“The Move to Millions is about who you Become on the journey.” – Dr Darnyelle Jervey Harmon
This episode is powered by the Move to Millions Method
When I was a little girl, I made a declaration that one day I would become a philanthropist. I wanted to be able to be the change I wanted to see In the world and one thing was for certain, it would be hard to be the change if I didn’t have any. So I set on a mission to master my craft and learn financial literacy so that I could become the woman I know I was created to be. Now, I won’t lie – the journey has been arduous at times but I know that everything I’ve encountered has prepared me for the legacy I will get to leave one day. My own story is filled with bankruptcy, self-defeat and determination. All of that is what helped me to make the move to millions. Grab your pen and paper and listen in to discover:
- The #1 change I made that has contributed the most to who I am today
- Why my biggest setback actually set me up to make a comeback in less than 3 years
- Why making millions isn’t the end game, it’s just a stepping stone
- How to leverage your business to shift the trajectory for an entire generation
Important Links:
Powerful Quotes from the Episode
- When I stopped chasing the number, I removed all the power I had once given it
- Deciding to become a millionaire started as a decision and then it became a way of life
- Every defining moment I have lived has set me up to shift the lives of others
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- http://www.twitter.com/darnyellejervey
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/darnyellejerveyharmon
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My Move To Millions Story
This episode is powered by the MOVE To Millions group on Facebook. If you are a millions-minded entrepreneur and you are looking for your people, join us right now at MoveToMillionsGroup.com. I’m so excited to be back with you. In our last episode, I was giving you the breakdown and the debrief on the first-ever MOVE To Millions live event. Shout out to everybody who was there. Thank you so much for making that an amazing experience. While I was giving you the breakdown, I realized that there were some other things I wanted to come back in separate episodes to talk to you about.
In this episode, I want to talk to you about my own MOVE to Million stories. I realized I haven’t shared it with you and I think I forget often that you don’t know my whole story. Depending upon when we met and how we met is going to determine how much you know. I sit before you now and you’re hearing my voice. I am a millionaire. I am a multi-million dollar CEO and it wasn’t always this way. You’ve heard me on various episodes of the show. If you heard me speak or if you heard me on other people’s podcasts, you’ve heard me unpack parts of my story.
What I want to do now is I want to unpack the whole story for you just so you know my own MOVE to Million journey. We’re not going to go all the way back to the beginning because I have talked to you before about being born to drug-addicted parents. We’ve talked about that. You know that I’m the only one of my mom’s children to graduate from high school, go to college, get a degree, a Master’s, and now have an honorary PhD.
What Did I Leave Behind?
You even know that I filed for bankruptcy and all of these different things, but I want to put it together for you. I want to bring it full circle. Let me just start. Before I even get into my MOVE to Million story and how I got here, I want to talk to you about the things that I decided to leave behind in order to do this work to make this move. Number one, I decided to leave behind doubt. Doubt never serves you. There is no reason to doubt who you are because of who created you.
I had to leave behind fear. Fear has one mission in my mind. Fear’s purpose is to give me an indication that my next level is present. I decided to see fear as that instead of a reason to stop. I decided to leave behind my toxic friends and family who couldn’t imagine life at the next level. I don’t have time and space for people who don’t see their value and their deserve level to get to where it is that they want. I am personally of the belief that if we are here, we should be experiencing life to the full. I decided to leave behind a lack of focus and get clear and drill down on my area of brilliance and expertise and how I could serve people.
I decided to leave behind a lack of effort. I decided that I was going to show up fully and I was going to do the work. I wasn’t going to hustle and grind to do the work, but I was going to be willing to work and work to the full in order to get the result. The result for me is the impact on the lives of others. Because I know that if I’m impacting others, the money is coming, and the money is following.
My Keith Sweat Moment
I’m going to start this version of the story on December the 17th, 2004. That was the day that I called my Keith Sweat moment. You know the song, “Something Just Ain’t Right.” Keith Sweat got that song and I woke up that morning and something just wasn’t right. There was an unction in my spirit. Have you ever felt this? I knew from the moment that I got up, there is something defining, pivotal and transformational was going to happen that day.
