Ep 405: Super Friend Syndrome: The Leadership Role That’s Quietly Breaking You
This episode is powered by The Ascension Archetype Quiz.
If you are the one who always has it together, this conversation is going to feel uncomfortably accurate. If you are a 6- or 7-figure CEO who is calm under pressure, dependable in crisis, composed when everyone else spirals, and secretly exhausted from carrying it all, lean in. We’re talking about high-performing leaders, emotional suppression in leadership, nervous system bracing, performance-based identity, and the quiet cost of always being the strong one. This episode names what happens when professionalism turns into self-containment, when leadership culture rewards composure over honesty, and when your body starts holding receipts for the strength you never put down.
Here’s the truth: always having it all together requires chronic self-containment, and chronic self-containment eventually turns into suppression. Your body does not interpret that as leadership. It interprets it as bracing. And over time, bracing becomes tension, tension becomes disconnection, and disconnection becomes distance from yourself.
You’ll walk away with language for something you’ve normalized for years. You’ll understand the difference between performance and stability, why identity fused with responsibility makes rest feel unsafe, and how your wiring as a Performer, Producer, Pathmaker, Powerhouse, or Prophet shapes how this shows up for you. Most importantly, you’ll realize you are not broken. You are patterned. And patterns can be shifted.
Grab your Move to Millions Podcast Notebook, a pen and your favorite beverage and listen in to discover:
✔ How to recognize when leadership strength has become self-containment
✔ How to differentiate performance from true internal stability
✔ How to begin rebuilding connection with yourself without abandoning responsibility
✔And so much more
This episode is a call to the strong friend, the dependable CEO, the one everyone leans on and no one checks on. It’s for leaders who confuse performance with stability and who have slowly fused their identity with being the one who never falls apart. What stands out about this conversation is that it does not attack your strength. It reframes it. And then it asks you to count the cost.
This is your invitation to pause the performance long enough to feel what’s actually happening inside of you. To stop asking “What’s required of me?” and start asking “How am I actually doing?” If rest feels complicated, if vulnerability feels risky, and if letting support in feels foreign, this episode is for you.
- “Leadership feels heavier when your identity is built on never needing help.”
- “Performance is not the same thing as stability.”
- “Your body is holding receipts for the strength you never put down.”
- “What protected you early can isolate you at higher levels.”
- “Always having it together costs you intimacy with yourself.”
- When did being “the strong one” become part of my identity?
- Do I feel safe letting people see me uncertain or tired?
- Where in my body do I feel bracing, even during rest?
- Who checks on me without needing something from me?
- If I wasn’t managing everything, who would I be?
- Take the Move to Millions Ascension Archetype Quiz
- Join the Waitlist for Sanctuary
- Apply for a Soul + Strategy Conversation
- Move to Millions: The Proven Framework To Become a Million Dollar CEO With Grace & Ease Instead of Hustle & Grind by Dr. Darnyelle Jervey Harmon – Get Your Copy
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- Move to Millions 90-Day Business Growth Planner – Get Your Planner
Personal brand website: https://drdarnyelle.com/
Company website: https://incredibleoneenterprises.com/
Move to Millions website: https://movetomillions.com/
Season 7 Ep 405
Darnyelle: [00:00:00] If this is your very first time here, welcome. I already know that it will not be your last. I am on a mission to transform the soul and the strategy of business owners just like you, so that you can make.
Move, leave and net millions and you can do so with grace and ease instead of hustle and grind. Holla, if you hear me, listen, I get so excited about this work. Now, if you don't already have a copy of my bestselling book, move to Millions. The proven framework to become a million dollar CEO. It's a great place to start.
In addition to this powerful podcast, if you wanna acclimate yourself to the work that I am called to do, there is a link to get your copy of the book in the show notes. Now, all season long, season seven, we are having a different conversation. Now this is a conversation you likely will not hear anywhere else.
This season is about what happens when success is no longer your problem. [00:01:00] Spoiler alert, you heard me correctly. Your success has never been in question and it's time that you start acting like it. You are destined for success. This season, we are getting to the heart of the matter about what is really keeping you from seven figures, and I promise you it is not what you think and in this market, getting the seven figures probably feels much harder than ever before.
