Herbert Lui

Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.

  • About
  • Creative Doing
  • Newsletter
  • Commit first, plan later

    My former colleague at Figma, Claire Butler, recently wrote a really great post about what she learned working at Figma. The lesson that stood out to me most was this one, “When you’re stuck, commit to action. Strategy will follow.”  In other words, if you’re making something new, planning too far ahead will likely just…

    Herbert Lui

    April 6, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Figma, Turning Stories
  • How replaceable is your work?

    If you drive for Uber, you work in a software supply chain. The software facilitates a bunch of people’s requests for the service, and decides when you—the driver—get to do a ride. The only reason you’re driving is because Uber’s software can’t drive the car itself yet. The second Uber invents a self-driving car, you’re…

    Herbert Lui

    April 5, 2025
    Creativity, Creator Confidential
  • Professionalism and pressure

    The person who holds the world record for basketball free throws shot over 2,000 consecutive baskets in a row. But if you put them in a stadium and a tight score between the teams, they might not have been able to shoot two. The main difference between playing basketball in a rec league and playing…

    Herbert Lui

    April 4, 2025
    Creator Confidential, Expectations
  • Progress ebbs and flows

    This was a lesson one of my bosses shared with me: most people don’t improve consistently every quarter. Instead, progress ebbs and flows.  Sometimes—maybe many times—you might feel like you’re going through a plateau. Many other people would quit. If you remain confident you’re heading in the right direction, then you need to stick with…

    Herbert Lui

    April 3, 2025
    A Matter of Time, Creativity, Life, Turning Stories
  • Top of mind

    My partner, my cat, and I once missed a connecting flight due to a luggage hiccup. The staff got us replacement tickets for another flight 12 hours later. Maybe we could catch an earlier flight if there was space, they said. That was a possibility we were eager to explore. So I walked to the…

    Herbert Lui

    April 2, 2025
    Creator Confidential, Life, Promotion
  • Don’t fight back, fight forward with forgiveness

    A restaurateur speaks up publicly for what he thinks is right. The people who think he’s wrong take action. They vandalize his restaurant. Glass is shattered. Mirrors broken. Furniture destroyed. He had invited his father to town to dine at the restaurant. That can’t happen now that the restaurant is in such bad shape. He…

    Herbert Lui

    April 1, 2025
    Life, Turning Stories
  • Letting go of the scene

    I live in downtown NYC. I wouldn’t consider FiDi a particularly cool neighborhood. Geographically speaking, I could probably be further from the scene—I’m not in the burbs!—but socially speaking, I haven’t broken in. To be honest, I could not be less interested.  Yes, there is occasional FOMO. While I moved here for work, when I…

    Herbert Lui

    March 31, 2025
    A Matter of Time, Creativity, Turning Stories
  • AI and living tutorials

    A couple of years ago, I published a post on how I thought AI would disrupt writing, editing, and marketing. I wrote, “The notion that people won’t get replaced with A.I., but people who work with A.I., rings true in each of these fields.” One reason this happens is because AI simply makes an individual…

    Herbert Lui

    March 30, 2025
    Contentions, Creator Confidential
  • Micro-meditations

    When you make just a few seconds of space between stimulus and response, you create an option to respond intentionally. Imagine closing your eyes for as little as 15 to 30 seconds. Questlove calls this a micro-meditation, describing it in his book Creative Quest, “In some way, if they’re done correctly, they won’t seem like…

    Herbert Lui

    March 29, 2025
    A Matter of Time, Creativity
  • Contentions: Apple TV’s billion dollar loss

    There’s a possibility that Apple is losing over $1 billion per year on Apple TV. The so-called “loss” is plausible, it’s also a rather ordinarily-sized expense considering Apple’s relatively high scale other marketing expenses. Consider this: Another report suggests that Apple spent $775 million per year on ads in 2023, with $512 million of that…

    Herbert Lui

    March 28, 2025
    Contentions
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