Today, we’re delighted to speak with entrepreneur Moza-Bella Tram, CEO and founder of Moza-Bella LLC. Moza-Bella is an immigrant with a remarkable entrepreneurial journey. She is a TEDx speaker, a mentor, a business consultant, and has written several books, including the bestseller Powerful Female Immigrants, which she co-authored. She is also the host of the digital TV show Lessons from Failures.
Stay tuned as we explore Moza-Bella’s fascinating journey and the experiences that have shaped her work.
Moza-Bella’s Journey
Moz-Bella was born in Vietnam shortly after the Vietnam War. She came to the U.S. as an adult immigrant 25 years ago, leaving behind family, familiarity, and certainty. Her experience was similar to that of many immigrants- the unknown, limited support, and the pressure to succeed, for herself, and for her family. She was told she was too old to learn English fluently, but she pushed forward anyway, focusing on clear communication rather than perfection, and using frustration as motivation to grow.
Early Career and Foundations in Hospitality
Before immigrating, Moza-Bella worked in Vietnam’s hospitality industry at Omni Saigon and later Sofitel Saigon, where she developed an appreciation for professionalism, service, and strategic promotions. Working in public relations exposed her to branding, credibility, and global perspectives, and hospitality became her first window into the world beyond Vietnam’s borders.
Education, Resistance, and Choosing Her Own Path
After arriving in the U.S., Moza-Bella encountered skepticism and prejudice and was discouraged from pursuing higher education. Despite that, she earned her MBA in Marketing from the University of Hartford, driven by her parents’ sacrifices and her belief in the right to choose her own future. Her early ambition was to build a global hospitality career, but over time, new opportunities and realities reshaped her direction.
Adaptation, Grit, and Multiple Careers
Moza-Bella supported herself through school and beyond by working in nail salons, restaurants, interpretation services, construction-related marketing, network marketing, real estate, and, eventually, nursing after the 2008 financial crisis. Each role added to her skills, perspective, and resilience.
Redefining Success and Time Freedom
Moza-Bella wanted the flexibility to care for her parents and shape her own life, so she chose to become an entrepreneur. She invested heavily in personal development and coaching, believing that free information offers knowledge, but paid learning creates transformation.
Building a Consulting Business with Purpose
Over the last five years, Moza-Bella built Moza-Bella LLC into a business consulting company with a growing team. Her mission is to help strong entrepreneurs become well-known in their industries, allowing them to create meaningful impact. She believes that change happens one person at a time, through a ripple effect of shared growth and visibility.
Lessons from Failures and Shared Wisdom
Through her digital TV show, Lessons from Failures, Moza-Bella highlights the realities behind success stories. Entrepreneurs, doctors, and professionals from many fields share how hardship shaped their decisions, often after years of trial and error. She emphasizes the value of learning lessons sooner, challenging entrenched systems, and prioritizing growth while time is still on your side.
Meaning Behind the Name Moza-Bella
The name “Moza” means mother of pearl, representing an oyster that transforms pain into something valuable by embracing it rather than resisting it. For Moza-Bella, that symbolizes human potential, cultivating adversity into wisdom, then opening oneself to share it with others.
Bio: Moza-Bella Tram
Founder and CEO, TEDx Speaker, Author, Mentor, Business Consultant
Moza-Bella is an international speaker, author, and CEO dedicated to helping professionals find authentic fulfillment and success. She has over 15 years of experience in healthcare and more than 20 years in business development. She produces and hosts the digital TV show “Lessons from Failures,” airing on FOX5 and PIX11 New York. She has been featured in Forbes and Yahoo Finance and is the author of “Luxury in YOU.” She partners with Grant Cardone in the 10X movement in Vietnam.
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Connect with Moza-Bella Tram
On her website
Listen on: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube
“The distance between your dream and your reality is taking action.”
Moza-Bella Tram
Full transcript of episode 304 of The Business of Meetings podcast, Eric Rozenberg with Moza-Bella Tram. Lightly edited for readability.
Eric: Hello and welcome to the Business of Meetings podcast. I’m your host, Eric Rozenberg.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of helping businesses in the meetings and event industry grow and succeed. And I’m excited to share that experience with you. If you feel alone and overwhelmed, and if you’re looking to take your business to the next level, improve your strategy and sales, and connect with like-minded professionals, you are in the right place. I invite you to visit eventbusinessformula.com and join our community of event business owners dedicated to exponential growth. Now let’s dive into today’s episode.
