The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Financial Fortress by Stephen Powell

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

Financial Fortress by Stephen Powell A sudden medical crisis or market crash can destroy decades of hard work in an instant. Are you building a financial plan that only works when everything goes right? In January 2022, financial professional Stephen Powell walked into the gym for a routine morning workout. Moments later, an aortic dissection caused him to collapse, paralyzing his left side, stripping away his speech, and leaving him with less than a 1% chance of survival. He survived by God’s grace, but he woke up to a harrowing realization: He was the sole breadwinner, and his traditional financial plan had no backup for a real-life crisis. This life altering experience exposed a massive gap in modern financial literacy. Most people are expertly taught how to accumulate money, but they are never taught how to structure it. They blindly follow the standard formula buy stocks, maximize the 401(k), trust the process only to find themselves walking straight into the “Accumulation Trap.” In Financial Fortress, Powell shares his deeply personal journey and strips away traditional financial jargon to reveal how wealthy families truly protect, access, and transfer their money. This book is an architectural blueprint for the everyday family provider who carries heavy responsibilities and realizes that a high income alone is not the same as security. Through practical frameworks and eye-opening illustrations, Powell maps out the Four Pillars of a Financial Fortress: Protection, Growth, Control, and Legacy. You will learn how to transition from simple accumulation to true financial architecture, giving every dollar a distinct job. Stop managing your future with hope and optimism alone. Build a system. Achieve clarity. Protect the people you love.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Folks is Voss here from thecris Voss Show.com. I'll leave the only six of that makes official. Welcome to 16 years and 3,000 episodes of the Chris Voss show. The oldest living podcast out of a handful. And we are the oldest and only exclusive one that is still broadcasting daily.

And if we outlive the other handful of other folks, hopefully it will be the oldest podcast in existence. But we've got to have the hitmen find the targets first. No, I'm just kidding. We love, we love podcasters. Anyway, guys, support the Pirateship. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortresschus Christch, Christfoss, YouTube.com, Fortresschus Christfoss, and all those crazy places in the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we're an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his insights and what he

does and how he can make you smirder, smarter, that is. And I'm just the dumb one who says smirder because I flunk second grade. It's the author of the latest book to come out called Financial Fortress by Stephen Powell. We're going to end it with him, find out his deeds and all that good stuff. Welcome to the show, Stephen, how are you? Thank you, Chris. I'm doing well. Thank you.

And give us any dot com's websites. Where do you want people to find out more about you on the interwebs? Sure. If they search Powell Financials, whether that's Facebook, link. then YouTube, that's pretty much the ones I stayed the most active on, as well as Powellfinancials.com, which is the website itself. That's where they can schedule consultations, see more about me, see more about the book, steady updating it.

So tell us about this financial fortress. Yes, sir. It's a thing that I've been working on for a while now. I just had to sit down and really get serious about it. And what I wanted to do was give people a different strategy that they could use. I never talked about any strategy anyone uses because we all need all of them. But this was just a thing that wants to protect your money and grow it at the same time. One thing we don't consider is the taxes that whenever we have a retirement,

that how much the taxes is going to hit us for as well as the market volatility. you go to take that money out at the wrong time, it's a bad situation. And so one of the things that I come across in a very terrible way was a medical trauma that happened. And that's when it hit me that they had to be different options out there. And so that's what I found. Yeah, there's those emergencies that can pop up that no one ever sees,

like medical issues. You can be cruised along the life. Everything's fine. And suddenly you got some issues. And doctors are not cheap these days last time I checked. And they're just like, do you want to pay us a million dollars or do you want to live? Wait, did I do that wrong? I think I did that wrong.

Do you want to die? Anyway, you got the point. You talk about this and you give a little bit of this, is a little bit of this your memoir of your experience in finances and then how to try and overcome other things that maybe you do and help clients with. Yeah, it's just a guide to give somebody something to think about. We, we, I was told all my life to put your money in a 401k or put it in a bank, put it in stocks, and just hope the market goes up and leave it there. And when you get ready to need it, it'll be there.

Well, what they didn't tell me was the rules and the side things that go along with that. You know, the fact that you got to be 59 and a half to touch it. or you're going to pay a penalty and then you're going to pay taxes and just hope it goes up, don't go down. And this is just a different strategy that people can use and give you that protection to go alongside of whatever you're currently doing. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a lot of people don't like to think about math and finances and stuff. What's your advice to them on stuff like that? It's fine to not want to face it, but you're going to have to. Like I said, in my medical trauma, I mentioned this in the book, and this is what brought the book was, I was a perfectly healthy 40-something-year-old guy. I went to the gym every morning. At the gym, I had my a-order dissection, and they expected me to die. And I was the sole breadwinner in the house. I had two young girls, one two months old, a wife who would just finish nursing school.

and so we didn't have any other money other than mine. And when I went to pay the medical bills and pay the doctors, I didn't have access to it. So not only was I pulling out my retirement, I was also paying penalties and taxes on it as well. Oh, no. That's not good at all. Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of people don't realize, too, you pay taxes on your retirement income, I think it is, or your Medicare or Medicaid or something. not fully the pro here. You can end up paying on your retirement 401K. You can end up paying it on Social Security and Medicare as well. Wow. Depending on the amount of money.

