Kat Cole on Navigating Authenticity and Opening Hooters in the Bahamas | Seed to Harvest S1 Ep3

Hello everyone, it's your host Paige Doherty. Welcome back to another episode of Seed to Harvest. Today I am honored to have Kat Cole joining me. Kat is an incredible businesswoman and investor as well as board member. She's the former Chief Operating Officer and President of North America for Focus Brands, and she's a former president of Focus Brands subsidiary Cinnabon, which is kind of how we met during Eye Mouth Eye. One of the reasons I took an immediate liking to Kat is that she sent me a Cinnabon to my doorstep and it was still warm when it got there. So I'm super excited to have her on, talk about her journey. And so why don't we kick it off? I would love for you to explain first kind of like how you grew up and, and how that shaped your journey to becoming one of the youngest executive vice presidents at Hooters.

Yeah, I mean, the short version is I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. I have 2 younger sisters, so I'm the oldest of 3 girls. And when I was 9 years old, we left my dad. My dad was an alcoholic. It was pretty bad. And both sides of my family were incredibly poor. So it was a difficult decision for my mom, who had a low-wage job, to think about going out on her own with 3 girls. But I had been in multiple car accidents with my dad by the time I was 9 years old. And so it was, you know, we were not in a great situation. And so when my mom came to me at the age of 9 and she said, that's it, I'm done, we're leaving, I didn't cry or get upset. I looked at her and said, what took you so long? And, you know, and there's so many lessons in that that informed my approach to business over time. But in particular, that the people who are closest to the action, in this case, me, the little girl, know what the right thing to do is long before the leader makes the decision. But the challenge for people who are closest to the action is they lack the language to articulate a scalable solution or a scaled problem, and they lack the authority to do something about it. And so by the time the leader finds out often, or does something, often people are like, what took you so long? Or it's about time. And I, from a very young age, resolved to have there be very little distance between when people have the insight and when I can aggregate that to take action on it. And so that was pretty formative. We left, my mom fed us on a food budget of $10 a week for 3 years. She worked 3 jobs. So I saw this resourcefulness and grit and just kind of get-it-done-ness that was a great example for me. She eventually moved up in her own company and I had to start working at a very young age. I was the first person in my family to get into college. I was an engineering major, engineering and computer sciences, and psychology of women minor. And I thought I was going to get those degrees and then go to law school. That was the plan. But to pay for school, I had to work. So even when I was in high school, I worked in a mall and I sold clothes. And as soon as I turned 17, which was the legal age to go work in the front of house of a restaurant, I became a hostess at Hooters. And Then I became a waitress as soon as I turned 18. I was still in high school, and a lot of people were waitresses, you know, once they turned 18, paying their way through school. Not a lot of people were waitresses at Hooters, but, you know, it's not that odd of a way to kind of support your own expenses. But there were no student loans. There were no— like, I was literally paying for my rent and my apartment and my car and my gas and my insurance and my meals and my college. And then crazy things happened in that first full year, beginning of the second year working at Hooters. Hooters was growing and they needed really high potential, high capability employees to help fill leadership roles in the field, in stores, and eventually opening other restaurants around the world. And so in that first year between 18 and 19, I was training employees, new employees who got hired in the restaurant. I worked every job in the restaurant. I was a cook, I was a bartender, I was a manager. Because it was just more hours, you know, and more pay. And I loved all of the work. And then they started asking me to go to other restaurants that needed some help. And so I started going to other restaurants in Jacksonville to help when they were short-staffed or needed to retrain employees. And then because I had worked in many restaurants and all the jobs, my manager came to me and said, look, the company is looking for people to travel around the world to help open new restaurants and new markets. And I've recommended you to be on those teams. And so I got a phone call to go be a part of the first team, the first group to ever go launch the Hooters franchise in Australia. So my first ever flight was buying a ticket to Miami to stand in line to get my passport. My second ever flight was my flight to Australia. And I'd only been out of the state of Florida a couple times for cheerleading competitions and track competitions. So that was a pretty big leap to go from kind of hometown Jacksonville girl to Australia. I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I made up my classes that I missed when I came back. And then 60 days later, the company said, oh, we're launching the franchise in Central America. Will you go help launch it? And oh, we're doing it in Utah and Orlando and the Bahamas. And then eventually, by the time we opened in the Bahamas and then right after that, Argentina, so the first in South America, I was leading the team. So before I was 20 years old, I had opened franchise locations and launched, helped launch the brand in, I don't know, 5, 7, 8 countries, multiple states, and then was leading the teams and launching the franchise and training the franchisees and getting the supply chain set up and like full responsibility as a 19 and 20-year-old. And so a few things started happening. One, I was failing college because I was never there. And so I quit. I dropped out because the This was very cool. I had no contract, no salary, no guarantees. I just had every indication that the opportunities would continue. And then I moved to Atlanta because I got offered a corporate job to oversee the employee training department where I would continue doing openings, but then build the materials, build the team, train people to go do openings. So I started pulling myself out of the operating mix just 2 years in. And then as the company grew, I grew. And by the time I was 26, to kind of land it to where you asked, by the time I was 26, I was vice president of the company and we were doing $800 million in revenue, fully vertically integrated. It was right before we launched our airline, which was very interesting. So that, that was so incredible. That was like childhood all the way up to the college dropout Hooters girl to executive piece.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think Super interesting.

