What do you want to do, right now? What will other people think? What are some reasons you might succeed? What are some reasons you might fail? What are the emotions you feel? Does it matter? Who says something needs to get done? What’s the reason it’s important? What’s more important to you—being right, or […] The post What do you want to focus on? appeared first on Herbert Lui.| Herbert Lui
Here’s a good fable from Jean de La Fontaine: A Rat, in quite a foolish way, Crept from his hole between a Lion’s paws;The king of animals showed on that day His royalty, and never snapped his jaws.The kindness was not unrepaid;Yet, who’d have thought a Lion would need aid From a poor Rat? Soon […] The post The lion and the rat appeared first on Herbert Lui.| Herbert Lui
If you want to write a book of poetry, don’t try to write a textbook. The goal is to get the reader to think and feel. It’s not to give the reader a multi-volume, encyclopedic, collection on a topic. If the reader is upset, you need to decide if they wanted a textbook and bought […] The post Poetry vs. textbook appeared first on Herbert Lui.| Herbert Lui
Raymond Carver, a writing professor and author of short stories, had friends who published their work and apologized for it not being very good. “It would have been better if I’d taken the time,” they would say. Raymond responded: I wanted to say to my friend, for heaven’s sake go do something else. There have […]| Herbert Lui
In order to help my book find more readers, I attend events. I bring books and give away free copies. When my shoulders strain from the weight of the books in my backpack, and I wonder if there’s an easier way to do this, my mind goes to Rich Paul selling clothes out of the […] The post Out the backpack appeared first on Herbert Lui.| Herbert Lui
If you visited a grocery store in the 1800s, one of many clerks would do the shopping for you. It was only a century ago when you might choose an item from the shelf yourself, which is what many of us do today at a supermarket. The same thing has taken place with paying for […] The post Products, services, education, self service, and scale appeared first on Herbert Lui.| Herbert Lui
Kevin Kelly shares everything he knows about independent publishing, and concludes: The way I approach publishing today is with as much self-publishing as I can handle. I’d write in public installments, as a subscription newsletter, or e-book single chapters, or simple posts on my blog. If I could find an audience that wanted more of […]| Herbert Lui
More often than not, you won’t feel good before going to the gym. Maybe not even during. You’ll feel good after. Nobody’s forcing you to go, so it’s up to you. The popular saying goes, “The hardest part is putting the shoes on.” Personal growth works the same way. It takes place only after voluntary […] The post Personal growth happens after voluntary discomfort appeared first on Herbert Lui.| Herbert Lui
Imagine going up a roller coaster. The butterflies in your stomach are fluttering. There’s no turning back, you’re buckled into the seat. Without you realizing it, your breathing has grown shallow. Excitement, anxiety, and fear, all mixed up into one. The feeling crescendos as your seat gets higher and higher up into the air. All […] The post Stay with it appeared first on Herbert Lui.| Herbert Lui
Anne-Laure Le Cunff invited me to discuss Creative Doing with her community, Ness Labs. It was a really fun session: If you want to watch other sessions, check out: Creative Doing, on Infinite Loops Creative Doing, at Sharpen Your Edge Creative Doing, at Ideas Into Action Creative Doing, at Minds and Mics Creative Doing, at […]| Herbert Lui
If you want to live longer, one good way to start is to walk several thousand steps a day. (10,000 steps is the gold standard, though not scientific—the number was the result of a marketing campaign for a Japanese pedometer.) It’s not difficult to walk several thousand steps every day living in a city. In […]| Herbert Lui
How does one go from being a recording artist’s trusted, and reliable, creative collaborator to being the menswear designer at Louis Vuitton? Some might say that such a journey would be practically impossible. That’s the journey that the late Virgil Abloh made, accomplishing in years what others take decades to; it all started with screen […]| Herbert Lui
A few days ago, I woke up to the word, “Restraint.” I like this phrase, “If ‘the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,’ as Michael Porter famously wrote, then the essence of execution is truly not doing it.” One very tangible example comes from editing, where I learned to use rich words […]| Herbert Lui
Earlier this year, I decided to make “restraint” the one-word theme of the year. I wouldn’t call it fun, however there’s no doubt it has made my life richer. Here are five notes on how it’s going: Some more observations related to restraint:| Herbert Lui
Before Terry Crews became an actor, and after he played in the NFL, he took on gigs to make ends meet. One of these was as a security guard on movie sets, where he worked 12-hour shifts. While he didn’t have time to go to the gym, he improvised. He jogged in place for an […]| Herbert Lui
In The Optimism Bias, Tali Sharot writes a story about Pat Riley, who was head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s and had just won the 1987 NBA Championship: In the midst of the postvictory celebration, Riley was approached by a reporter. The journalist wanted to know if Riley believed the Lakers […]| Herbert Lui
In the late 1980s, an ad agency created a marketing campaign for Nike. The commercial featured an 80-year-old man running every morning, who says, “People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering all the time. I leave them in my locker.” Then, a slogan flashed on the screen, “Just do it.” This phrase […]| Herbert Lui
A contemplative exercise: If writing was a person, what would it be like? What would your relationship with it be like? For example, are you in a relationship with writing only because you hope it will bring you success and wealth? Is writing more like a friend, a spouse, or an acquaintance? Or is it […]| Herbert Lui
