853 Darnyelle Jervey Harmon: Forgiving Forward

You cannot have a booming business if you have a busted life because life and business is completely congruent. Mindset is 95% of your success. Our ability to be successful is not just about strategy. Sure, strategy absolutely plays a role, but it is equally if not more about (start our success mindset, the way we embody how we show up fully for ourselves and our belief and deserve level that we hold about our ability to achieve a specific result.

It took me some time to learn that success as an entrepreneur has much more to do with who you are being than what you are doing. Yet most of the time we operate like human doings rather than human beings and my guest Darnyelle Jervey Harmon has the blueprint for how to scale into the multi-millions – and it’s all about your spiritual growth. I’m excited to speak to Darnyelle today because she’s been on an incredible journey since she was last on this show some 6 years ago now.

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, and if you’re here in the US, Happy Thanksgiving to you. There is much about our world right now causing stress, pain and suffering and I hope you find many things to be grateful for today and every day. I hope the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders we share on this podcast helps you towards your dreams. When I was starting out as an entrepreneur more than 2 decades ago I wish I had all this advice at my fingertips!  I hope you’ll join us on Podopolo with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice … or simply by sharing your favorite moment in a clip … Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who helps CEOs align their passion and purpose to grow multimillion dollar businesses that serve them spiritually as well as financially.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon is CEO of Inc. 5000 company Incredible One Enterprises, the coaching and consulting brand that’s helped her CEO clients collectively generate more than a half a billion dollars in sales. Today we talk about how her award-winning Move to Millions® Method takes business owners from six figure years to six figure quarters, six figure months, six figure weeks, and ultimately six figure days.  Sounds good right?

Darnyelle will be here in a moment, and first,

Entrepreneurship tests us to our core. So much to master, so much often beyond our control… is it any wonder so many female founders struggle with self-doubt, imposter syndrome, even fear of success? I’m excited to share a way to become UnShakeable as we grow and learn with the Unshakeable monthly membership program from Michele Molitor. Michele’s unique Rapid Rewiring protocol has helped me overcome lingering fear of success subconscious saboteurs, and I can’t recommend her highly enough. The Unshakeable monthly group coaching, hypnotherapy, and masterclasses are only $97 a month. Just go to https://www.rapidrewire.com/HowToBecomeUnShakeableV2 RapidRewire.com slash How to Become Unshakeable V2 – or click the link in the show notes for this episode.

Less than 2% of female founders grow multimillion dollar businesses. Why? What’s keeping so many women entrepreneurs stuck in the 6-figures? Could the answer be as simple as overcoming any subconscious beliefs we have about our own value or deserving, or perhaps a fear that financial success brings undue obligation, possibly even abandonment? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

And it turns out one of the first steps in letting go of these blocks you may not even know you have … is simply to forgive. Forgive others, and forgive yourself.

Yep, my guest today Darnyelle Jervey Harmon swears by her Forgiveness Protocol – which she credits for helping her build her own multimillion dollar business helping many other business owners also scale to the multimillions. Today we’re going to explore why self-forgiveness is key to allowing money to flow into your life – plus how to overcome the money blocks. And much more, so …

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Darnyelle Jervey Harmon and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Darnyelle, Welcome to Wings.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Thank you so much for having me again, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:

I know it’s been a while. I think you were episode five or six of this back in 2017.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

Gosh. I mean, I could just only imagine how much your business has grown since. So, I remember that interview being really inspired by you. And so, a lot of things that have probably happened in the last six years.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, a lot. Definitely a lot. So 2017, I was on the rebound. So, my company had been doing seven figures a year, and then I decided to step away from it because I didn’t love it very much. I couldn’t figure out how to not have the business run me and how to actually run the business. So, I took a step back. 2017, I got married, so I was really focused on the other areas of my life and trying to figure out how to have a company that really served me, still allowed me to do amazing work out in the world, but didn’t require me to be a slave to it. And that’s a predicament that we help other entrepreneurs and small business owners solve today. So, 2018, 2019, I figured it out. I figured out how to have exactly what I desired in my business, and to set it up in a way that would still allow it to serve my life.

And so, then we made our move back to the million dollar mark. In 2020, we started a rebrand of everything that we do. Our company name is still Incredible One Enterprises but our core message and movement is Move to Millions. So, today we work with six figure service-based entrepreneurs and small business owners who desire to be CEOs of million-dollar companies. And they want to do it without sacrificing their faith, their family, their freedom, their finances or their fun. And so, we show them how to leverage our Move to Millions Method in a way that allows them to create the right systems, support and infrastructure, so that they can truly be the CEO of a company that does serve them both financially and spiritually.