I actually didn't know that we had a similar, like, educational path in terms of both studying engineering and computer science. I, I like to think of myself as having a systems engineering approach to most things I do, including building a business. And I'm curious if those days that you spent in college contributed to how you build mental frameworks going from that operating mix to more of the corporate level.

Well, the days I spent in college were brief. So, it's probably a stretch to suggest that they overly informed mental models. It might have been more my thinking style and what led me to those majors.

Right.

But I do absolutely agree with you. Something around, like, a systemic approach, a framework orientation, that's there, whether chicken or the egg, you know. Maybe it was there before in leaning into at least the first 20 months of college exploring the foundations of those concepts may have enhanced it. But certainly in my operating approach, anyone who works with me deeply will see these moments.

There's a lot of—

there's right brain and left brain. There's a lot of creativity, but then there are these moments where it is very clear The simplest path is to break things into its parts, really ask what's the higher order of what we're trying to accomplish, and then make it easy for people to address those parts and those processes. And so, it is a little bit systems engineering oriented.

I love that. I think the atomization of how things are done is part of, in learning about your journey, what's made you so successful. I'm curious if you can talk about an instance where You saw something that wasn't working and broke it down into its pieces and created change in that way?

Yeah, I've got several examples. I mean, one, just even being a waitress, like for those who are listening who are on the way earlier end, I mean, I remember there were certain shifts where things just didn't go well. Like the food took a long time and customers weren't really happy, or the beers took a long time to come out. The bar got backed up. And all of that, it's a tunnel, not a funnel, or it's a funnel, not a tunnel, right? It like funnels into me as the interface with the customer. And that's a very interesting— having that proximity to customer, having a feedback loop that is literally immediate. It's not even a loop. It's like 2 dots that are right beside each other. Is incredibly powerful. And even though I was an hourly employee, I was not willing to accept that the outcome of those conditions was simply my fate. You know, I needed the check to be high, I needed the tip to be high, and that led to me breaking down the pieces of what was breaking down. And sometimes that diagnosis led to me saying the net opportunity here, given all other conditions, is actually for me to not only keep doing my waitressing job and jump back there and help. Because I see this piece that there just aren't the humans to relieve the pinch point, and it's not going to get better if I stand at the counter and stare at them. So, so it's just like looking at everything as not an immovable object or a static thing, but rather a set of variables and conditions, some of which can be modified. And then the question is, can I have a role in that modification? And should I, if I can? And how does that affect my primary role if I divert some energy there? And that was also true in the kitchen. And, and then there were points where I realized, oh, the fryers are jammed. So when I suggestively sell to my tables, guess what I'm not going to be suggesting? Shit from the fryer. Because I want them to get their— they tell me they're in a hurry, automatically. Nope. You know, that's not gonna happen.

No fire items for you.

