or growing businesses.

• The conversation explores:
• Where people actually access capital
• Why dependence on outside lenders creates instability
• The importance of protecting income, family, and future
• Why saving creates flexibility and opportunity
• How wealth grows more effectively when the lower layers are stable
• And why control leads to freedom

This episode is not about perfection. It’s about getting the order right.

Because one bad event can wipe out years of progress when the foundation underneath your financial life is weak.

Listen / Learn More

Podcast: https://alphaomegawealth.com/podcast

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Jason K Powers: Welcome to Make Your Wealth Work, a practical show

for builders, entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to think like one.

I am here with Joe Pantozzi, and this is Jason K. Powers.

Today, we are talking about something most people never stop to really map out.

When you need cash, where do you actually go to get it?

And, and does that source help you build long-term stability, or does it

help you depend on outside lenders?

through some simple framework using visuals.

So if you are listening, feel free to jump over to video sometime

and check out the visuals.

But first, the common source of cash people rely on, and then the

order of operation that makes a real financial foundation that's

protecting and saving and growing.

And Joe, how you doing today?

I'm doing great.

I'm, I'm, I'm always, I'm always excited and, and I'm always, uh, trying to

think of the, the most fundamental ways to discuss these concepts because the

longer I go down the road talking about finance, the more I realize it's, it's a

little bit of a veiled subject to people.

They're not all that comfortable with it, although they handle money every

single day of their lives, they handle wealth every single day of their lives.

And, and I, I want you to be comfortable with your wealth because you're

gonna have millions and millions of dollars flowing through your hands.

And, and, and a passion of ours is to see that you can hold on to more,

and more, and more of it so you can do the things that you wanna do, help

the people that you wanna help, grow the things you wanna grow, create the

inheritance or the gifts, support the causes that you wanna, wanna support.

And, and I always say it, it's become kind of a mantra to

me, control leads to wealth.

So you gotta start with control.

Control leads to wealth, and wealth leads to freedom.

Jason K Powers: you know, as

So there you go.

Jason K Powers: were talking the other day about, a person we had spoken with

that really, um, was going to do more financing and, and they're like, "Okay,

well, I'll just, I'll just finance it more and continue financing what

I'm doing." And I think the idea was, you know, most people don't have a,

I would say, a capital access plan.

They have a next paycheck plan.

And that happens so much that these kinds of conversations are needed.

Let's understand, where is the money coming from?

And, and so I think as we talk today, you know, the goal isn't to, to shame anyone.

It's to get eyes open and, and start thinking like an owner your own money.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

So I, I wanna, I wanna br- I wanna kind of broaden the conversation

about what's possibly available.

And, and of course, I have a bias.

W- I, I think there are more efficient opportunities, more

efficient assets to access, and less efficient assets to access.

But it's more important that you have access to some financial

assets that you do control.

They could be less efficient, but I'd rather you had c- control over less

efficient access than no control and being at the mercy of someone who's

gonna pull all your strings, push all your buttons, and, and make you jump

through hoops to qualify for their loan.

Jason K Powers: Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Well, let's dive in and check it out.

We have, uh, a good graphic coming up here, and it's-- you know, this

is about priorities, trade-offs, and building a foundation.

A-and this first one we wanna look at is really about where

do people access capital?

Right.

Right.

So I'm gonna start with the, with the big boogeyman and someplace where I

really want... It, it, it's, it's my desire, my opinion, my, uh, absolutely

my bias that you should rely less and less on, and that's outside banks.

And, and we can spend the time talking about why you don't wanna rely.

Now, you may have an opportunity here or there to get a very, very

attractive loan from an outside bank on a, on a spot basis.

I mean, I'm sitting in a house with a 3% 30-year mortgage.

It's a pretty good loan.

Ultimately, I'll pay that loan off, but right now it's a pretty good loan.

Do I wanna sit in the house with a 7% loan?

No, I don't.

