“Even though they don’t realize it; they were entertaining greatness.” – Darnyelle Jervey Harmon
Episode Summary
This episode is powered by the Move to Millions Live (and the Million Dollar Intensives)
When I was a little girl, my father used to remind me on a regular basis that I was likely to be underestimated. And he was right. More than I care to admit, from time to time in high school, college and corporate America people would take a look at me and make an assumption that I got so much joy in proving to be wrong…. It happened again recently at the bank. And it got me so fired up that I decided to create a WHOLE podcast about it. Because if you are a woman and/or woman of color I can guarantee that you’ve been underestimated before and you likely will be again. Getting your business to the million-dollar mark as a woman and/or entrepreneur or business owner of color will cause many to look at you as if they don’t believe that you’ve actually done it. I mean, the statistics say that less than .5% black women and only 2% women total ever make it to the million-dollar mark. As a result of the statistics, the odds and people’s belief will be stacked against you. And when that happens, I want you to have some ammunition to prove them wrong. I’m not gonna lie, I enjoy being underestimated because I get so excited about demonstrating just how wrong people were about me! This episode is filled with tips and strategies of how to navigate what is sure to happen at some point on your move to millions if it hasn’t already. My goal is that as you listen you shift from underestimated to unstoppable. Grab your pen and paper and listen in now to discover:
- Why you have to be confident and clear about who you are and the value you bring
- 3 Ways to handle being underestimated
- #1 way to respond when your value, expertise or worth is questioned
- And so much more
Important Links:
Powerful Quotes from the Episode
- “Being underestimated is an indication of your next level being present.”
- “The real strength is refusing to allow someone else’s perception of you to impact how you see yourself”
- “Show them better than you can tell them.”
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- http://www.linkedin.com/in/darnyellejerveyharmon
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This episode is powered by Move to Millions Live and our brand new virtual workshop happening Thursday March 30, 2023. We created the virtual workshop, so that you can get a preview to determine whether or not you should join us in May. Okay, I mean, I can just tell you right now you should join us. If you are a millions-minded CEO, or a millions-minded CEO in the making, what is going to happen to your life and business in 3 short days is going to seriously put you on the trajectory of millions. I’ve always believed that before you can make the move you must make the plan and what my team and I have prepared and planned for you is going to help you to create a plan that will get you to the million dollar mark in the next one to 3 years. Learn more now by going to movetomillionsevents.com/workshop.
Welcome to another episode of the Move to Millions Podcast. It’s your girl, Dr. Darnyelle.
I’m so excited to be here with you. In case this is your very first time listening, I am so excited to welcome you to this podcast. When God created this movement just 2 years ago, I had no idea how fast it would spread. I literally get my mind blown every time I look at how many people are listening, how many downloads we have. It literally blows me away. Those little 3 words have become the source of so much joy for so many entrepreneurs, and it just warms my heart so much. I had no idea, I think, about so many times when I stop, and I see what we’ve been able to accomplish in such a short period of time, and it just brings me so much joy. Those 3 little words for all of the entrepreneurs out there who are finding the courage to admit to themselves what they have been squelching for far too long that you were born for millions. I am so excited to welcome you home.
I’m so glad that you now realize that not only are you born for millions, but you do not need to apologize or downplay your desire for them. You’ll quickly come to learn the here on this podcast. It’s really about your life, and becoming the best version of yourself, and walking boldly and confidently into your Next Level Everything®.
And as we do that. We are, in fact, going to talk about how to grow and scale your business, how to shift and change who you are as a leader, and how to allow you to sit in the seat of the significance of who God created you to be. Oh, and yeah, of course we will talk about faith. We will talk about God, and we will talk a lot about money because it is absolutely time to normalize millions in your life and in your business.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about being underestimated, and I’m going to start this episode by telling you a story. Now, unless you’ve been under a rock. You know that nearly 2 weeks ago, at the time of this recording Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. And for me, like many, the demise of that bank sent me into a tailspin. Now, literally, at the time of this recording, my financial advisor on the previous Sunday, sent me a text message, and his text message was in all capital letters. No sparing anything was like MOVE THAT MONEY.
Okay. In no uncertain terms. I was like, okay, I get your message loud and clear. Now in full transparency, I am a God girl making millions now it’s not just move to millions, because it sounds good, I literally have access to millions of dollars. I’m a little embarrassed to say it because I had a million dollars in my business bank accounts.
Listen. I know that there is no reason why I should have that kind of money sitting in a bank account, but I’m keeping it real with you. That’s always my promise to you. I did. Okay. So I did.