But I'm hoping to demystify all of that for you in so much more. In this episode, we are going deep into a little something I call the having it all together syndrome. You know, like you can't ever. Let it all hang out. Your brand has to always be on and you can't dare look like you need help or assistance or something is wrong because that would mess with your reputation.
Yeah, please. That's for the birds in this market, if I've learned anything, it's that authenticity and vulnerability matter. Now more than ever, especially in the age of [00:02:00] ai, there is a role that many leaders step into without ever consciously choosing the role, and that is the role of being the one who has it all together.
You know, the one who stays calm out of under pressure. The one who figures it all out, the one who does not fall apart, the one who others lean on. Now, you might be like me. You might be the strong friend. You know the one everyone comes to when they're falling apart. I get it. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
And when you are the strong friend, it feels impossible to be vulnerable and transparent and to let your guard down. But can I let you in on a little secret? Vulnerability is a leadership asset that will move your business to millions. I'm gonna share more with you on that throughout this episode. Now, when you are the one that everyone depends on.
You probably started out really grateful. I mean, at first the role looked like it was about strength. Like it feels [00:03:00] like responsibility. It feels mature. It feels like you're adulting. It feels necessary. You are needed, and don't we all need to be needed, but over time it becomes heavy. You know the saying, heavy is the head that wears the crown. You know, the one who carries immense responsibility, stress, and even burdens. Yeah. You know the saying, because when you are the one who always has it all together, I promise you that there is very little room for you to actually fall apart, and eventually that starts to cost you something that you didn't even realize.
When you took on the role of being the one who has it all together, well, we're getting into that and so much more in this episode. I am so committed to doing work in this season that transforms your soul as well as your strategy because I'm so clear that you need both, right? And here's what we know.
The pressure that you [00:04:00] experience when you're the one who has it all together is rarely acknowledged. On the outside, it looks like you're being competent and confident. It looks like leadership. It looks like resilience. It looks like success, and who does not wanna be successful. And internally, you begin to tell yourself things like, this is just what it means to be a leader.
This is what people expect from me. I can't let things slip. So you find yourself. The pattern of keeping it going no matter what it costs. But what almost no one tells you is that always having it all together requires constant self-containment. And when containment becomes chronic, the body doesn't interpret that as strength.
It experiences it as suppression, and over time, that will show up physically. It won't happen all at once. It won't be dramatic. It'll [00:05:00] be subtle tension that never fully releases sleep, that doesn't actually restore a nervous system that stays alert even when nothing is wrong. Listen, a body that is always bracing even during rest.
This is what you have to look forward to, and eventually you stop noticing the signals altogether, not because your body stops communicating with you, but because you learn how to override it in the name of what you call leadership. That's the real cost of chronic self-containment, and I want you to understand that yes, self-containment does have a cost, and the body is always the one who's holding the receipt.
It doesn't just disconnect you from rest, it disconnects you from yourself, and that is what we have to change. If you are truly going to be the sanctuary, if you are gonna be the safe place where wealth, where leadership, where legacy [00:06:00] resides, then something is going to have to give. Especially if you are a high level leader.
None of the conversations we are having this season are an accident. When I made the decision to make this entire season not about strategy and about what happens when success is no longer the problem, I knew it would require that I go deep. I knew that it would require that I unearth some of the things that maybe you haven't thought about or you thought about 'em and you hoped nobody would know that you thought about 'em so that you could just squash them.
And here's what I want you to understand. None of this is about personal failure. According to research that's been summarized by the Harvard Business Review, leaders are significantly less likely than their teams to admit. Uncertainty, stress or emotional strain, even when they're experiencing it on a regular basis internally.
But this isn't because [00:07:00] leaders don't feel those things. No, it's because leadership culture trains. Us out of suppressing and not actually expressing the way that we feel and what's going on from early on. Leaders are rewarded for composure, for decisiveness, for emotional control, for staying steady while others are unsettled.