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Business of Meetings podcast. Today I’m delighted to speak with yet another entrepreneur, Moza-Bella Tram. She has a fascinating story. She also have a little bit of an accent like me because she’s also an immigrant. She also had an amazing journey. We’re going to talk about it. She’s also a TEDx speaker. She wrote several books, and one of them is a bestseller, co-author of Powerful Female Immigrants. She’s a mentor. She’s a business consultant, and amongst other things that she does, she also have a digital TV show called Lessons from Failures. CEO and founder of Moza-Bella LLC. Moza-Bella, I’m so happy to speak with you today. How are you?
Moza-Bella: I’m doing great. Thank you so much, Eric. I am super excited. I was looking forward to this conversation for a very long time, and thank you for giving this space to connect with your audience.
Eric: Of course. And again, as I said, you have a fascinating journey. So let’s start with that. What is your journey? How did you came to the US, and also what is your relationship with the hospitality industry?
Moza-Bella: Well, thank you for that beautiful introduction, right? Actually, I don’t think that my story is that fascinating. I think my story is very typical to all of the immigrants. Doesn’t matter if you come to another country, right, like we here in the US, but all the people that go to other countries as well. You have to start, you have to leave behind your family, like the place, like your comfort zone, and go to some place new, right? So a lot of challenges. Number one is fear. Second, the unknown. Third, no support. And then you had to somehow pull it through, not just for yourself, but for your family.
So I was born in Vietnam right after Vietnam War. And I came to the US 25 years ago. At that point, they said that I was too old. I was 25 then. I’m going to be 50. They said that, “Moza, you too old to learn English, to speak English fluently now.” So you’re right. I speak an accent, obviously. [laughter] But I do speak with my accent. I used to be so conscientious about that. I wanted to fix it so bad. But you know what, Eric? I learned that as long as people can understand you, like the goal of communication is understanding one another, right?
Eric: Absolutely.
Moza-Bella: So I’ve tried to learn to enunciate, to pronounce all the word, like, is it even the right word, to say the words correctly so people can understand me. So I can be understood. You know the feeling.
Eric: Yeah.
Moza-Bella: Right. So I don’t know if any of you guys out there, you came as an adult, right? And you have so much in your mind, and then you don’t have enough vocabulary to express yourself. It’s so frustrating. And that was my motivation to learn how to communicate better. And I’m still learning. I’m still learning, Eric. But anyway, so I came, and then they said no. But I pushed forward. That was my motivation. Interestingly enough, I live in South Florida, and when people ask me, “Where you from?” I say, “From South Florida.” Then they look at me, they pause, they go, “Yeah, but before that,” because I cannot hide the accents, for sure.
Eric: But before coming, you told me you were working in the hospitality industry in Vietnam.
Moza-Bella: Yes. So that was when I graduated, and I got the opportunity to work with Omni Hotel, Omni Saigon Hotel. I was in Vietnam then, and brand new. I had to learn a lot, but I fell in love with hospitality. I was the public relations coordinator. So basically I was like the staff. I didn’t know anything. They gave me like the title so that I can learn from the best, and I did learn from the best.
And then after a couple of years, public relations was something new, was not something that you had a lot of people to pull from. So now you talking about all other five-star hotels, right? And they tried to pull me to work for them, and I finally landed in Sofitel Saigon, and that was as a PR executive. So there was a little bit promotion there. But what I learned, Eric, is that I learned, number one, the professionalism in the industry, and number two, how to promote your services, and not just who you are but your credibility and your services, and just open my eyes, and third, open my eyes to other countries. At that point I thought that was the only vehicle that you could have, because at that point I lived in a communist country. The only way for me to explore the world would be through hospitality, right? Back then. I mean, Vietnam is different now, but I don’t know if you guys out there, if you’re old enough that you could remember that, but it was a different world.
Eric: Oh, I certainly can, especially coming from a socialist country myself. But yeah, absolutely. So you arrive in the US to study, and then to pay for the study, people are telling you, the prejudices in the mind of people, they’re telling you to go to a nail salon. Is that what you told me?
Moza-Bella: That’s right. Because I’m Vietnamese, right? So they said, “Why do you want to go to school? Like, that’s too much money, and when you graduate, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get a job. There’s no way that you can compete with other Americans here.” So nobody told me that, “Go ahead, do it. You do a great job.” No, it’s like all about, “No, no, no, you shouldn’t do it.” But I pushed forward because of my parents. I was thinking my parents worked so hard and sacrificed so much for me to come here to this country because of two things. Number one, better higher education, and number two, human rights. So number one, I don’t want to fail them. And number two, I thought that I had the right to choose my future.