Listen, you guys know if you’ve been listening for a while that my father passed away last August. And just before my dad passed away, my husband and I have been doing a lot of estate planning and succession planning and really getting ready. Now, you know, we don’t have children. My husband and I are actively trying to start a family, but we have not been successful yet.
But even still we have access to a lot of resources. And so we’re putting things in place in order to manage the resources. And so, just before my dad passed away, I had a meeting
to move some of this money into investments, so that my money could earn money right like your money should make money for you y’all. And then my dad passed. and I just kind of needed a minute. You know what was important before is not nearly as important. Once you come into something as life altering as a death, and it doesn’t even have to be the death of
a prime loved one right? It doesn’t have to be a parental death or a spouse. Death to kind of jolt you and require you to need a minute. That’s exactly what happened to me. One minute turned into twenty minutes, turned into several months.
Here we are too much money sitting in bank accounts, which is like the worst thing you could possibly do. I’m. I mean, I’m not embarrassed anymore, and I’m sharing it with you hopefully as a frame of reference, and to let you know that. Listen. I’m real, and I’m human, too, and I do human things. And my human thing in this particular case was leaving that much money in the bank and thinking that it was okay, even though I knew it wasn’t okay. Y’all like I’m very clear. I already knew the banking system guarantees through the FDIC that deposits of $250,000 and less are guaranteed in the event that something like what happened to SVB happens now. We now know if you’ve been following the news. I don’t even follow the news. But I have been paying attention to this, that the FDIC has said that they will make all of the depositors whole. So even people who have more than that amount of money, more than the quarter of a million in bank accounts are being made whole. That’s great, that’s amazing, because guess what that doesn’t usually happen, and there is no guarantee that it would happen. And so here I am, sitting here with all this money in the banks.
Listen.
SVB and my financial advisor made it very clear that I needed to move that money. So I had the day off this past Monday. I said, I am going to do nothing before I get up and go to my main bank and withdraw all but a quarter of a million dollars, and I go and deposit this money into some other large banks. That was my sole mission for Monday.
Can I tell you? First of all, I had no idea how long it was gonna take to go to my main bank and to get my money. I know they weren’t expecting it. Yes, I probably should have called first. I didn’t. The teller, bless his little heart! He did not have the signing authority to release the amount of money that I needed to withdraw from the account. So I had to wait. And you know people are coming and asking, Are you? Is everything okay? I’m like everything is fine. I’m just diversifying my money to make sure until I get an investment plan in place.
All of this money is protected by FDIC: okay, so that’s fine. They finally released my money. I’m able to get the money and go to the very first bank. So the first bank I go to, they have no one who can help me to open a business CD. No one is available. What?
I’m literally walking in with hundreds of thousands of dollars. and you all can’t help me. Okay, so I leave that bank for the next one. Sit in the next one for like an hour, and the bank account is still not set up like, Still not set up. I’m like, okay. So then I’m like, okay. This is enough. I’m hungry at this point. I’m tired. I need a nap. This is my day off. This is turning into a day of work.
I’m abandoning this idea, and I’m going home, and so I just went home and had my assistant call a couple of other banks and make me appointments, so I can walk into said bank, , handle my business, and go on with my life and go on with my day. Right, so I did that on Wednesday for the first bank and put that money into a CD. No problem. Go to the second bank today, just before sitting down to record this podcast episode for you.
And upon walking in and meeting the banker, I felt a strange energy. and I was sitting there trying to figure out what I was going to do with it. but I just decided I would let it play for a second, right. so he seems all he’s, you know he’s like I, you know. I’m saying, you want to open up a business bank account. Do you have this this and this. Now I didn’t just start this thing right. I didn’t wake up like this. I’ve been in the game 15 years. I’ve been successful in the game for 13 of those 15 years, right? So I’m like, okay, yeah, Got all the things. Let’s get this party started. He was looking at me like my name was Stan Y’all.
He underestimated who I was. Now, far be it for me to understand why his process didn’t include doing due diligence on who was coming in to open up a bank account. But he didn’t do any of that now. I did learn that he did listen to my voicemail, and was blown away by how powerful it was. Okay, that’s great.
So, anyway, I’m literally making a decision in that moment, as I’m looking at this energetic exchange like do I want to put my money in this bank? Holy Spirit said, Sit down. So I did, because I was about to roll and start this whole process all over again never thought it would be this hard.
So here’s what I want you to realize for a moment as a CEO on the move to millions you might be underestimated. and if you are a woman, entrepreneur of color, you should expect to be underestimated. It’s sad, but it is absolutely, unequivocally the truth. It’s a shame that in 2023 we, people of color, women of color still have to contend with a person seeing us physically and making a judgment of us before they understand who they are in front of right now.
