“Mentorship is essential to achieving your next level success; if you could do it by yourself, it would already be done.” – Dr. Darnyelle Jervey Harmon
Episode Summary
This episode is powered by the Make Millions Move Summit
When I first got to corporate America, I was introduced to the concept of mentorship. One of my early members advised me that there are levels to seeking outside support and counsel. Even Proverbs 11:14 says Where no counsel is, the people fall: But in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. With my very first mentor, I quickly learned a powerful truth – mentorship is a cheat code, and it allows you to collapse the amount of time it takes for you to achieve a big hairy audacious goal. I can tell you firsthand that my decision to never be without mentorship, both paid and unpaid, has been a determining factor in my ability to consistently defy the odds and achieve my big goals. With the exception of a period of time when I was seeking God instead of man, I have always had a team of advisors supporting me in the various areas of my life. That’s right, you should have mentors and coaches in every area of your life. Recently, I received a direct message where I was asked to share how I choose my mentors. As the marketplace continues to gather more and more who talk a good game with little to no results, it’s important that you establish a rubric for how you will choose the guidance, coaching, mentorship and counsel to help you make the move to and beyond the million dollar mark. In this episode, I share mine in an effort to help you determine yours.
If you’re ready to think through who will be invited on your journey, grab your Move to Millions Podcast notebook and your favorite pen and listen in to discover:
- The types of mentorship
- 5 keys to evaluating a potential mentor or coach
- The difference between coaching, mentoring and consulting (and why you may need all three)
- And so much more
Powerful Quotes During the Episode:
- The whole point that I hire coaches and mentors is so that I can collapse the amount of time it takes me to achieve the result.”
- “If you could do it by yourself, it would already be done. And if it’s not done, I argue that you cannot do it by yourself.”
- “I believe that mentorship is the cheat code to making millions, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the opportunity for me and my team to be mentors for you.”
- “I always invest from my vision point and not my vantage point.”
- “I do believe that who you choose to be your mentors is about how you see yourself.”
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Darnyelle [00:00:00]:
The whole point that I hire coaches and mentors is so that I can collapse the amount of time it takes me to achieve the result. Because six and seven figure earners, and we’re talking about becoming seven and eight figure earners now, right? We find a system that is working and we work that system. You’re listening to the Move to Millions podcast with Dr. Darnyelle Jervey Harmon, the place to be for high level conversations about all things millions. Your mission, mindset, methodologies, mandate movement, messaging, marketing metrics, and most definitely, your money. I am your host, spiritual business growth coach, Dr. Darnyelle J. Harmon.
Darnyelle [00:00:43]:
Join me each week for inspiring stories, powerful interviews, and business growth strategy to help you experience abundance in your life because of your business. If you’re ready to move to your next level, everything let’s get this party started. This episode is powered by the make millions Move summit. In just a few days, I’m going live for the first time ever, brand new content on the internal and external money shifts you need to make so that you can make money faster regardless of what’s happening in the economy. Your ticket is free. While there is an option to upgrade to VIP, you can join me for free by going to move to millionsmasterclass.com right now to secure your seat, I want to welcome you back to another episode on the move to Millions podcast. I am so excited to be with you. I know that I say that every single time, and the truth of the matter is, I am excited every single time.
Darnyelle [00:01:49]:
You might not realize this, but this podcast is like my favorite thing in the world to do. I made a decision a few years ago when I started a podcast. If you’ve been following me for longer and you transitioned with me to the podcast, prior to the podcast, I used to do this incredible factor TV. I’m dating us, right? Because even when we started this podcast back in 2019, it was called the leverage your incredible Factor podcast. And then we went through the rebrand in 2000 and 22,021, and so, of course, we changed the name of the podcast. Well, back then, I used to take a question from people in our community and turn it into my weekly video and content that I would release. I did that for seven years, consecutive. And I said, you know what? Podcasting is becoming a thing now I’m going to switch to a podcast.