I continued through my day of doing my prayer and my devotions, getting dressed, jumping in my car and heading to work. By the time I got to the parking lot, I had a knot in the pit of my stomach. By the time I got in the building, hit the elevator, went to the second floor, and opened the double doors into my area of the building, that knot in my stomach had become a lump in my throat.
It became very clear to me that December 17th, 2004 was going to be my last day working in Corporate America. I had no idea what I was going to do, in case that’s what you’re wondering. I had no clue, but I was willing to bet on Darnyelle. At that particular point in time, I wasn’t married yet. I was willing to bet on myself. I also knew that if it didn’t work, I could get a job. While I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, I decided to work in my Mary Kay cosmetics business. My Mary Kay business was a side hustle. At the time, I was making a little bit of extra money. I decided I would just work that full-time. I had to become a sales director at Mary Kay. I decided I would focus on following the system.
That system led me to my first Pink Cadillac in five months. You probably know this part of the story so we’ll fast forward a little. Pink Cadillac in five months, a year later, I’m number five in my national area. Number one most improved director in the State of Delaware on the trajectory to become a national sales director. That buzz continued into 2007. In 2007, we were finishing our second Pink Cadillac. September 30th was the hardest thing I had ever done and I’ve always believed that when God gives you something, it won’t need batteries but here I was struggling to finish my second Pink Cadillac.
We did it, but I felt I compromised myself in the process. I also realized very quickly that I wasn’t willing to show up that hard for someone else without all of the benefits. Here’s how it works in Mary Kay in the event that you don’t know. The beauty consultants get a 50% commission because we buy our products wholesale. We sell them at retail. When you are in leadership in Mary Kay, you earn additional commission based on the sales and orders of your beauty consultants.
Doubt never serves you. There is no reason to doubt who you are because of who created you.
As a sales director, anyone I personally recruited, I would earn 26% off, 13% for them being my personal recruit, 13% for them being in my unit. Everyone else, I earned 13% for the unit. Our unit had to do 60,000 wholesale to finish that Pink Cadillac. Let’s sidebar for a second and just talk about the fact that I could go and buy a Cadillac and get it painted pink for $60,000. We did the work. We achieved the Cadillac, $60,000 wholesale was the equivalent to $120,000 in retail.
My Britney Spears Moment
When I got my commission check the next month, it was only for $16,000. I get it. You’re like, “Darnyelle, I would kill to have $16,000 come in.” When you do $120,000 worth of effort, you don’t want $16,000 to show for it. That was September the 30th, 2007 and that was the day that I realized that I had done it again. I call this my Brittney Spears moment. You know her song, “Oops, I did it again.” I did it again. I traded one desk for another. I had left Corporate America in 2004 because I wasn’t meant to sit behind someone else’s desk, but here I was just three years later sitting behind a proverbial Mary Kay cosmetics desk.
I fed into the belief that I was an independent beauty consultant and I could determine my own potential, except you still only get paid what they deem you to be worth, which at that point in time was a maximum of 50% of your own sales and 26% of someone else’s. Now, I decided I wanted it all mine, just like Larenz Tate in Love Jones. I didn’t want mine to be saved for later. I want it right then. I decided on September 30th, 2007 that I needed to figure out what I was truly supposed to do. I went to bed that night praying to God, “God, show me what you have next for me.”
In my dream, I was walking into a building that had a marquee that read Incredible One Enterprises. That vision has expanded, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. On October 1st, 2007, I started what is now Incredible One Enterprises, but it was the very first iteration where I was just a motivational speaker. All I did was get myself booked to speak. That was harder than we thought. I did get some bookings, but it was hard to get people to pay me enough to live the way that I had become accustomed to living because I made six figures in corporate and Mary Kay.
Working A Job
Here I was with my own ground-up business not making six figures and the money I had in savings quickly ran out so much so that by December 1st, 2008, I had taken a job. Remember, I said that when I left Corporate America, if it didn’t work, it would be okay. I would just go and get a job. It didn’t work. It wasn’t entirely okay but I did what I had to do. I took a job, but I didn’t go back to Corporate America because I wanted a job that would give me some autonomy and the ability to figure out what I had done wrong so that I could course correct.