Melinda Wittstock:

Congratulations on all that progress.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s interest in our business trajectory as entrepreneurs, we always have these seasons. There’s big advances, and then you kind of hit a wall and then you’ve got to kind of regroup. And whether it’s from one business to the next business or within a business, the pivot that you have to make. But hands down, every woman that I’ve ever interviewed on this show or mentored or even through my own experience, has had that tricky thing that you describe where you’re successful, the business is growing really quickly and the business is running you rather than you running your business.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think that’s particularly difficult for women because we’re so hardwired to be all things to all people and want to do it all, and we fall into that trap more easily than men. And so, go back a little bit and talk to me about your process, about how you personally started to figure this out. And now obviously you help many others do the same, but how did you get those pieces in the right place?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah, so for me, I think about it this way, Melinda, I quit my good job, fingers in air quotes to become an entrepreneur. And I didn’t become an entrepreneur to struggle. I mean, I was doing really well. I made six figures before my bonus in my job without all of the responsibility that goes along with being an entrepreneur. And so, when we first got to the million dollar mark, of course I’m elated and excited. I hit a goal. I did something that was really important to me up until that time. In a lot of ways, it was my source of validation. I deserved to be here. I belonged here if I achieved this milestone. But what I learned very quickly is because I didn’t have my business set up with a foundation that I could scale upon and then sustain over time, is that it really just created a really good paying job that I was resentful of because I didn’t know what I was doing.

So, as I started to walk out of it, the first thing I did, which I don’t necessarily recommend that people do, but I just kind of ceasefire everything. I fired the majority of my clients. I fired the majority of my team. I went from, I think at that time I had maybe 10 employees or key team members, and I went back down to myself and an executive assistant, and I just decided I was in a position because I had done so well for those few years that I could afford, again fingers in the air quotes, to not hustle hard. I could afford to not just take what was given to me and I could really slow down enough to hear my spirits and my intuition telling me what my business was supposed to look like. And so,-

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you took the time to actually just the time and space to actually think, and you mentioned the word intuition because it sounds like you were getting into alignment with yourself, your purpose, what was next, and sometimes you have to go slow to go faster.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Absolutely. Yeah, totally got into alignment, totally defined my core values. I don’t know that I was thinking about core values prior to that, but it became really important at that particular phase and season in my life. After having hit the milestone I thought I wanted forever and hating it, I was like, okay, I got to reevaluate this whole thing and I have to figure out how to do it in a way that honors who I am and what it is that I bring to the table. And I do believe you have to be willing to lose it all in order to gain it all. And I was absolutely willing to lose it all. And so, the ramp up, the re-ramp and the redefining, it took some of the mile markers and key performance indicators that had been the key to my success initially, off the table.

So for instance, instead of tracking revenue and being concerned about hitting a specific dollar amount, I started to focus on tithing and tithing goals. How much money could I give away to the causes that I want to support? Because for me having more money isn’t so I can buy more things, having more money is so that I can be the change I want to see in the world, right? You can’t be the change if you don’t have any. And so, by starting to set tithing goals and really getting into alignment with the philanthropists that I declared I wanted to be when I was 10 years old, I started to watch myself flow into a business that allowed me to make more money to work with amazing clients and to build a team that could support and rally behind my vision, and wanted to be part of what it was that I was doing.

And I think one of the biggest things I would tell any woman who even wants to get to the million dollar mark for the first time is don’t do it absent from being clear about your core values and alignment, and what is most important to you because you can have it all. You do not have to choose. It’s an and not an or, and the only one that can determine what that and is you. And you have to have the courage and the confidence to walk into it boldly in order for it to show up in your life experience. It’s a big part of why in my book Move to Millions, I talk about, I call it the softer side of entrepreneurship. I talk about alignment and surrender and forgiveness and embodiment, and the role that they play in being a million dollar CEO, I believe you have to be it to become it. And so, I became what I want it to be so that I could see it inside of my life and business experience.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, that’s just so inspiring and there’s so many different directions that I could go with what you just said. I want to pick up on the inspiration though of the tithing and the purpose. Because just in the act of doing that, and it relates to being who you want to be, just being that person now, because there’s magic in that, the universe sort of conspires with you at that point. But in doing that, then you had to figure out not just revenue, but where’s the margin in your business. So, it’s almost a forcing function to start you thinking about, okay, well with every client, how am I pricing, so that I’m going to have this ability to do this? How am I going to build margin? How’s my team? How can my team work efficiently? And all those other things flow from that. So, is that kind of what happened just by declaring that and doing it? Take me through the specifics in the business and what changed from being revenue focused to being tithing focused?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah, so I mean it was definitely part of it was what you just described. I mean, the biggest thing for me is because in order for me to give it the level I wanted to give, right? And so for me, my first goal was to be able to write $10,000 checks. Well, the beautiful thing about tithing is a tithe is a 10th. So, I could back into what the revenue needed to be for me to be able to produce a $10,000 check. So, that allowed me to get my business to the point where I could understand knowing our ideal client, knowing our programs and services, and how we serve, and the level at which we output and the investment associated with it, I could back into the number of where we needed to get in order to allow me to write one $10,000 check. And so, with that as my focus with an understanding of who we are, the excellence that we operate in, the results we get for our clients and our core strategy of how we bring clients in.

