Biography
Actor, author, filmmaker and host of Tola Talks, Rich Tola has been creating original content across all media platforms since 2007.
His feature film, Boulevard Zen, is a romantic drama about overcoming adversity with the help of yoga. His short films, Skateboard Bandits and Zen Diaries: The Lockdown, were both winners at the 2019 Global Shorts Awards. His reality TV series, YogaStyles of Rich and the Almost Famous, is where yoga meets history throughout the streets of Chicago.
His books include, The Sub: Tales of an Inner-City Teacher, an outsider's view inside America's troubled educational system; How to Drink from the Fountain of Youth: 30 Steps to Everlasting Youth, a personal development guide for healthy and youthful living; and Simply Between Millions: From Wall Street to Hollywood, a heartfelt memoir about perseverance and spiritual awakening, and as one reader puts it, "a wildly entertaining and inspirational book on life never getting you down - even when you're down!"
The Sub and How to Drink from the Fountain of Youth, are both winners of The Firebird Book Award. His podcast, Tola Talks, is live-streamed on YouTube and inspires viewers with his "21st Century Talk for a No BS World".
From humble beginnings in Trenton, NJ, the son of an old-school Sicilian barber, Rich received business degrees from Wharton (The University of Pennsylvania) and Kellogg (Northwestern University - MBA). In the 80's, he was an All-Ivy League baseball player who worked for Wall Street juggernauts Goldman Sachs and Drexel Burnham Lambert before living in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia as an International Bank Consultant. In the 90's, he was a top-producing New York City real estate broker and high-flying dot-com entrepreneur who secured The Trump Organization as his first strategic client. In the early 2000's, he was an award-winning real estate developer restoring Historic Landmark properties throughout inner-city neighborhoods. On Valentine's Day 2006, Rich took his first acting class in New York City and has never looked back.