I believe that failure is feedback and I didn’t fail. I just needed more feedback. I needed more data in order to produce a business that would serve me financially and spiritually. From December 1st, 2008 until December 17th or 19th, 2010, I worked a job. I was the Program Director for the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship at the YWCA here in Delaware. The cool thing about this job, and this had to be God, is that I got to learn the things that I didn’t know about ground-up business. A big part of the reason why I failed the first time to make enough money to sustain myself was because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know either.
Taking that job got me to learn some of the things that I didn’t know. I also decided while I was working that job to hire my first business coach. I needed someone to direct my efforts to help me to do what it is that I needed to do. December 1st, I took the job. On January 24th, 2009, I held my first live event. I got 250 people there because I was very successful in Mary Kay. Now, don’t get too excited. The tickets were only $25. All I had to sell was my book, which is $14.95. I didn’t make very much money. I made $400.
It was part of the reason why I was back at work. I had a job during this point in time. Most people didn’t know I was working though because it was nobody’s business but my own. I was working just to be able to have a house, a place to live, and a car to drive because my salary at my job at the Women’s Business Center wasn’t very much. That first year, in 2009, working the job and also working my business part-time, I made $88,000. That was my combined income between my job and my business.
Being Financially Free
This was me still eating ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly. Go back to episode number three, Ramen Noodles and A Dream if you want to hear that part of the story. October 10th, 2010 is when my bankruptcy that I finally got the courage to file was discharged. I was financially free. I was still working the job. I didn’t have a lot to show for it, but my bankruptcy was discharged. It would follow me for the next seven years, but that’s okay. I started re-establishing right away. It was also the day that I submitted my letter of resignation from the job I had been working for two years. I gave them until the end of the year. My last day was going to be December 17th or December 19th or whatever that last Friday, two weeks left in the month to go.
I was going to take my vacation all at the end. On January 1st, I was going to start my business. I put in my letter of resignation and my bankruptcy was discharged. In 2010 in my business, I think I did just shy of $100,000. I was still working the job. January 1st, 2011 was my first day full-time and that year, we produced two live events and we made $145,000, almost $146,000 that year. I did it. I was a six-figure business. This is when I thought that six-figures was the Holy Grail back in 2011. We now know differently. In 2012, we did a little bit shy of $275,000.
Becoming A Millionaire
In 2013, we doubled again. We did $569,000, almost $570,000 in cash. 2014 was the year it all changed. That was the year we did $1.3 million in three days at our live event and things began to change. We ended 2014 with $1.8 million, almost $1.9 million in income. In 2015, we did $2.3 million and I became a millionaire through my assets because a millionaire is based on your assets adding up to $1 million. In business, you could be a $1 million CEO when your business gross receipts are $1 million. We know that in a business that is earning $1 million, you’re not keeping it because you have expenses to make that million dollars.
Always know that when God gives you something, it won’t need batteries.
By 2015, I became a millionaire. I did $2.3 million in business. In 2016, we did $800,000 in the business. “Why Darnyelle? Why did you drop so substantially?” You’ve heard me share the story. It was everything big you said it was going to be. It was more money and it was more problems, and I was working myself crazy. I was willing to give it all back and I gave most of it back to find harmony in my work and not feel like I was a super slave.
Stop Chasing The Number
I had just gotten back with my now husband and I wanted a life. I didn’t just want to be my business. Because I hated it so much, I canceled a lot of my clients and I started to do some internal work to get into alignment to figure out what I wanted my business to be. That was 2016. When I did this at my event, I skipped 2017 and 2018. I’m going to tell you guys that 2017 and 2018 were years that were less than $800,000. We went all the way back down to about $500,000 and then we started climbing back up. Why? Because I stopped chasing the number. It became less and less about making a specific number and more and more about being in alignment with my creator and doing work that made my heart sing.
