Herbert Lui

Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.

  • About
  • Creative Doing
  • Newsletter
  • Miracleless growth

    A good friend of mine had recently pivoted their career, from growth marketing in tech to the culinary arts. In their exploration, they’d realized they didn’t want to work as a chef or start a restaurant. Instead, they introduced their dishes through self-initiated supper clubs. They found their first customers by inviting friends and their…

    Herbert Lui

    January 6, 2026
    Creator Confidential, Expectations, Promotion, Turning Stories
  • Make your dream something you can’t fail at

    Some children have dreams of winning awards; they practice their speeches in front of mirrors, speaking into their toothbrush as if it was a microphone. Tilda Swinton’s dreams were much more ordinary. Her ambitions were to live by the sea, with a garden she could grow vegetables in, somewhere in Scotland, where she was born…

    Herbert Lui

    January 5, 2026
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Life, Turning Stories
  • Why not today?

    Whether it’s January 1, or January 4, or any of the other 363¼ days of the year, today is a great day to make a resolution. You don’t need to wait for a specific window of time. If you’ve made changes all year, the new year is a great time to celebrate those changes and…

    Herbert Lui

    January 4, 2026
    A Matter of Time, Creativity
  • The scribbled sheet of paper that changed fashion

    Before he joined Louis Vuitton as its menswear artistic director, Virgil Abloh had lunch with Bernard Arnault. Bernard’s family owned the majority of LVMH, the parent company of Louis Vuitton and many other luxury brands, and he worked as its CEO.  A lunch with Bernard was, effectively, a rite of passage. In her wonderful biography…

    Herbert Lui

    January 3, 2026
    Creativity, Creator Confidential
  • A journal’s purpose

    Every journal exists for one purpose: for someone to fill it up.  You can fill up a journal in many ways. Here are some: writing, drawing, collage, painting, or coloring. Once the journal is full, it has achieved its purpose and it quietly transforms into a book.  You can choose to dispose of it, keep…

    Herbert Lui

    January 2, 2026
    A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential
  • Stop exploiting yourself

    One of the friends you grew up with is now a popular YouTuber. When they visit your city, they ask if they can stay with you, and you oblige them. You get a glimpse into their life.  An employee might get a lunch break, but not a YouTuber; lunch is for filming. They constantly are…

    Herbert Lui

    January 1, 2026
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
  • It’s always worth spending time up front to make the process smoother

    A lumberjack once said, if his life depended on cutting down a tree in five minutes, he would spend three minutes sharpening his axe. More and more, I’ve appreciated this approach to life. Here are some ways I’ve applied it: A few days ago, I wrote about how cleaning the dishes and kitchen before I…

    Herbert Lui

    December 31, 2025
    A Matter of Time, Creativity, Expectations, Turning Stories
  • Third places on Christmas

    When I grew up, Christmas was a day to spend at home or in someone else’s house. The convention was to be with family. Even if you weren’t, there wasn’t really an option, because most of the stores were closed. (Chinese restaurants were an exception!) That’s less the case now. There are several restaurants and…

    Herbert Lui

    December 30, 2025
    Around the World, Life
  • The asymptotic queue

    I write every day at this blog. It’s a rule that I respond very well to. Some people who write every day queue up many posts ahead of time, so something goes live every day. I imagine some people are 60 or even 100 days ahead. That means a post they write today will go…

    Herbert Lui

    December 29, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential
  • Whatever you struggle with is a great place to start writing

    “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people,” goes a quote attributed to Thomas Mann. The difficulty is, precisely, why you’d want to write. There’s something you need to make sense of, that you can’t avoid, and you need somewhere to put everything you think and feel.…

    Herbert Lui

    December 28, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories
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