But when we're talking about outside banks for lending to us on a regular

basis to support our business, to make h- alternative investments, to b- uh,

buy a, a second home or build a, build a house near the beach to build investment

property, rental property, y- you don't wanna have to go back to that outside

bank continually because the vagaries, the volatility of lending practices

and terms and rates and payments is ultimately going to, to skew in favor

of the banks and not in your favor.

And ultimately, all the equity, all the wealth, all the growth, all the,

all the profits go to the outside bank.

Okay

So cash is an obvious, is an obvious alternative.

And we, we want people to understand that cash has limitations, but you're way more

limited if you don't have cash, right?

Is it great to have a million dollars sitting in cash?

Better than not having it.

But I don't want to have money sitting.

I don't want to have cash sitting.

Do I want to invest in alternatives and real estate and, and portfolios

and the things that clients like?

Absolutely.

I want our clients to put their money where they want to put their money.

We're mostly concerned about building the support system, the lending

system, the banking system, the collateralization and understanding

the relationship between them.

Cash is a great place, is a great asset to have money in, have wealth

in, but not long term, right?

Market margin.

If you have a market account, if you have a stock market account, a Wall Street

account, you can access money through loans against that market account.

And those loans will be more market rate.

It won't be something where you've got a fixed rate for the next 10 years.

Your rate is going to fluctuate.

There are going to be positives and negatives to borrowing

against the stock market account.

But I'm going to continue to say it's more positive to have access

than not to have any access.

So as we list all these things, we're, we're, we're, we're going forward

with the premise all these things are positive in their own realm,

in their own perspective, right?

So gold and silver.

Is it easy to cash in gold and silver?

No, because it depends on today's, um, spot price, right?

Is it easy to borrow against it?

Absolutely no.

Is it easy to liquidate some and keep some?

Of course.

It all depends on, on timing.

Better to have it than not to have it.

What about real estate?

Well, how can I liquidate real estate?

Well, I could borrow against it.

First mortgage, second mortgage.

Jason's more familiar with HELOCs than I am, but various types of loans against

real estate, then we can obtain collateral capital to put into the next venture.

So we can capitalize our first piece of real estate to buy our second

and on and on, just giving kind of a general treatment about these assets.

Life insurance to me is an obvious asset that you can borrow against, go

to the insurance company and get a great attractive rate, long-term rate, low rate,

interest-only rate, et cetera, et cetera.

Great.

Again, we're just listing the assets right now.

CDs.

I don't come across a lot of people who have CDs, but certific- certificates

of deposit are an attractive option for very short-term money, six

months, a year, 18 months, et cetera.

401s.

Do you have access to cash through 401s?

Of course you do.

Very limited opportunity.

You can only borrow $50,000.

You can't borrow more than that.

You've got to pay it back within five years.

It's got to come out of your paycheck.

You've got to continually be employed at that employer in order to have access.

The, the, the money that you're borrowing against is going to receive the

interest rate that you're paying back.

It's not going to receive market rates and your interest payments both.

So you're going to have limited market growth on the borrowed funds.

There's pros and cons.

Alternatives.

We can go anyplace with alternatives.

There's limited, uh, liquidity depending on what the alternative is.

Jason K Powers: Crypto's

But the point I...

Jason K Powers: big one.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Jason K Powers: Crypto is a big one.

Sure it is.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

the opportunity for liquidity?

Jason K Powers: Right.

Right.

You can sell s- you can sell

Jason K Powers: like, you know, when I

some.

Jason K Powers: whole list, when I look at this whole list, it

Mm-hmm.

Jason K Powers: you know, most of these opt-- while they're op--

while they are options, most of these are either restricted or

volatile or illiquid or expensive.

Right.

Now, the reason I want to keep on listing these things is I want our clients to

become comfortable with the fact there's not only one place to access capital.

I think it's more important for folks to understand you're going to

need access to capital throughout your life, so you're going to want

to make diversified investments, and we use that word very generically

c- because that could go anywhere.