Eric: And you study, if I’m not mistaken, you had a master degree in business administration from the University of Hartford. That correct?
Moza-Bella: That is correct. Thank you so much. Yeah, that was a master’s. And again, because you think about it, right? I was in Vietnam. I was in hospitality industry, and I thought that was my dream life. You know what my dream life would be at that point in my 20s? I wanted to earn the title of director of sales and marketing in a hotel, and then they would send me to different countries, two or three years, live there, work there, serve there, and then go to another country, and you just travel all over the world. That was my dream life when I was in my 20s. So that’s why, when I came here, my goal was to get my MBA in marketing so that I could be somehow qualified for that. But yes, that was like 25 years ago, Eric.
Eric: Wow. So you’re graduating from that program, and then I’m trying to put myself in your mind at that moment. You are succeeded in the studies. Your parents are obviously very proud of you. And then you have the choice, what do I want to do with my life? One of the option is to become director of sales and marketing and go back to Vietnam. Other option is, obviously, we live in the land of freedom and entrepreneurship. What is going on in your mind at that moment, and also the difference between, do I want to work for a large corporation, large organization, or do I want to go on my own and be my own boss?
Moza-Bella: That was a great question. During the time that I was here, I just learned about more opportunities and also learned that I wanted to own my house so I wouldn’t have to pay rent, because I wanted to be able to do the things that inside my space, right? Because think about when you step outside of the world, I didn’t feel that I belong anywhere, as an immigrant. Only when you come into your home, you think this is your space and you safe. So I wanted to decorate the way I want. But then, if you rented a house, you couldn’t put a nail on the wall. And I didn’t like that. So I said, “Okay, well, let’s get a house.”
So then, when you did that, so after I bought my house, then you started to feel like, okay, well, you kind of anchor, right? And then all the opportunities, you were introduced to all the opportunities. So then it’s just like one thing after another. It’s not like that, like when you put it together like that, Eric, in your question, it sounded perfect, like, okay, either this or that. But life was gradual. So I would like to say that I got more assimilated. I evolved. I grew. And then I open to all the opportunities. And then when I wanted to go back, it was in about like 2007, 2008. So the economy was not like it used to be, right?
Eric: Yeah.
Moza-Bella: So my parents said that maybe you shouldn’t come back, because you come back, like, you’re not going to be able to make it in Vietnam.
Eric: Absolutely. People don’t really always realize the decision that you’re making, family-wise, having the family far away, and you really need to have a lot of grit and resilience to be able to move forward in those condition.
Moza-Bella: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that you say that. But I don’t know if you guys out there, that you can relate. I never thought that that was hard. I didn’t think that my life was hard. I never thought that, “Okay, well, like, I’m a victim. Oh, so poor me.” I just thought, okay, this is life, and I’m going to just one step forward, right? This is my goal. This is what I need to do. This is what needs to get done. And that’s it. I do it.
So then I’m thinking back, I never celebrated any Christmas or any Thanksgiving or any birthdays or anything, because I didn’t have my family, graduation, nobody down there. Like, everything was by myself. But I never cried because of that. It was just life, and one thing, that I love my parents so much. I always wanted to make them proud. So that’s the only thing. Now I have so much gratitude in my heart, Eric, even with a simple thing that you can just call. My mom is 81 now. My dad, I lost my dad 11 years ago for cancer, right?
Eric: I’m sorry.
Moza-Bella: But thank you. But back then, in order for me to save my money, to be able to call them, that was like, you can do it only once a month. It was a lot of money. And now I got the opportunity, I got the privilege to just pick up the phone and then FaceTime my mom, like, around the world, just like crazy. I don’t ever take anything like that for granted now.
Eric: One thing you said that resonates a lot with me is that we’re not a victim. And that is so true. I cannot stand when people are trying to find excuses. It doesn’t take anything from the need of grit and resilience, actually. But people that are trying to find excuse, that this pain in the stomach, and say, “No, come on, you have opportunities here. Just take them.” So you said you’ve been here now 25 years. Take us a little bit through your journey from the moment you’re graduating until today, until you are a TEDx speaker, until you’re helping other people. There’s been a lot of things happening in between.
Moza-Bella: Yeah. Yes, you’re right. There’s a lot of things happen in between. But I would like to share that you make the decision. I wanted to be the TEDx speaker. Like, I was inspired. I believe that I had a message to share, and then I wanted for that to become my reality. The distance between your dream and your reality is taking action. Some people would take action for like five minutes and then they drop out. Some people will consistently taking action, and that’s how you make your dream to be your reality.