Darnyelle [00:02:38]:
And I’ll be honest, I played with it. I didn’t really go deep. But now I’ve made a commitment to really go deep into how I show up, what I talk about, even the guests that I bring you on. Now, you’ll notice that I bring you less guests. So if I’m bringing you a guest is somebody you need to know. And I do this because I recognize the significance of being able to come into your life twice every single week. So I thank you for those of you who are loyal listeners, who have been listening since the beginning or over the last few years. Thank you.
Darnyelle [00:03:13]:
Thank you. Thank you. If you have not already rated and reviewed an episode of the podcast, I would love it so much if you would. And can I tell you why I ask you to do this for me? When you rate and review the podcast, it allows us to expand our reach so that more people can learn about the move to millions movement. Here’s the thing. God is the creator of the movement. I’m the steward of the movement. But I absolutely cannot keep this movement moving without you and without your ratings and reviews.
Darnyelle [00:03:45]:
So I would be so grateful if you would take the 10 seconds that it takes. However you listen, whether you’re on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you are listening, if you could just take a few moments and rate and review the episode, this episode and episode. Doing so is really going to help us to continue to get out there in the places that we really need to be so that this message can be found. I love the podcast because it really does allow me to share what’s on my heart. And you all know I love business, I love God, and I love money, and I love talking about all three of them at the same time. So it gives me an opportunity to do what I really love to people who might not ever be able to come and join me at a live event experience right wherever they live. It might not be easy or possible for them to be able to just jump on a plane and come spend three days with me. So this podcast really has become my way of really expanding my reach and getting my message out there and allowing people to connect with me and to meet my heart.
Darnyelle [00:04:53]:
So again, I just say thank you. Thank you so much. If you’re a listener, loyal listener. Thank you so much. If you’ve already rated and reviewed a podcast, and thank you in advance for those of you who will take a few moments and rate and review, especially if you can rate and review on iTunes, on Apple Podcasts, they change their name, that would be extremely helpful for me. All right, now to the matter at hand. So this week on the podcast, I wanted to get into a question that I had show up in my DMs three times in the last two weeks. Whenever I see something that many times, I’m like, okay, it’s time for me to stop and to do something about it.
Darnyelle [00:05:30]:
And so I got this question. The first time I got the question, it came from Alicia. And then I got it two more times, one from Abriana and one from a Karen. And the question was simply, Darnyelle, you’re amazing. Well, this isn’t the question part. This is the admiration part. Darnyelle, you’re amazing. And I can’t wait until I can work with you.
Darnyelle [00:05:55]:
But until then, how should I go about choosing my mentors? How do you choose yours? I love this question. So I’m going to take a few minutes and just share with you my insights into how to choose your mentors based on how I choose my mentors. Here’s the thing. So if you have been rocking with me for a while, then you know my story, but I’m going to do a quick and dirty version of it, right? So started my career in corporate America. Was in corporate America for twelve years. About nine years into my career in corporate America, I was engaged to be married. My first ex fiance got an older woman in our church pregnant. And after allowing me to mope for a couple of months, one of my good friends invited me to a Mary Kay skincare class.
Darnyelle [00:06:38]:
I went to that class and I got hooked. I got hooked on the product, and I got hooked on the business opportunity. And so before I knew it, I was slinging lipstick, y’all. I was selling Mary Kay cosmetics. And I was doing it on the side because at that point in time in my career, I was also a vice president in the company where I worked. And I don’t want to say it was beneath me to be slinging lipstick, because it absolutely wasn’t. But reputation to protect. Until one day someone rolled up on me in the office and whispered.
Darnyelle [00:07:08]:
They came into my office and whispered, hey, we heard you can get us Mary Kay. I was like, can. I pulled out my one lookbook that I carried around with me, gave it to them, they brought it back within 2 hours with over $600 worth of orders, y’all. I went from being a closet consultant that day to being a full fledged Mary Kay independent beauty consultant. I loved the business opportunity so much that I eventually became a sales director. I had my own unit. But before you get too excited, that unit, we were mediocre at best for the next year and a half until I literally started to attend personal development. This is why I’m such an advocate of coaching.
