Sep 14, 2026

Stan Beck joins The A Game Podcast with Nick Lamagna for a raw, wide-ranging conversation about risk-taking, reinvention, fatherhood and what it actually takes to build something that lasts – on the mats and in business.

Stan is a 4th-degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under Renzo Gracie and the owner of Renzo Gracie Salt Lake City. A first-generation American raised in Queens, NY to parents who survived the Holocaust as hidden children in France, Stan has spent his career refusing to follow the conventional path – dropping out of college, flipping real estate, building and losing a business during the 2008 crash, surviving a brutal stretch trading stocks, and opening multiple martial arts academies from Florida to Utah.

One of the biggest themes in this conversation is something almost every entrepreneur, investor or high performer eventually runs into:

What separates the people who actually pull the trigger on an opportunity from the people who just talk about it?

Stan talks openly about the two times in his life when things fell apart financially, and why he never let fear make the final decision. His answer wasn’t some hidden trick – it was deciding what the actual worst-case scenario looked like, accepting he could survive it, and moving forward anyway. He also opens up about the parts of his own upbringing he consciously chose to keep and the parts he worked hard to break so his kids wouldn’t inherit them.

In this episode, Stan and Nick talk about:

  • Growing up first-generation American with Holocaust-survivor parents in Queens

  • Why listening to his father talk business (without being allowed to ask questions) shaped how he raises his own kids

  • Dropping out of college and buying his first property in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at 30 years old

  • Doubling his money on a concrete-floor loft with zero kitchen

  • Becoming a realtor, moving to Florida, and building a hurricane window-film protection business

  • Losing everything when the real estate market collapsed

  • A painful, expensive lesson from trading stocks and why he never went back

  • Training in the “blue basement” era of the Renzo Gracie Academy in NYC alongside Matt Serra, John Danaher, Ricardo Almeida and Chris Weidman

  • Earning his black belt and opening academies in Florida, then Salt Lake City

  • Knowing when a student or business partner is ready to run their own academy

  • Why he handed off his Florida academy instead of holding on too tight

  • Breaking generational patterns as a father and building emotional intelligence

  • Why he tells his kids about his own weaknesses instead of hiding them

  • The loyalty philosophy he learned from Renzo Gracie and why it only works one way first

  • Why “hope” gets you through hard times better than forced enthusiasm

Stan’s biggest lesson for anyone trying to build something of their own: find someone who’s already succeeded at what you want to do, copy their blueprint exactly until you get their results, and only then start making it your own. And when fear shows up, don’t let it decide for you – decide for yourself what you can live with, and go.

STAN BECK

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/stan.beck.7

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/stanbeckbjj/

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-beck-95833291/

X/Twitter:
https://x.com/stanbeckbjj

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@stanwolf

RENZO GRACIE SALT LAKE CITY

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/renzograciesaltlakecity/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581075153665#

CONNECT WITH NICK LAMAGNA

Want to buy, sell or partner on a real estate investment?

DM Nick the words REAL ESTATE on social media or email:

podcast@nicknicknick.com

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