I’m not a lucky person. People say I’m lucky. I’m not lucky. I don’t have the family support. I’m just like any of you guys, but I make the decision and I will not drop. I know it’s hard, but I can do it. And I believe in God, Eric. I don’t know if you do, but I just believe that, this is my conversation with God when I hit challenges in life, right? And I say that, “Please help me. If you believe this is my mission, and if you believe that this is my path, then help me and guide me to make the right decision and guide me to the right people.” And that is something very personal that I’m sharing with you today. But I think that if I can share something that is so true to me, and if it helps me, then I hope that it can help other people.
Eric: My grandfather used to say, men and women make plans and God laughs, because obviously things happening. And so what are the different businesses that you’ve done, or what is your career since the last 25 years, I would say, here in the US?
Moza-Bella: So I would say, so I did work at a nail salon, it was little money, but that helped me go through college. I worked at a restaurant. I applied because I went to school in the morning and during the day, so at night and during the weekends I could work. So restaurants would be a good option. I wanted to be a waitress. I didn’t qualify because I didn’t have the experience. So they put me as a hostess, right? So, learned a lot from that industry. And then I did some network marketing. I was a court interpreter because of my language. So I did that, and I helped a lot of people as well, court, hospital, like any in that nature in regards to language. I did some construction.
Eric: Wow.
Moza-Bella: Yes. Because now, if you’re marketing, so what do all small businesses need, right? Like, you work with small businesses too, Eric. What do they need? They’re very good at what they do, but they don’t know how to market themselves. So then I helped them with that, to do the marketing so they can get more clients. Real estate, of course. Nursing.
Eric: Wow.
Moza-Bella: So I had to go back to…
Eric: Yeah.
Moza-Bella: Yeah. That’s another story. I did all of that, but then when the economy crashed after 2008, I had to go back to school to get a job, to be able to pay for my house and support my life, to support myself. And that was nursing. I learned a lot in nursing as well. Oh my gosh. Yes. At the end, this is one lesson that I learned. Whatever you do, when you have a job, you trade the hours for money, and my time is limited.
Eric: Yep.
Moza-Bella: If I want to have more time for my dad, which I did, I did. I spend the most amount of my time that I could, months, with my dad during his treatment and to the end of life. And if I want to spend more time with my mother, then I cannot have a job. Therefore I started my own journey again as a business owner.
Eric: So what did you do?
Moza-Bella: What did I do? So you follow the path of all the successful people, right? Number one, you know what you want, and then you find the mentor. You open your mind to opportunities. Got to believe in yourself first and believe that, yes, you can do it, right? A lot of people, they feel that, okay, well, that works for Eric, that works for somebody else, but that wouldn’t work for me, right? At least if I tried, I knew that I have 50/50 chance to succeed. If I don’t try, I don’t have any chance.
Eric: Correct. Yeah, every person who won the lottery started by buying a ticket. [laughter]
Moza-Bella: I never bought any ticket. I don’t know, I don’t like gambling.
Eric: No, no, but it’s just taking action. And it’s…
Moza-Bella: That’s right.
Eric: Absolutely love it.
Moza-Bella: Yep.
Eric: And so what did you do in order to sustain yourself, but also be able to spend time with your family? What type of business did you go in? Because at that moment, it was not yet, or was it already, the internet marketing and all this aspect? You said you work in network marketing as well, but what did you do in order to be your own boss and decide on the time, how you were going to allocate your time?
Moza-Bella: Right. So just bring me back to like five, six years ago. I had my job, right? And then the pivotal moment was that I needed to have more time and more flexibility. What do I want? So how do I want my life to be 10 years from now? And I could. So I wanted to travel. I love cultures. I would love to meet people. I didn’t have that opportunity when I was studying, right? Because you spend time to study, and then you work, and then you had like two or three weeks of vacation, and that was it. So I used that time to spend time with my parents. So I never got the opportunity to see the world, to understand all the cultures and other people. So now that’s my life. I wanted to do that. So now I have to make the decision. So I learned, and then I said, “Okay, well, I need to make enough money for me to safely quit my job.” I started with some coaching.
Eric: Okay.
Moza-Bella: Because with coaching I could do it by myself. But that was the decision after me spending money to learn a lot. And one thing, though, nowadays with YouTube, and with now we have AI, people believe in free information. This is what I believe. I spend so much money on learning, because the free information, it just give you the information. But if you want transformation, you got to pay.
Eric: Makes sense.
