Jessica Zeigler

If you want to understand who I am, you have to go back to a little horse farm in rural Pennsylvania.

Paper Built the House I Grew Up In

My dad worked at the local paper mill his entire career. That job gave our family the little farm we called home. My momma worked in the school cafeteria, where she served lunch to what felt like half the town and somehow still came home with enough love left to give us.

Friday nights belonged to the Rockets.

The whole town showed up. The lights came on. The stands filled. And from the time I was seven years old, I learned how to stand in front of people and cheer.

I did not know it then, but I was learning how to use my voice. I was learning how to keep smiling when people were watching. I was learning how to stand tall. And maybe, without even realizing it, I was learning how to survive.

I was a strong-willed little girl. Stubborn, if you ask my parents. Determined, if you ask me.

I was the child who would bang her head against the wall when she did not get her way. Literally. And yes, there is a story involving a broken leg, too.

I guess I came into this world with a little fight in me. I just had no idea how much I would need it.

Life Introduced Me to Heartbreak Very Young

As a teenager, I lost my boyfriend to suicide. On my birthday.

There are things that happen to you that divide your life into a before and an after. That was one of mine.

I did not understand grief. I did not understand trauma. I did not understand why someone could be standing beside you one day and gone the next. I just knew that I hurt. And life kept moving even when I did not want it to.

People still went to work. School still happened. The sun still came up. Birthdays still came around. And somehow, I learned that even when your heart feels completely broken, your feet can still move.

One step. Then another.

That became a pattern in my life long before I realized it.

When People Ask Me Which Adversity Shaped Me Most, I Never Know How to Answer

There wasn't just one. There were many. Some were loud. Some were quiet. Some happened in public. Some happened behind closed doors where no one knew anything was wrong. Some changed the direction of my life in an instant. Others wore me down slowly.

And I think that is something a lot of women understand. Not every breaking point looks dramatic.

Sometimes you are still showing up. Still packing lunches. Still answering emails. Still getting the kids where they need to go. Still smiling in photos. Still hosting holidays. Still helping everybody else. And inside, you know something is not right.

At 21, I Moved Into Sales and Worked for Helzberg Diamonds in Bethesda, Maryland

I loved the people part of it. I loved being trusted with something important. I loved watching people light up. I loved making moments special.

At 22, I got married. At 23, I became a mother. Eventually, I had three boys. And those boys became my whole world.

For a long time, almost every decision I made was filtered through one question: What is best for them?

I think a lot of mothers live that way. We put ourselves at the bottom of the list so often that eventually we forget there was ever a list at all.

You get used to being needed. You get used to being the one who figures it out. You get used to holding things together. And I did.

I raised my boys. I helped run a construction business. I kept moving. I made things work. Or at least I made them look like they worked.

Behind All of That, My Marriage Was Becoming Increasingly Difficult

There was control. Manipulation. A lot of questioning myself. A lot of trying harder. A lot of believing that if I could just say it the right way, do it the right way, be better, stay calmer, work harder, maybe things would get easier.

That is a hard thing to admit. Because I have always considered myself strong. I am independent. I am determined. I am not someone people would look at and immediately think could lose herself.

But I did. Slowly.

That Is the Thing About Losing Yourself

You usually do not wake up one morning and suddenly not know who you are. It happens in pieces. You stop saying what you really think. You stop trusting your own instincts. You make excuses for behavior you once would have recognized immediately. You become very good at keeping the peace. You convince yourself that what you are feeling is wrong. And you get so busy surviving the life you are in that you stop remembering the life you once dreamed about.

But even then, there was something in me that would not completely disappear. A little voice. Sometimes barely a whisper.

There is more for you.

I wish I could say I listened immediately. I didn't. It took years. It took fear. It took courage. It took disappointment. It took finally getting tired enough of feeling small. But that voice never completely left.

I Had Always Thought About Real Estate

Even in my 20s, there was something about it that pulled at me. Helping people. Negotiating. Building relationships. Creating something of my own.

But life happened. Children happened. Marriage happened. Responsibilities happened. And like many women, I put that dream somewhere on a shelf and told myself maybe later.

Then later finally came.

In 2015, I got my real estate license. And something in me woke back up.

I remember what it felt like to realize that I was good at something. Not good at being a mom. Not good at being a wife. Not good at holding everything together for everybody else. Good at something that belonged to me. That mattered.

I think sometimes women underestimate how powerful that moment can be. The moment you rediscover yourself. The moment you remember that you have talent. That you have ideas. That you have ambition. That there is still a whole person inside of you who wants to grow.

I Loved Real Estate Almost Immediately. Not Because of Houses. Because of People.

Real estate is rarely just a transaction. Someone is getting married. Someone is getting divorced. Someone is having a baby. Someone is grieving. Someone is relocating. Someone is downsizing. Someone is starting over. There is always a story behind the front door. And I have always been drawn to the story.

Very early in my career, I helped build a successful real estate team with another strong leader. I learned. I grew. I found confidence. And with every success, that quiet voice inside of me got a little louder.

There is more for you.

Eventually, the Eastern Shore started calling me, too. My family vacationed there when I was growing up. Some of my happiest memories lived there. And at some point, it stopped feeling like a vacation destination and started feeling like home.

The decision to move was not easy. People questioned me. I was doubted. There were plenty of reasons not to do it. But by that point in my life, being told I could not do something had a very particular effect on me. It made me want it more.

So I went. And I built. And I kept building.

