Herbert Lui

Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.

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  • Two ways to increase the value of your work

    People get value from your work and experiences when you publish it and they experience it. There are two ways to increase the value of your work: You can improve the experience (e.g., through crafting the story, or telling it in a new and interesting way). You can contextualize it further. Or, you can get…

    Herbert Lui

    December 9, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Promotion
  • The writer’s room inside your mind

    Many TV shows hire writers. These writers work together to discuss what they want to accomplish with the show, characters, and episodes. They also share what they’ve noticed and what has caught their interest.  Each writer pitches ideas, writes and edits scripts, and in the process turns them into stories that, hopefully, stick with us.…

    Herbert Lui

    December 8, 2025
    Creativity, Expectations, Turning Stories
  • Cultivating a life with less deadline pressure

    Instead of counting down with a timer, try counting up with a stop watch. This is a lesson I learned from a personal trainer, who was timing me as I rested between sets. In addition to tracking what’s left to do, proactively track what you did. This is the iDoneThis philosophy. Right now, I cross…

    Herbert Lui

    December 7, 2025
    A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential
  • 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
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