A case study

On community care + creativity

The Inner Workout book comes out tomorrow!

If you haven’t ordered it, please take a moment to do so. The book is packed with meaningful practices. It’s absolutely gorgeous. And it’s a tangible way to support my free offerings like my newsletters and podcast, which still cost time and money to create.

Now that official business is out of the way, it’s story time.

A few weeks ago, I reached out to my publisher to follow up about lifestyle shots for the book. They’d told me in January that their photographer would be working on them. I wasn’t expecting anything too fancy, just a handful of photos that I could use for marketing and share with partners who needed photos for their marketing efforts.

You know what my publisher sent me? A mockup that looked like it’d been made in Photoshop…

Maybe there was a mixup. I followed up again to ask for the lifestyle photos we’d discussed previously and was told that the photographer had left the company.

Cool. Cool. Cool.

We were less than a month out from launch. I had folks waiting for book photos that didn’t exist, and I hadn’t budgeted time or money for these photos because I thought the publisher would provide them.

So what did I do? I called my mom. Then I called my friend Amelia. There was frustration and tears. Then I put on my game face.

Molly Struve 🦄 @molly_struve

Damn straight you can do both 🙌 💪

After listening to my venting, Amelia invited me to lean on community. “There is someone in your network who will be willing to take these photos and turn them around quickly,” she encouraged me.

I needed that reminder because my knee jerk reaction is always to assume I have to carry everything alone.

A flurry of action followed. Amelia sent me the photos from her book photo shoot for inspiration. I texted my friend Nastasia, a semi-retired photographer, to see if she could spare any time for a photoshoot the following week.

I whipped up a creative brief in Notion, a task I wouldn’t have felt creatively confident enough to take on last year. It was a somewhat backward endeavor. I catalogued photos that resonated, noted what drew me to them, translated those photos into a vibe, then sought more inspiration that met the vibe.

This ordeal started on Friday at the end of the workday. By Saturday, we had a photoshoot on the books for Monday.

And that’s not even the wildest part. I paid zero dollars out of pocket.

I talk a lot about the importance of building a network and a community. This shoot was a case study of community in action.

Amelia recently signed up for a software that gives outrageous referral bonuses, and she made sure to use my referral code when she signed up. I had a $400 Visa gift card sitting in my inbox because she was looking out for me.

That gift card allowed me to book a Peerspace for a few hours, buy some props, and I had plenty left over to buy supplies for my book launch party.

When I reached out to Nastasia, I planned on paying her. I believe that you should pay your friends’ rates, not ask for discounts. Imagine my surprise when she asked if we could do a trade: she’d take these photos in exchange for coaching sessions.

It was an immediate yes from me. And also a reminder that reciprocity can exist even when there isn’t money exchanged.

I’ve been reading a lot of research on resilience lately. In the mainstream, resilience is characterized as an individual trait, but the research shows that our communities and context play an enormous role in our ability to be resilient.

My journey to publishing this book has been filled with setbacks and miscommunication and confusion. Maybe one day I’ll share the full story. I’m not sure yet.

What I am sure of is that this book will be in the world tomorrow because of my support system. The story of these photos, which are more gorgeous (and plentiful!) than anything my publisher would have given me, is just one small example of that truth.

I’m entering book week with so much gratitude. Thank you community. Thank you support system. Thank you readers.

And if you want to celebrate with me in real time, make sure you’re RSVPed for Sunday’s virtual launch event!