So, when you think about generating leads, there’s three different types of leads, right? You’re going to either get the organic or free leads where you’re building that traffic, you’re going to get paid or sponsored leads where you’re buying that traffic, or you’re going to get partnership leads where you are actually borrowing that traffic, right? So, once you understand how you’re driving traffic to get leads, for me, the big thing was, and always has been and probably always will be, is speaking. When I open my mouth, people’s lives change. And so, I know that if I can get in a forum to speak, I will open up an inquiry for people to question and wonder how I might be able to support them to achieve the goals that they have for themselves. So, recognizing that that is our primary vehicle to drive leads inside of the company are core strategies for marketing and awareness generation were designed to get us more opportunities to get in front of more people.

Heavy before COVID-19, it was a lot of physical live events. Once we hit COVID-19, we shifted into more virtual events, and now we’re circling back to live, live events. Still doing some virtual, but actually getting out on physical stages now. And so, once I understood that, and I also because I mined our data, so I knew our numbers, I knew how many leads we had to get to get a qualified lead, how many people we had to talk to, that was a qualified lead to get a client. Because I knew all of those numbers, I could create a very clear plan of how we were going to make the millions happen in a way that wouldn’t require hustle or grind, that would allow me to stay in alignment, to stay centered in confidence and convicted to my purpose, and doing my embodiment and forgiveness work, so that I could really surrender to recognizing who I am and who I’m supposed to be in the world at this time.

And so, for the people listening, just to wrap this for you, I know part of what I’m saying sounds very esoteric and it’s like, okay, yeah well, how does one really work on their forgiveness? Well, I believe, and it’s why it’s a chapter in my new book, I believe that forgiveness is the key to money flowing into your life experience. And so for me, a lot of that was being willing to be honest, vulnerable, and transparent with myself of when I needed to forgive me. I had to forgive myself of climbing to the million dollar market and not working out the way that I thought it was going to work. I had to forgive myself for hiring people that didn’t serve our clients well. I had to forgive myself for chasing the number. So, the forgiveness started with me. It wasn’t necessarily only that I had to forgive someone else who did something to me externally.

It was recognizing within myself, giving myself an element of grace and allowing myself to be clear about the strategy that I was very privy to that would get us to where we wanted to go, and allowing myself the grace to get there without a timeframe that might be unreasonable or require me to hustle or cut corners or forget my core values in the process. And I think there’s a lot of people who are willing to cut corners and forget their core values in the name of making money, but I think the ones who do it and sustain it over time are the ones who have made a decision not to cut corners, and to remember their core values and to treat people the way that they would want to be treated because that is really what last and what makes a difference in the marketplace and in the sustainability of a company.

When we think about and study some of the greats, I remember reading the book Built to Last and talking about many of the companies that at that point were a century old and what the pillars that they had employed that had made the difference in the success, those pillars being things like customer service, right? And operating in excellence and integrity. And so, deciding to allow my core values to lead any strategy that I would implement was a big way to shift the strategy and allow the strategy to actually unfurl what I wanted to see happen inside of the company.

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent. I mean, when you have those core values, and we spent a lot of time at Podopolo thinking about how to actually operationalize those values, like being mindful about it. If we say that innovation for instance is one of our highest values or integrity or collaboration, what does that mean on a day-to-day basis? What does that mean for the team? What does it mean in terms of the way we support our customers? What does that mean about the way that we develop our AI for instance? Because it has implications for all of these things, and it provides a clarity not only for the team members that you attract and also repel.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you have alignment in the company, but also around your clients or customers, all of these sorts of things. And so, it’s so critical, and yet a lot of people get the timing or the order of that wrong. They don’t do it first, they think, oh, I’ll get around to that. And then of course they never do. And so, when you had your key values in place, how did you go about making those actionable values in your business?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah, I love this question. So for me, first it was figuring out what they are and then writing out what they meant to me, and how we would actualize it. So for instance, talking about integrity, which is probably our first core value that we list, anywhere we list our core values. And so for me, integrity means doing what we say, being a company that others can follow, can rally behind and want to be a part of, and being a pioneer in doing what’s right, not necessarily what is going to appeal or be most popular. And so, sometimes that’s hard. And so, when I look at our programs that we offer to our clients as a measure every quarter as a company, we’re evaluating not only the effectiveness of our programs, but if our programs are actually doing what we say that they do, that means that, for instance, I’m going to make this up as an example.