Darnyelle [00:07:50]:
And that’s why we’re going to talk about how I choose my mentors. Today I started to attend events where you would hear motivational speakers and you have the opportunity to have conversations with top Mary Kay salespeople. So I could get coaching, I could learn how to improve how I sold the product, presented the product, et cetera. If you love the move to millions podcast and the move to Millions book is blowing your mind, then you have got to join us for move to millions live. All the details are waiting for you to secure your [email protected]. The reviews are in move to millions. The proven framework to become a million dollar CEO with grace and ease instead of hustle and grind is a best seller with thousands of copies sold. We are raising a generation of million dollar CEOs.
Darnyelle [00:08:44]:
You got next. Grab your copy and our bonuses [email protected]. Once I got bit by the coaching and personal development bug, I was hooked for life. It is truly because of Mary Kay cosmetics that when I woke up and realized that my time in the company was over, after getting two pink Cadillacs, becoming an independent executive sales director, offspringing five sales directors and building my unit to 500, I realized that that was a stepping stone, not a stopping point, right? That there was more for me and that more for me was creating my own company, incredible one enterprises. And so September the 30th, 2007, I finished that second pink Cadillac. And unlike the first, it had been like pushing a boulder uphill. And I had started to stop believing that I had to work hard for money. And so that was an indication to me that my next level was presenting itself and that I would no longer be schlepping lipstick, right? And so I remember going to bed that night and while I was asleep, or as I was falling to sleep, and I’m praying to God, I said, God, show me what it is that you have next for me.
Darnyelle [00:09:56]:
Well, I didn’t expect God to answer as fast as he did. I went to sleep and in my dream, I saw myself dressed to the nine, walking into a building that had a marquee that read incredible one enterprises. So I got up the next morning, I grabbed my journal and I literally wrote at the top of the page, what is incredible one enterprises? And I waited. I waited for God to reveal to me the vision and the provision that he had made for this vision. And as I sat there, I heard my spirit say, I want you to do what I called you to do. Now I learned when I was ten years old, thanks to my favorite forever teacher, Mrs. Dixon, that I was born to use words to change the lives of other people. And so as I heard God recounting that to me, I realized that my mission at the time was to focus on using my words to change people’s lives.
Darnyelle [00:10:46]:
So I wrote my very first book. If you understood my past, you would understand my praise. And I got to speaking everywhere. They’d let me open my mouth. I would do it. I didn’t even care about being paid at first. I just wanted to be heard. I needed to hone my skill.
Darnyelle [00:11:00]:
My gift is natural. I hadn’t gone to any speaker trainings or anything like that. I literally just got out and started telling my story. And it was amazing and it resonated and it turned into me starting to make money as a speaker. And eventually it turned into me leveraging my coaching certification that I got when I was in corporate America to become a business coach. And I promise you, I hired my very first coach in 2010. Now, 2010 was the year that my bankruptcy was discharged and it was the year that I left the job that I took when I was trying to avoid living in my car. I came back into my business full time January 1, 2011, and I decided that I was going to give it the best that I’ve got.
Darnyelle [00:11:53]:
I was channeling my inner Anita Baker and I was going to see if I had what it took to make this business work. And as you know, here we are, some 13 years and some change later, and we made it work twice on the ink 5000, a multiple seven figure company, eight figure net worth. I don’t regret it. I’m so excited for it. And it would not have been possible had I not worked with coaches and mentors. I am not one of those people who was out here acting like I woke up like this. I did not. I promise you, I didn’t wake up like this.