30-minute tick times. And so burgers and fries— yeah, no fries, no wings. I know you're at Hooters, but burgers and salads. Literally, like, it's just this constant awareness of what are the conditions, how does it affect what I'm responsible for, what of that is changeable from my perspective, and then how can I maneuver and turn the dials up or down on those variables to still get to a really high outcome of the end of the equation, even if some variables were low. Certainly, there was a moment— I'll really fast forward— when I became president of Cinnabon. First-time president. Company was already doing like $300 million a year in sales and was in 25, 30 countries. By the time I left, it was a couple billion across the channels and over 60 countries. And there was an initiative to innovate channels in the company and to launch a product in grocery, in the bakeries of grocery. And the short version of a super interesting case study is that the initiative had begun before I joined as president, but it accelerated immediately after my joining. And I thought in my mind, who am I to question them? You know, very capable people, most of them 20-plus, maybe 30 years older than me. So they've been in business longer than I've been alive, almost. I trust them. They've, you know, great company with great people. I don't need to poke around too hard. Plus, it's early stage. It's going to take a while to commercialize. And not all channels commercialize at the same slow rate as manufactured consumer products. And in fact, we were sending ingredients to these grocery stores and then a recipe And then they could bake whatever we sent.

Wow.

So, if you were gonna— if you wanted— if they wanted to do something different, you just sent them a different recipe. So, the ability to commercialize an innovation was instant almost. It was contingent on their ability to train and deploy in their grocery store bakeries. So, we had basically told the franchisees it was one product that was very different from what they sold in the franchise business. And 3 days later, I get an email from the co-founder of Cinnabon who was still a franchisee with like font size 90 WTF. And what had actually happened was what commercialized was almost an exact replica of what they sold in their franchise business being sold for half the price at Costco. And they were enraged because it looked like I had lied, like I had just hand-waved them, you know, here's what I think it's going to be. Oh, you know, and then Oh, don't worry about it. It's not competitive. And it eroded trust. It was like in that moment, because I didn't know it had occurred, I had an overzealous salesperson that told Costco they could have the recipe. And it was my fault that I didn't know that it had happened. But it took this diagnosis, this instantaneous parallel path of systems thinking of, you know, one, I need to denuclearize the situation. Like the chemical reagent that is needed. Like we need to calm this in order for us to not be blown out of the lab. And then I have to go back and really understand what pieces were enabling factors to this. And did I want to fire the sales guy? Yes. But the reality is the systems in the company enabled this to occur. And even as a new president, that was my responsibility. And so, I had to very quickly diagnose What went wrong recently? What led up to that? What was within my control? How do I denuclearize the situation? Parallel path. And then once it's calm and not volatile and I figured out how to stop the train that's in motion, how do I lay new tracks so this doesn't happen again? What are the processes? What are the systems? So there's both reflect, diagnose, understand, autopsy without blame. And then build better immediately. Because what I wasn't going to do was stop innovating just because we had a major boo-boo. We just needed to do it better and differently. And so whether it's diagnosing a customer service issue with chicken wings or evaluating my own mistakes or looking at opportunities in the company, My brain goes to breaking it down into its pieces. What can we control? What can we not control? What does the effort versus return matrix look like? And then get to work.

Can you dive deeper into like the effort versus return matrix? What does that mean to you? Yeah.

You know, the idea of what we used to say at Focus Brands and what we said a lot once we bought Jamba Juice Is the juice worth the squeeze? And because if I've gotta like, you know, wear myself out squeezing the orange and I get a drop, it is not the highest and best use of my energy, nor is the output even sufficient from a baseline perspective. And sometimes you can get really caught up, especially in defense mode when you're cleaning up a mistake. Or pivoting or redirecting to almost over-investing in correcting.

Mm-hmm.

As opposed to, let us put out the fire. Let us meditate over the ashes. We're going to a different part of the park. And not always, but this idea of, of having a great degree of connectivity to the energy capacity and velocity of the company and always thinking about return on effort. And not everything is going to be the highest return on effort. Some things, the effort is part of the reward and part of what builds the muscle in the company.

Mm-hmm.

