Free Without Permission: Healing, Hustle, and Spiritual Leadership

What happens when the dream you planned your life around gets taken off the table? For Nadia Atkinson Maldonado, it happened in 2017, when she hit her aggregate student loan limit after nine years of part-time school.

The white coat she had pinned to her vision board for years suddenly felt out of reach. So she built a new vision, starting from the inside out.

In this episode of Breaking Rank, Diana Lauritson sits down with Nadia, an entrepreneur, author, artist, and founder of the trademarked #FreeASF movement, to talk about healing, hustle, and what it means to lead fearlessly on your own terms. Nadia shares how growing up on Staten Island in a Puerto Rican and Barbadian household made her both street smart and book smart, and how selling hair barrettes at the lunch table taught her the economics of entrepreneurship.

She walks through building a dropshipping business that brought in $8,000 a month and drew a six-figure buyout offer, then turning down that offer to build a brand instead. The conversation goes deeper from there.

Nadia opens up about confronting childhood trauma, the journaling practice she credits with saving her life, and the year she spent dating herself: solo dinners, cooking classes, new cities, and a cross-country drive from New Jersey to California. She talks about breaking free from a strict religious upbringing to explore her ancestral roots, inviting God into her business, and why creating a persona can help you grow into the person you want to become.

In this episode: - Turning a closed door into a business built on freedom - Why healing has to happen internally before it shows up externally - Breaking big goals into quarterly check-ins - Feeling your emotions instead of sweeping them under the rug - Auditing your circle when you're ready to grow - Spirituality as a leadership tool - Creating an alter ego and becoming it Connect with Nadia Atkinson Maldonado: Website: Social: @QueenGoddessHope LinkedIn: Connect with Breaking Rank: Website: YouTube: LinkedIn: Instagram: Facebook: TikTok: Threads: Breaking Rank Podcast Leading without permission.