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

Making new material with the old

A piece of advice I’ve found very useful is work with what’s in front of you. I’ve found myself applying this in single, short, writing sessions as well. For example, writing a blog post or outline without opening a new tab, using only my lived experiences as research. Writing a social media or newsletter by…

Herbert Lui

June 29, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories

Make your work pay off

In the past couple of weeks, my wife and I started watching a few different movies at home. We paused them all and stepped away, because we just weren’t enjoying them. We may give a couple of them another shot. Attention is more precious than ever. Promoting your work to other people is only part…

Herbert Lui

June 28, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential

Happiness, desires, values, and environments

“Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want,” Naval Ravikant wrote. Sheryl Crow famously sang, “It’s not having what you want/It’s wanting what you’ve got.” Being happy with what you have is a reliable way to find happiness. The problem is it’s not so easy…

Herbert Lui

June 27, 2026

Expectations, Life

Creating the conditions for organic content growth

A month after I first started at Figma, I traveled from NYC to SF for its annual conference named Config. It was the first in-person one after the pandemic. My co-worker Jenny and I wrote a liveblog for it, and I also got to see a copy of Creative Doing on the bookshelf at Figma…

Herbert Lui

June 26, 2026

Contentions, Creator Confidential, Figma, Promotion, Turning Stories

A market fueled by purpose

There are a lot of dedicated entrepreneurs who have set up their own dog rescue agencies in South Korea. Each one has, effectively, created their own market. They rescue dogs in troubled circumstances, and match them up with people who want to have a dog in their life. It sounds simple enough, but logistics can…

Herbert Lui

June 25, 2026

Around the World, Expectations, Turning Stories

Don’t check your blog metrics yet

Here’s the latest edition of my newsletter for early-stage growth leaders, Leading Thinker, which I also shared at LinkedIn: TL;DR: When you start a new blog or publication, your metrics will disappoint you. That disappointment leads to doubt, and often kills a content practice before it has a proper chance to make an impact. A…

Herbert Lui

June 24, 2026

Contentions, Creator Confidential, Figma, Promotion

Creative contribution

Awards and sales performance are the easiest ways to measure creative work. They also frame the creative process as a competition. There are winners and losers in both, and it focuses on results. This isn’t a useful frame for actually making something you want to make, which is what being a creative person actually means.…

Herbert Lui

June 23, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories

Ownership requires energy and storage

A few years ago, my wife and I owned roughly over 500 books in paperback and hardcover. Here they were, in a condo in Toronto: When my wife and I moved to Hong Kong, I figured I’d be back in six months and we packed these books up. They were, by far, the most difficult…

Herbert Lui

June 22, 2026

Around the World, Creativity, Turning Stories

Developing a clearer business strategy helped unblock my writing

A few months ago, I wrote about my return to business writing as well as one way of framing the service. However, I still felt a block about promoting it to my friends and peers at LinkedIn: should I write about the Consistency Journal, or should I write about my business writing services? The immediate…

Herbert Lui

June 21, 2026

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories

Top 40,000,000 under 40

Every year, all sorts of organizations publish a list of upcoming leaders, called the Top 40 Under 40. Part of what makes it special is scarcity: it excludes everyone except 40 people. In Canada, where I live, there are just over 40 million people. 10 million of them are between 20 to 40 (let’s assume…

Herbert Lui

June 20, 2026

Creator Confidential, Promotion, Turning Stories