Herbert Lui – Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.

When time is scarce, energy is abundant

In preparation for a busier season, I started listening to the audiobook of The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. The premise of the book is to focus on managing your energy, not your time. That’s a punchy way of telling a busy person, “Be less busy, and make time to…

Herbert Lui

July 27, 2026

A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories

The future of work is made up

You’re having lunch with your coworker, who flew in from out of town. While your coworker used to be very busy, their schedule at the moment was wide open. When you ask them about your new boss, they tell you their boss just seems to hide off in a conference room. The two have met…

Herbert Lui

July 26, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Promotion, Turning Stories

So many people, so many interests

Last week, the World Cup finals were on. I did groceries and found out Spain won as I was entering a store. There were a lot of people running errands. While I walked around, I listened to an audiobook of Abundance, then a podcast interview with Young City. A mother and daughter with Blue Jays…

Herbert Lui

July 25, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Promotion

Simple projects survive

An idea is fragile. If you’re trying to turn it into a tangible project, part of your job early on is simply to strengthen it enough to survive. Overthinking is the greatest threat to its survival. When my wife and I were making The Consistency Journal, we focused on getting the writing and design ready.…

Herbert Lui

July 24, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations

A longer time horizon creates the conditions for abundance

In their book Scarcity, Eldar Shafir and Sendhil Mullainathan suggest that scarcity often starts with abundance. Imagine you have a deadline next week. That’s plenty of time to do the task—abundance—so you figure you’ll do it later. Eventually, you forget about it, and you only remember the day of the deadline. Now there’s scarcity: you…

Herbert Lui

July 23, 2026

A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories

5 tactics for hitting the Hacker News front page

I was recently chatting with a friend who wanted to reach more software developers. I recalled some of the advice I gave him in my latest post at LinkedIn, which I’ve republished below: I’ve hit the front page of Hacker News 10+ times for Figma and other companies, and picked up five tactics along the…

Herbert Lui

July 22, 2026

Contentions, Creator Confidential, Promotion

Talent-led sales

When I started an independent editorial studio, most of my business came from referrals. I continued this as I rebooted my business writing practice several months ago. I also wrote thoughtful cold emails to companies I very intentionally filtered and focused on, and made time to chat with former clients and coworkers. These sales activities…

Herbert Lui

July 21, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Promotion, Turning Stories

Notes on making The Consistency Journal

It’s been almost a year since we started developing the original idea for what turned into The Consistency Journal. This post is intentionally brief and incomplete: Sometimes an experiment needs months or years to work out. Taking on work outside of an experiment can buy the time and relaxation you need to sustain it. It…

Herbert Lui

July 20, 2026

A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations

Marketing is about finding the exceptions

One of my friends is an incredibly talented software developer. After a long stint building their own software products, they’d started freelancing again and built a great website for their first client. My friend gave the client’s website a facelift, of course; plus, along the way, they made it more efficient so the website loaded…

Herbert Lui

July 19, 2026

Creator Confidential, Promotion, Turning Stories

Dare to bore me

Before The Office made its debut, the landscape of TV comedies was driven by Friends and Baywatch. Studios wanted to see beautiful people cracking jokes. The British version of The Office was the antithesis of that, and the showrunner of the American version wanted to keep that spirit. When Allison Jones was casting The Office,…

Herbert Lui

July 18, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories