I’m baaack! Three months ago I took a sabbatical from all things Jenette Bras. I had gotten to a point where my responsible oversight of the business was being misinterpreted by those around me as gamified obsessive doomscrolling through our tech stack.  My hawk-eyed attention to detail was, the thinking went, not actually doing me or anyone else much good. Truthfully, with my laptop and phone ever at my side, I did feel like I was sitting at a slot machine with a Big Gulp and a cigarette,  incessantly cranking the lever, looking for a different outcome. I was driving my husband, my employees, and myself crazy.

On the more positive side, we had, after fifteen years in business, reached a point of stabilization (about four years late, thanks COVID!); and being that I’m blessed with incredibly capable staff and the loyalest women in the world for clients — it might be time for me to consider what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Go back to performing? Write a book? Start a consulting business? Wait quietly in the corner for my grandchildren?

So it was decided that I would take a break. Responsibilities I still clung to would be taken up and split between our staff and my husband, and July 1st I deleted my Slack (internal multi-channel messaging re: every aspect of the business) and POS Apps (which allow me to study every sale, at every store, every day…I mean, if I were a crazy person) from my phone and computer. Everyone was disconcertingly confident that Jenette Bras would survive without me. I tried not to burst their bubble. As a wise man once sang: “How can I miss you when you won’t go away?”

So, what happened? Momentous decisions, epiphanies washing over me, eat-pray-love? I travelled in Spain for a month, spent time with old friends, made new ones, read books (nothing business until last week), saw plays, started learning Hebrew, returned to lifting weights seriously and eating a lot better. I worried a little less about things I cannot change, kept my mind a little open to possibilities and often, just sat and petted my cats. I stopped something I’d been doing as though my life depended on it, and nothing happened. Good to know. Now I can take it back up with a lighter grip.

Today is my first day back at the helm of Jenette Bras and it feels good, but I might just keep my Slack mute for a little while longer.