Dr. Velma Trayham is a powerhouse. Award-winning entrepreneur and Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient by Joe Biden. I am so happy I got to interview my friend. Enjoy this interview!

Hi!!!! Good morning how are you doing?... Hello! I am doing amazing. You know my team is always after me to do Instagram Lives, and I have been telling them that I just do not have the time to do them.  But I was telling them just how amazing that you are… and I was like ‘whatever you need me to do, I will do’.

Thank you so much! You just do not understand I was just so happy when you agreed to do the Instagram Live. I am just so grateful that you said yes, and that we are here.

If you are not aware of Dr. Velma Trayham and what a total powerhouse that she is; to begin she is an award-winning entrepreneur, best-selling author, built Thinkzilla, and has helped so many businesses to grow. So, tell me what came first the idea to build a business about what you are passionate about – helping people, or was it I am passionate, and it will kind of fall into my lap? Also please tell us about the journey of creating everything that you have…

You know that is a really good question…to start off with, in thinking about what came first. It is all about solving problems. I was born and raised in poverty in Houston, Texas. I knew that my end was not going to look like my beginning. So, I started to align myself with people places and things that could help me to help other people. When you think about poverty…poverty is a state of mind. 

I started to build programs to help other people while also helping myself. There is this famous quote that I believe in wholeheartedly … ‘when you truly help other people, everything else will align and fall in place’.  Helping other people was what came first, that is how it started. 

Yes, one of my favorite sayings…’It doesn’t matter where you start it is where you finish.’ You start off at your beginnings, it is not a death sentence that you will end in poverty. If you come from privilege, it is not a guarantee that you will end in privilege. It can go either way, it is so important to have that mindset and that hunger. 

You have an amazing personality, I know that you stated that you aligned yourself with people, places, and things that could help you. How did you work with yourself to not allow that green eye monster (bitterness, jealousy) to creep up? 

I would honestly say that it has not always been like this. I was a green eye monster for quite some time. I went through counseling and therapy. When your mind is conditioned, and you are raised in a certain condition there are some things that you are going to have to purge out of your life. 

I carried some heavy burdens … the victim mentality, and the angry woman mentality. Through the therapy I discovered that I would have to change the way that I think and the way that I see myself before I could have different outcomes. I fasted, prayed a lot, and I did a lot of journaling.

This is the reality of things…life is going to try and tear you down, why? Because the devil’s job is to steal, kill, and destroy. So, it is the strong people that survive. 

So, I began to look at circumstances, and conditions that were good in life. We all see what is going on in a very dark world, I mean we see it. People committing suicide, we live in a TikTok generation where people want this instant gratification, and people want things to happen so fast. And people are with the get quick rich schemes, come on. That is so true!   

I said forget this. When I moved to Atlanta, I went on a 40-day fast. I purged myself from TV, social media, and reading magazines. I knew that I wanted God to make me into a new being. I needed to re-purpose my thoughts, to realign myself, and changed the way that I see life.

That to me and for me was powerful, and a transformational moment for me. That set me for the journey that was before me. It was cleansing myself and taking 100% accountability for my life. I have found that many do not take accountability for their lives, and they continue to blame other people, things and situations that happened to us. 

Well, guess what life happens to all of us. But I, Velma Trayham decided to take 100% accountability for my life, my future, my feelings, thoughts, and my outcomes. That is how it all started. 

So, 2016 was a powerful moment for you…and it could have gone either way. You must go within. I say that you are tested. You get tested on your faith. You were already on your journey, and you decided to take a step back and do the work on you. A lot must be said for that. You did the work on you. It is important for us all to recognize this, it is okay to take that step back and to say what did I do to get in this situation. To ask yourself those real hard questions, cry, dig deep, go to therapy, journal – so that you can come out a better version of you. 

The thing is that no one can make that decision for you, that you need to take a step back. No one can make that decision of accountability for you but you. I got tired of blaming other people, or this happened to me because of my divorce… life is 90% of how we respond to things, and 10% what happens.  I decided I was going to start responding to things differently. 

People say Velma you do not get mad at anything. Well, I don’t know that I don’t get mad at anything but what I learned to not let people ‘puppeteer me’. That means to not allow anyone to play me like a puppet and to pull my strings. I must remember that Velma is always in control to what happens to me in life, and how I respond to things is 90%. 

You had mentioned ‘pulling your strings’,  that comes with boundary settings, and that no one can force you into anything. I love that you are taking responsibility how you respond to things, and it is your choice to disengage. It is a very Zen approach, I know I have grown and matured so much, because I use to be reactionary. And so angry. When you do the work, it helps so much. 

Another one of my favorite quotes, I tell all my mentees – ‘to always play positionally and not emotionally. A lot of times we act on impulse. When we play positionally we will see a lot of good things happen for us. We must intentionally mitigate to not be emotional and react emotionally. 

Thinkzilla, you are opening an office in Miami. You currently have offices in Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Scottsdale, Arizona. What are you most proud of with Thinkzilla, is it the businesses that you have helped, and everything that you have accomplished. Or is it the whole enchilada that you are most proud of…  

That is a really good question. I think the fire that stays lit on the inside of me is always knowing that I am a solution to a problem. Often, we forget that God put us here to solve problems. That God put a solution to a problem on the inside of us. Thinkzilla, we are celebrating 10 years this December 2022. That is a hair flip moment! 

When I think about what I am most thankful, grateful for… the thousands of people that I can touch and help. On a national platform, working with corporations to help those undeserved, unrepresentative communities. That is what I am most proud of being is that type of problem solver.