What is The Significance of Personality in Public Speaking? Presentation Review 11: Tony Cho

Do you struggle with fear, doubt, and worry in your public speaking? Do you find it difficult to connect with your audience and deliver presentations that leave a lasting, positive, unforgettable impact? If yes, then let's dive in the world of public speaking and presentation skills with your host, Eric Edmeads. Welcome to the Unforgettable podcast with guest host David Wood.

I'm Eric Mark Edmeads, and I am here, as always, with David T.S.

Wood.

Excellent, David. So this is going to be a fun one. We're doing another speech review, and this is for my good friend Tony Cho. I really, really enjoyed this talk. I enjoy being with Tony generally, but I'm looking forward to sharing this with. With everyone.

Yeah, you know, I remember when, again, I always say we bring ourselves with us to the stage, and whenever I see him walk into a room, he's that guy. You know, he's not the invisible guy. There's. And I described it as there's a him. He seems to carry love with him wherever he goes. And it's sort of really apparent in the way he speaks as well. So it's pretty beautiful.

I've really been really grateful to kind of welcome him to our community because he is doing big things. You know, he has a very serious mission around redesigning cities so that they're functional and actually create happiness for people. I think we've seen, even driving around our city that we're in today, you know, some of the problems with big cities and homelessness and all this sort of stuff. And he is on a huge mission to completely redo and rethink city design. And of course, if you're going to have a big mission like that, becoming effective at public speaking is a big deal. And so with all of his accomplishment, with everything that he's achieved in the business world, which is significant, to see him taking that step and saying, I'm going to be a student again and I'm going to learn about this filled me with pride. So I'm really, really excited about the progress he's made, and I think this. This talk is going to be a lot of fun.

Yeah.

Let's roll it. Up and down.

Good evening, everybody. How are you feeling? I'm feeling so inspired by each and every one of you who came up here today. This week has been transformational for me, and I've had so many breakthroughs that I can't even explain it, and I'm just so grateful. And to listen to Jeffrey and Peter and Shaft's experiences spontaneously only inspires so many events. Of my life. And I too had similar experiences where I became a millionaire by the time I was 26 years old. That was my goal, to be independent and become a millionaire. And when I got there, I was left wondering, what was this all for? I was standing there, the market had collapsed, and I had to start all over again. And at that moment, while things were collapsing, is when I met my now wife, Jimena. And this is 2008, 2009, when Lehman brother collapsed and the world was ending. And I just met the woman that I couldn't believe, was the woman that I would most likely spend the rest of my life with. However, at that moment, you know, I had everything come to me so easily. You know, it was like, you know, I was a nightclub promoter. You know, I had any girl that I wanted. I could go anywhere around the world. I was hanging out with LL Cool J in the clubs with girls and Al Pacino. And now I was in a relationship and I was like, wow, this is something new for me. So we had been dating for about three years, and, you know, three years, you know, when you're 30 years old is a long time, but if you're a Colombian woman from a Catholic family, three years is an eternity. And at that point, she starts looking at her watch and she's like, is this guy serious or is he just playing me? You know, what does this guy really want? So basically, she gave me an ultimatum. And she said to me, are you serious? You know, and I said, well, why can't we be together? Why can't we, you know, have a family? Why can't we be committed but not get married? It's just a piece of paper, right? Nah, not in Colombia. It don't work like that in Colombia. So I had to really sit with this. I'm 30 years old. I had made money to become a millionaire. I had lost it all. But she was there with me through the worst times. She was there when I had to live in her one bedroom apartment, when we had to share a Prius, and she got in when the stock was low and I was on the rebound. And there was a reason for that. It wasn't just me. We're not alone in this world. We can't do it alone. I think we all experienced that this week, right? We are in this together. And so we went on this vacation in Europe, and it was a difficult vacation. We fought a lot. You know, we were kind of on the rocks and I was getting the pressure. So we come back to Florida after a vacation, after Being in Istanbul, and it was shit or get off the pot. It was, we've either got to take it to the next level or we've got to end this, basically. So I dug deep in my soul and I had looked at my life and scan. I'm 30. I'm like, am I going to spend the rest of my life with just one woman? You know, is this going to be possible? Will I be. Will I be happy? And I made the decision at that moment that this woman was the woman for me. That money hadn't made me happy, that nothing had made me happy. I'd accomplished all this at a young age. I'd made money and lost money, but I wanted somebody by my side. So I took the plunge and I made that decision. And it was the best decision of my life. And we go to see my grandmother to tell her that we're going to get married, and we're going to get married at the ashram on 11 11, 11. And so my grandmother is overjoyed. She's screaming, finally, my grandson, he adopted me at birth, is getting married. Jimena locked him down. How is this possible? This is unbelievable. I'm going to have grandkids. That was the first thing she said to my. My now wife. When are you guys going to have kids? This is now 14 years ago, the first day that she met her. So we have this huge celebration. It's incredible. We have 300 people from all over the world. People from nightlife, people from people from real estate, people from all aspects of my life, people from the ashram. And it was one of those peak moments. It was one of those times in your life where you're like, everything is perfect. Everything is magical. This was meant to be. And the night just went on and on and on and celebrated. And then we go back to our lives in Miami. And then a month later, I get a call from my grandmother's assistant that says, tony, you've got to come home. I've got bad news. I go home, spend time with my mom, find out that she's diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. She's the pillar of the community. She's the leader of Multi Thousand person spiritual ashram. She was the person that represent the strongest person in the world. Next thing you know, I'm in a doctor's office with just me and her, with everybody waiting outside. And the doctor looked at her and said, ma, you have three months to live. And I looked at him, shocked. And then he goes to say, not only do you have three Months. There's nothing that you can do. Nothing that you can do. How insensitive is this asshole to tell my grandmother there's nothing that you can do. There was nothing that we could do. And I spent the most valuable time with her those last three months of her life. And I sat by her side as she passed away, and thank God I said yes. So don't ever regret making a decision when you know in your heart that it's the right thing to do. Seize the moment and trust your intuition.