Let’s say when we first launch a program based on the results and the data that we’ve mined from the clients that we work with, because we always start with a beta. So, let’s say we do a beta and in our beta, 100% of the participants get the result that we know is possible. And let’s say on our sales page that we’re now going to use to launch this program for other people to be able to participate, it currently reads 100% of our clients got this specific result. Well, as we roll that program out and we’re evaluating it the first quarter or the second, whatever quarter, and we identify that it’s not a hundred percent anymore, well we don’t allow the sales page to still say a hundred percent. We change it to what it actually is.

Because what I don’t want to do is ever misrepresent the potential of our programs in order to be a marketer, right? I think many of us have read Seth Godin’s book, All Marketers are Liars. Well, I’m not interested in being a liar. I want to present the facts and the truth as we know them to the best of our abilities and to the best of the ability of the information that we’ve gained from our clients. So, integrity means not saying what is marketing speak and actually speaking the truth about what we know to be possible from this particular program for our clients. And I’m willing-

Melinda Wittstock:

And very data-driven.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Very data-driven, but it’s also integrity. I’m not going to just say something because it sounds good. Because if I say this, we’re going to convert 100% of the people. I’d much rather have 20 or 30% of the people if they’re the right people and we told them the truth, than to have a hundred percent of the people and we falsified information to make ourselves look better. And I can’t say that everybody operates with that level of integrity, but that’s something that’s important to me.

Melinda Wittstock:

No, they don’t because there’s so many personal development business coach.  There’s a whole vast industry of folks doing this sort of similar work, making claims. You two can be like me kind of thing, right?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And then people get frustrated because they don’t get the results or they try and replicate something that is not genuine to themselves in a coaching scenario, and that doesn’t really work either. And so, what are some of the things you found from working with your clients that say some of that data, give me more examples of that. So, say you do your beta and you find that this is the result that they’re getting and such. In the context of business where everybody has an entrepreneurship, where everybody has their own personal journey, there’s certain things that work for some people or not. So, when you’re coaching people to get to that point and make it genuine to themselves, tell me a little bit about how that work is done and how you get people to be genuine to themselves with your program.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

So, something that’s really important in the work that we do is it’s a business coaching and consulting program, but we work on the whole CEO. And the reason we work on the whole CEO is because you cannot have a booming business if you have a busted life. And so, we’re interested in the other areas of their life that impact their business because life and business is completely congruent. And so, for us as a part of the intake process, we’re gathering a lot of data about them individually to see what’s going to be the best way to support them. We employ mindset and performance coaches as a part of our program because we know mindset is 95% of your success. And so, we also because being spiritually grounded is important to us, we also have a coach that helps them with their spiritual practice. And so, those elements, just as an example of a few of the things that we do inside of our programs is what allows us to create an environment for them to get access to what they need that’s going to impact the business results.

What I have found, and I don’t know if you, I’m sure you’ll agree with this, Melinda, is that our ability to be successful is not just about strategy. Sure, strategy absolutely plays a role, but it is equally if not more about our success mindset, our come from, the way we embody how we show up fully for ourselves and our belief and deserve level that we hold about our ability to achieve a specific result. And so, since we know that coming in when we’re working with our clients are primarily high achieving women with advanced degrees that have a business, but they still don’t have rock solid business acumen in order to be able to scale to and sustain. They’re finding themselves with the business working them instead of them working the business, right? Or the business running them versus them running the business. And so, because we understand this, we integrate in our onboarding process to touch every part of them as a woman, as a CEO, because all of our clients aren’t women.

