Making It: How to Be a Successful Online Entrepreneur
School Is Never Out for the Pro (Darnyelle Jervey Harmon)
September 3, 2021
“I’ve made it up to this point, and will continue making it,” says Darnyelle Jervey Harmon, founder of Incredible One Enterprises, a successful business growth consulting firm. Despite a chaos-filled childhood and a mother in jail, she rose from the ashes and lives a life of fulfillment and success today. Listen to Darnyelle’s inspiring story, and the ebb and flow she faced on her path to making it.
Welcome to Making It! This weekly show explores the lives and stories of entrepreneurs as they share their unique perspectives on their success and the path to making it

     Episode summary: Darnyelle Jervey Harmon is a woman of strong unshakable faith. But also an award-winning CEO and business strategist at Incredible One Enterprises LLC, where she helps service-based entrepreneurs #shaketheplanet and experience record growth in 12 months or less. 

     When Darnyelle was eight years old, her mother went to jail and Darnyelle went to live with her father. With the help of a dear and special teacher, she betted on herself and was the first in her family to graduate high school and attain advanced degrees. This year (2021) she was awarded an honorary doctorate in entrepreneurship. But to get to where she is today, Darnyelle had to make it her own personal mission to be successful, to embody it, and she believes that her purpose on this planet is to continually grow, evolve, and explode excellence into the lives of others.
 
     In this episode, Darnyelle shares her inspiring story about what making it means to her.

“I believe that complacency is devastating.... You will never find growth where you find comfort.” 

 “I have the power to change and transform my own life so that I can leverage that power to change and transform the lives of others.”
– Darnyelle Jervey Harmon



Guest bio: 

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon is a Certified Business and Executive Coach at Incredible One Enterprises LLC.

As a certified business coach, Kolbe consultant, and business optimization strategist, Darnyelle helps business owners #shaketheplanet and experience record growth in 12 months or less. Her work is a strategic blend of coaching, consulting, and mentoring which has accelerated the results her clients experience in their businesses.

     She focuses on leveraging the four pillars to a profitable business - messaging, marketing, sales, and operations. Her clients grow their businesses by on average 50-600% in less than 12 months, all while deepening their connection to God and strengthening their faith.

     With her Leverage + Scale Mastermind, Darnyelle teaches a proven formula to scale your business with a community of high achieving, like-minded service-based entrepreneurs who are incredibly focused on shaking the planet and strutting in significance. 

     Darnyelle is an award-winning CEO, speaker, consultant, and strategist and has been featured in Essence, SUCCESS, Black Enterprise, and O magazines. She is a best-selling author with 7 books to her credit, including her latest projects Burn the Box: 7 Fire Starter Strategies Leaders Can Leverage and Market Like a R.O.C.K. Star. 

Recognitions


Resources or websites mentioned in this episode:
  1. Mirasee
  2. Darnyelle’s website
  3. Darnyelle’s LinkedIn
  4. Darnyelle’s Instagram
  5. Darnyelle’s Twitter
  6. Darnyelle’s books
  7. Darnyelle’s Next Level Everything DocuSerie


  1. Keith Sweat’s song - Something ain’t right
  2. Brittney Spear’s song - Oops I did it again
  3. Marianne Williamson’s poem - Our Deepest Fear


Credits:


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Music and SFX credits: 

• Track Title: Sweet Loving Waltz
Artist Name(s): Sounds Like Sander
Writer Name: S.L.J. Kalmeijer
Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

• Track Title: The Sunniest Kids
Artist Name(s): Rhythm Scott
Writer Name: Scott Roush
Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

• Track Title: Adventure
Artist Name(s): Elision
Writer Name: Jean-Daniel Zwahlen
Publisher Name: BOSS SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTIONS

• Track Title: Dawnlite
Artist Name(s): Cody Martin
Writer Name: Cody Kurtz Martin
Publisher Name: BOSS SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTIONS


Episode transcript:

     I'm Darnyelle Jervey Harmon and you're listening to Making It! I run a business called Incredible One Enterprises and we help six figures service based entrepreneurs make the move to seven figure CEO with grace and ease instead of hustle and grind.

     You know what? I don't know if I've made it yet. I feel like I'm still on the journey. Like, I've made it to a point. But I believe as the saying goes school is never out for the pro. I believe that success is a journey. It's not a destination. And while I've made it to this level, I have a next level that I'm trying to reach. And so I'm still working towards it. But to give you an answer for the purposes of right now, I realized I made it when my business was serving me fully and beginning the journey of creating a legacy.

     Like I have always had a heart to be a philanthropist. I want to be able to write big checks, checks that change organizations. That's what I want to be able to do. And I do that today, right? It's been a few years that we've been writing big checks. And so that's one of the mile markers or milestones that I would leverage to say that I have in fact made it to this point. But there is a next level and I think anyone who is after excellence and living life to the fullest is going to continually set a new bar once they've reached the bar that they desire to reach. And so I'm still making it will continue to make it. And although I've made it at this point, there's so many more, "it's to make" before this life is over.

     So I love to describe my life in four Acts. Act One, it covers my upbringing. So I always share this story and it typically makes people's mouths fall open because my mother didn't actually know that she was carrying me. And as a result, she was actively engaged in a drug lifestyle and was getting high on a regular basis. And then she learned that she was in fact pregnant, stopped immediately, but the doctors thought that the damage had already been done. My childhood... I was described it as chaotic at best. My mom went to jail when I was eight years old and I went to live with my father and my stepmother and there are seven of us. I'm number three and I happened to be the first and only to actually graduate from high school, go on to college and I now hold advanced degrees of my mother's children.