Yeah, yeah. That can be not fun. And then between, I got a friend right now who's going through life with cancer, it's got to throw cancer. And it really throws your whole life and brings it to a stop because this becomes the number one priority is staying alive as opposed to, I don't know, cocaine and hookers on the weekends. When we're at the Christmas show on Fridays.

Anyway, call back, Joe. So some of the things you talk about in your book are in regards to accumulating money, but you talk about the accumulation trap. What is that? The accumulation trap is, it's not to say that saving and investing are wrong. They are essential. And the trap is that a lot of people are taught just to save more. invest, wait, and just trust the process, right?

What they're not taught is that the accumulation and distribution of that money require opposite strategies. So just because you're saving and putting it and hoping for the best, that's great. And I encourage that. But I also want that person to understand that it is a trap, that if that's where all their eggs are, it's going to be something to be sad about. when the time calls.

You're going to be sad. Don't be sad. There's an old, what's that old adage? If you don't plan, you plan to fail, right? Yeah. Some people think, I won't plan anything, and then something bad happens or it works out, then whatever. But no, most times it doesn't work out if you don't plan,

if you don't strive for that. And those are some big principles. What are some other axioms that you see people thinking about or running into that hold them back? or screw them up financially. At the end, it's a big deal because you, most people run out of the ability to work. You end up sometimes into a forced retirement

because I think around 70 gets real penalized to keep working and making money. For someone like me or you, we can write books, speak, probably do a podcast up until hopefully we're 80. I just said one of the head of the podcast, the Division's Blueberry on where we host our thing. And they said there's 98-year-old podcasters.

Yeah. There's a runway for us, but how many people have that runway? Or the expertise to be an entrepreneur is make money out of thin air like we do. And so you really have to think about it. I've known a lot of people that they retire, and then they realize, especially with inflation, that they really can't afford to retire. It's more costly and more whatever than anything. One of the financial firms, Aliott, a few years ago, did a study,

and they found that 25% of the people in the United States will never retire. Oh, wow. I think it was, I think the number was 60% would have to go back to work. Yeah. After retiring. And that goes to a lot of what this book discusses is how to retire and stay retired. Yeah. That's what forced me into this situation that I'm in now with the financial fortress, helping others.

The job I had before was a contract job. And going on the road, traveling to the United States was great. But it was a physically demanding job. And my health said no more, that was the end of it. I had to find something else to get into. That's how I ended up here was just, I didn't have a choice. I couldn't do my old job anymore. And I'm a guy who did go to college, didn't enjoy it.

Here I am. Huh? Yeah, you've got, how much does it cost to retire now? I hear a lot of numbers kicked around and stuff of what it costs to retire or how much you should have when you're. retire so that you can deal with the headwinds of inflation and stuff like that. How much, how much should you have saved in your, in your retirement accounts for if you want to retire? It, so much of that's variable. If you got it in tax-free accounts, of course, it's a lot better. If you've got a 401k with, with $2 million in it, that looks great on paper. But if you're paying

taxes on that $2 million, whenever you go to withdraw it, you're talking about a probably around a 30% tax bracket. Hopefully it stays around that. By the time you and I get ready to retire, probably be way more than that. The way inflation's going the last couple years. It's just going through the roof. And so you lose a large chuck of that. And so I don't know if you can really put a number on it,

depending on several factors. But I like for my clients to have that two and a half. They say around 10%, 10 times what you make a year. Ah. Temperate. Okay. Ten times. I'm sorry, not 10%, 10 times. 10 times what you make per year? Is that what you said?

Yes, sir. Okay. You want to live a good life. You want to live maybe the life that you've been used to living for most of your things. But it's really hard. Some of the old people that they've got these big homes, real estate prices have just gone through the roof. And the thing is, they've probably got a lot of equity, hopefully built into it. And they could sell it and downsize because it gets hard to manage a house when you get older. You got yards crap and this is breaking and that. It's a lot of, there's a lot of house. You're two people in a four or five thousand square foot home that you had your empty nest in with your kids.