But we make sure we touch every part of who they are early in the onset and factor that into the way that we offer insight and strategy and guidance around what’s going to be their roadmap to get to the million dollar mark. And what we have found is that first, it’s appreciative because our clients feel seen. And because they feel seen that makes them feel safe and because they feel safe, that gives them the confidence to leverage their competence in order to be able to achieve some of the things that we’re going to suggest that they do, which may be contrary to what they’ve ever done to move their business forward, which could also be the reason why their business hasn’t moved forward. And so, we create this amazing connection with them that is what incentivizes and also accelerates the results that they experienced because we were willing to not just look at their business and their strategy, but to look at how all of this integrates in their life.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so true. Mindset is truly everything. I love that you used the words deserve level. I just want to highlight that for a moment because I think in so many women’s deep subconscious, even though they’re accomplished, the woman you described with all these advanced degrees and yeah, sure, she’s learning some things about business or whatever. If we don’t deep down feel or value ourselves enough to actually truly believe that we deserve it, if there’s some sort of guilt or some sort of fear of success often is the case. No matter what you do in terms of strategy, you’re going to be running in place. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve found as you get into that spiritual growth work with your clients that women in particular have to overcome?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Wow. I mean, it’s everything you said. I think as women today, but little girls, depending upon how old we are a while ago, many of us were taught a few specific things that have been ingrained in our psyche that we run the pattern on without even realizing it subconsciously. First of which being women or girls should be seen and not heard. We contend with that one a lot. And so, we have these clients who have these amazing skillsets and these amazing businesses that are afraid to speak up about how great they are in service to being able to market to get clients, because all they can hear is their dad or their grandfather or their uncle or even their mother saying, “You should be seen and I heard.” My dad used to say all the time, “I can see you Darnyelle Antoinette, but I don’t want to hear you.” And I struggled with that.

Melinda Wittstock:

It was painful. I mean, I grew up like that too. Just hearing, “Yes, you should be seen, not heard.” And I remember really resenting it as a kid.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah, well, we bring that into who we are Melinda is formed between birth and the age of seven. And unless we learn how to radically dismantle the beliefs and the patterns that our families have established in us, we replay the cycle every seven years. So, most of us don’t even realize that who we are isn’t our original orchestration or thought it’s the sponge that we were from birth to the age of seven based on what we took in. And so, we just regurgitate that over and over and over and over again until we realize, Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t serving me. And the only way we do that is we become conscious. We come into spaces where personal development is discussed, where we’re asked to challenge the beliefs that we’ve held for our entire life, right? I remember when I was in grade school learning to spell, and our teacher taught us mnemonic devices.

Well, one of my favorite mnemonic devices that I still speak to and share often is there’s a lie in belief, B-E-L-I-E-F. Lie smack dab in the middle of a word that is supposed to support and undergird us, meaning most of the things we believe are a lie. It’s something we inherited. Someone else told us that we should believe that or we should do that. And we took it on as if it was gospel. And until we realize that it’s not serving us and begin to do the work to pick the lie apart, to find the truth, we will continue to live and regurgitate that lie, and it shows up in our business. It shows up in our pricing, right? I mean it yes, it’s a pain-

Melinda Wittstock:

Our entire society, I mean, you think right now-

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

I was literally just about to say that. Yeah. It’s our entire society. And yeah, we spent a lot of time talking about equal pay for women as an example, right? But that thought didn’t originate in corporate America, it originated in our families when we were little girls, and the way that we were treated. Women have always been treated like second class citizens. So, it’s not new information. But what changes when you become awakened or conscious to it is you can start to shift how that is a reality for you, and you get to start to define things on your own terms and require, demand that other people shift and change to meet that for you. And we often don’t realize we have that power until someone like me or like you shows us that we do hold the power, and gives us the tools we need in order to exercise the power.

Melinda Wittstock:

I remember being struck by something, I was doing some high-end retreats associated with this podcast before the pandemic. And I would say things that “Look as women, we need to learn to play a bigger game. If men can think about billion dollar businesses, why not us? What does it look like to play a bigger game?” And I would notice in the women, very accomplished women, they had seven figure, eight figure businesses, there’d be this look, this split second of absolute fear in their eyes that the phrase play a bigger game. And I was intrigued by that. I was like, what is it that there was something that was stopping whether it was a deserving or just not even being able to imagine even articulating a word or a phrase like, “I’m building a billion-dollar business.”

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

It was almost impossible to say even imagine or whatever when it comes to money and it comes to scale because I know you help people with scale and just even seeing what’s possible. Is it just sort of a failure of imagination or the fear that somehow, because this is kind of an open inquiry for me, is it that we think we’ll be cast out of the tribe if we actually succeed with something like that? I mean we, won’t-

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah, I think it depends on where we are and where we’re looking to be. It’s different for everyone. So, one of the things I always teach, and probably in almost every speaking engagement or training that I do are what I call the money blocks. So, there are five common money blocks. Unworthiness is the first one, right? Just not feeling like you deserve it. Even if you say it consciously, we can all say, “I’m going to create a $50,000, a $100,000, $250,000 offer.” We can say that, but something in our body will tell on us that we don’t actually believe it. We don’t believe we deserve something. Why should we make that kind of money? So, unworthiness is the first one. The second is the lump of everything, the burden or fear of success, obligation, responsibility, everything that goes along with, if I achieve this, more is going to be required of me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