It could go into business, it can go into real estate, it can go into

ideas, opportunities, inventions that your friends or family or, or

people you're close with come across and you want to take some money and

put it into somebody's new idea.

Eventually, you're going to have kids that you want to pay

for college or private school.

You don't want to go into the, into the market to get money for tuition.

So there's an endless, uh, stream of needs during your lifetime, and where I

find people mostly leaning on is on the, the debt market, credit markets, loans,

toxic credit cards, um, SBA Um, lines of credit that are fluctuating and that

don't give clients a long-term promise of what that loan's gonna look like.

I, I... A long time ago, I had a seven-year ARM on my house.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Screaming rate.

It was in the fours, I think, threes and fours.

After seven years, you absolutely had to refinance, didn't you?

Because then, uh, in the seven years, it was, it was a low

rate, and it was interest only.

It was amazing.

At the end of seven years, it was still interest only, which

is a good or bad thing, but now you're subject to market rates.

Guess what happened before I refinanced?

The rate was about to double, right?

Is it terrible?

No.

But you need to walk into, into these credit relationships with your eyes

open, always understanding that I am gonna need a second car down the road.

I'm gonna need to get rid of that car.

It's worn out.

I'm tired of it.

It's not big enough for the family.

I'm gonna need to get the next car.

Cars wear out.

They, they rust out.

They get in accidents.

We need to replace them.

We're gonna have a need to finance cars or purchase cars or own

cars during our entire lifetime.

That's a financial drain if you don't work the math correctly.

Jason K Powers: Right.

Right.

That's a repeated thing.

I mean, things like cars, we're all in-- Here in America, right, if you're

gonna have a vehicle, you know you're gonna need another one at some point.

You know you're gonna need another one at some point.

Even the short-term cycles, you know, you mentioned tuition, you

know, for private school or college.

I-as long as you're paying, so, you know, kids in private school.

If I pay for my kids in private school, so that's an annual thing we've gotta pay.

know that is a recurring expense.

I know a car eventually is gonna be a recurring expense.

know, investments and business is a little bit different, but you still

have some, some type of recurrence time.

Listen, this is the name of the ballgame right here.

So many of our clients are in so many different kinds of businesses.

They're opening brand-new businesses.

They're expanding businesses.

They're investing in, in different kinds, um... They're

becoming serial entrepreneurs.

They own a car wash and a grocery store and another, another opportunity.

They own different kinds of businesses, a manufacturing business.

They want to expand.

They wanna sell.

They wanna bring in partners.

They wanna expand their, th- their products that they sell.

They wanna expand marketing, go out of state, out of country.

They're gonna need capital all the time.

Business owners who have been in business, who have a brick-and-mortar,

who have employees understand the need for capital is, is continual.

Jason K Powers: we talked

What we're recommending... Go ahead, please

Jason K Powers: i-it's, it's... We have all these opportunities.

We have this need for access to capital.

so I think the question, the common question people... Not even

the specific question, but it's: Where am I gonna access this?

You know, even from an emergency standpoint, you know, if, if

something happens tomorrow, which of these would you access first?

Which of these would you actually use first?

If you had money coming from all of these different sources, which

ones can you actually touch?

You know?

and so here we are, we're looking for solutions.

Like, what are the solutions?

What are the solutions?

What are the solutions?

think too often people are searching for a solution before we even have a foundation.

And that's-- We, we wanna skip that part, you know?

We

That, that's a great point.

Jason K Powers: you know, and we wanna, we wanna skip it and go, "I

just need the solution. Don't-- I don't need the foundation." Well, look,

man, we're gonna be having the same conversation in two more years from

now don't get a foundation in place.

You may fix something short-term, but if you don't get a foundation in

place, buddy, you're gonna be making the same decisions over and over and

Mm-hmm.

Jason K Powers: again.

And you know, I've been doing this for a long time and

I still hate the word discipline.

I still hate the word plan.

Because plans are subject to change.

