How I Got Here: President and COO of the most recognizable mall-based brands
Kat Cole started working at Hooters as a teenager and quickly moved up the ranks. By age 26, she was Vice President. Today she’s the President and COO of Focus Brands (owners of Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, and Moe’s). Listen to the full episode to hear her full story, filled with great tactics to be an effective leader.
Our takeaways from the episode:
When Kat started working as a teenager, she not only saw it as a way to make money, but it was also something that she took pride in. Kat’s story reminded us how working can be a great privilege. You can always find a way to have pride in your work and find a deeper meaning, even if that work is cleaning a bathroom with a toothbrush.
Nonetheless, work can’t be everything. When work isn’t going well, it doesn’t mean that you should be unwell too. To combat the constant push towards career being your whole identity, Kat recommended broadening your “purpose portfolio.” Find other things (volunteer work, passion projects, etc.) that fill you up and help you maintain your strength when times get hard at work.
To be an effective business leader, Kat balances four competing mindsets: curiosity, humility, confidence, and courage. Do I have the curiosity to find the problems, the humility to know I don’t have all the answers, the confidence to know that I can figure out the answers anyways, and the courage to speak out once I’ve gotten the answer? Following through on these four mindsets is easier said than done, but they are great guideposts to aspire towards.
Over the years, Kat has honed in on the exact right phrasing for the question she uses in her famous “Check Ins”. I plan on leveraging this in my future check ins too: “What is one thing I could do differently to be more effective?”
Here’s the link to Kat’s episode and a full transcript of our interview.
Samantha Strom offers some Career Advice on “being too young”
In her early 20s, Samantha discovered that what she was really passionate about was being a career coach and facilitator. After she completed training and got certified, she faced a classic problem: people assumed she couldn’t be a good coach because she was too young.
Read Samantha’s full post to learn more about how she overcame this challenge.
Subscribe to the How I Got Here Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