And I don’t know if I really want that. So instead, I’m going to shrink back. I’m going to play a smaller game. I’m going to play enough of a game to get some attention, but not all the attention because I’m afraid that if I do, then I’m going to cause this problem for myself and draw attention that I don’t really want to have, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

The third is abandonment. I feel like if I do this, the people who love me will leave me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

That’s a big one for women because a woman who’s making millions of dollars a year in her company is likely going to surpass the earnings of her husband.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

And if his identity is tied to his ability to contribute to the household, then that might cause problems that will make you shrink or play smaller. You don’t want to lose your husband, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Which is so common. I mean, so common that fear and even fear of judgment from other women sometimes too.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Another one is unforgiveness, right? Not realizing that your money or your ability to money to flow is tied to the people you refuse to forgive starting with yourself. We have to remember, forgiveness is for us, it’s not for the other person. I tell people all the time, you never have to pick up the phone and tell the person who did you wrong that you forgive them. In fact, I honestly recommend that you don’t because nine times out of 10, what is going to happen if you call that person is they’re going to say something that just makes you mad all over because they don’t even realize that you’re mad about that thing or that that thing is still bothering you because it wasn’t what they meant or they don’t even remember doing it. They won’t take ownership. So, forgiveness is for you. So, in your own way, you release them of the obligation for doing something wrong that impacted you in a way that wasn’t favorable, and you position yourself to move on. It will not happen overnight.

I always say no one goes to bed a blunder and wakes up a wonder. It is going to be a journey, but in doing so, you elevate and you accelerate how the money flows into your life experience because money is current that is supposed to be flowing at all times. And if it’s not flowing, it’s likely because of something that you’re doing to stop it one of these blocks. So, I spent a lot of time really helping women around money consciousness and money mindset, figure out what their block is and then chart a path to how do they dismantle the belief that’s associated with the block, so that they can free themselves from the block and actually experience the flow that they really want to have in their life, in their business, in their relationships, et cetera.

Melinda Wittstock:

I want to get to the fifth money block in a moment, but first let’s dive more into forgiveness because there is so much kind of inadvertent shame associated with entrepreneurship. And what I mean by this is when you dare to go on the entrepreneurial journey, what you’re inviting into your life is, I like to call it fail forwards because it’s an iterative experience. You’re testing hypotheses at all times. You have an idea, whether it’s a kind of technology business and you’re trying to find product market fit or figure out your right customers. There’s all sorts of things on this journey that you can’t control. You will have failures large and small. There are learning experiences, they’re opportunities. They’re all there to make you grow and make you better. But when we read about all the successful entrepreneurs and they make it look easy, it’s easy internally to feel this sense of shame whenever you have some sort of failure or rejection or any of these things.

And so, forgiveness to me and what you were saying much even earlier in our conversation and just now does seem to me like a core principle, and it’s really kind of hard to do. So, in terms of allowing ourselves to forgive, I mean that seems like maybe forgiving ourselves is the hardest thing because we have this internal dialogue in our minds all the time, most people telling us all the reasons why we’re not good enough. If a friend talked to us like that, they wouldn’t be a friend anymore, and yet we tolerate that from ourselves, right?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, talk about that process and how you get for yourself and your clients and how you get them to this kind of peace of mind of forgiveness on the entrepreneurial path in particular.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah, I think for me, what I love about forgiveness work is that it is so eye opening. And like I said, nine times out of 10, you’re the person you need to forgive. Yeah, there might be other people who have done you wrong, but it’s really about constantly holding that seat of forgiveness and giving yourself grace. And so, I love the Forgiveness Protocol. It’s not my original creation. It’s in a book called Forgiving Forward by Bruce and Tony Hebel. And so, in the process, I think their version has about seven steps. I think my version has about 10 because I’ve added to it. It’s a simple as, and it’s something that I, Melinda do on a weekly basis, and I do it weekly because I always want to make sure that I’m in alignment. And unforgiveness also blocks your alignment, right? It prevents you from being in flow. And so, it’s as simple as sitting down quiet space with a journal and asking yourself the very first question is, which is, who do I need to forgive in for what? And sitting until you get an answer and then writing the answer down.