But more often, you want the highest return on effort. And I remember, When I took over Cinnabon, there was a project called Project 599, and it was the initiative to lower the calories from 880 to 599. Most people think there's like 3,000 calories in a giant Cinnabon. There's only, only 880. And but still, that was a lot of calories for a treat, and especially at the height of the Atkins craze, which for Cinnabon was the Atkins crisis. And when people were basically like Don't eat sugar, don't eat fat. And here's the poster child for sugar and fat. And so the team thought they had this great plan to reduce the calories. And the franchisees were very excited about it. Like, wow, we can go to our customers and say like massive double-digit percentage reduction in calories, yet it's still huge. And the team believed they could do it and protect the taste and the flavor profile. And they had pretty much done it. But immediately when I got there, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze? I asked, what are we— what's the goal of Project 599? And everyone said 599. What's the goal? 599. What's the goal? 599. And what had occurred is the work became the goal. 599 was no one's goal. That was some mysterious number picked out of how far do we think we can get it down. The goal was to increase sales. Coming out of a recession and to drive profitability for franchisees and to pull the levers that drove top-line sales, which is getting the people who come to buy more and come more often and tempting more people to come who don't. And then as a result, be able to open more stores. And, you know, this is the way we build a business. And I just was blown away that everyone said the goal was $5.99 and they had done it and they were so proud and they were high-fiving themselves and And really smart people, really well-intended people. And so I said, I want everyone to go ask 3 friends and family to what degree— there's a really loud fire truck.

You're all good.

I have to like pause here. I hope they— so I had to ask, challenged everyone on the team to go ask 3 friends and family Show them the picture, show them the calorie difference, and say, if you are a customer, will you come more often? If you are not a customer, will you now become a customer? Almost 100% of the answers were no. And to me it was obvious, but I was the outsider, so it was, you know, easier for me to be a bit critical and objective.

Mm-hmm.

And the reality was that one, There actually is a magic number of calories that drives frequency and transactions in food, and it is below 300. To begin with, we were— even with this endeavor, we were 2x the trigger to drive trial or frequency based on calories alone. So just sort of on that principle, I don't know how that got lost, but this was not going to drive transactions. In addition, what one has to do to reduce calories and keep a baked good the same size is remove the real sugar and real things and put in artificial, less natural ingredients. And while certainly no one is coming to Cinnabon for their diet, we would've introduced a new issue, a new dynamic, a new critique. And at that point, it's not that it was a pillar we were standing on, but the product was made with whole, normal ingredients. ingredients that your grandma baked with and had been for 30 years. And so not only were we not hitting a trigger point to drive transactions, that's clearly because the goal of driving transactions had been lost from people's minds. It's like the idea of calorie reduction became the goal. That we would have introduced a new problem potentially from an ingredient perspective. And so I killed Project 599. And it took me breaking it down into these parts. It didn't feel right to me. But in a company of scale, you don't manage by gut.

Mm-hmm.

There has to be some foundation rooted in customers, rooted in insights. There's gut, absolutely, and intuition, but only when it's deeply well-informed by a robust connection to a relevant set of cohorts. And so the team was really upset. The company had spent like a ton of money and time on it. And, and they pleaded like, hey, we've spent so much time, we're so close, just let us launch this. I'm like, I would be failing you if— one of my favorite phrases— I would be failing you if I let you spend a day or a dollar more, because this is not going to drive sales. And we shouldn't be talking about anything that's not going to drive sales for franchisees. And what will happen is you will high-five each other and say, we did our part. And when you roll it out, you're going to say operations screwed it up because it's not driving transactions. And so we're going to have to agree to disagree here. And what ended up happening was I said, but we do need to address portion size and permission and accessibility and even pricing. But you're going to do that through a smaller portion, not through a lower calorie giant thing. In fact, a lower calorie giant thing gets more expensive because of the ingredients that you end up having to put in. And so we ended up rolling out the mini bond across the company, which was well below 300 calories, half the price. Again, we're in a recession. Having a lower price point for entry is important. And although there was a ton of freight of check erosion and trade-down, there wasn't. Check was stable or increased because people bought 2 or added a drink, which is something they weren't doing during the recession with the $5 thing. And any good marketer who knows pricing theory can tell you, and behavioral economics can tell you that that's likely to happen. But that wasn't the intuition in the company. It took a lot of work to Figure out what we should stop doing, then figure out what we could start doing, and then allocating resources and alleviating people's fear around the potential downside. So, still a very systemic, you know, approach to driving innovation.

Wow. That's such an— it's like when you ask that question, what is the goal? And the work comes up, it's such an interesting— like, it becomes so obvious when you say it, but it's not obvious as you're going through the work. I'm curious how you think about communicating those difficult decisions, especially in an organization of such scale, and if that's shifted over your time at Cinnabon to your future as well.