Moza-Bella: So then I paid. I paid a lot. I mean, I put all of my savings, I put so that I could improve myself, so I know how to help other people better, so I wouldn’t repeat everything that they already know, right? That’s how I started. And when I started with coaching, and then as the company grew over the past five years. So now we have 11 people working for us. We have a team of experts working for us. We have a business consulting company. Our mission is to help great entrepreneurs, not everybody, because just like any profession, anything you do, not everybody is great. We help great entrepreneurs to be the best known in the industry, so that everybody knows about them, so they can be massively impactful, so we all can lift up humanity. That’s what I believe. That’s my mission. That’s my heart, and that’s our mission as a company, Eric, because I want to help people, but I cannot help everybody.
You have a beautiful platform where you can serve other people. But think about it, doesn’t matter if you can reach to like a million people, there’s still a lot. We can help everybody. So therefore, one at a time. So it’s like a drip in the water, and then it’s the, what you call, the ripple effect, right?
Eric: Ripple effect. Yeah.
Moza-Bella: Yes.
Eric: Wonderful. Moza-Bella, I’d like to finish with something that struck my mind when I was reading your bio, is that you have this digital TV show, which is called Lessons from Failures. And life on Instagram is not real life, and people have issues to speak about their failures, and I don’t know any entrepreneurs, including myself, who has not faced failures before being successful. So what are some of the guests that you have, or some of the stories that you have, that people that are listening right now can learn from?
Moza-Bella: That’s a great question, but then I have to go back and think. So we’ve had great people on my show, great stories, entrepreneurs, of course, doctors, attorneys. So this is one common theme that I have learned. We went through hardships in life, but what helped you to get up and get going is different. You have one principle, right? But how you execute it is totally different. And I think it’s fascinating.
So I don’t know if this could relate, but one of the latest guests that we had on our show, she’s a doctor, and she said that, okay, all of the years that she went to school for, to become a doctor, to become a surgeon, and then all of the years that she practiced in the health care field, she just realized that they are just selling drugs for the pharmaceutical companies. So then she said there must be a better way to live life, right? You take care of yourself, preventative approach, versus you wait until you get sick and then you take the pill. It’s a different kind of mindset, right?
And again, some people can learn their lesson quickly. You make a mistake, you learn right away. Some people, they had to spend 20 years in their life to be able to learn one lesson. And how many of those 20 years that you have in your life? So those are so valuable to me, is like gold. And if we got the opportunity and if we got the privilege to learn, then I would love to learn and to share.
Eric: Wonderful. My two last question. The first one, how do people get in touch with you?
Moza-Bella: It’s moza-bella.com, or you can just Google me up. Can I say why Moza? Can I say that?
Eric: Oh, yes, please. I thought it was the name. No, no, absolutely.
Moza-Bella: So that is not a Vietnamese name, right? My last name is Tram, T-R-A-M. And that is my father’s last name, so I keep that. Now, Moza is a mother of pearls. So she is an oyster. Somehow life introduced a grain of sand into her body. Although it’s so painful, instead of trying to get rid of it, she decided to embrace it, cultivated it, and make it become something beautiful. And that is the pearl. It’s for herself. But the only way for her to serve the world is to open herself up and give that pearl to life. And that’s why it’s Moza.
Eric: That’s a beautiful story.
Moza-Bella: Thank you. And I believe that is the story, that’s everybody. I believe that everybody has that beautiful pearl inside of them. You just have the courage and the decision to open it up so that you can share to others.
Eric: Wonderful. And then my last question is, when we meet in real life in a year with a bottle of champagne, what are we going to celebrate?
Moza-Bella: Celebrate you. I would like to celebrate you and everything that you have accomplished. You, in the back office, before this conversation, you share with me so many things that you have done to help others, and I’m so excited about your journey for 2026. I can’t wait to learn more about your AI program, Eric. And just to celebrate life, celebrate success. And if, when you come in and you have, like, tell me your successes, I’ll be like, “Thank you for being so successful,” because then you will inspire me to do more.
Eric: Thank you very much. It’s very kind, Moza-Bella. A pleasure speaking with you, and I look forward to meeting you in real life.
Moza-Bella: Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Same here. Have a wonderful day.
Eric: Thank you for tuning in to the Business of Meetings podcast. I hope you found today’s episode valuable. If you enjoy the show, the most important thing you can do is leave a review and share it with your colleagues. It really helps spread the word. I truly appreciate your support. And if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, don’t forget to visit eventbusinessformula.com to learn more about how we are helping event business owners like you. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
