An Inspired Chat with Jaime Coast of Westchester

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Jaime Coast. Check out our conversation below.

Jaime, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
I have the worst morning routine in that I immediately look at my phone when I wake up. I know experts advise against it but it’s what works for me. I like to start my day by checking email, messages on key platforms, and what’s on my calendar for the day while I drink my tea. That way when I get to work at 9 am, I’m already organized and prepared for what’s ahead.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am the founder and artist behind Cotton and Bow, a leading stationery design company based in Westchester, NY. The company was founded in 2017 in the corner of my one bedroom apartment. It has since grown into a dedicated small team that creates save the dates, invitations, and paper goods for thousands of couples and corporate clients each year. We like to say that we illustrate love stories.

Cotton and Bow has been featured in Martha Stewart Living, People, Brides, and more. Before starting my own business, I worked in marketing and advertising for over a decade – most recently as a Sr. Director of Partnerships at a major media company. 

At Cotton and Bow, our main goal is to capture the spirit of a couple’s journey and put it down on paper so it becomes an heirloom they can take with them as they start their new family life together. That’s what really sets our business apart from the rest. It’s about the permanence for us of the artwork and telling that couple’s unique love story.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who taught you the most about work?
My Dad was an extremely hard worker and he taught me the value of grit, determination and work ethic. He also taught me by example what not to do when it comes to work and the dangers of living a life that doesn’t value passion and fun as part of the journey.

He taught me some of the most worthwhile management lessons when I was in my early twenties – how to have difficult conversations with people and treat them with dignity and respect, how to never place blame but always take responsibility, and how important it is not to quit just because something is tough.

My Dad would be really proud of me if he could see where my business is today. He passed away in 2019 from pancreatic cancer before Cotton and Bow was ever more than a hobby. He was, lovingly, skeptical of me pursuing art as a career my entire life. He had an influence on my decision to go into marketing instead of graphic design when I was in college. And ultimately, when I saw how he spent most of his life grinding away at a job he didn’t like, commuting long hours, waiting for eventual retirement to be happy, only to pass away a few short years into it, that had a huge impact on me.

It made me very reflective on what I wanted out of life and how I wanted to spend my time. Because you can’t count on the future to come and be the time where you’ll finally get to do what you want. I would love to be able to tell him how well the business does. It would definitely shock him that I make a lucrative career combining art and business, working from my home studio, and spending loads of time with my kids. He definitely never thought that was possible for anyone.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Grit is an extremely underrated skill these days and the only way to develop that skill is through adversity. To this day, I am an incredibly stubborn person. The nice way of saying that is that I have a tremendous amount of grit and determination. When I was in high school I was captain of the Varsity Swim Team, and I specialized in the 500 Free Style race, which is 20 laps in a Jr. Olympic Pool. It’s a 20 lap race, with no music, no distractions, no way to even see your opponents ahead of or behind you to motivate you and help you pace. The only way to get through it is pure endurance. And I think that mindset and training early on in my life helped prepare me for some of the more tedious parts of business ownership and even getting a career in marketing started. I’m just someone who can slog through anything, no matter how painful or long or boring it is.

And boredom these days for many people is a suffering they can no longer tolerate. It’s a muscle that needs to be exercised. With the constant distractions of our phones, the internet, and streaming TV, there are very few chances to practice it anymore. But I think it’s vitally important that we force ourselves to re-acclimate to boredom and stillness whenever we can to build up tolerance again.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
There’s been a backlash against hustle culture recently. While I think it’s important to rest, and still make time for things like your family or your health, I also think you’ll never be successful without hard work and sacrifice. That’s become a bit of an unpopular opinion. Everyone talks about “passive income” and “quiet quitting” and all sorts of trends that involve working less to earn more money. Then people complain that it’s not working. And it’s because success has always and will always come from hard work, at least initially.

I read a story recently about a start up founder who pitched themselves to a VC fund. And part of the pitch was how the start up was competing in a saturated marketplace, with a ton of other companies. . During the presentation, the founder shared a photo of a bulldozer in a field of daisies and said “We are the bulldozer. Everyone else is a daisy.” And what he explained was that everyone else was growing nicely and taking their sweet time. Everyone else was not really trying all that hard to build something with great ambition. But he was going to be so fast, and so focused on a much bigger goal of domination that he was going to out-work everyone else.

I thought that was extremely funny to have as a metaphor for your business. And as a mindset exercise, it’s something that I really relate to and like to use. Sometimes when I’m faced with a long to-do list, I’ll call up that mental image and just visualize being the bulldozer, crushing the daisies on my to-do list. I also know that amongst many other creative business owners, artists, and wedding professionals, I am just willing to do more and setting bigger goals than a lot of other people. You have to be if you want to be successful.

Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I’m finally in a place where I feel like I’m doing what I’m born to do and operating in my “zone of genius” most of the time.

When I started my career in marketing, I was always drawn to the more creative aspects of it. I worked in social media marketing for a time, building and leading a content creation team at an advertising agency. And then I made my way to Nickelodeon, MTV, and the other youth brands at Paramount, where I created partnership campaigns with Fortune 500 brands. We would craft the most incredible programs like building a climbable mountain in Soho for PepsiCo to promote Nickelodeon’s G.U.T.S and new flavor of Mountain Dew, or working with the original creators of SpongeBob SquarePants to animate a Bike Safety PSA with Nationwide Insurance.

I loved the problem-solving and creative parts of the job but I missed painting and was looking for a structured way to incorporate more art into my life again. And a way to keep myself accountable to create. So I started an Etsy shop as a side-hobby. I never intended for it to replace my full time job. It was more of an assignment-generating activity so I would always have a reason to paint. But it took on a life of its own and after a few years, the pandemic, two kids, and a consolidating media industry, I was ready to see what my little side hobby could do if I treated it like a serious business.

Within two years of deciding to grow the business large enough to replace my primary job, I quit my corporate job and leaned into running Cotton and Bow full-time. I love that it blends my artistic skills with my marketing and business expertise. And I get a chance to solve new challenges every day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cottonandbow.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cottonandbowpaper
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimecoast/

Image Credits
Bri Cibene