There are times when I do this exercise, I write in my journal and it’s just me. There are times when I write in my journal and it’s me and my husband. There are times I write in my journal, it’s me and my bestie. It just really depends because our ability to be offended, which is what causes the root of unforgiveness can happen because someone cuts you off in the parking lot or takes your spot that you were plotting on, right? That can cause [inaudible 00:35:45]. And it probably sounds so simple, you mean I really literally have to forgive that person for taking my spot? Yeah, because unforgiveness, that festers becomes disease and your body that causes all kinds of ailments that you don’t really need. And so, simply starting there, who do I need to forgive and for what? Writing that all down. And then once you write it all down one by one saying a sentence as simple as this, “I forgive myself for and I release myself from the obligation to be continued to be held to this one moment in time.”

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s beautiful.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Literally, there have been people when there are other people besides myself that I have had to run through this protocol 52 weeks before I felt the release and the forgiveness because of how bad I felt hurt by what it is that they did. But I go through this practice because I want to do my best to always be a person that is a vessel that is open to whatever blessings God would like to send my way. That’s something that’s really, really important to me. And so, that’s the long and the short of the process. The hardest part often is first making the list, being willing to be vulnerable with yourself. No one else is around as you’re doing this to actually say that this person hurt you.

And then the second part, being actually making that statement and making it, even when you’re still upset about it, that can be hard. But you just keep doing it in an effort to lighten the burden, so that eventually it moves from your body. I believe our bodies keep score to the things that are bothering us. And so, even when I say someone’s name and run them through this protocol, I’m checking in with my body to see if I’m still feeling stress or tension somewhere, because I know if I’m still feeling stress or tension in my body, I haven’t actually forgiven them yet. So, I know that I need to keep them on the list because I need to continue working through whatever it is that was done that created this in the first place.

Melinda Wittstock:

I can imagine this leads to just such a wonderful feeling of gratitude actually.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

I mean, there’s this aspect of the forgiveness, the surrender, the opening, letting things go so you’re able to actually, you have space to receive. But to what extent does it link to gratitude? I remember-

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

A hundred percent.

Melinda Wittstock:

My spiritual journey, gratitude was the thing that really put me on a great course, just being in a very disciplined gratitude process, almost like the protocol you were discussing just a moment ago with forgiveness, which was sitting down with a journal and really, really getting deep into all the things I was grateful for, even some seemingly trivial things, and then just feeling this sense of joy for having done that. But I just went through a kind of three month process of just disciplined gratitude. And it got to the point of even for the bad things, and this is where it started to link with forgiveness for me because it was like, I am really grateful for that bad thing that happened because as a result of that, I learned all these things and like that, right?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Right. Yeah, I agree.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so interesting that business is about people at the end of the day, it’s about who we are as leaders. I mean as entrepreneurs, we set the tone for the business, the values, the vision, the mission, all these things. And it’s who we’re being in all ways that really dictate what your business is ultimately going to be, how well it’s going to do, what good it’s going to do for the world, all these things. And yet, and I find entrepreneurship is a good path for personal growth in that sense because it sort of forces you. You either give up or you go on this path.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Correct. Yeah, definitely and I agree, I think that gratitude is everything. I mean when you think about the highest feelings and emotions, which are what drive our energy and our level of vibration to accelerate what we want to bring into our life experience, the highest emotions are love, gratitude, appreciation, faith, and trust. Anytime we are sitting in one of those emotions, we are vibrating at our highest levels. So, that is why by instituting a gratitude practice and just simply every day writing down three to five things you’re grateful for, you’re telling God or the universe if that’s your preference, to bring you more of what you’re grateful for. And that acceleration is what gets us to where it is that we truly desire to be.

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent. So, let’s get back to that fifth money block.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah, definitely. So, the last one that I see all of the time is the fear that they won’t be able to maintain or sustain it. So, fear is either in your past or in your future, it’s never in your present. By looking ahead to what could happen if they achieve whatever the money mile marker is can create anxiety and fear for people that they won’t be able to maintain it. So, some people would almost rather never have it at all if they’re not going to be able to keep it going. And so, I called this the Fluke Syndrome, where you get caught up in, well, that was just the fluke. The first time you do it, instead of saying, “This happened because we created a plan, we worked the plan, we mined the data, we implement it, and we review the results saying this happened. This was a fluke. This happened by mistake, or I can’t believe I did it.”

Every time you hit a goal, you should be able to believe you did it because you set the goal. And if you planned for the goal well enough, it should actually happen. But when we get caught up in this lack of experience or ability to be able to maintain what we’ve created, it creates a fear-based energy. So, if gratitude, faith, love, appreciation, and trust is the highest emotion, fear, grief and powerlessness is the lowest. And so, we’re detracting from our ability to vibrate at the highest of levels because of the fear that we have allowed to enter in to that particular scenario and situation.

