Business and leadership will expose absolutely everything that is unhealed in you. I guarantee it.
When I first jumped into owning my own real estate brokerage, I didn’t have grand plans of corporate dominance. I just wanted a family business where I could do really good work with my favorite people. I’m a high school dropout who left school in the ninth grade, got my GED at fifteen while pregnant with my daughter, and pieced together about two years of sporadic college over a span of fifteen years.
I didn’t have a big, fancy education. But I had grit, determination, a lot of faith, and an absolute willingness to dive in with both feet and learn along the way.
Today, Majors Realty Group is the fastest-growing brokerage in the interior of Alaska, dominating our market with massive market share. But with high-level success comes high-level exposure. Over the last twelve years, my business has acted as a giant mirror, calling me to account and forcing me to face the inner wounds I didn’t even realize I was carrying.
On the latest episode of the Wholehearted Impact Podcast, I wanted to get radically vulnerable about what it actually looks like to build and lead wholeheartedly; with integrity, courage, accountability, compassion, and truth, and without losing your soul in the process.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or watch on YouTube.
Your Business is a Personal Development Mirror
Business is never just about strategy, marketing, or logistics. It is personal development on full display in front of whatever world you are operating in.
Your business will inevitably reveal:
- Your deepest beliefs and anxieties about money
- Your relationship with control
- Your underlying fear of failure and need for approval
- Your ability (or inability) to navigate hard conversations and set clear boundaries
- Your capacity for emotional regulation when things go wrong
Because of my background, I grew up with a “me against the world” childhood survival mindset. When I entered the business world, I unconsciously carried that exact pattern into my leadership, operating with an “us against them” mentality. It took immense self-awareness, and a lot of swallowed pride, to look at that pattern without shame and realize it was no longer serving me or my team.
Survival Leadership vs. Wholehearted Leadership
So many leaders are running themselves into the ground operating from a place of pure survival. You might recognize the script of survival leadership because it sounds incredibly familiar:
- “I have to do everything myself because nobody can do it as well as I can.”
- “If I slow down for even a second, the entire empire will fall apart.”
- “I can’t trust people to handle things, so I have to micromanage.”
- “I have to keep everyone happy and I can never let anyone see me struggle.”
Survival leadership might produce financial results for a little while, but the long-term cost is devastating. It creates massive operational bottlenecks, breeding resentment, confused teams, reactive decisions, and eventual burnout.
Wholehearted leadership is a completely different posture. It says: I can lead with truth and compassion simultaneously. I can hold my team accountable without shaming them. I can build sustainable structures instead of carrying the weight of the company inside my physical body.
Heart Alone is Not a Business Model
As visionary, heart-centered leaders, we deeply care about our people. At Majors Realty Group, I’ve intentionally created a safe culture where I tell my team, “Don’t leave your personal life at the door. If your marriage, parenting, or health is struggling, let us support you.” But I’ve had to learn the hard way that a good heart alone is not a viable business model. Your team desperately needs systems. They need clear roles, defined expectations, explicit KPIs, and clear communication pathways.
For a long time, because I just wanted everyone to feel warm and fuzzy, I resisted putting strict structures in place. The result? I became the exhausted bottleneck and the answer to every single question, leaving everyone frustrated. Wholehearted leadership doesn’t mean you just love people well; it means you build a structured environment where they actually have the tools to thrive.
Integrity as Your Only Foundation
Integrity means doing the exact right thing, even when absolutely nobody is looking. In business, integrity is not always convenient. In fact, it almost never is. Sometimes, true integrity is going to cost you thousands of dollars out of your own pocket to fix a team mistake that you weren’t technically liable for, just because it’s the right thing to do.
Sometimes it costs you an easy opportunity, or forces you into an incredibly uncomfortable conversation. But trust is the most valuable currency you possess in business. You can have the flashiest branding, the best marketing campaigns, and the highest talent, but if your people and your clients cannot trust your word, your foundation is completely cracked.
The Wholehearted Leadership Framework
To keep my leadership anchored, I regularly filter our business decisions through five foundational questions. If you are feeling stuck or frustrated in your company right now, stop and ask yourself these five things:
Success is Too Expensive If It Costs Your Soul
At the end of the day, I don’t just want to build a highly profitable business. I want to build things that honor God, create genuine freedom, bless my family, and allow my team members to grow into their own leadership. Most importantly, I want to build a business that does not require me to abandon my own well-being.
Success that costs you your sanity, your peace, your integrity, or your family is simply too expensive to buy. You can pursue excellence while still completely honoring your raw humanity.
That is wholehearted business.
Ready to dive deeper into this conversation? Listen to Episode 28 of the Wholehearted Impact Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
Thank you for digging deep into these truths with me today, for running your business with honor, and for walking this pathway of leadership beside me.
If you are ready to identify and heal the survival patterns affecting your leadership, download the completely free companion workbook, the 7 Steps to Wholehearted Healing Guide, at wholeheartedimpact.com/free-guide.
Sending you so much grace and peace. 🤍
With all my love and purpose,
Jen Majors
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