Surviving the Great Recession: The Pain That Built Brax

Amy with her husband, Dr Mike at Brax Newport Beach Grand Opening in 2009.

In 2005, I started my business at the Jewelry Mart with so much excitement and joy. I worked hard every day, building my website, borrowing money from anyone who believed in me, and pouring my heart into every detail of my little dream.

But then, only two years after I started my business, the Great Recession hit at the end of 2007.

It wasn’t just slow business, it was devastation. Jewelry, which people usually buy to celebrate milestones, was suddenly the last thing on anyone’s mind. All around the country, small mom-and-pop jewelry stores were closing their doors. At the Mart, you could see it in people’s faces, jewelers who once thrived were suddenly desperate, worried, hopeless.

For me, it meant days and weeks sitting in the Mart without a single customer walking in. I checked my bank account constantly, trying to calculate if I could pay my expenses, my loans, my rent. And at night, I cried.

Everyone told me maybe I should close my business. Maybe I should go back to school, become a lawyer, or a nurse, something “safe.” But for me, that wasn’t safety. That was failure. That was abandoning my passion. That was stopping my becoming.

It was one of the most painful seasons of my life.

What Pain Taught Me

Looking back, I know now that pain wasn’t there to break me. It was there to build me.

The recession taught me that no matter how hard I worked, there would always be things I couldn’t control. I couldn’t change the economy. I couldn’t force customers to walk into the Jewelry Mart. I couldn’t stop the empty days when bills and loans piled higher than sales. That pain humbled me, reminding me that control is an illusion.

But pain also demanded that I make a choice: give up, or keep going. People told me to close my business, to go back to school, to become something “safer.” It would have been easier to settle, but I knew that would mean abandoning my passion. That pain forced me to be brave, to bet on myself, and to believe in the vision I had, even when no one else did.

Pain shattered the ego that thought I could do it all alone. It broke down the false beliefs, that I wasn’t enough, that I didn’t deserve more, that maybe I had to stop dreaming. And once those illusions were gone, I discovered a deeper strength.

That’s when I realized something: being a Brax Girl isn’t about having a perfect life. It’s about surviving the moments that almost break you, and using them to become stronger. It’s about letting pain strip you down to your truth, then rebuilding yourself into a woman who refuses to quit.

Pain didn’t just make me tougher. It made me truer. It made me a Brax Girl.

Taking the Risk

So in 2009, despite the recession and despite the fear, I made a decision that would change everything: I opened my Newport Beach store.

That location had been abandoned by the previous owner who went out of business during the recession. The truth is, if the economy had been good, I could never have rented that spot, but what looked like devastation opened the very door I needed.

When we sat down to sign the lease, I could tell the landlord didn’t have much confidence in me. Deep down, I’m sure he was thinking, 'What am I doing leasing my place to this young girl?' But his space had been sitting empty, and he was hurting too because of the economy, so he didn’t have many options.

What gave him the confidence to move forward was my husband. He had just started his career as a medical doctor, and the landlord knew that no matter how bad the economy got, he would still have a steady job. So he required a personal guarantee from him and made sure his name was on the lease.

But here’s the truth: from day one, my husband believed in me. Even at the hardest time, with the economy collapsing around us, he trusted that I could do it. He encouraged me to sign the lease, to take the risk, to step into the unknown, and without that belief, I might never have taken the leap.

At the time, I had no customer base. No money. No inventory. What I did have were two credit cards, each with a $40,000 limit. I remember applying for personal credit cards and taking cash advances left and right, anything I could do to pull together enough money to start. I took the risk and jumped in, signing the lease, filling the empty space, and building my dream from nothing but faith and grit.

Those first two weeks after I got the key are memories I’ll never forget. To save money, I spray-painted my old displays instead of buying new ones. I bought brown spray paint, laid out a sheet on the floor, and started painting over my old white displays. After a few hours, my finger was sore from pressing the spray can. I had to leave both doors open because of the smell. It makes me laugh now, but I wish I had a picture of my face in that moment, covered in fumes, determined to make it work.

And then, just days later, someone broke into my empty store, when I had no jewelry inside yet! Thankfully, I had left the safe door open, so they didn’t damage it trying to break in.

These memories are funny to me now, but at the time they were incredibly stressful. They were part of the messy, painful, and imperfect beginning, the reality of what it takes to build something from nothing.

One of my vendors told me, 'Girl, you’ve got guts.' He was right. And it was terrifying.

But that leap, born out of pain and uncertainty, became the foundation of everything Brax is today, and oh boy, when I finally opened my doors, that’s when the real struggle began. But that’s a whole new story.

Still Becoming

Even now, almost two decades later, there are moments when the responsibility feels too heavy. There are days I break down, when I sit quietly in my closet and let a few tears fall.

But I’ve learned not to fight those moments. I let myself feel them. Because I know they are not weakness, they are growth. They are the cleansing and the expanding. They are the tears of becoming.

And then, I get up. I move forward. I continue.

Because that’s what pain is meant to do, not to stop us, but to shape us into who we are becoming.