     Education was my way out of the chaos that was my life. And so I went to the University of Delaware on a full academic scholarship. And then I have a Master's degree from Goldie Bickham College, which is a business school here in the state of Delaware. And just in February of this year, I was awarded an honorary Doctorate In Entrepreneurship. I have to credit the teacher I had in the fifth grade, her name was Miss Dixon and she literally changed my life. I was a very angry child but Miss Dixon was a teacher who cared cared enough to see myself differently than I was portraying and she cared enough to tell me what she saw in a loving way, in an edifying way that I might actually believe her. And so as a result of that, she really taught me about affirmations before affirmations were a thing. She taught me about positive thought and belief, and that I still remember to this day, one of the little sayings "If it is to be, it is up to me," and I like literally I see that so often like I have the power to change and transform my own life so that I can leverage that power to change and transform the lives of others.

     When I left college I first started working for a Fortune 500 financial services company, I actually had the opportunity and had applied for and gotten into Georgetown for law school and decided at the last minute not to go and instead took a job... with really no, no guidance and direction if I can be honest, but I will always bet on myself. So I started working in corporate America and quickly learned the ropes. So much so that I went from entry-level, to 17 customer service representatives, to vice president of my own department within three years of being with the company. And so what I always like to take away from that is just always betting on yourself and to pay attention. I saw mentorship very early on in my career and I did what they suggested that I do when it was in line with my values and my beliefs and my desire to accelerate and it made all the difference.

      So I made the decision to leave corporate America and start my own business around 2004, I literally woke up one day and just had this unsettling feeling in my body. I often call it what I call it, my Keith Sweat moment for those of you who love music and you know who the artist Keith Sweat is, he has a song called Something Just Ain't Right. So I literally woke up and realized something, it just wasn't right. And as I got dressed for work that day as I drove to the office as I got into the parking lot, got on the elevator and walked from the elevator into my office. The knot in the pit of my stomach was coming out of my throat and I just had this overwhelming sense that it was my last day working in corporate America and so I literally drafted a quick resignation letter, handed it to my then boss and left corporate America without a plan. I do not advocate that you do this but I always bet on me and I knew worst case scenario, I would be able to get another job, but I would never know if I had what it took to be an entrepreneur, to leverage my own gifts and talents, to shake the planet if I didn't try and I felt very clearly that I needed to try then and so I did, I quit my job.

     Yeah, so I was in Mary Kay for about 2.5 years and I had the same, actually I call this my Britney spears moment. Oops, I did again. I actually had a moment where I realized that I had traded one desk for another and so I decided to send my pink Cadillac back to Mary Kay cosmetics and start the company that I run today. Incredible One Enterprises. I think the only person I can control is myself, I cannot control what anyone else is doing and what's going on around me, but I can always control how I respond to what is given to me, I can always control what my output is going to be and that is always going to determine what I'm going to achieve as a result of that. And so especially because I come from a background and environment where I didn't see success, I saw chaos at best. I made it my own personal mission to be success to, to embody it. Like I think long before alignment was a buzzword in the marketplace, I was working on being in alignment, Being my best self, being the best version of myself. If I ever do anything, I do it to my fullest ability because I believe that the only person I can control is myself and if I'm always showing up fully showing up fully, for myself, for my life, for my business, for my marriage, for whatever, then I'm going to get good to come out of it because I always bet on me because that is who I can control.

      I was preparing for a live event and I was working with my team and we had created our program that we were going to be offering to the attendees and we were so excited. We had doubled our rates and we're just so excited about it. And then that night I went to bed and I had a dream and in the dream no one signed up for my program. And so I panicked and, in fear, the next day before anyone on my team came back into the office, I made an attempt to change all of the prices back To those comfortable prices that we used to have. And I immediately after doing so sent the order form back to the printer. Not even 10 minutes went by before the printer called to tell me that they could not print the file because the file that I had sent them was corrupt. That was a God Week. That was the universe telling me that I had what it took and that I could keep my prices where they were and I would be fine. And so I was quote unquote forced to use the pricing that we had come up with our team because I was not going to tell my team that I chickened out. That would not have been a good move as the leader of this company. And so we went with the order forms that we created collectively. And in three days we enrolled 30% more people than we normally enrolled and we generated $1.3 million dollars in cash in three days.

     I believe that complacency is devastating and I believe that if we get comfortable, like you will never find growth where you find comfort. And I think that my purpose on this planet is to continually grow, evolve and explode excellence into the lives of others. Like I think about that Marianne Williamson poem, Our Deepest Fear. And that that part that says, "when you let your light shine, you unconsciously give others permission to do the same as you are liberated from your fear, your presence automatically liberates others." And that's like a mantra of my life that I would hope to be true. Everyone that I've ever had as a mentor and the people that I admire and aspire to like; they're still working towards the next milestone, they're not stopping because they know that there's more in them and there's more for the world as a result of them showing up fully. 

     The world wants you just as you are, so you also don't need to change and become who someone else thinks you should be. I remember when I first started in entrepreneurship back in 2008, I was so busy trying to be a carbon copy of someone else who was in the marketplace who, admittedly at the time was where I wanted to be, right? And you know, they say imitation is the highest form of flattery or whatever? I was so busy trying to be them, it was so uncomfortable and then I finally got to the point where I was just like, yeah, this isn't working for me, I have to be Darnyelle and Darnyelle is quirky. Darnyelle is crazy, she could, anything could come out of her mouth, right? Like it's, I just had to be myself and embrace it and once I just started being me, everything began to shift. 

     I'm Darnyelle Jervey harmon and you've been listening to Making It! You can learn more about me at gettoknowdarnyelle.com


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