Member Spotlight: Nyla Cione – 33 Years Sober, Leading from Service

Coming All the Way In

For years, Nyla moved through recovery rooms the way she had moved through everything else in life: alone. She came in alone, she left alone, and she kept everyone at arm’s length. The mask stayed on. The performance continued.

“I was a poser,” she says plainly. “I was fearful of getting close to anyone or to the truth. I finally hit bottom after the bottom of trying to do it alone.”

The shift came when she found a sponsor who saw through the performance stance and guided her into the steps, the Big Book, and service. “They say I finally decided to come all the way in and sit all the way down, and take off the mask.” That decision changed everything that followed.

50% Revenue Growth from One Decision

Recovery did not just stabilize Nyla’s life. It rebuilt how she runs her business.

After getting sober, she became more open-minded and creative. She started listening from a deeper, more present place. The burnout that had been eating away at her energy disappeared. And then came the number that surprised even her: a 50% increase in revenue from a single application in marketing.

“I literally get all of my leads organically and pay no overhead for marketing,” she says. The secret was not a funnel or an ad spend. It was learning to ask for help. “Learning to ask for more help for more solutions” unlocked growth she could not have engineered on her own.

That is the paradox recovery keeps revealing for founders: the moment you stop trying to figure everything out alone, better answers show up. It is the same principle that makes mastermind groups for sober entrepreneurs so effective.

Service First, Ego Out

Nyla’s leadership philosophy today is built on one principle: lead with service, and the results take care of themselves.

“If I keep ego out of it and hitting a bottom line monetarily as the only focus, bringing it back to service and contribution with a WE in mind, I trust more, move ahead more, create more from a more solid place.” That is what applying the 12 steps to your business looks like in practice.

That does not mean she ignores revenue. It means she has learned that chasing money from a place of fear, control, and distrust produces worse outcomes than doing what is in front of her and leaving the results to her Higher Power.

“When I do what’s in front of me and leave the results up to God, instead of feeling like I have to get in there and keep fixing things from a place of fear, control, and distrust, I can trust that the outcome will always land for the greater good for everyone.”

Asking for Help Instead of Having All the Answers

Building a company in recovery forced Nyla to confront a pattern that runs deep in most entrepreneurs: the need to do it alone and have all the answers.

“I would and can still get stuck on trying to figure things out by myself and making decisions by myself,” she admits. That instinct does not disappear with decades of sobriety. But the toolkit for handling it gets better.

“Asking for more help and intuition from my Higher Power has been key in landing with better decisions and action steps.” The willingness to not know, and to let something bigger than her own thinking guide the next move, is what separates this entrepreneur in recovery from the white-knuckle version she used to rely on.

What Sober Founders Changed

Nyla found Sober Founders only a couple of weeks before this interview. But the impact was immediate.

“I can see already how connecting with like minds and being able to stretch out more into the principles of recovery within a Sober Founders meeting that apply to business, it’s golden and affirming.”

She describes it in the most founder-in-recovery way possible: “It’s like my business has a sponsor of sorts, from the feedback and conversations in the meeting.”

Since joining, she has felt inspired to dig deeper into how she can contribute in her business and serve others. More letting go, more trust, more action with better clarity.