I mean, the communication fundamentals are very similar, which is, one, confront reality. Two, try to find a coalition of the willing if there are some people who Come to it quickly or are already there, who already had concerns. And then 3, when at all possible, let the people who've sort of thought through this and have a different point of view be helpful in telling the story. And all throughout communicating the why and giving some space, some energetic space, some time, even though you don't have a lot of time in many cases. For people to ask questions and push back and to have the ability to say, if we do this, here's what will happen. If we don't do this, here's what will happen, good or bad, like framing that if we do, if we don't scenario. And so being an excellent world-class communicator is a superpower and has never been more important given the rate of change and the fact that we as humans cannot process the amount of change around us, especially in business via the opportunities that come. And this is especially true in innovative companies. And so the communication muscle of why we do what we do and the constant reiteration of the actual goal has to live everywhere, like in random Slack message pop-ups, in people's email address, in the swag that they get. Like, you know, you have to keep that alive at all times. Otherwise, people's worlds become very small, and their world is the work. And then, of course, the work is the goal. But if they're more tied to what we're trying to accomplish— of course, everyone's work in that ultimate goal is different. Mm-hmm. But if there are— I mean, there are many goals in a company, but there have to be clear priorities, especially when you are in wartime leadership mode versus peacetime leadership mode. And it requires clarity, discipline, and prioritization. And although some people don't like their thing being cut off the list, most people have a real or You know, metaphorical sigh of relief when there are priorities and clarity.

Absolutely. I think that's like one of the more difficult things about running your own company is you have to be the one to set those priorities and listen to the broader market. So we spent a lot of time talking about goals as they relate to business. I'm curious to dive into how you think about the clarity, discipline, and prioritization of goals in your personal life.

You— for me, it's very similar. So rooted in values, always. So for company, that's vision, mission, and values. For me, it's my personal values and recognizing that those change over time. The values as foundation of personal goals, goal setting, which then drive your decisions, is an underdeveloped muscle in most humans. Because we're typically not forced to really articulate our values or confront them unless there's a major life event. And especially if things go pretty well and we have options and choice, you don't feel like your options, your values are being violated for the choices that you're making. And so it's understandable why it's an underdeveloped muscle, but it is such a critical one as a thinker that then enables much faster decision-making. And so it's so important that 20 years ago when I was training managers around the world, I used to teach this game called Invest in Your Values. And it was this little sheet. I've been thinking about recreating some version of it. I looked to actually go try to buy the company and it's been like buried and bought by someone else. But it's a list of common values in the Western culture. So the list would change by certain cultures, but largely similar. Challenging myself intellectually, friends and family, financial independence, curiosity, humanitarian impact, right? Like it's this list and you have to take dollars, a descending amount, dollar amounts. So a $1,000 sticker, a $750 sticker, a $500 sticker, a $300, a $100, And invest, of course, highest dollar amount goes in your top value, next lowest next, et cetera, et cetera. And it's just that game, that part of the game alone, watching people put down the sticker, then peel it up 'cause they're like, oh no, is that the one? Is that number 2? I don't know. You can see how seriously people take it even at that phase. Then the next part, once you have your values invested in, your top 6 or 7 values, then you take red, green, and yellow light stickers. And you put a color sticker only beside the values you've invested in. And it is— the colors are related to the degree to which you believe that value can be met in your current condition. So it either is being met or can be met. Green for is or can be, yellow for is possible, red for not possible. I have had people quit after that exercise. I have had people have really heart-to-heart conversations with their spouses. And I have encouraged and facilitated conversations with people's leaders because often there are assumptions being made about whether it's red or yellow. And that's really interesting to say, why do you think this isn't possible? Maybe just because the way the world has worked up to now, but actually we could meet this value for you and here's a way to do that. And so the idea of Values as a foundation for goal setting and making personal decisions is a critical one for people to think about and just revisit it once a year or every time you have a major life event, because that, whether you know it or not, that's gonna drive your energy and your reaction if something's coming to you around goals and opportunities.

Wow, that sounds like an incredible activity. I, I was like, Taking notes on it as you were, as you were talking about it. I remember when I was in a position where I was making a decision like that, I ended up turning down a really incredible career opportunity to stay in San Diego. And I resonated with something that you said earlier in the conversation, which is that once you make that decision, everything else is like perfect. It was super hard the first time I made it, and now it's like, oh cool, this doesn't fit my values, like this isn't a fit for me, like appreciate you, but It's not, doesn't fit within my value framework. And I think it takes making really difficult decisions based on those values to make it simpler. And then it feels like things become much easier to make decisions on after that.