I mean, practically when you write the plan down on paper, the next day it's

old and obsolete and it needs revision.

But you know what?

If you don't have that first slice of paper with ideas put down on it, then

what you're doing is you're throwing money and ideas and energy and anxiety in all

different directions, and you're probably not gonna create as, as, as solid an

opportunity, as solid a career, as solid a business as you would if you had a plan.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Sure.

nine items.

What if you had some money, some measure of wealth in all these nine, nine items?

I would say you're a genius.

I'm not gonna criticize anybody who has a million dollars in any of these things,

or a million dollars divided up in any of these thing, any of these things.

My anxiety, my stress level, my worry is for people, um, who are

on the rat wheel, who are living on credit and not building up anything.

Or maybe they're living on credit and they're throwing too much into

their retirement plan because they're so worried about, about the future.

But your, your future retirement plan is, is disintegrating in terms of purchasing

power while you're, while you're swamped, you're drowning in toxic credit card debt.

You're out, you're out of balance.

So even that bears a conversation and, and that's where I- Where Jason and I

wanna be kind of focused on going back to the basics and saying you need to

protect before you do anything else.

I've met so many people who don't have that protection plan in place,

and when we talk about protection, here, here's a few things.

Protecting your income.

If you become sick or hurt or disabled in some manner or form, you're

gonna need some kind of protection.

Either your, your employer, if you have an employer, is gonna continue

your paycheck for the next 30 years, which is almost unheard of, or your

employer is gonna continue your paycheck for a limited period of time.

And so the question becomes, where am I gonna get my paycheck

when my guarantee stops?

You need to protect.

You need to be protected in c- if somebody sues you, slip and fall, hurt

on your property, your eight-year-old slaps somebody with a baseball bat

and, and they, and they have an injury.

I mean, you, you die.

You need... Your family needs financial protection in case you die.

You need life insurance.

You need to be protected in case you get sick, go to the hospital,

uh, have, have a, a surgery.

You need to protect your future.

You need to protect if you have a long-term care event, if you lose the

activities of daily living, and you need to, to have ho- uh, uh, help at home or

go into a nursing home or a rehab hospital for a short or a long period of time.

All these things are elements of protection.

And you know what?

They're just not fun.

And I, and I, I'd rather have those elements in place and never need

them than have a, a drastic need and not have the protection in place.

And again, goes back to building a strong foundation, putting the

protection items in, in place before you start building your wealth.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

And protect is the base, I mean, really because simply put, one bad

event can wipe out years or decades of progress you without that protection.

And we don't walk around being paranoid about it, right?

It's not like you walk around being worried about, "Oh, I-- this might

happen, that might happen, this might happen, that might happen."

It's, it's that old adage, I guess, of

hope for the best and plan for the worst,

Right.

Right.

And it's, it's more fun to, to play in the top of the pyramid.

It just is.

Jason K Powers: yeah.

You know?

My buddy gives me a tip.

I get a hot stock tip or something.

My buddy gives me a tip and I invest $1,000, and next year

I get a check back for 50,000.

That's great.

It happens on television, I think.

It happens when people buy a lottery ticket.

It doesn't happen in my neighborhood So while we're waiting for that pie

in the sky to- stuff to happen, uh,

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

let's do the ordinary things.

Let's make sure that we're not spending more than more than we're earning, right?

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

I hate discipline.

I hate, I hate routine.

I hate living between my beneath my, my, my means.

But, but the results of doing it are amazing.

You know, I hate doing 200 pushups a day but the results are really good.

So we wanna get in- involved in those protection elements and put them in place.

It's just something you have to do.

And then you can move on to the savings element.

And, you know, how, how often have you heard some talking head saying,

"You've got to have three to six months emergency cash stashed someplace"?

Well, everybody knows that.

Everybody knows it, but who does it, right?

I mean, I do it, okay?

But it- it's one thing to know something and to, and to, to wave this thing

off and say, "Yeah, I know that. I've heard that before." But it's another

thing to, to meet up with a, with a, for example, a short-term disability.