And downsizing used to be the way to go. But nowadays, if you sell your house, just trying to downsize the cost of a new, even cheap condos, stuff like that or small retirement community maybe or even a small home. is just stupid, crazy, expensive. You're going to end up almost like a trade. Yeah. I've talked to my mom about this. I mean, she's out of big house and get out of it. And she's, Chris, any other real estate property is going to cost the same as what I'd

sell it for. I'm going to downsize, but I'm actually losing value of what I have. Honestly, it would be nice to, it would be better to stay in a bigger house for the same price than you would pay for a smaller house because at least you've got elbow room, especially if you've been married for 40 years. And that's where they're at. My mom, my mom a similar situation. My dad passed away a few years ago.

And so it's just her, but she's 76 years old, and she's trying to manage a home with a couple of acres. And she's in good health, but it's still a lot for her. But she can't downsize because that house is paid for. And it's done and it's sufficient. It's bigger than what she needs. But if she was the downside, she'd end up paying more money than what she has now. It's really wild. It used to be you could roll with the ups and downs.

You could be like, okay, wait for a downturn in real estate. And you buy in the low and see you whatever. But yeah, it's really crazy. But $2 million to retire now roughly then, huh? Would you say $1 to $2 million or $2 million solid? I would say $2 million. All right. Again, that depends on what your health is.

If you're going to the doctor every couple of weeks and that's going to eat at it and several other things. What I do with my clients is we sit down and we look at, a financial needs analysis and see where they're at and what they have now and what they're what they'll need at that time and now how much can I get for a kidney maybe an eyeball and a lung and a liver that's what has to be with a smarter guest than myself I won't bet heavy with that part I mean, I think I got a retirement plan here. I haven't tried that one out. I don't bring a donation.

It's really funny. You can always tell. We've had a number of people that have come on the show that are written books and talked about this. It's not really a scam, but to talk about the, what's that thing that people give, not blood, but plasma, the plasma business. And how much money they make and how much they really don't pay people for. getting their plasma like they should.

And it's funny, you can always tell when we're in a recession or we're in tough times because about, I think just prior to the war around the time when gas went up with the Iran war, I started seeing these plasma commercials. Do you need money? Do you pay for that gas that's $6 per gallon? We can help you. Come on down. Yeah, just go give us some of that plasma.

I just started getting a flood of them in my... You drive by, we see a lot more cars in a lot of that way. Wow. That might be my retirement retirement plan. What else in the book should we tease out to people to let them know some of the other good tips that are in there and how they need to buy the book to read them? The book is just for education. I don't want anyone to think because it's in the book that what they're doing is wrong. I'll never downgrade any savings plan whatsoever.

They've all got their place. all I'm trying to do is just I want people to think about a different way of and a different opportunity that they may have that middle class America does not know about, didn't know about for years. And there's other strategies out there other than just that put your money in here, hope it grows. If it don't, oh, just wait. One of the big misconceptions out here a lot is as long as you don't sell, you don't lose. and that's true to a point, but you still lost. 30% loss takes about a 43% gain to recover. Oh, wow.

So the average gain of, they tell you average gain of 50%, it's never an actual gain. It's an average gain. So that's something I try to point out in the book is that we've been taught this way. We've been led to believe this is the only way, but it's not. Yeah. And people need to be smart with their money, especially when they get older. I was just watching a TikTok of a gal who's broke now. And she got involved with some sort of housing pyramid scheme, flipping a thing, whatever.

And it seemed like it was a private group of people that had gotten pulled into this little cult of group people. And they thought it was such a get rich, quick scheme guaranteed. They borrowed money to invest in it. 100,000. Wow. And then they borrowed from her when they knew and pulled out their credit cards. And I think they stuck 150 into it from what I could gather from what she was saying. And the thing blew up.

And this, and this, they, they cashed out their 401ks, their retirement accounts, they cashed it all out. And I think, I think that's maybe where some of the 100K come from. But yeah, they basically flushed all their retirement down for this gamble. And, and they lost. And now, now not only do they not have retirement that they need to. somehow rebuild in their 50s, but they owe $150,000 debt to pay on this deal. And it's just crazy some of the things people do in life with money and just not paying attention. And you think they would have maybe called an advisor like yourself and been like,

hey man, it doesn't sound like too going to be true? That's probably what they should do. Talk to us about some of the offerings you do on your website and your business for people. I was looking through it. I see a lot of great reviews on there from folks. Tell us what you do. I do complimentary consultations. I never charge my clients a penny.

I've got probably somewhere around 130 companies I work with. And the companies that I bring the clients to is who pay me. So the clients, I hope they become a client for life. They never pay me a penny. And that's one thing that I offer compared to a lot of other. There's no management fees of 1%, 1,000. one and a half percent every year that you're paying in. I just want you to understand that, look, let's all retire happy.