A young man discusses his latest challenge with a philosopher. Whenever he sees another young person’s story of success in a newspaper, he feels a strong sense of envy and frustration. He feels inferior, like he’s less than the other person. He’s reminded of his social standing, his modest education, and even the pimples on […]| Herbert Lui
When you put your confidence in external events—such as results or outcomes—you are also setting it up to be shaken by disturbances, setbacks, and rejections. While it might feel more exciting—high highs, low lows—this type of confidence is less resilient. One minute, your stock is up and you feel like you can take over the […]| Herbert Lui
If you want to do interesting things in your town or city, you’ll need to do homework. You might be signing up for local newsletters, checking out event calendars, or just walking around and observing. If there isn’t anything that’s interesting, your homework will be to start an event. There will always be people looking […]| Herbert Lui
When I meet my friend Hamza to record our podcast, New Materia, I’m usually sitting at a desk with a podcast mic. A few months ago, Hamza and I joined Emil Drud at his podcast, Creative Odyssey. (I’d mentioned this episode here, and previously joined Emil here!) It was a beautiful day outside, so I […]| Herbert Lui
In 1991, Japanese game company HAL Laboratory Inc. was 1.5 billion yen in debt and had to bet its future on one game. It was called Tinkle Popo, featuring a rotund protagonist named Popopo. HAL Laboratory had planned to publish Tinkle Popo independently, and sold 26,000 pre-ordered copies. Nintendo—a HAL Laboratory client and investor—intervened; game […]| Herbert Lui
Two related, and really useful, ideas from two psychologists: You don’t need to feel better—prepared, ready, in control—before you do the difficult thing. All life asks of you is that you participate. When you avoid negative emotions, you make them feel stronger. Steven C. Hayes explores experiential avoidance and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in […]| Herbert Lui
The survival approach: Choose the best option available, while you’re looking for your ideal option. Do whatever it takes to survive. There’s a Chinese saying, 騎牛搵馬, which translates to, “Ride a cow until you find a horse.” Seth Godin writes the second rule in The Bootstrapper Bible, “Things get better. But first, youʼve got to […]| Herbert Lui
On a recent visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario, I came across J.L. Gérôme’s “The Antique Pottery Painter,” which was accompanied by this statement: Artists often have the ability to make us believe their paintings are real. Gérôme mastered and exploited this quality, using the incredibly smooth surface we see here to challenge our […]| Herbert Lui
Legacy intermediaries (e.g., middlemen such as traditional publishers, record labels, agents, etc.) are incentivized to make you think that you need them. This belief gives their businesses the best chance of continued survival and better advantages. The key is: whether you actually need them or not is entirely another matter; they only need you to […]| Herbert Lui
You can learn a lot about life from playing board games. Here are five lessons I’ve picked up from the past few years: The point is to have fun, not to win. If you want to play competitively, then join a tournament—don’t do that with your friends. The point is to enjoy each other’s company. […]| Herbert Lui
Beliefs guide the arcs of our lives, usually through stories. These can appear as simple phrases or statements. For example, “Life is a competition.” In this story, the belief might be that there is such an objective thing as winning or losing at life—otherwise it wouldn’t be a competition. Winning is good, and losing is […]| Herbert Lui
One of the best ways to eat less junk food is to make sure you don’t have any in the house. It generally works because you make eating junk food less convenient. If you really want it, you have to work for it. There’s an extension of the original rule: buy less of it, so […]| Herbert Lui
In September 2021, my fiancée and I went to Hong Kong. What was supposed to be a six month visit turned into nearly sixteen months. We really liked it there. Sometimes, when I caught up with friends back in North America or Europe, they’d inevitably ask, “What’s it like?” When I lived on Hong Kong […]| Herbert Lui
Several years ago, the CEO of a prominent product development services company approached me to help out with copywriting and publicity. I had started my own editorial studio, Wonder Shuttle, and gave myself the job title of creative director. That didn’t matter much, because most of my network still knew me as a freelance writer. […]| Herbert Lui
In November 2020, I independently published my first book at Gumroad. I had spent four months or so full-time deliberately researching, writing, editing, proofreading, and designing a PDF of ~18,000 words. That doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but you could say I spent most of the 2010s researching it (starting with this piece […]| Herbert Lui
How One Piece of Information Changed the Trajectory of My Career| Herbert Lui
Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.| Herbert Lui
Forgiveness is the sincerest form of revenge. Making plans to get together, and following through, is the sincerest form of love. Attention is the sincerest form of care. Drawing is the sincerest form of thinking. (Writing is drawing!) Gentleness is the sincerest form of Taoism.| Herbert Lui
Every day, you have the opportunity to make choices. More often than not, these choices will sound something like: Do I choose the painful, gratifying path, or do I choose the easy, comfortable path? You want to make a change in your life, and you’re too tired after work. Will you wake up 15 minutes […]| Herbert Lui