And it allows you to say, this is my utopia.

Yeah.

Right? And if you can't, if that can't get close enough to that, not everything has to be perfect. And there are other things that can, it makes it quite simple. And then using those values as the foundation, then for goal setting. And I break that down into, in most cases, a financial column, an ego and affiliations column, and capabilities.

Hmm.

And capabilities part A, capabilities part B. Capabilities part A is, can I showcase the strengths I have? Capabilities part B is, of course, the opposite. What do I want to learn, grow, and be exposed to? And I have a whole literal framework around this in my newsletter checking in. And I've used this for people's careers, thinking about moves, going out on their own. That helps not just react to things, but think about what are my goals around life. And again, that's different from pure business. Goals, but it is helpful to have some framework. I am actually not a particularly goal-oriented person, which surprises most people. My husband is an endurance athlete, ultra endurance athlete, is the opposite. He has to have a goal at all times to motivate him. And yet we have equal levels of drive, but I don't necessarily need the goal. What I need is more of the North Star, you know, more of a compass versus a roadmap. More of a set of principles and purpose and like dynamics, and then a lot of trust and openness and, you know, opportunism in what may lead to that outcome. So I have a bit more of a hippie approach than many people, but goal setting is incredibly important, and it's even more effective if it's done on the foundation of values but with those 3 columns always in view.

I love that. It was super interesting when I was talking to Jenny Lefcourt. She is a very goal-oriented person, but she said the motto that she lives her life by is purpose before action. It sounds like you both are very aligned on that. I want to dig on something that you mentioned in terms of like you being a hippie. I feel like it's become much more welcome to speak around like spirituality or like hippiness or, or things like that in Business, which is a big part of my life and and how I make decisions. So I'd love to hear maybe more about your story around like your first Burning Man.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, my first burn was so. I mean, everybody sounds like a cult member when they talk about Burning Man. So I just I want to just name it, and we're not going to be able to avoid it. And so. I'm a meme. It's fine. And I, so, you know, I had heard of it and I, I had thought about it, but I was coming out of an 11-year relationship, a long-term relationship, and it was time for it to end. And I was fabulously single. And not that you need to be to go to Burning Man. My husband and I go together. We got married there. We will bring our kids there as well. So just don't want that clip to get outta hand. And I met a few amazing women who became dear friends, co-investors, collaborators. 2 of them had been to Burning Man, 2 of them had not. And we just decided, I was like, I'm renting an RV and I'm going. And one of them who is a very seasoned Burner was like, I wasn't gonna go. But okay, now I'll go. And this incredible tribe of women got in this RV and went to Burning Man, and it was amazing. It, it was— it felt like home for sure. It was such a beautiful both escape and tuning in and tapping into community and creativity. And yeah, there's a bunch of BS there like there is at any event with a lot of people. But largely it was pure magic. And there was almost no concept of time. And I remember I had to be in Germany the day after Burning Man ended to negotiate a deal with a pretzel manufacturer for Auntie Anne's. And I— it's very harsh to go right back to work. Like, you should definitely take a week if you can, 2 days to decompress if you can, and no major decisions. You know, after. And I went straight, literally, like the day after Labor Day, which is when it ends, Tuesday, I was in Germany. And I refused to take some of the hair dressings and body elements off. I mean, I had a jacket almost just like this, but I just could— I couldn't. It was too— it felt like a violation of coming out of that moment of creativity. I didn't want to code switch. You know, I've never been that person. And so I just went into the meeting and my CEO— I was the group president of Focus Brands at the time. I was beyond president of Cinnabon. I was now group president of the CPG and e-commerce division. And I walked in and one of the guys who had been my peer as another president for a long time, he's just like, oh my God, of course. What are you doing? And he just thought it was hilarious. It turned out The guy, CEO that we were negotiating with, for his— for like a decade had wanted to go to Burning Man. He was so curious. He just wanted to know everything about my experience. It made the whole negotiation and meeting incredible. It cut through all the BS, and it was just like this reward, you know, for not code-switching. It was this reward for being my whole self. In the moment. And, and I've had many of those moments over my career, but it was interesting to see it even at a, you know, again, corporate hippie, whatever you want to call— again, I think the world is changing and everything's blurring and being redefined, but in my circles, running highly scaled, mature businesses, it is not common. And even rocking my tattoos. Right? In those early days of being a first-time president, even that, they're like, oh, you're 25 years, 30 years younger than us. You were a Hooters girl. You have tattoos and you go to Burning Man. Great. Feels responsible. We are not the same. But there was also something I think refreshing in that, that I didn't throw it in people's faces and I didn't use it as this badge of honor of like, I'm better than you or I'm different. Just, I feel the permission to be fully me in the way that's appropriate for any particular context. And I recognize that that redefines how other people feel permission to be themselves. And I take joy in that. So that was a little bit of the outcome of Burning Man, but I've been every year except the year— since then, except the years that I've had babies, because both of them were delivered just before or just after Burning Man, and my husband and I got married. At Burning Man. So it is a deep, deep, deep part of our life. And I will be there all in, not available in 2022.