You’ve heard the statistics, I hope hopefully you’ve heard me share them. Enough that black women owned businesses are the fasting, growing segment of entrepreneurs and small business owners in the United States, but they are also the ones who are not earning at the same rate as they are establishing businesses.
American Express’ Women in Business Report stated that the average black woman owned business does $24,000 in a year versus 142,900 for their white counterparts. So when I say.
as a woman of color that’s who you are listening to this podcast. You should expect to be underestimated because they’re going to expect for you to fall in line with the statistics and what they’ve been told.
I remember when I was just into corporate America. Well, maybe not just in. I had gotten promoted to personal banking officer. I was working for a fortune 500 Financial Services Company, and upon getting promoted that put me on the leadership track that meant at some point in time I might be managing the efforts of others. So there was a series of education, continuing education that I had to go through within the company, and there was this one class that was called Treating People As Important Individuals. It was a diversity and inclusion class. I was the only person of color. There was one Latino person, and there was one Asian person in my class, and everyone else was Caucasian.
The impetus of the class was to get us to see and appreciate the differences of others, right? Other races, other genders, etc. However, this class didn’t really do that the exercise that they had us do was so. We were given 2 pieces of paper like on an easel pad, right. They were stuck to the wall on one paper. We were supposed to write everything we believe to be true about our race. I was the only black girl in the room, black person. So of course, I’m doing African Americans all by myself.
So one sheet of paper to write down everything we personally believe to be true about our race. On the other sheet of paper we were to write down every stereotype we had heard
others say about our race. Right so on my sheet of paper, we got beautiful, intelligent, innovative. We got all the positive things because, first of all, this country was built by African Americans, and a whole slew of the most important inventions we still use to this day we’re created by African Americans. So we have bad race. Okay. So I’m feeling real good about being a black girl in this room at this moment. New personal banking offer, I’m sticking out my chest. I’m popping my collar. I’m feeling real good.
And we go through this exercise. And so we do that. The next part of the exercise is that we are now to take these red dots or black dots are the things that we actually believe on either of the 2 black dots are the things that other people believe on either of the 2. Then we go around the room, and we’re putting our red dots, our black dots based on the other races that are represented. if we believe it, or you know, if we believe other people, believe it. Can I tell you, when the exercise is over, the only positive dots on the black pages are the ones that I placed. Everybody else that’s in this room, many of these people are people that I work with every single day, and this company that at that point in time had like 10,000 employees.
No one else thought that black people were innovative and intelligent and beautiful and brilliant. We were underestimated. Y’all. This is corporate America in like 1999, 2000.
This is corporate America. This is the landscape, and it’s sad to say that not much has changed, even though that’s not really what this episode was about. But I wanted to tell that parallel story of being underestimated, and it’s just like my girl beyonce, saying they must not know about me. They must not know about you.
We’re gonna take a quick break, and when we come back I’m going to tell you the best part of this story will be right back.
You are listening to the move to millions. Podcast. I’m. Your host, Dr. Darnyelle Jervey Harmon And I am being very transparent now here’s what I need for you all to do. I need for no one to DM me and ask me for any money because I need you to know that the answer is going to be No, no! Seriously, before we went to break. I started telling you a story about what we’re talking about in this episode. Being underestimated. Women, women in business. You’re going to be underestimated, even if you’re a white woman and Asian woman a Latino woman. If you are a woman in business, you are going to be underestimated. It’s going to happen, and I just want to continue telling you my story, and then share some of the tips with you. That, I think will make a difference the next time you’re underestimated, because it is going to happen so. Anyway. I’m i’m sitting there. You know the man is first treating me like my name is Stan, and then he, you know, starts asking me to tell him why I’m in there today, and I’m telling him I want to open up an account. I told him about my business. How successful we are, how much money I would like to put in the account. You know all the things, and I watch his countenance change. When I handed him the cashier’s check,
I watched his posture completely change.
He realized that he was entertaining greatness.
Here’s what I want you to know. I want you to know that you will be underestimated. and even then who you are should not be compromised. I did not cower back. I did not slump in my seat. I did not act as if I didn’t deserve to be there, because I’m so clear that I do just like I want you to be so clear that you do too. Right because you are likely to be underestimated at some point in time on this journey. Listen! You will have people I cannot tell you about the number of times you’ll know. I’m a business consultant and business coach.
You know our clients are generating, or they’re you know. They come to us at low multi-six figures. Some clients come to me at 7 figures. I’ve had a few clients come to me at 8 figures needing me to help them to solve a problem. They haven’t been unsuccessful at solving on their own. But they still act a little wonky like because they’re at a different level, I should be underestimated.
