Listen to ‘I was hacked and my account is permanently restricted’ on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Your player of choice

In today’s episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on some of the hardest and most unexpected challenges I’ve faced in business recently—from getting my email hacked, to having my Facebook ads account permanently restricted, to experiencing my first-ever two-week sales dry spell in five years of business. I’m sharing the emotional and mental toll it took, the money mindset struggles that surfaced, and the exact things I’ve been doing to rewire my beliefs around money, abundance, and receiving.

I’m also diving into the journal prompts, mindset shifts, and daily habits that helped me move from fear and scarcity back into alignment—and ultimately back into consistent sales. If you’ve ever questioned yourself during a hard season in business, this episode will remind you that mindset isn’t fluff… it’s foundational.

What you’ll learn

• What happened when my email got hacked and my ads account was restricted
• Why mindset—not strategy—is often the biggest differentiator in business success
• The journal prompts I’ve been using to rewire my money mindset
• How scarcity thinking was quietly affecting my business decisions
• Simple daily practices that help me shift back into abundance and receiving
• Why entrepreneurship requires strengthening your mindset muscle every single day

I Was Hacked and Everything I Built Online Changed in a Single Day

My account was hacked and permanently restricted overnight. Here’s what happened, what I learned, and why every creator, entrepreneur, and business owner needs to rethink digital security.

There is a strange feeling that comes with losing access to something you assumed would always be there.

Most people do not think about their digital accounts that way until something happens. Social platforms become part of everyday life so gradually that we stop viewing them as temporary access points and start treating them like permanent infrastructure. We build businesses on them. We build audiences on them. We store conversations, memories, opportunities, and years of work inside systems we do not actually control.

Then one day, it is all gone.

Not slowly. Not with warning signs you can neatly trace back afterward. Just gone.

That was the reality I found myself facing when my account was hacked and permanently restricted.

At first, I thought it had to be some kind of mistake. Like most people, I assumed there would be a straightforward recovery process. Maybe I would reset my password, verify my identity, submit an appeal, and eventually regain access. That assumption lasted for about the first hour.

After that, the reality started setting in.

Failed login attempts turned into security warnings. Security warnings turned into recovery loops. Recovery loops turned into restriction notices. Eventually, every path led back to the same message telling me my account had been permanently restricted.

That sentence carries a different kind of weight when years of your digital life are attached to the account.

What makes situations like this so difficult is that people often oversimplify hacking. There is still this outdated idea that compromised accounts only happen because someone used a weak password or clicked an obvious scam link. The truth is far more complicated now. Modern attacks are sophisticated, automated, and often designed to exploit systems faster than real people can react to them.

Sometimes hackers do not just steal access. They weaponize it.

They trigger activity that violates platform policies. They manipulate settings. They spam content. They exploit automated moderation systems. In many cases, by the time the actual owner realizes what is happening, the platform has already flagged the account beyond recovery.

That is the part nobody really prepares you for.

We live in an era where automated systems make permanent decisions at scale, often before a human being ever reviews the situation. Once those systems determine an account is compromised or associated with suspicious behavior, reversing the outcome becomes incredibly difficult. It creates a brutal combination where the victim of the attack can end up permanently punished alongside the attacker.

The emotional side of the experience surprised me more than anything else.

You would think losing an account would feel like a technical inconvenience. Instead, it feels personal.

You start replaying every possibility in your mind trying to figure out how it happened. Was it a phishing email? A compromised browser session? A leaked password from another platform? A malicious third-party app connection? Every theory feels possible because the reality is that most people never discover exactly how access was compromised.

That uncertainty becomes exhausting.

What made the situation even more eye-opening was realizing how much modern identity exists online. An account is no longer just a profile picture and a login. For many people, it represents reputation, business infrastructure, communication channels, archives of work, and social proof accumulated over years. Losing access can feel less like losing an app and more like losing an extension of your life.

That realization changes the way you think about ownership online.

For years, creators and entrepreneurs have been encouraged to build audiences primarily on platforms they do not control. We chase visibility, growth, engagement, and reach without fully acknowledging the risk that comes with concentrating everything in one place. The convenience of centralized platforms hides the fact that access is always conditional.

You do not own the platform.

You do not control the infrastructure.

And in many cases, you do not control the final decision when something goes wrong.

That truth becomes impossible to ignore after experiencing a situation like this firsthand.

The biggest lesson I took away from all of it is that digital resilience matters far more than most people realize. Security is not something you think about after a breach happens. It has to become part of the foundation long before anything goes wrong.

That means using strong password management practices instead of reusing credentials across platforms. It means enabling multi-factor authentication everywhere possible. It means auditing connected apps and removing unnecessary permissions. It means backing up important data regularly instead of assuming platforms will always preserve it for you.

Most importantly, it means understanding the difference between building on a platform and building ownership outside of it.

An audience on social media is valuable, but an email list you control is security. A platform profile can create visibility, but independent infrastructure creates resilience. Too many people only recognize that distinction after they experience a worst-case scenario themselves.

The internet has changed dramatically over the last decade. Threats are more advanced, scams are more believable, and attacks are increasingly automated. At the same time, support systems across major platforms often struggle to keep pace with the scale of these issues. That combination leaves many users vulnerable in ways they do not fully understand until they are forced to confront it directly.

There is also an isolation that comes with losing an account people rarely talk about. From the outside, others often assume the restriction must have been justified. They see warning messages or disabled accounts and immediately associate them with wrongdoing. They do not see the endless recovery attempts, the confusion, the panic, or the realization that years of digital history may no longer be accessible.

But experiences like this also force clarity.

They force you to rethink dependency.

They force you to rethink security.

They force you to rethink what you actually own online.

As frustrating as the experience was, it exposed something important that applies far beyond one account or one platform. Digital identity has become deeply intertwined with modern life, yet most people still approach it casually until they are given a reason not to.

Unfortunately, those lessons usually arrive after the damage is already done.

If there is anything worth taking away from this experience, it is that digital security is no longer optional for creators, entrepreneurs, or everyday users. It is part of operating online responsibly. The internet rewards speed and convenience, but resilience matters far more when things go wrong.

And the reality is, things can go wrong much faster than most people think.

Resources & Links:

• Manychat: 50% off for 2 months
• Join Stacked Inbox
• Join Scalability
• 30 free selling on stories prompts
• Scaling Unlocked Mastermind Application
• Kajabi 30-day free trial + 2 bonuses
• Manychat
• IG University

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Connect with Mya:

• Follow on Instagram @myanichol 
• Join my email list
• Check out my website
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More about the Radical Disruption podcast: 

Are you wanting to make waves in your industry, push the envelope, and change the way things are done in a radical way? Are you looking for tangible, tactical, and actionable steps that will help you build a sustainable business that stands out? You’re in the right place!

Radical Disruption is home to the disrupters. Here, you’ll learn how to take your business to the next level, break the status quo, and build a disruptive business.

Nursing student turned business and social media expert and host Mya Nichol (hey, that’s me!) shares the real and raw of the crazy journey of entrepreneurship and building a multi-six-figure business.

Through solo episodes and special guest interviews, you can expect honest conversations about throwing out the traditional way of business, scaling in a sustainable way, and becoming the go-to expert in your industry. It’s time to build a disruptive business. See you on Tuesdays!

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