Today, I have the privilege of serving as the Coastal Branch Leader for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty, overseeing four coastal offices and more than 100 agents.

That sentence still feels surreal sometimes. Because I know the woman behind the title. I know the nights she cried. I know the years she questioned herself. I know the version of her who once wondered if she was enough. I know what it took for her to get here.

That Is Probably Why Leadership Means So Much More to Me Than a Position

I do not want people to follow me because I have a title. I want people to know they can call me. I want them to know I will sit with them when things are messy. I want them to know I will tell them the truth. I want them to know I will challenge them when I see them playing small. I want them to know that if they forget who they are for a minute, I will remind them.

Because people did that for me. And there were seasons when I desperately needed it.

Sometimes you need somebody to look at you and say:

I know you don't see it right now. But I do. I see your strength. I see your ability. I see the woman you are becoming.

And sometimes you have to borrow someone else's belief in you until you can believe it yourself again. I did. And I am forever grateful for the women who let me borrow theirs.

Because Eventually, My Marriage Ended After 22 Years

And that was not just the end of a relationship. It was the unraveling of almost everything familiar.

There is a strange kind of grief that comes with starting over later in life. You grieve what happened. But you also grieve what you thought would happen. You grieve the future you pictured. You grieve the family you thought would stay intact. You grieve the version of yourself who tried so hard to make everything work. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you have to figure out who you are now.

There were days I did not know. There were days I got out of bed because I had to, not because I wanted to. There were days I could lead an office, solve problems, answer calls, and encourage someone else—and then go home and fall apart.

That contrast was hard. People saw strength. I felt exhausted. People saw confidence. I felt broken. People saw success. I was rebuilding from the ground up.

I think that is why I feel so strongly about women being honest with one another. You never really know what someone is carrying. The woman you think has it all together may be holding herself together by a thread. The strongest woman in the room may desperately need someone to ask her if she is okay. And sometimes the woman encouraging everyone else needs somebody to encourage her.

My Faith Became Everything During That Season

Not the polished kind of faith. Not the kind where everything makes sense. The kind where you cry and pray at the same time. The kind where you are angry with God and still reach for Him. The kind where you say, "I do not understand any of this, but please do not let go of me."

My faith in Jesus Christ has been the one constant underneath every chapter of my life. I have questioned. I have struggled. I have been angry. I have wondered why. But I have never been able to deny His presence in my life.

Sometimes He showed up through worship. Sometimes through a friend. Sometimes through my family. Sometimes through a conversation I desperately needed. Sometimes simply through enough strength to get through one more day.

I had the privilege of serving on worship teams for years. And there were times when I did not have words to pray. But I could sing. I could worship. I could stand there with tears running down my face and still believe that somehow this was not the end of my story.

And it wasn't.

Little by Little, I Rebuilt

There was no dramatic moment where everything suddenly became okay. It was small. Very small.

A good day. A conversation. A decision. A boundary. A laugh I had not expected. A moment when I realized I had gone several hours without feeling afraid. A day when I recognized myself again.

That is how healing happened for me. Not all at once. In pieces.

That is why, when a woman tells me she feels stuck, I never want to tell her to just be strong. She is probably already being strong. What I want to tell her is this:

• Start small.
• Get out of bed.
• Make the phone call.
• Tell one person the truth.
• Take the class.
• Fill out the application.
• Go to the appointment.
• Set the boundary.
• Ask for help.
• Dream for five minutes.
• Remember who you were before somebody convinced you that you were too much, not enough, too old, too late, too difficult, too emotional, too ambitious, or too anything.

Find her. She is still there. I promise.

I know because I found mine. She was buried under years of responsibility, fear, expectations, grief, and survival. But she was there. Still stubborn. Still determined. Still dreaming. Still believing there was more.

And the beautiful thing is, I do not think I went back to who I was before. I became someone new.

Years Ago, I Gave a Testimony About a Caterpillar Becoming a Butterfly

I keep coming back to that image because transformation rarely looks beautiful while it is happening. A caterpillar disappears into darkness. Nothing about the process looks impressive. It looks still. Hidden. Maybe even broken. But something is happening where nobody can see it. And eventually, it comes out with wings.

There have been times in my life when I thought I was falling apart. Now I can look back and see that I was changing. I was becoming. I was growing wings.

And I am still becoming.

I do not have everything figured out. I am still stubborn. Still determined. Still opinionated. Still capable of arguing my point a little longer than necessary. I am still learning. Still healing. Still dreaming. And maybe that is what makes this part of my life so exciting.

I do not know exactly what is next. But I do know there is more. More leadership. More women to encourage. More stories to tell. More conversations where somebody finally says, "Me too."

That is the part I care about most. Because I do not want to tell my story simply so people know mine. I want to tell it so another woman recognizes her own.

• The woman who stayed too long.
• The woman who lost herself.
• The woman who has been strong for everybody.
• The woman who is scared to start over.
• The woman who looks successful but goes home and cries.
• The woman who has forgotten how capable she is.
• The woman who still has a dream buried somewhere underneath all the things she has had to survive.

I want her to know:

You are not finished. You are not too late. You are not defined by the worst thing that happened to you. Your hardest chapter does not get to decide how your story ends.

And if right now you feel like you are sitting in the dark, wondering what is happening to your life, maybe you are not being destroyed. Maybe you are being transformed. Maybe you are growing your wings.

Mine are still growing, too. And I think there is a lot more of this story left to tell.