Darnyelle [00:12:27]:
It has taken work, it has taken humbling myself to be guided by someone else who knows more or could help me to get there faster in order to be able to make it happen. So I want to share with you how I choose my mentor so I can answer the question that Brianna and the girls in my DMs have asked me so that I can help you figure out how to choose yours and the point at which it is the perfect time for us to work together. I welcome that. I have a new program that I’m going to be launching later this year that will likely be right up your alley. We’re going to introduce it at move to millions live in May and then we will reveal it to the world. So for those of you who are coming to move to millions are planning to come to move to millions, you’ll be the first to hear about it and you’ll have the opportunity to join us in this amazing program as one of our founders. So if it’s not time for us yet, let’s talk about how I choose my mentors. I think this process will guide you no matter what stage of development you’re in and no matter who is kind of pricking your spirit that they could be a person that you can learn from.
Darnyelle [00:13:36]:
I do believe that who you choose to be your mentors is about how you see yourself. And I believe that the mentors that you choose should be substantially farther ahead so that you can glean. Think about the story of Boaz and Ruth. Was it Ruth? I think it’s how. Yeah, it was Ruth because Ruth was with Naomi, so Ruth would go out into the pastures and she would glean from what was left by the other people, all because Boaz created a space for her to do that. He told his workers to leave some so that there would be something for her. Right. So when you think about that and you couple that with the fact that the Bible says and believes in having a multitude of advisors, finding coaches and mentors to support you is a big deal.
Darnyelle [00:14:27]:
Now, there are different types of mentorship. There’s paid mentorship, there’s also unpaid mentorship. You’re going to have to explore which ones are available to you based on the people that you deem to be the people who can support you. Right. This is how I choose my mentors. The first question I ask myself is if we are in alignment from a values perspective. Do they believe that? What I believe, you all know I’m a God girl. That means I need to know that if I need them to pray for me, they can pray for me.
Darnyelle [00:14:56]:
That they believe the same thing that I believe. Right. They don’t have to be Bible toting, tongues speaking, but they have to have a relationship with the father, they have to have a spirit of discernment, and they have to be able to call down heaven when they pray, because that’s important to me. So that’s my first question. Are we in alignment from a values perspective? I want to know, when I think about values, do they operate in integrity? Are you ready for move to millions live 2024? Well, registration is now open. It is going down May 22 through the 24th, just outside of Washington, DC. You have to be there if you have millions on your mind, if you think the book was something? Wait until you get into proximity to your next level. The conversations, the clarity, the collaborations, and the community that is going to get you to and beyond.
Darnyelle [00:15:48]:
The million dollar mark is waiting for you now. Go grab your [email protected]. Want to know what it’s like to work with me and the incredible factor university coaching team? You can get started today with the move to millions 90 day business growth planner. 90 days at a time, you’ll be setting your business on a trajectory that will make the move to millions happen much faster for you. It’s got everything that you need to track every strategy, every sale, all of your KPIs, as well as your self care and life transformational needs. We made sure we left nothing out of this amazing planner. And by accessing the planner, you’ll get a behind the scenes view of what it’s like to work with me and my team. Go grab yours [email protected].
Darnyelle [00:16:35]:
Do they hyperbolize? Do they over sensationalize the results they get for people in an attempt to market? Or are they true and true about what they’re about? Right. Because integrity is my number one core value. The second thing I always ask myself is, do they have experience, do they have a track record? And are they currently doing what I would be seeking their mentorship for? I don’t have time for somebody who in their heyday used to make it, ran in their business. I don’t have time for that. That was always my challenge with programs like Score and no disrespect to score. I used to run a women’s business center that was sponsored by the SBA. And score is another SBA sponsored program in the Small Business Administration. A lot of the mentors at score are retired executives.
Darnyelle [00:17:19]:
I mean, that’s what score stands for, service corps of retired executives. So they haven’t actually run businesses like ground up businesses. I don’t want theory. It’s just like when I was in college and I was getting my MBA, I didn’t want to get my MBA in marketing, as it turns out, from someone who had never worked in marketing, because then we’re talking theory, and I don’t have time for theory. I don’t know about you. The whole point that I hire coaches and mentors is so that I can collapse the amount of time it takes me to achieve the result. Because six and seven figure earners. And we’re talking about becoming seven and eight figure earners now, right? We find a system that is working and we work that system.
