Herbert Lui

Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.

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  • Create full-time job opportunities by adding value as a freelancer

    If you’re unemployed and seeking a full-time job, you could intentionally approach freelancing as if it were an alternative to the interview process. This can be effective, because every hiring manager has too many problems and too little time. They are, often, toiling away at work that doesn’t add leverage for them (nor does it…

    Herbert Lui

    December 6, 2025
    Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories
  • Notes from a season of movement

    I’ve moved around the world more often than usual this year. I hadn’t written much about this, so I wanted to start with this post: My wife and I moved away from NYC, where we lived for two years, back to Toronto. I left my job as the director of marketing for FGX. I spent…

    Herbert Lui

    December 5, 2025
    Around the World
  • Streaks are fragile, practices are anti fragile

    Streaks are useful for keeping a behavior going. When you’re on a streak, the momentum and fear of breaking the streak carries you through to repeating a behavior. If you’ve worked out three times a week for 100 weeks straight, you want to do the same next week to keep the streak going. But what…

    Herbert Lui

    December 4, 2025
    A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential
  • Meditating through self-forgiveness, frustration, and overwhelm

    A friend was going through a hard time at work. They knew I practiced meditation, and wanted to learn more about the practice. It has been almost a decade since I started. Here’s some of what I shared with them: If you want to get started meditating, Headspace publishes some guided meditations at YouTube that…

    Herbert Lui

    December 3, 2025
    Creativity, Life
  • Imagined realities can be shaped

    For better or worse, people know what “content marketing” is. It’s a genre. It also used to make me feel sick. I felt embarrassed, as if content marketing meant that I didn’t take writing seriously. I vented about it a few years ago. When I started a business which worked with software companies on their…

    Herbert Lui

    December 2, 2025
    Contentions, Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories
  • Being frugal makes entrepreneurs less fragile

    Many—maybe most—bootstrapped entrepreneurs tend to bias towards frugality. A dollar saved is a dollar earned. Saving money buys greater freedom, it also enables the entrepreneurs to survive longer, so they have more time to execute their plans or to get lucky. Here are some scenes from my career to illustrate: A client leased a beautiful…

    Herbert Lui

    December 1, 2025
    Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
  • When you follow your inclinations, you create a special type of luck

    Very early in my career, I worked a day job writing for Lifehacker. One of my favorite posts was about how to create your own luck. The piece featured research from neurologist James H. Austin, who suggested there were four types of luck. One of these types is specific to your own personal preferences, inclinations,…

    Herbert Lui

    November 30, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations
  • Don’t make maintenance a last resort

    If you only ever visit the doctor when you have an emergency, you’d believe that every doctor’s trip should be urgent and borderline life threatening. “The doctor is so ineffective!” you might think. That’s not how it needs to be though. Annual check ups and visits with mild symptoms help you get ahead of the…

    Herbert Lui

    November 29, 2025
    Expectations, Turning Stories
  • Good judgment does not mean being judgmental

    Anyone who wants to make good work needs to master the art of receiving constructive feedback, knowing what to do with it, and following through with making changes.  “There are no writers, there are only rewriters,” says author John Seabrook. What pieces of feedback are useful? Which is most important? What are some possible solutions?…

    Herbert Lui

    November 28, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
  • To get back into reading, choose a book just for fun

    Whenever you fall off a reading practice, a useful way to get back into it is to read a book just for fun. Purely out of interest, curiosity, and joy. Some books that have done that for me lately: Office Ladies, Adversity for Sale, How Starbucks Saved My Life. When you don’t read, it’s easy…

    Herbert Lui

    November 27, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
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