Kat Cole went from Hooters waitress to Athletic Greens COO without a bachelor’s degree. She credits a simple exercise—the ‘hotshot rule’—for her rise

– A rule to live by. Throughout her unorthodox rise to the top in business, Kat Cole has stuck by one rule. The president and COO of nutrition brand Athletic Greens and the former COO of Focus Brands, the company behind Cinnabon and Jamba Juice, shared the practice with a group of women veterans participating in Fortune’s Future Leaders mentoring program, in partnership with the Foundation for Women Warriors, at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit last month.

Cole calls her trick the “hotshot rule.” She imagines someone she admires in her shoes. It could be anyone—an athlete, a colleague, a family member. She thinks of the one thing they would do differently in her position.

The thought exercise was surprisingly effective—so much so that she moved the practice from quarterly to monthly and then to weekly. “I have the knowledge of my situation, but the freedom and the power of their view,” Cole explains.

The person’s hypothetical action plan “comes to mind immediately,” Cole says. And Cole “take[s] action on it within 24 hours.” “I send the email, I book the flight, I make the call,” she says. Over 15 years, the “compounding effect” has been enormous. “Every week I put in motion one thing I would not otherwise have,” she says.

Courtesy of Kat Cole/Steph Grant Photography

Cole got her start as a hostess and waitress at the restaurant chain Hooters in her teens. She started college, but left when she was given the opportunity to travel around the world opening new Hooters restaurant franchises. She cut her teeth as an operator and moved into a corporate job at 20 without a college degree. She eventually went back to school and became one of few executives to earn a master’s degree without a bachelor’s. The official qualification helped her jump from Hooters to Focus Brands, where she climbed to COO before leaving for the startup Athletic Greens.

Cole’s nontraditional career and educational trajectory prompted her to figure out other ways of pushing and advocating for herself. During her 14 years at Hooters, Cole says it was sometimes hard to find mentors outside of the company because of the chain’s reputation. She developed the hotshot rule as one way of gaining insight from others—even if only in her head.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe

The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Past generations for future ones. 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki announced the company would take in $20 million to continue to provide some DNA data from consenting users to pharmaceutical company GSK for drug discovery. The five-year-old partnership already produced a cancer drug that was put to clinical trials in expedited time. Bloomberg

- Age-acquired taste. Former Celine and Chloé creative director Phoebe Philo spent years training the next generation of fashion leaders all while keeping a low public profile. After five years of silence, she’s returned with a sophisticated, sleek, and subtle line that shows an appreciation for getting older. Washington Post

- AI on your own dollar. Golnar Khosrowshahi built the first publicly traded music company started and led by a woman by cataloging songs from the likes of Joni Mitchell and Evanescence over the past 16 years. Her acquisition-centered approach is a prototype for private equity firms that are following in her footsteps, and now she’s looking to monetize the coming boom of AI music trained on her catalog. The Verge

- Physical health days. Pregnant farmers in California are eligible for paid leave once they receive their first positive pregnancy test because of the risks associated with prenatal exposure to pesticides. With many health care providers hesitant to grant PTO until late into the pregnancy, or not at all, an organization started by lawyers is trying to make sure pregnant farmers know their rights. The 19th

- Post pushback. Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Samira Nasr is reportedly at risk of losing her job after claiming that Israel’s decision to cut off water and electricity to Gaza was “the most inhuman thing I’ve ever seen in my life” in an Instagram post. Nasr is now part of a wave of people experiencing similar backlash for public criticism of Israel; she has since apologized for the statement. The Cut

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Yahoo appointed Sona Iliffe-Moon as chief communications officer. TodayTix named Liza Lefkowski to the company's board of directors. 

ON MY RADAR

Writing ‘Maid’ pulled Stephanie Land out of poverty. She’s fine now, right? New York Times

The unstoppable Angel Reese wants more The Athletic

The Goldilocks fashion star of ’23 Puck

PARTING WORDS

"I’m sure every one of us has had our moments where we thought, ‘God I’m doing the best I can to keep people alive, and some are trying to kill me. What am I doing?’ This camaraderie, it keeps you going."

—New York Governor Kathy Hochul on the importance of her close friendship with seven other female governors during the pandemic