Darnyelle [00:18:01]:
So I need somebody who’s already been there, done that, got the T shirt and is still wearing it and it fits right here, right now. Refining strategies, tweaking, pivoting, and can guide me the whole way. So that’s the second thing that I look at. Third thing I look at is, do they have right now, real time results from other people that I could reach out and touch, that I could pick up the phone, that I could slide into their DMs? I could see what it was like to work with them. Whether we’re talking about coaching or consulting or branding, like whatever it is we’re talking about, I want to know that I can reach out to people right here, right now and find people that are getting results and working for them. And then the last thing that I typically will ask myself is if I make this investment in myself through them and access to their coaching, mentorship, consulting, et cetera, will it save me time? Will it collapse the amount of time it takes me to get to the result that I desire? Now, I always do my due diligence. I don’t take anybody just at their word. I’m always going to go and do research.
Darnyelle [00:19:04]:
I’m good for Google search. I’m good for even if they give me referrals of people that they want me to talk to, I’m good for going to look at their website and just picking a person random and see if I can find them to link in with them on LinkedIn. And I do this because we know that there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in the online marketplace, right? This is the one place where you don’t have to, quote unquote, prove that you can do anything. And if you have great messaging, you could be a snake oil salesman. It’s possible. It’s happened. It’s happened to me. I’m sure it’s happened to you.
Darnyelle [00:19:37]:
So for me, I’m looking for a proven track record and others who will speak well of them as a part of my process. But as I do all of this, I always invest from my vision point and not my vantage point. And that’s probably the most important thing I want to leave with you. I literally ask myself, do I really want to spend the next 1, 3, 5, 7 years trying to figure this out when such and such already has a system that I can use to figure it out and master it sooner? So the biggest question I want you to ask yourself, as you’re thinking about it again, do you like them? And when I say like them. I’m put a little asterisk because I’m not looking for them to be your bestie. But do you like the way they move, the way they think, the way they act around people? Are they consistent? Right? I mean, we’re all human and we all have bad days, right? But are they consistent? Do they demonstrate that you’re going to be more than a stripe notification to them? Those are the things I want you to think about as you’re thinking about who you’re going to invest in. And if, as you’ve listened to this, you’ve gotten something that gets you warm and fuzzy and it has now given you a list that you can utilize in order to begin investing in yourself through other people. Because again, if you could do it by yourself, it would already be done.
Darnyelle [00:20:55]:
And if it’s not done, I argue that you cannot do it by yourself. So get the support that you need so that you can shorten the amount of time it takes you to get to the milestone. If that could potentially be me and my team, we welcome the opportunity to chat with you about how we could help you make the move to millions. We have a myriad of ways that we help our clients. You could go to movetomillions.com and see many of them and learn how you can apply to work with us in one of our programs. If you come and work with us and you show up fully, we match our expertise and our coaching and our mentorship to your level of effort. That’s why we have clients every single year who make the move to millions and they do it without hustling and grinding and sacrificing and losing the things that are most important to them because I can’t stand for that. I can’t go for that.
Darnyelle [00:21:42]:
That’s my haul and oats, right? I can’t do it. Won’t happen. It’s not a thing. This is how I choose my mentors. Take a moment. Take a screenshot of however you listen to this episode. Tag me in a story and tell me how do you choose your mentors? Or which of these will you add into your process so that going forward, you can make sure that the mentors that you are choosing are the right ones for this season of your life and business to help you to continue to move forward? I believe that mentorship is the cheat code to making millions, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the opportunity for me and my team to be mentors for you. I’ll see you guys next time.
Darnyelle [00:22:19]:
Take care. Thank you for joining me for the Move to Millions podcast. The way I see it, you deserve a business that generates millions. We’d love to have you join us in May at move to millions live to help you prepare, plan and position your company for the million dollar mark visit move to millions event now to grab your seat. If you enjoyed our time together, do yourself a favor, head on over to iTunes, subscribe rate, and leave us a review until next time. Remember, millions are your birthright and to access them you need only move. See you next time. Take care.