And you know what? Can we go back further than when you were a leader? Let's go back to childhood. How many of you can remember being out with your parents? Or someone who reared you or was watching you and having a moment that proceeded in you crying or having a temper tantrum. How many of you can recall that that person who was in charge of your care at that point in time probably said something like, stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about.
You been there, you done that. You with me? Listen. So leadership and suppressing how we feel and feeling like we need to have it all together. [00:08:00] It didn't start the day you got the job in corporate America or the day you started your business. It started when you were a child, when you were yay high to a grasshopper, likely before the age of seven.
And y'all know how I feel about your inner 7-year-old. All of these things are indications. They are signs and wonders that are impacting the way you show up today as the grown adult running a whole business that desires to generate seven figures a year. And here's what I want you to know. It's time that we unearth the pattern, because let's be clear, over time, the quiet that you become in these moments.
It becomes a lesson that gets reinforced. Feeling it might be human, but showing it is actually risky. So as leaders, just like as children, we adapt, we stop crying 'cause we don't want something to cry about. We learn how to regulate on the outside, even when [00:09:00] things are tur turbulent On the inside we learn how to manage our reactions.
We learn how to filter our responses. We keep things moving and slowly, almost imperceptibly, something begins to shift. As leaders. What starts as professionalism becomes self suppression? What starts as strength becomes self-containment. Not because leaders don't value their humanity, but because the environment that we are in keep rewarding the parts of us that can perform under pressure.
When is enough gonna be enough? That cost over time is subtle, but it begins to add up, right? You don't lose your emotions, you lose access to them, and that is what has to change. If you wanna have a business that generates seven figures a year, and you wanna do it in a way that honors all of who you are.
Now, here's where the shift actually happens. [00:10:00] At first, having it all together is something that you do, right? It's situational, it's intentional, but eventually it becomes ingrained in you. It becomes who you are. You stop checking in with yourself, and you start checking yourself against what's happening in the moment.
You stop asking, how am I actually doing? You begin to ask yourself what is required of me right now? And performatively, that is how you show up. And when identity fuses with performance, rest becomes very complicated because rest isn't just about pausing. It could mean the loss of a role. And I'm talking about the role of being the one who has it all together, especially when your sense of self is tied to being the one who everybody can come to.
The question underneath rest becomes uncomfortable. You know, who am I when I'm not managing, stabilizing, or carrying everyone and everything? Take a deep breath in. Mm. Riggle your [00:11:00] shoulders. This might get uncomfortable, but I promise you, if you stick with me, it will be liberating. It'll point you in the direction of getting the safety that you need so that you become your own sanctuary.
Many leaders confuse performance with stability. Performance looks like staying composed. Always producing results. Being dependable, not needing too much, where stability on the other hand looks like feeling safe enough to be honest. Having room to be flexible and agile. Letting support know that you need them and remaining present inside of what's going on inside of you.
They are not the same. Performance is often learned early as a form of protection. You learn that being capable keeps you safe, being useful, keeps you valuable, and being strong keeps things from falling apart. Because it works. You keep working it until it doesn't work anymore.
Because what protects you early in life can isolate you [00:12:00] when you start going to the next level and the higher you rise, the harder it becomes to put the performance down. And I wanna be so clear on something right now. This pressure to have it together is not random. It emerges at a specific stage of leadership when people begin, depending on you, when stability becomes associated with your presence.
This is not about emotional immaturity at all. Mm-hmm. It's what happens when leadership responsibility expands faster than your internal support mechanisms. I have seen this happen time and time again. It makes me think right now of a client who had always been known as the strong one in her family, on her team, in her business, I mean, inside of our community.
She was considered a go-to person. She was the person that people often leaned on. She stayed calm under pressure. I don't think I ever saw her frazzled. She was the [00:13:00] one who never fell apart even when things went awry. And as her own success grew, so did the expectations around that strength. People stopped checking on her.
They assumed she had it handled. She was Olivia Pope, right? They assumed that she had it all figured out. They brought her the hard things and they left her alone to synthesize it From the outside, it looked like she was becoming a better leader. On the inside, the cost was beginning to take its toll. She once told me that she felt tight all the time, like her body never relaxed.