Tony.

There's something about you which I think is so special in this world. And, and I, I. When I, when I think about you, and I was thinking about you last night, you know, because we bumped into each other, like, was it 2:30 or something? And you, it's love. You have this capacity to love unlike almost anyone I've ever met. You walk in a room and that sort of love follows you around when you talk, the way you look at people, the way you speak, everything about that. And I think it's such an important. And you don't have to talk about it, you just sort of do it. And I think, you know, when you love life and you, you know, you love people as much it exudes out of you as you speak. And I really like that. And the other point I was going to make, you know, your story, Dalai Lama, the guru, all those things. You could talk so many things about you and your life and the fact you don't, and the fact you know it's there but you don't have to name you just. Anyway, it's very special. You have a very special capacity.

Tony. One of the things Eric taught was about eye contact. And I don't know if you were really making eye contact, but I felt like you were. And it made it feel like you and I were just having a conversation because even when you looked away, I felt like you were still talking just to me. And then you would look back. So, great job on the eye contact.

Tony. From our first Zoom call, which I recall not so very long ago, I knew there were two very special things about you. One was that you wanted to do very, very big, big things, and that you. That you already had, and you were just going to do even bigger things. And I knew that, and there are lots of people that are going to do really big things. Then there was something else I knew about you, and that is that you're special. Like, there's something about you.

There's a.

There's an openness, as Dave said, there's a, there's a love about you. There's a, there's just a joy and an inner child and all that fun stuff in there. And it's been so fun watching you craft the various stories you've been playing with and get to a place where you're really sharing stories. You're really sharing experiences with us and, and using your emotions and your. And making that eye contact and really connecting with the audience. It's really, really gorgeous.

Well done.

You should be very proud.

And he really lives like that, the trust your intuition thing. He was first introduced to me by a mutual friend, Michael, and we just, we had a conversation for about seven minutes and by the end of that 10 minutes, he said, I have a big mission in the world and I really feel like you're going to be able to support me in making that happen. He went with it and was immediately committed. And this is an important thing to understand because we were asking a big time commitment for him. And in the meantime, he's jetting all over the world. As we were just talking about in the break, he spent the week before, the week he spent with us with the Dalai Lama. He's connected with everybody around the world. But this mission to get his message out into the world is so important that he did listen to his intuition and took action. And I think it's important it comes to authenticity. Do you really live the message that you're, that you're sharing with the world?

Yeah. And he does the other thing I like. You know, quite often people get in this space and name dropping or, you know, he didn't use any of that, you know, and he could have. There are so many parts of that. He came down to his relationship and this connection to his mother. And that's why, again, I think our, this medium, you know, the nation is all about that.

Right.

It's, it's about coming together, it's about linking arms together. So he's a great testimony to that. It's collaboration.

He also did a great job because, you know, we've talked in previous episodes about the value of contrast, and he does a great job of that. To go from, you know, born and raised on an ashram, to, you know, taking over the nightclubbing scene of Argentina, to then revamping entire neighborhoods in Florida, to now developing the entire future of cities. And it's really been interesting to hear that story because of all those contrasts and the way he spoke, the way he shared those personal experiences. And I like that. You're so right. He did it. Not at all. It would be very easy to come from a place of ego about that but it just wasn't there. He really came from authentic heart position. Well delivered. So again, I want to remind you that no matter what you've achieved, no matter where you are at the height of industry, at the height of achievement or just starting out, you have stories and you have life experience that is there for the next person. So make sure that you get out there and share them with the world.

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