I'm so excited.

Because it has been skipped for 2 years. I am going, whatever I'm doing, it will be put on pause and I will be in the desert.

Yeah. I hope to see you there. I haven't been to a burn yet, but it's been on my mind for the past couple of years. I was planning on going in 2020, but It was not. That was not—

Highly recommend. A lot of people in our camp bring their parents. Like, it's so cool.

I love that. Okay. Also, I just like can't get the image of you going to negotiate with a pretzel manufacturer in Germany in like remnants of your Burning Man costume. I just love that so much. And the best thing is—

Did I still put on jeans and a blazer?

Yeah, it's not even a costume. It's just like—

It's a balancing element, but it was very obvious.

I love that so much. I, I think that that's one of the things I most appreciate about you. I think you're such an incredible communicator, and you have this way of making everyone feel safe around you and creating that permission for other people to feel like wholly themselves. That was very apparent the first time I talked to you. I was like, oh cool, like I don't have to act all professional and I can just be myself around you. And, and I want to touch on one of the things that you said about that creates the power for other people to present that permission to other people. So I'm curious, like, how you think about— is that solely an implicit communication that happens where you show up in your holier self and that transitions to other people? Or is it something that you explicitly communicate either within your teams or within your family? Because I'm sure that also bleeds into your parenting style.

Yeah, it does. I embrace the toddler weird for sure. And I'm actually intentionally sensitive to not, you know, say, oh, well, why are you talking like that? You sound super bizarre, 4-year-old. You know, just great. You're being weird. It's amazing. It is both implicit and explicit. I mean, it's implicit in my own choices and decisions and how I model behavior. And you can see it in an organization and who I promote and who I'm with. And, you know, there are all— there are these messages that get sent from my choices. But then it's explicit and in many different ways, whether it's recruiting and talking about like how we work and what we want for people, onboarding and how we talk about things, cultural elements and practices in our company. And, and part of it is just simply being aware that we all come with our experiences which have shaped our beliefs on how we need to show up. And the beliefs formed from one place may not apply to the next. And I am not a therapist. I cannot undo centuries of programming. In people, but I can do my part both through my own actions and decisions as well as being a great communicator and, you know, designer of organizational behavior and culture and as a coach, a mentor, and a sounding board. You know, if people are— if I can read, if they're not outright mentioning it, that someone is holding back or I just get the sense that they're not being their full selves or something else should shows that that's what's underneath, I can find the appropriate way to encourage, to ask questions, to explore. And I really enjoy that. Like, it's pretty powerful when people feel a sense of belonging and confidence. Now, what I don't mean by that is be disrespectful of the culture required in a particular country, moment, company. There's also a dark version of this, like, I am who I am, take it or leave it. Well, there were times at Burning Man where I'm not wearing a lot of clothes. I didn't take it that far to the meeting in Germany. Like, there's just— there's a— there, there are, there are ways to shine and be your authentic self but not have to violate other people's norms and sense of self. comfortably and just getting— helping people get comfortable turning the volume up and down on, on their style or who they are and thinking about, you know, when should you just be all in? And not particularly when, but how should— how to think about it.

Mm-hmm.

