People are at the heart of it.

The four chapters at the center of Creative Hustle focus on what's at the center of our lives: people. In response to my first article in this series, Michael Lipset Ph.D. and Ariam Mogos left comments naming one of their core values as community. As Olatunde Sobomehin and I interviewed many creative hustlers, we found they all had highly developed senses of who their people are and how to cultivate their community. Over the next few days I'll share some stories about the three inspiring folks we profile in the second section of the book, each of whom has taught us valuable lessons about how to engage others in their creative endeavors. But today I want to share a bit about the team of brilliant people who contributed to the creation of the book itself.

Before I write another word, I should be clear that I can't possibly shout out everyone who helped make this book happen. We tried to do that in the Acknowledgements section and ended up needing to add more when we recorded the audio book and even more to the ebook. We are lucky and grateful to have so many collaborators, friends, and family, who have generously supported this effort.

Today though, I want to share a bit about the core team that worked on making this book this book. The first person I've gotta mention is Scott Doorley . Scott and Charlotte Burgess Auburn are longtime Stanford d.school leaders and have been tending to the curation and creation of the series of d.school guidebooks.

I remember exactly where I was sitting in Lisa Lee and Adam Bush 's apartment when I had a video chat with Scott and he suggested the idea of turning the Creative Hustle class into a book. I'll forever be grateful for the idea and encouragement. As soon as we got moving with the book, Scott transformed into a hybrid of cheerleader, critical friend, artistic mastermind, and project coordinator. He could talk tone and timeline, content and color, structure and style. What an incredible player to have on our team!

Scott introduced us to Jennifer Brown who gave Olatunde and I the incredible gift of good editing. Jenn really dug into our drafts and helped make them sing. Wow. For a word nerd like me, it is such a treat to have someone who really gets what language can do and is willing to push the words we put on the page to the point of greatest impact.

As I already shared, Squint has been part of the Creative Hustle brain trust since the beginning and when we asked for help capturing iconic images of the nine folks we feature throughout the book, he built with us about the vision, picked up his camera, boarded flights, and made it happen. Not only did he bless us with original photographs of the folks we profiled, he also offered photos for the other artwork throughout the book (like the image at the top of this post).

When it came to the art for the book, I tried to be mainly in student mode. Getting to work with such talented visual collaborators, I felt my best move was to sit back, listen intently, and learn. That said, I love word art (which is to say: visual art that includes language) and from the beginning I suggested that part of the art program for the book could be hand lettering. We got to work with a pro. Hope Meng did the lettering on the cover, as well as a couple of two-page spreads, and three fold-outs (oh yea, the book has fold-outs!). Seeing how Hope played with layering lettering into Squint's photos were some of the funnest moments in the book creation process (again like the image up top).

Jori Tytus joined us later in the process and quickly caught up adding beautiful illustrations to all of the chapter openings and the beginning and end of the book. I love how each of her images are unique but complement each other, and the way in which they visually pop off the page.

The team at Ten Speed Press was phenomenal. No matter what idea we came with (like having some of the pages in the book run sideways), they earnestly engaged with it. I always had the feeling that they would try to honor our vision—no matter how zany—and at the same time that they would not let us make something that ultimately wouldn't work well for our readers. That confidence gave us the courage to explore and try more things.

The biggest point I want to make about all these folks is that in addition to being absurdly talented, they have all been thoughtful, kind, patient, funny, and caring. I have a feeling that the quality of their work is not unrelated to the quality of their character. As our dear friend Barry Svigals, FAIA reminds us, "how we are is what it becomes."

No one better embodies that truth than my co-author and brother, Olatunde Sobomehin . He imbues every interaction with warmth, honesty, and a contagious desire for all of us to be the best versions of ourselves. Getting to work with him and to more deeply know him and his family has been the best part of this process for me.

How have you built the communities of collaborators for the work that matters most to you? What communities are you trying to build next?