I don’t want you to ever question who you are. God said in His word that you were created in His image and likeness. You are given dominion over the earth and the power to subdue it. That’s what God said. That’s not even what I said. That’s what God said.
God said that before you were formed in your mother’s room he knew and approved you. That is a recipe to not ever allow anyone to underestimate you when you take that sitting down the best way to handle someone who’s underestimating who you are and what you bring to the table is to show them better than you could ever tell them.
The number. One thing I want you to keep in mind is that your validation does not come from man. You should walk into every room, knowing that you own it and own it. That song from, I think it was the nineties, maybe the eighties? The Men All Paused When I Walked Into the Room? They pause. When you walk into the room. You might not know it because you’re allowing your own thoughts and limiting beliefs and self sabotage to make you think that there is an impostor inside of you.
But everybody else feels the energy change, because greatness has walked into the room. And so I just want to encourage you to not allow with someone else thinks of you to validate or invalidate what you do know to be true about who you are and what it is that you bring to the table, even when you’re having one of those moments when you’re questioning or doubting. Listen. I have them, too. I write in my book moved to Millions, which will be out later this year about Moses moments.
I did a whole podcast episode on Moses Moments, because we all have those moments when we question in doubt if we are the one that is being called and sent to solve the problem. But I don’t want there to be any doubts even though they might underestimate who you are. The next thing I want you to keep in mind is that you don’t need permission to be a disruptor that they don’t see coming Listen home, boy, did not. He didn’t see me coming?
He did not see me coming, but he knew when I arrived, and the thing is, I was very clear when from the onset of the energy exchange I was like, oh, I get what’s happening here.
He thinks that I’m some little peon scraping together a couple of pennies to come and deposit in his big bank. And I don’t think he did it on purpose. The one thing about being a person of color is that they’re always going to see your color before they see anything else, and depending upon what they are contending with individually that might impact the way that they show up in the energy that they convey towards you.
But that ain’t got nothing to do with you.
And I just want to encourage you to allow your confidence to speak, for you hold that space like it’s yours because it is. That’s exactly what I did, and as I watched his countenance change. I really just chuckled. Y’all like inside. I chuckled, and I came out, and I immediately created a quick reel which turned into an entire podcast episode. This is not initially what I was planning to talk about in recording this episode today, but I was like, you know, what I got. How to people that they might be underestimated.
There are some people who look at women for those of us who are women still as second class citizens, regardless of our race. You will be underestimated. Right. If you are a person of color, any of the colors on the hue, it is likely that upon coming into contact with you people might be underestimated. I still remember, even though my dad is not here, I still have moments when I hear ringing in my ears, reminding me that I was gonna have to work twice as hard to defy the beliefs they would attempt to impose on me just because I was a black girl.
That’s what my dad told me all the time. It was something that was literally inbred in us. It was part of the reason that I was part of the Hustle gang when I first started my business. It’s why I’m so adamant that we do not hustle and grind anymore. Because I realized that that was my dad’s reality, but it didn’t have to be mine. And even if people looked at me and thought something in particular didn’t mean that I had to give way and buy into it. It didn’t mean that I had to tower in defeat because of it. It meant that I could actually stand taller and walk more boldly because of it. because I like underestimating, and then shocking the hell out of people when they realize that they are entertaining greatness. and I just want to encourage you to do the same. This is part of the reason why I want you all to come to Move to Millions Live not just because I want you to be at my live event, but I want to equip you with the skills and the confidence. the knowing the transformation that will stop you from shrinking when you are in a situation where people underestimate who you are.
I want to equip and empower and edify and solidify for you that the validation that God gave you before you came to be through your mother and your father was, in fact, the truth, and is what he desired for your life experience.
I want to encourage you. I want to teach you how to be confident, how to be clear and how to be communicative about your gifts and talents, and the problems that you alone solve and solve. Very well for the clients that you serve.
I want to create an environment for you to understand that by solving the problems they have been unsuccessful at solving on their own. It is the key to you being able to create a business that makes moves and leaves millions. And I won’t be able to do any of that. If we don’t get into the power of proximity, because there is something amazing that happens when we’re in the same space. I alluded to that in the last episode the company you keep.
There is significance in what rooms you get into and the rooms you want to be in our rooms. You have to invest, to be in because there is something that happens way different when you made an investment to be in the space. It helps you to stand a little bit more boldly, just because you are in position to pay the cost to be the boss inside of that room.
I promise you. As time goes on, you are going to experience a moment like this. It’s bound to happen. But just because it happens, does not mean that you need to succumb or yield to it, or begin to question who you are, and shift out of the significance that you were created in.
That’s what I know, and that’s what I want you to keep in mind. I’ll see you guys next time. Take care.
