Before She Started Slutty Vegan, A Disaster Taught Her the Difference Between Making the 'Best' Choice and the 'Right' One When things go wrong (and they will), Cole says it's all too easy to ask, "Why is this happening to me?"

Entrepreneurs mess up. It'll happen to you, because it happens to everyone.

Pinky Cole wants you to know: That's OK.

"My mindset used to be like, Oh, why is this happening to me?" Cole says. "I changed it to, OK, this is happening. What do I learn from this? How is this going to make me better? Embrace the fact that things are going to happen, so when things happen, just know that they're happening to make you better."

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Like any entrepreneur, Cole is known for what she's done right — which, in her case, is creating the buzzy Atlanta-based restaurant Slutty Vegan, whose 11 locations now command long lines and a lot of press attention. But she's gotten a lot of things wrong too. Cole opens up about all of this and more in her new book, I Hope You Fail. Here, she talks about coping with major failures, and how any entrepreneur can reframe the worst days of their careers.

The first tip that you give in your new book is: "Get Damn Fire Insurance." Because before Slutty Vegan, you did not get damn fire insurance. Tell me about the lesson you learned.

So I opened up my first restaurant, Pinky's American and Jamaican Restaurant — and I'm talking about eating, breathing, sleeping in that business. I did fairly well, but I didn't realize I was missing some core ingredients of a successful establishment. One of those things was fire insurance.

I wasn't required at the time to get fire insurance, so I didn't do it. I was trying to cut a corner. But one day I got a phone call from the fire department that my restaurant was on fire. The biggest lesson I learned is to make sure you have your resources in order, because the things that you really need will come back to bite you in the ass.

But people think when you see a speed bump or a hurdle, it's just like, The world is over. It might feel like it's over, but that's really gearing you up for the best thing that ever happened to your life. Because of the fire, I was able to open up Slutty Vegan and now have a multimillion-dollar company.

Related: If You're Going to Fail, Fail Smart

Many entrepreneurs get struck by catastrophe, so I'd love to zoom in to the moment where you were like, "I'm not going to quit this entrepreneurial journey. This is not where this ends."

Failure is going to happen. Bad things are going to happen. Speed bumps and hurdles are going to happen. Sometimes you're going to try to figure out how you're going to pay these bills or how you'll pay these employees. And if you don't go through those things in business, good for you. But I feel like there's a level of integrity that you build when you go through some challenges in business.

One quote from your book that I really love is, "Because many of us weren't trained in the world of entrepreneurship, we often take the losses personally because nobody told us that it's just business." So how do you not take loss personally now?

I used to take it very personally, and I still have my moments. But then I've got to check myself, look in the mirror sometimes, and be like, Oh, get it together, snap out of it.

I'll have my snap-out-of-it moments because I realize, at the end of the day, nobody cares. Nobody cares about the fact that you're crying in business. Nobody cares about the fact that you're emotional because somebody did or said something you didn't like. Don't nobody give a damn. You just got to keep going.

How did the fire affect how you budgeted for Slutty Vegan?

I'm very frugal, to a fault. I'll give you an example. We did a $25 million raise, which I was like, "$25 million!" I saw my bank account like, "$25 million at one time. Oh my God!" And I got cheaper while everybody around me in my team was like, "OK, so we're going to do this fund and everybody gets a gas card." I'm like, "No." I got cheaper.

There was a little fear there, I'll be honest. Because I'm like, "I don't want to lose this." Eminem, a wise philosopher, once said, "You only get one shot. Do not miss your chance to blow because opportunity comes once in a lifetime." When it comes to my business, I like to squeeze the lemon because I believe that if you can do it without all this money, you should be able to still do it the same way with the money. You ain't got to do all of these things while you're just running through money. That is how businesses fall apart, and I didn't want to be one of those businesses.

Related: Why Lifelong Learning Is the Key to Entrepreneurial Success — and How to Embrace the Lifelong Learner Within Yourself

So you have a mantra that you recommend for entrepreneurs when disaster strikes: You say, "I overflow with possibilities and I will dream again." What does that mean to you?

I'm a big dreamer, and just because bad things happen does not mean you should dim your light. I'll tell you a story. So The New Yorker did a nine-pager on me. That was probably one of the biggest moments in my career. Then the very next day I was on the cover of Jet magazine and it's in Target. I'm like, "I'm on fire." The very next day it was really a fire because I'm all over the news: Pinky Cole of Slutty Vegan is getting sued for unpaid wages. I'm hearing it for the first time. I'm checking my books like, "How is this even possible?"

It dimmed my light for a second. I felt like I was falling out of love with my business. And a true entrepreneur will tell you the truth: We go through these ups and downs. You love your business, but then there's moments that you just get tired and you want to throw the towel in. That was the first time that ever happened to me. But remember what I told you? Don't nobody care. But guess what that meant for me? That meant: Things are going to happen, but you can never stop dreaming.

And I just got back to a place, I'll be honest, where I started falling back in love with my business. I had to practice what I preached: In the midst of everything else, just never stop dreaming. And it may look bad. It may hurt sometimes. But you got to keep dreaming. Because guess what? As long as you keep dreaming, your imagination will keep going, and you'll be able to manifest all the things that you think about.

You make a distinction between choosing the best thing and the right thing. Can you explain the difference?

So when we think about the best thing, it's relative. The best thing could be something that's best for me, but that might not be best for you. What's best for me is not getting the fire insurance so that I could keep some money in my pocket. But what's right will never be wrong. The right thing will always make sure that I'm in the best position possible, to be safe, to be sound, to make sure that my business is moving properly. My mother always tells me, "When you do it right once, you never got to do it twice."

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