She was always holding something in. She slept, but she never woke up feeling restored or rested. She functioned, but she didn't always feel present. And what was the hardest for her to admit was that she didn't know how to stop being the strong one without disappointing everyone else. That was when she realized something really important.
I mean, I, y'all, I was brutally [00:14:00] honest as I coached her strength has stopped being a capacity and it had become a cage. Not because she had chosen it, but because she did not do anything about it, and she had rewarded it for so long. What began to shift wasn't her strategy or her role, it was her relationship to being seen by other people.
She started letting herself be honest. In all the ways, starting small, you know, nothing dramatic, nothing performative, just real raw and relevant. And the moment that she stopped managing everyone else's perceptions of her strength, something inside of her softened. And as those of you who remember waiting to exhale, and that one scene in the movie, she opened her mouth and she exhaled and everything changed.
Everything began to open and she started to get to do the real work that put her on a trajectory to crossing seven figures inside of her business and doing it without a need to be everything for everyone at the same time. Now, [00:15:00] this pressure looks very different depending upon who you are. How you're wired.
That is why I created the ascension archetype quiz. Trust me when I tell you, getting the seven figures in a way that honors you is too important for you to wing it. You need to understand how you're wired and how you move in order to achieve the milestone without burning out before you cash out. Now when you go to move to millions quiz.com and take the quiz, you'll learn your archetype in just three minutes, and that will be just the beginning of a powerful tool designed to equip you to make the move to millions.
Now, you'll learn that you're either a performer, a producer, a path maker, or a powerhouse or a prophet. And I'll be honest, I cannot wait to hear what you are. So I want you to make sure that once you've taken the quiz, you tag me in a story letting me know who you are so that I can celebrate you. I'll already begin formulating so much about you just by you coming into an awareness [00:16:00] of how you will ascend and go to your next level.
Now, once you take the quiz, you'll be invited to go deeper if you so decide. The first option is to get our private podcast. In the private podcast. I go deep based on the Move to Millions method, and I tell you. Everywhere you are currently sabotaging your business based on how you are wired, trust me, it's the top of a new year.
You need to know this information. If you have a desire to cross seven figures, especially in this mature market that we are in. After you listen to the private podcast, you'll have the opportunity if you so desire to go deeper again and to get access to our divine design. Report. This is gonna tell you a 37 page.
It's very detailed, A full blown blueprint based on your archetype, so that you can know everything you need to know about yourself, about how you lead, about, how you relate to money, about how you scale, and how you sabotage so that you can begin to create a plan. Will take you to the [00:17:00] next level. So tell me once you take it, tag me in the story.
I can't wait to know if you are a performer, a producer, a path maker, a powerhouse, or a prophet. I really wanna know now, for those of you who are performers or will learn that you are performers, having it together often means being polished. You show up with presence with confidence and clarity. But underneath it all, you can feel the pressure to always be on, not because you're inauthentic, but because being expressive became the way that you learned how to stay safe.
You perform strength even when you're tired. Now for my producers, having it all together means being reliable. People can depend on you. Things don't fall apart around you because you don't let them. You will move heaven and earth to prevent their from being a fiasco. But here's the thing, and this is the challenge.
You rarely let yourself soften, not [00:18:00] because you don't want to, but because stability feels fragile when you are constantly efforting. Now for my path makers, having it all together means staying ahead. You see what's coming and you adjust before others even take note. That's one of the things I love about being around a path maker, and all of us probably have a little path maker in us, but that constant anticipation pulls you out of the present moment.
Not because you're anxious, but because foresight became your form of safety and security. For my fellow powerhouses, having it together means that you are in control. Again, cue Janet Jackson, you carry responsibility with strength and decisiveness, but control can quietly replace connection.
Not because you're closed off, but because letting go feels very risky. It feels dangerous, and for my prophets, having it together means staying contained. You feel deeply and perceived [00:19:00] truth clearly, so you hold yourself tightly to avoid overwhelm, not because you're trying to be distant or away from the crowd, but because sensitivity requires boundaries.