Let's all get that. I do that. That's the main thing. It's complimentary consultations. Then we go from there, whether that's whatever we need to do with your money. That's what I want to do. Whether it's a rollover protection where you're not going to be in that market volatility. You're going to get the gains, but not the losses.

We're going to figure. out what's best for our clients and whatever that may be. And if that's going with somebody else, not even going with me, that's okay too, as long as my clients are taken care of, then we work around that. I want you to go with me, I want you to go with me, but if you don't, then that's okay. That's a good thing to do because clients can come and go, and I've always tried to treat them well, and if they want to leave, then that's fine. And usually someone, I want to my friends who wrote about this on Facebook the other day. Some people want to get shitty, and when people try and leave them, And people come back to you.

I've got a lot of clients that they bounce right back and they go, I forgot how good your service is. You spoiled me a little too much. And you're like, yeah, I know. And by the way, our rates went up. I've done that a few times. But yeah, you left. And so we increase the rates.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You can go back. But that's what it is. And, but no, if you give good service, that's really what matters. Now, just does somebody have to be? a specialized accredited investor, or can they just be normal investors, et cetera, et cetera, with you?

No, just anyone. We can do whatever they're looking for. That's whoever it is. If they've got kids and they want to start something for their kids alongside of their self, then we do it. Yeah. We had somebody on the other day. We was talking about that.

More and more kid accounts need to get set up and kids investing and really thinking about the money they can do where they can retire earlier. If you start, if you start saving money, building a retirement account when you're a kid, you probably have a pretty good future on your hands there. I started one for my two girls right away. We're putting a very small amount in there, but it's set up because we started so young with them that they will not be facing the same difficulties I face. That there'll be, and that's where the legacy part of this book, talks about is legacy up for your kids and your generations and the children's children. Yeah, it's good to pass that money down.

That's a lot of rich families. They built wealth and they managed it well and then they passed it down to everybody and all that stuff that can make all the difference in the world. What are some other ways that you help people? You do the coaching and consulting where they can talk to you. Do you manage their money specifically under your systems or do you just give them advice in council. No, I manage it. And we beat at least yearly to go over and see what it looks like. And if we need to make any changes along the way, we do that. And I try to stay in

contact more than that. But it's at least yearly. If they don't want to hear from me, then we just do it annually. But if they're okay with it, then I check in with them pretty regular. And that's what we want to do is if they trust me, then I want to earn that trust. and so we're going to review it constantly and look and see if we can make any tweaks to it to improve their situation. Yeah, that's smart. It makes a lot of sense to do it that way. But yeah, yeah, and they can reach out to you.

They can contact you for free consultation. Press the button on their website. They can see some of the testimonials and services. And then you do tax strategy guidance. So if people need help with the tax decisions, that's a big thing. Risk management, wealth management, retirement planning, portfolio management. investment advisory and financial planning. So you plan for a life. A lot of people, you need to think about these things, man. They're not fun to think about when I'm going to die. I'm going to have

to retire. I'm going to do all that. Yes. But it comes sooner than you think. That's one thing that's undefeated. Comes sooner than you think, buddy. I know. Right now, I'm just looking back in my life going, what happened? I was 12 yesterday. What the effing? And older you get a faster, Cubs. Oh, yeah, dude, it just goes whipping. And, like, sometimes I just go, like, I was on a podcast yesterday and we were talking about something. I go, wait, isn't today Monday?

And he goes, no, dude, it's Wednesday. That tells you where I'm at. Anything more we need to know about before we go, Stephen? I just appreciate the opportunity to come on to speak with you. I hope that your viewers and listeners have maybe gained some different insight. And please reach out to me. Like I say, whether it's just to hear me or you're looking for some sort of advice, and we can definitely help you.

Thank you, Stephen. We really appreciate. Give us your dot-com as one last time as we go out. Sure. It's www. Powellfinancials.com. P-O-W-E-L-L-financials with an S.com. Stephen, thank you very much for coming to show.

We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And folks, pick up his book, Financial Fortress. Protect your money. grow your wealth, build your legacy, and you won't have to sell any body parts. I added that last part there, folks. Check that up, folks. Oh, did you do have an anticipated future book coming out? I think we want to tease.

I do. I'm actually working on a workbook right now to go along beside this one. It's just a financial fortress workbook. I'm hoping for the next year or so to be able to put out another book, but that's not started yet. Right now, the workbook should be out, in probably about a couple more months and it'll be on the same platforms it's on now. You know, that's Barnes & Noble, Amazon, books a million, all of them online,

Walmart, it's out there. If you just type in Financial Fortress and my name, you'll find it. All the usual players, is the OSCE. Well, thank you, Stephen, for coming the show. Thanks for our audience for tuning in. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortress, Chris Foss.

LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, one on the TikTok, and all those crazy places. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made

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