Melinda Wittstock:

So Darnyelle, I could talk to you for hours. I mean, there’s just so much value in what we’re discussing here. So, when you look at your business now and the impact that you’re having, the impact you’re having on so many women, give me a couple of before and afters of some of your clients and because we want to pivot from there. There’s probably a lot of people listening to this podcast that want to work with you. So, give me a couple of, I don’t know, brief case studies of how it’s really impacted these women getting to a million, and in a way that gives them joy in their lives.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

So, I have a client who I remember when we first started working together was a consultant in the nonprofit sector charging about $25 an hour. In 2021, she had a million dollars. She crossed the million dollar mark for the very first time.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. So, did she just figure out how to raise her prices, get better at sales, or what were some of the components?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

All of the things. One of the things I said earlier is our clients are by and large, they are talented people. When it comes to their gift and their skillset and the problem that they solve for people, no one does it better. The challenge for them is in understanding business, having business acumen enough as well as the confidence and the competence to do what is required in order to produce the result that they want. And so, often when we’re working with our clients, we do run the gamut. We’re going to do some mindset work, traditional mindset, we’re going to do some money mindset work. We’re also going to right fit their packages and their pricing and make sure that they have a solid sales strategy and infrastructure, the right system set up, and they’re hiring the right people who can help them move the needle inside of their business. This is what we call the Move to Millions Method. It’s our five part methodology that is the proven way to scale to seven figures and be able to sustain it with grace and ease instead of hustle and grind.

It’s what I talk about in my new book, Move to Millions. And so, that’s one. I mean, I could go on and on for days. I have another client who is only two years into her business, started a business and former pharmacist, started a business in late 2020, early 2021, crossed the million dollar mark for the very first time in a year this past September. So, had our first million dollar year. We’ve been working together for two years. So similarly, she came to the table with the skillset and we’ve just been able to help her to wrap that skillset around the right strategies, the right sales infrastructure, the right system’s, hiring the right support, and undergirding her success mindset, so that she actually believes she deserves all of it. Like I said, I could go on. I mean have story after story after story-

Melinda Wittstock:

Only 3% of female entrepreneurs make it to a million dollars, right?

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

It’s even less than that. New studies that have come out within the last year or so, 1.9% of all women, 0.5% of Black women cross seven figures.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh my goodness.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I mean, that just has to change. It’s one of the reasons I launched this podcast because when I was coming up as an entrepreneur, it was some 25 years ago now, there wasn’t anything like this. There was no podcasting, there were no YouTube videos for it. There weren’t really a lot of courses. Do you know what I mean? So, it was total pioneer. There was a certain point and I had to kind of learn everything kind of for myself. Do you know what I mean? And I remember I launched the podcast because I thought, God, I wish I had had this podcast myself. So, I’m just going to do this because women, I just am so passionate about advancing women.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s really, really hard. Even if you look at tech entrepreneurs like me, we get 2%, 3% of the available venture capital. And I’m sure for African-American women as well, it’s like it’s much lower than that even. And that’s insane. Even the check sizes, if you do a seed round, a guy is going to get a million dollar seed round. The woman’s going to get maybe if she’s lucky, a $200,000 seed round and then by the same standards. All these things really need to change, and it starts a lot of it with us ourselves. So, the work you’re doing is amazing, and I just want to say congratulations because you launched a podcast since we last spoke, and you hit a million downloads or you’re close to a million downloads. That’s amazing.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Thank you so much. It’s so exciting just to be able to do this work because similar to you, I really just want to see the statistics change. I think as women, we are… I think planets shake when women have access to wealth. And to be able to leverage the power of your business to create that source of wealth for yourself and for your family and your community at large is such an amazing gift to be able to offer to the world. And so, I’m glad that women like us are out here holding the charge for other women to be able to show up fully and as you say, manifest their magic, make their mark and mastermind their millions. I love that. And I love that Wings exist and people get to come and listen to guests like myself who’ve been there, done that, and have a framework that we can offer to them so that we’re not the only ones achieving and succeeding. We can help others do the same.

Melinda Wittstock:

So wonderful. So, what’s the best way for people to find you and work with you, Darnyelle, and of course, listen to your podcast.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

The best way would be to go to movetomillions.com. Again, movetomillions.com, and everything you need to know about me and how to find me will be there for you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, and also in the show notes. So, if you’re driving or running or doing something while you’re listening to this podcast, you can check out the show notes wherever you get your podcasts, and on the podcast website as well. Well, Darnyelle, thank you so much for putting on your wings once again and flying with us today.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon:

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.