You're out of work for 10 weeks.

You got, you got sick.

You broke your arm.

You broke something.

You got laid off for a short period of time, whatever.

You need to have that emergency savings.

Maybe you need emergency savings, then you can pivot over

to an investment opportunity.

I'm not saying that that's what it's for, but we're saying it's better

to have it there than not have it.

And we're, and we're talking about doing things in this order.

I mean, this is a recommendation, right?

This isn't scientific.

This, this is just plain basic common sense.

You can, you can have that protection item elements in place

for 20 years and never have to rely on them for something drastic.

It was still the right thing to do.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

So

then we get to the, to the top element.

Now we get to where it's exciting.

Now we've got our, our foundation in place.

We have finance.

We're starting to build a capital base.

We've chosen where we choose to, to store our capital.

You know, for, for me, it's, it's high cash value life insurance

policies for many, many reasons.

We're not even gonna go there today.

But, and we'll... In, in, in a future podcast, we'll talk about the difference

between having all your liquidity in cash, all your liquidity in a market

account, all your liquidity in a CD.

So there are pros and cons to all those approaches.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

But where we all want to get is we want to- Figure out

where we choose to grow our wealth.

And typically where people grow their wealth is the big three.

It's business, it's stock market, it's real estate.

And, and you can just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

I have a young man around here who's got-- he's not even 35 years old yet.

He's got 35 rental properties.

It's, it's amazing.

How did he, he do that?

He followed in his daddy's footstep, who followed in his daddy's footsteps.

Well, I don't wanna be a landlord.

I don't wanna worry about vacancies.

I don't wanna about, wor-worry about people leaving a mess.

Okay.

Well, then then don't do that.

But if you wanna build wealth, you've gotta plan.

You've gotta decide what your preferences are and what your likes and dislikes are.

Where do I wanna build wealth?

Well, I wanna build my wealth in alternatives.

That's fine.

What we're saying, we're not here to, to, to rec-direct you and tell

you where you should build your wealth and where's the best place.

We're here to help you create the financial tool so that you'll always

be in control of the banking equation, the banking function, which if you're

not careful, will wind up eating your lunch, and, and the banks will wind

up owning your future income, your future revenue, your future wealth,

and you're gonna wake up one day and you're gonna pick, pick yourself up

off the ground and say, "What happened?

Jason K Powers: Well,

I just got..."

Jason K Powers: think wealth, wealth building happens more effectively when

the lower layers are stable, right?

We, we... Just like the solution before the foundation, you

know, you get to the grow point.

If you can get protect in place and save in place and get that down,

you know, get it stable, growth is a little bit easier at that point.

And there's something to be said for repetition.

As you develop the habits of being an entrepreneur, of being a business

owner, of owning the various asset classes that you choose, um, to put

into your portfolio, you're gonna, you're gonna develop a cadence.

You're gonna understand finance way better if you're controlling

the banking function than if you're delegating it out, because whoever

controls that banking function is gonna receive the lion's share of the wealth

Jason K Powers: Yep.

Sure.

Jason K Powers: s-summary of this you know, you have protect

at the bottom for our listeners.

You know, it's a pyramid, so protect is the bottom layer, the foundation

of the whole foundation, right?

Protect.

then right above that in the middle is save.

Now, protect and... Uh, if protect isn't- Stable.

Isn't solid.

Save and grow are, are really fragile, you know what I mean?

And then save, you can't, you can't grow what you don't keep.

So you have save and then grow.

If you're not saving, you can't grow.

You, you just can't.

And so it really, it really is a... It, it really is a matter of understanding

how they are connected, you know?

I've, I've... People go, "Well, I can't afford to do the protect." I've done it.

"I can't afford to do the protect part, so I'm just gonna save instead."

And then... And it's wildly unstable because like we mentioned earlier,

one bad event took you back down.

And so yes, thank, thank God we had the savings, still, what

if worse happens, you know?

does that leave families?

