Unfollow the Rules:

By Ashley Darling, Founder & CEO of Neptune | Co-Founder of OPTYX

I stopped asking for permission the moment I realized no one was going to hand me the life I craved. Not the freedom. Not the impact. Not the chance to lead.

So I built it myself.

I wasn’t groomed for leadership—I was born defiant and grew up being told to tone it down. Too loud. Too sensitive. Too much. But what they didn’t realize is that “too much” was always the blueprint. And once I understood that, I stopped shrinking and started building something big enough to hold all of me.

Leading with purpose didn’t happen because I had a five-year plan or a polished pitch deck. It happened because I got tired of watching the same people win the same way. I didn’t want to win their game, I wanted to change it. Neptune, my startup, is a creator-first social platform built for artists, misfits, visionaries, and people who’ve never fit the mold. It’s a refusal to keep playing small. OPTYX, my influencer agency, amplifies creators who’ve been overlooked and underestimated.

I used to think freedom meant never working a 9–5 again. But real freedom? It's deeper than calendar control.

It’s:

• Saying no without guilt.

• Designing a life around your nervous system, not someone else’s expectations.

• Refusing to trade your truth for approval.

I lead with freedom because I built everything I have while healing from a 15 year marriage. While mothering. While climbing out of the wreckage of systems that were never built for women like me. And let me be clear, you can build while bleeding. (And as women, we do this every month.) You don’t have to be fully healed, fully ready, or fully resourced. You just have to be done waiting.

The old model of leadership was built on scarcity: fewer seats, less shine, only room for one woman at the top. But I’ve found that real power expands when it’s shared. I’ve grown the most in rooms where women weren’t threatened by my brilliance, but energized by it. My circle is full of women who will fix your crown and make sure you own your power. That’s the energy I move with. That’s the energy I lead with. Because I don’t just want to rise, I want to take people with me.My style isn’t corporate. It’s intuitive. Emotional. Raw. I lead from the gut, not the script. I run companies like a mother runs a home, with love, fire, boundaries, and zero tolerance for bullshit.

I’ve led teams through breakdowns and breakthroughs. I’ve faced funding rejections, policy changes, burnout, self-doubt…and still showed up. Because leadership, to me, is showing people what’s possible even when you’re not sure you’ll survive it.

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to lead, this is it. If you’ve been waiting to feel qualified, ready, healed, or "less emotional,” let me be the one to say: screw that. Because every time you step into your freedom, you make it safer for another woman to do the same.

And that’s how we rise. Not alone, but together.

Why I Chose Audacity Over Approval

Connect With Ashley

www.theneptuneapp.com

www.instagram.com/the.ashley.darling