Herbert Lui

Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.

  • About
  • Creative Doing
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  • Getting rich

    One path to getting rich looks more like saving money. While your friends buy the fancier options, you don’t. You’re not broke, you’re living within your means and taking steps toward richness. Maybe you used to borrow from the future, and now you’ve given that inclination up. Whereas most people may feel a horrifying shame…

    Herbert Lui

    May 2, 2025
    Turning Stories
  • Your own project

    You should always have at least one project, or a performance, that you can complete with no meetings, no bosses, and no external accountability. Just you doing something for yourself, where you don’t need to explain yourself at all, or need to make money doing. If it resonates with other people, it’s even more special…

    Herbert Lui

    May 1, 2025
    Creativity
  • Two quotes about fans and enthusiasm

    “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know,” the cliché goes. (Not one of the quotes.)  If you’re doing creative work—visual art, writing, music, entrepreneurship, programming, design, amongst the many other forms of expression—it’s entirely about who you know and who knows you.  These people create supportive contexts for you by working as managers,…

    Herbert Lui

    April 30, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Promotion, Turning Stories
  • Making the money vs. collecting it

    Chris Rock asked a young comic what he did that day. “Nothing,” the young comic said. “But I’m going to do a set tonight.”  “You make money during the day. You collect it at night,” Chris responded. “During the day is where the money is made.” There’s a writing lesson here: While comics and comedians…

    Herbert Lui

    April 29, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
  • The right answer vs. your answer

    Cluely is a new AI app that listens to your conversations and feeds you the best answers. The team behind it created a phrase designed to be misunderstood and polarizing, but saying that it lets you cheat on any conversation. Cheating like a calculator is cheating a math test, of course. If you choose to…

    Herbert Lui

    April 28, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
  • The trunk and the branches

    Every tree has a central trunk. This trunk eventually splits into branches.  Some trees, like the pine tree, will maintain a strong central trunk throughout and very weak side branches, with a goal of growing as tall as possible to get more sunlight. It focuses all of its nutrients towards strengthening this central trunk. This…

    Herbert Lui

    April 27, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Promotion
  • Why not both?

    “Do you want this, or that?” Yes. Sometimes, the best option isn’t to choose one or the other. It’s to choose both. (The formal business school term for this is integrative thinking.) For example, if you’re an author, and you’re asking yourself, “Do you want to self-publish your next book, or work with a publisher?” …

    Herbert Lui

    April 26, 2025
    Creativity, Turning Stories
  • The wall of cringe

    Let’s say you want to be a DJ. You’ve done some DJing for friends, you’ve gotten good at the craft, and you’re ready to go pro. Your goal is to be invited to a mainstream festival stage and get offered tens of thousands of dollars.  You start to put some feelers to your family and…

    Herbert Lui

    April 25, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories
  • Cash covers things up

    Money makes it easy for people to lie to themselves, and to other people. None of the entrepreneurs who started Theranos, Nikola, Fast, Juicero, and WeWork would have gotten very far with what they were doing if they didn’t raise cash from investors. Cash can cover up all sorts of problems, or at the very…

    Herbert Lui

    April 24, 2025
    Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
  • Memory, reliability, trust, and confidence

    People need time to learn. You and I are constantly in the role of a teacher, and in the role of a student. A teacher might go over a set of facts, an example, or a standard operating process once. That isn’t enough. Knowledge transfer happens over time, with application and practice.  If you’re in…

    Herbert Lui

    April 23, 2025
    Creativity, Expectations
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