It's important that you understand how you are wired, and if you just felt seen as I broke down each of the five archetypes as it relates specifically to this episode, I want you to stay with me. We've gone through the process of shifting the way that we work with clients to fully understand how they are divinely wired and how to leverage their wiring to support them as they grow their business.
To beyond and sustaining seven figures, we are supporting clients with their soul work. Through our SANCTUARY program and their strategy work through Our Haus of Millions business growth programs, because we know that not all businesses or the CEOs who run them are created equally. Trust me, I get it. I totally understand why people try to cookie cutter solutions, but the truth is cookie cutter solutions seldom work for [00:20:00] the masses, which is why programs will have a few stars, but most won't actually get results.
You have to tailor the experience to the individual, which is why our curriculum is based on your archetype, so that , that way we can suggest ways for you to leverage our insights in a way that will honor how you are wired. And I promise you, it has been a game changer and why our clients are getting results while most clients in most programs do not actually get results.
Now here's what I want you to understand. 'cause there is nothing wrong with desiring to have it all together, but I need you to count the cost. Having it together costs you intimacy, not just intimacy with others. I'm talking about intimacy with yourself because intimacy requires that you be fully present and being fully present can be impossible when you're always monitoring, managing, and holding for someone else.
When you're the one who stays composed, you become the [00:21:00] last person that anyone checks on, including yourself. It's like your body has to shut down on you for you to actually take the break that you need. You don't ask for what you need because you're too practiced and anticipating what others are requiring so you don't notice when you're tired because tired has become normal.
It's main for you, right? You don't register disappointment or grief or even longing in real time. There's always something that is more important for you to tend to, and none of this happens dramatically. There might not ever be a breakdown. There might not ever be an obvious crisis, just a slow thinning of connection.
You might still be in the room, you might still be showing up, still performing very competent and confidently, but internally you start to feel slightly removed from your own life. Not numb, just distant, like you're living adjacent to yourself instead of inside of [00:22:00] yourself. And the longer that that distance goes unnamed, the harder it becomes to remember what closeness and safety and connection actually feels like.
A big part of the reason we are doing this work is because all the strategies you have ever tried work and they will work when you have the capacity to hold them. It's why I created the Ascension archetype quiz, and it's why the quiz. Matters deeply because when you don't understand how you are wired, you assume this pressure is just part of leadership and you begin to normalize it.
But when you understand how you are wired, you can actually begin to see that this is how you learned to be successful and to succeed, and that this is the cost that's associated with that. The ascension archetype quiz is gonna give you that language. To match the distinction and maybe even the [00:23:00] dysfunction that you might be feeling.
And again, it only takes three minutes for many leaders. It's the first time that you realize that you're not broken, that you're patterned and patterns can be worked with and worked within to get you to where it is that you wanna be inside. I promise you, when I took the time to develop this. Quiz I did.
So recognizing the significance of what would happen if we all learned how to operate within our divine wiring, and that is what I most desire for you. Always having it all together is not the same as being present in your life. In your business, in your home, and in our next episode, we're gonna talk about what happens when leaders build powerful lives, but feel strongly disconnected from them.
We'll talk about why high level leaders can feel like visitors inside of their own life. I want you to recognize that having it all together, it can be a gift. It is even [00:24:00] better when you understand that you don't need to have it all together in order to experience the success that you most, most desire, I promise you, right?
I always say no one goes to bed a blunder and wakes up a wonder. We're all works in progress and even inside of my life experience. Eight figure net worth eight figure business portfolio. My primary business, incredible one Enterprises. Doing multiple seven figures typically in a year. And even with all of that, y'all, I still have my stuff.
I'm still doing my work. Part of the reason we've been able to sustain seven figures for so long is because I won't stop doing the work. That is why I'm dedicating this season to having the conversation with you that you need to begin having with yourself. It's why I created SANCTUARY. It's why I want you.
To become the SANCTUARY I want you to understand all of this. We'll talk [00:25:00] more about this. I'll see you next time. Take care.