That became my focus and my impetus. In 2019, we were back on the climb because now I’m in alignment. I’m very clear about who I am. If you recall, 2019 was the year God gave me the next level, everything. That’s when we were starting to do the work on the docu-series. We did $959,000 that year. In 2020, we went back over the million-dollar mark. This time, I loved everything about it. I had a business that served me. I was not a super slave to my business. I had the right team and we were still building out, but I was excited about every part of my life and my business the second time we crossed the million-dollar mark. This time it’s for keeps.
Being The Best Version
In 2021, we did $2 million. We doubled from 2020 and it is only up from there. We have already done $1 million in 2022 in our business and we’re inside of a launch for our live event which will produce another million dollars. We will have done all of what we did in 2021 by the end of June 2022. Why am I telling you this? Not only so you understand my own journey because I didn’t start like this. I didn’t wake up like this. It has been an evolution. It has been a journey. It has been me becoming this version of myself. The version of myself that is fully surrendered. The version of myself that is crystal clear of who she is.
The version of myself that is extremely confident in her abilities to shake the planet. The version of myself that is less concerned about what other people think of me and only concerned about God getting the glory. The version of myself that is interested in impacting the lives of others so that they might experience the abundance for which Christ gave his life. That is why our business has continued to grow. I call the million-dollar winning former formula, Surrender, Alignment and Forgiveness. Sometimes, it’s Alignment, Surrender and Forgiveness.
Those three together are the reason that we have a multiple-million-dollar company and award-winning team. I am a multimillionaire creating a legacy for the babies I don’t even have yet. I am starting my foundation this 2022. We’re going to start the Incredible Factor Foundation whose impetus will be teaching entrepreneurship to the children of incarcerated parents so that they have an alternative to following in their family’s footsteps. I get to do this work because I am in alignment. I am fully surrendered. I’m detached from any and all outcomes except for the ones where you might be edified and God would be glorified. That is it.
Moving Into The Right Mindsets
I am building an amazing team to support me to do this work. It’s like the moment in Waiting to Exhale. Let’s even go to Why Did I Get Married? It’s the moment in the end when they’re all together for Patricia’s award. Jill Scott’s character comes in and she’s married to Lamman Rucker. She’s telling the story and she just goes, “Ah.” She just takes that breath. That’s just taking the breath. How I got here is by moving to some specific mindsets. Moving into the belief that I am worthy and I am created in God’s image and likeness.
Moving into the belief that God desires wealth for me. Moving into the belief that I am the answer people are seeking. Moving into the realization that I had to stop thinking like someone’s employee and start thinking like a CEO. Moving into the mindset that I didn’t have to work hard for money because the financial success or any kind of success is not tied to hard work.
It is tied to the alignment of thought. There is that word again. I moved to find the shortcut. Six and seven-figure earners do not reinvent the wheel. We find a system that is working. We adapt it to work for us and we work it. That is what I’ve been committed to doing, as well as I’ve been committed to working on my whole self, becoming a better leader, becoming a better person, a better wife, a better servant and a better CEO. Better in every way because I want this change to last.
Here’s what I know. I know that it’s time to move. It’s time that you move into alignment and see yourself the way that God has always seen you. It’s time that you move into your abundant birthright. It is time that you move into confidently articulating who you are and why no one does what you do better. It’s time to move into a streamlined high-end brand. It is time to move into earning more without sacrificing your family, your freedom or your fun.
In case you were wondering, this is how I got here. This is my Move To A Million story. This is what has happened over the years that has led me to this day that I’m so proud to be a part of. This day where I’ve decided to do my best to normalize wealth and legacy in the lives of entrepreneurs. That entrepreneurship is a vehicle that God created to transfer wealth and I couldn’t be more excited to be here, and I want to welcome you.
The million-dollar winning formula is surrender, alignment, and forgiveness.
It has given me so much joy to share this Move To Millions journey with you. I’ll talk about it more in my book and the docu-series that are forthcoming. You already know that everything out of my mouth is about moving to millions because it’s a journey and who you become on the journey. My desire is that you become all that God saw you be before you were formed in your mother’s womb. I’ll see you guys next time. Take care.
Important Links
- Ramen Noodles and A Dream – previous episode
- MoveToMillionsGroup.com