And it's just like if-then, right? If I do X, then everything has an outcome and a consequence and impact. And then aggregate that over time, it's like personal brand and reputation and How do you, you know, really think about that? And so for me, the idea of authenticity, which is the word that a lot of this ends up falling under, the idea of authenticity is discussed much more often, but sometimes can be used as a weapon instead of a tool.

That's super interesting. I am a big doodler, and I was doodling what I love that phrase that you used about dialing the volume up and down of like, as it comes to be your authentic self. This is like the— all the listeners can't see, but it's like a little person inside of a volume dial. And in terms of the authenticity, I think that's like very important context is that you can be authentic without having your volume all the way up all the time. And as we head into our last couple minutes of this episode, I would love to hear more about what I've heard from you in this episode is you're very values-driven and you seek clarity, discipline, and prioritization within your own organizations. I'm also curious to hear how that's translated to you as an investor and coach moving into your latest, I would say, like shell.

Yeah, it's, I mean, again, the values foundation makes so Such a big chunk of decision-making very easy because anything that doesn't fit is just not an option. For example, I have leaned into wellness as a category. That there's a range. Everyone's on a journey of wellness to be from less bad to do no harm to like really drive wellness.

Right.

continuum. And most of us have moments of each in our day or in our week. And there are opportunities to build and create and market and invest all along that spectrum. But if I'm going to be in the better-for-you space for my consumer products investing and advising, I have a line of what is better enough.

Mm.

And I've been offered some really interesting opportunities to go do things that are absolutely better than what's out there. But they're not better enough, right? I'm not going for just not bad in my food and beverage wellness investing. And so that's an example of just, that's evolved for me. It's become important for me, the optics of it, the reality of it, the impact of it. And that changed. I mean, obviously I ran Cinnabon and Auntie Anne's. And that was super amazing. And I love the Cinnabon example and Milk Bar where I'm on the board because it's clearly indulgence and you're being honest about that. It's the things that are in the middle where people are being tempted to eat it morning, noon, and night, and it's barely better than bad. Like that, I no longer, you know, I don't align with. So that's an example of how my values around wellness and doing, having impact in the world, that has evolved over time. It absolutely affects what I invest in, who I advise, where I align my brand. I have children, and so family is a bigger part of my value set now than it was before. And so that weighs into things. In those columns of goal setting, you know, money, ego, and optics, capabilities, the financial journey's been really interesting as I've evolved to being investor of a lot of early-stage startups, moved into real estate with my husband. You know, it just— having those pieces change really does meaningfully alter decision-making. And when the values foundation is strong, it's just so easy to be like, it's either hell yes or hell no. I'm sure you've heard that before.

Yep.

It makes that really easy. There are very few that fall into an, eh, I need to do more thinking to figure out where it lands. And then the kind of net idea of, I know, like, there are many things you can fix in a business, but a bad partnership and not good vibes among leadership is the hardest. And so I work with people I deeply respect to the core. And the people part is a primary filter on who I advise, where I work, what I'm affiliating myself with. And that wasn't always the case. Before, it was like opportunity and learning and global experience. And there's always some assholes and some great people and a bunch of people in between. And it's fine. You know, now that it's much more intentional and it's all my choice, the boards I'm on, the companies I advise, if I go operate something really cool again, one of the first filters— You know, well, it will not only be what is its impact on the world, but how do I feel about the people and my ability to make an impact on the people? So it really does affect this portfolio chapter of my life and career in pretty meaningful ways.

I love that. One of my other mentors, Judy Estrin, has said she's now in like the elective period of her life. She was also like a serial operator and entrepreneur. And I think She's having a lot of fun in like that portfolio part of her life because, as you said, you have the opportunity to be more intentional about who and where and why you spend your time. And I think that that's just such an incredible inflection point. So I'm excited to see what you do next and stay updated. With that, I would love to wrap up this episode. Kat, thank you so much for coming on. This was such a pleasure. It's always so nice to speak with you. And as you said, vibes are very important. And I feel like I always have very good vibes in any conversation that I have with you. So thank you for being here.

Good vibes. Absolutely. So excited for everything you're doing and I'm cheering you on.

Oh, I so appreciate it. Thanks so much for tuning in today to Seed to Harvest. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe wherever your favorite podcast listening platform is. I'll be releasing new episodes weekly and And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know on Twitter. That's Paige Finn, Paige and then Finn with 3 N's. Thanks, and see you again next week. Bye.