I see it happen all the time.

You know, working with a lot of clients in the music industry, we see people

all the time having some life situation comes up, and a GoFundMe page comes up

because there is no protection in place.

And it's devastating, and then you're reliant on outside sources

all of a sudden, and you hope

that can be covered, you know?

And people are doing the best they can do, I get it, but if that's... I think that

stresses the importance of protection.

Like, get, get your bases covered first.

And if you've got a family, protect is more important, too.

You know, if you've got a spouse and children and-- or you're the primary

income earner or you, you know, you have a business, protect your business.

I mean, there's all kinds of things you can protect you

really need to get in place.

But those are all connected, you know?

Get the foundation in place, protect, and then save.

You can't, you can't grow what you can't save, you know?

And

I just put a little example here.

You know, let's say you make $100,000 and you save 10%.

You save $10,000.

In 10 years, you've got $100,000.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Great.

You don't have a protection plan in place, you get sick.

How long does that savings last?

Maybe you could stretch it out for two years, maybe So that means you, if you

got disabled or sick or hurt or, or, or emotional breakdown, whatever happens,

you just blew 10 years' worth of savings in one or two years on a disability.

Where if you had some kind of a disability insurance or plan, either

yourself, an individual plan, or through work, you would, you would

protect that $100,000 you just saved.

So, so an event like that will wipe out years and years and years of savings,

and that's why the two are related.

I don't wanna get into a lot of numbers today.

We can put calculators up on the screen until the cows come home.

We could talk about the, the numbers, the calculations, the

interest rates, the periods, terms, present values, all that stuff.

But you have to get the big picture and understand why I'd wanna

protect myself in the first place.

I have obligations to myself, to my family, to my

creditors, um, et- et cetera.

Maybe to my employees if I have a business.

I wanna keep those doors open of that business.

So this is, to me, kind of a fundamental and, and basic discussion, but it needs

to be at the ground level before we can get more exotic and more sophisticated

and, and put some teeth into a plan.

So

Jason K Powers: Sorry.

to helping in any way I can.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

And we're not

Good

Jason K Powers: of things that stop you from resetting to zero each

time, and I think that's important.

And it's-- And that's where Joe and I come in, in helping people map out your

own foundation, you know, and help you think through it and understand, am I at?

Where do I need to be?" And let's help you draw

word.

Jason K Powers: is just helping you map that idea out and come up with a plan.

That's it.

It's simple, you know?

It's, it seems basic, you know, as we talk about it.

We're not here to, to, to put you down.

I hope nobody is listening going, "I can't believe they would

talk to me that way," you know?

Like,

I'll,

Jason K Powers: it was really to get the wheels turning in your head and understand

maybe I'm not doing it in the right order.

what you're doing is well-intended, but maybe it's just in the wrong order,

and we just need to re-reprioritize things and reorganize things.

I'll s- I say this all the time.

We're never gonna suggest something to you that we haven't done.

I'm not gonna suggest that you own something that I don't own So we

absolutely eat our own cooking.

Well, we are, uh, our own first best customers.

Jason K Powers: That's right.

we guide are, are, are basic and fundamental, and they, they need

to be practiced over a period of years.

You're not gonna fix a problem that took you 15 years to, to create overnight.

Maybe you'll solve it quicker than 15 years, maybe a lot quicker, but

you have to take one step at a time.

Jason K Powers: That's right.

I think we'll leave it at that,

Great.

Jason K Powers: Make Your Wealth Work here with Joe Pantozzi, and

name is Jason Powers, here with my awesome new Alpha Omega Wealth hat

that I love so much and I'm gonna wear on every episode I think now.

Um, hey, if you want help building your own foundation, protect, save,

grow, and creating a system where your dollars can do more than one job, head

on over to alphaomegewealth.com/podcast to connect with myself or Joe.

Book a call, let's talk.

We have no agenda.

Let's talk and understand your situation and see makes sense for you.

You know?

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