‘Failure Is Our Most Excellent Teacher’: Pinky Cole’s Inspirational New Book Grants Us The Permission To Fail

Pinky Cole, founder of the wildly successful restaurant chain Slutty Vegan, has experienced an amazing year so far, including leading a standout business and marrying her longtime partner Derrick Hayes (Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks) with blushing pink adornments in Atlanta, Georgia. Additionally, the entrepreneur is expanding her family, as she’s pregnant with her third child, another son. 

In July 2018, Cole was inspired to create a vegan restaurant due to her cravings for junk food. She came up with the name Slutty Vegan as a provocative hook. Throughout 2018, she sold her first vegan burgers through delivery apps and opened a food truck in September. In  January 2019, she opened the first Slutty Vegan brick-and-mortar restaurant. Now she’s teaming up with HarperCollins to write her second book, I Hope You Fail, releasing in October 2023 but is currently available for pre-order.

“I wrote this book to empower and assist people in navigating through failure. Encouraging women and men worldwide to see it as an opportunity to catapult them to their desired destiny and not view it as the world sees it is important to me. Failure is our most excellent teacher. How you view it changes everything!” Cole says exclusively to ESSENCE. 

Cole has spent her life dreaming of financial security. After a fire destroyed the New York City restaurant, she put everything into the building, and she was back to square one, working hard for someone else’s dream. Her life has been a series of lessons that have given her the tools to build a business that drew the attention of some of the world’s top investors. Cole’s failures have driven her successes. In these pages, you will gain inspiration from her story, as the lessons she describes will have you turning failure into opportunities for success. Her book includes Cole’s hopes for the aspiring entrepreneur or someone navigating life’s ups and downs.  

In I Hope You Fail, Cole tells her own story to empower you in yours. She’ll share her ten counter-intuitive hopes for you, including thought-provoking prompts to reflect on, like the ones below. 

• I hope you don’t believe in yourself. . . because the journey to discovering who you truly are is the key to unlocking the life you want.
• I hope you don’t get that raise. . . because money doesn’t equal respect, but it can show you how much you are truly valued at work.
• I hope the customers don’t show up. . . so you can have the feedback you need to reevaluate your approach and find one that works.

Filled with practical advice and motivational gut punches, I Hope You Fail will teach you how to learn from your WTF moments, find fuel in your losses, and inspire you to keep going. 

 You can purchase her upcoming book,  I Hope You Fail, on October 10th.