Sean Blanda’s reflection on one year of running his business has been on my mind the past few weeks, particularly his reflection on ego: I have had a wandering eye — which in my case, means roughly six domains were registered with good intentions and I was late in the process with a few companies […]| Herbert Lui
“The pressure to perform is baked into our larger society. As a result, children are increasingly absorbing the message that they have no value outside of their accomplishments.” — Jennifer Breheny Wallace via Karen Rosenkranz “If you’re a social perfectionist, you’ll have unusually high expectations of yourself. Your self-esteem will be dangerously dependent on maintaining […]| Herbert Lui
Starting in the 1990s, Europe and the U.S. outsourced manufacturing to China for a variety of reasons (mostly because it was cheaper). MIT economist David Autor coined the term “China Shock” to describe this trend, which took place suddenly over seven years. While stuff got cheaper, and American companies’ margins got bigger, this disruption also […]| Herbert Lui
Pusha T and Malice’s GQ interview has been making the rounds on the internet. There has been a lot of noise particularly about Push describing why he can’t work with Ye anymore, “He knows I don’t think he’s a man.” While I found the phrasing surprising, the sentiment was understandable. Push has been one of […]| Herbert Lui
Hamza and I recently joined Emil Drud’s podcast Creative Odyssey as guests. It was our first appearance as New Material. I was describing how I thought about blogging, which I described as the trunk of my practice. Emil responded with a good question: what are the roots? Hamza, Emil, and I discussed it for a […]| Herbert Lui
It’s easy to find a good book to read. Actually reading the book is a little more difficult. It’s still doable though. The real impact starts by learning from the book and making changes to how you behave. This is where you truly start seeing results. You take notes. You make plans and ideate next […]| Herbert Lui
Earlier in my career, I focused on work that gave me energy. Some of my projects made no money (like Prologue, my early writing at Medium, etc.). I took on projects that could subsidize them. I really enjoyed this way of working. I felt free, energized, and curious. In this season of my career, I […]| Herbert Lui
In school, 50% was the average grade. In the working world, the average grade is closer to 0%. You can always decide not to show up, or to do the minimum. 60% is much closer to 100% than 0%. With some added effort and process changes, you could get to 80%. If you rescope or […]| Herbert Lui
In my 20s, I watched a lot of interviews with artists so I could understand how they found success. I believed I could reverse engineer these paths, and I appreciated this genre of media so much I started making my own by interviewing recording artists and authors. While I learned more than my fair share, […]| Herbert Lui
What makes a person entrepreneurial? Professor Saras D. Sarasvathy believes the distinguishing factor is in the reasoning process. She identifies two types of reasoning: When you think with causal reasoning, you focus on what you want to do—the desired end goal, or the destination—and then work backwards from that. Business leaders, managers, and strategists tend […]| Herbert Lui
Imagine you have a bag full of papers you carry with you everywhere. Each paper has a set of instructions. Every time you experience a strong enough negative emotion, you instinctively pull one of these papers. You do that because you know you will feel better after you follow the instructions. You’ve done this for […]| Herbert Lui
An important secret to my process as a creator: build a good business from your product. This means developing the ability, infrastructure, and skills to earn money independently from partners, handlers, and other gatekeepers. At his blog, Derek Sivers writes: Make one plan that depends on nobody else. No record deal. No investors. No lucky […]| Herbert Lui
For decades, people have used this four stage creative process to be more creative: Preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.| Herbert Lui
David Heinemeier Hansson’s latest on earning attention, and out-teaching the competition, is really great. Basecamp is one of the rare examples of organizations that publish really great writing—books like Rework, magazines like Signal v. Noise, etc. Anyone who wants to study them, take notes: It’s not content marketing. At least, not in the conventional sense. […]| Herbert Lui
One of the most interesting pieces I’ve come across lately was Hugh Eakin’s piece on the backstory of one of Picasso’s most prominent works, Guernica. During the creative process for Guernica, Picasso created 45 different sketches before settling on the final direction of the painting: Guernica debuted in 1937 at the Paris Expo, which over […]| Herbert Lui
I recently found out I’d sold over 3,000 copies of Creative Doing in under two years. My goal is to promote the book until I sell 10,000 copies, a number which represents the point where people are discussing it via word of mouth. I am well on my way towards it. I have been putting […]| Herbert Lui
A little over a year ago, my friend Michael asked me, “Are you a starter, a developer, or a finisher?” He explains the differences, which he learned from Kevin Kelley, in this issue of his newsletter: While I initially saw each of these elements in my work, it’s become much clearer to me that I […]| Herbert Lui
Patrick Dubroy writes: You see, warm-blooded animals — like humans or mice — have a stable body temperature that stays within a pretty narrow range. For humans, it’s around 37 degrees Celsius. A few degrees higher or lower and we’re in big trouble. Cold-blooded animals like the painted turtle can adapt their metabolism to the […]| Herbert Lui
If you want to learn, you need feedback. There’s a reason that Marshall Goldsmith’s method involves interviewing the people around his clients; because he interviews them and takes in their feedback about his client. Without someone like Marshall, it’s a bit more difficult to take in real feedback from people. Cate Hall suggests one way, […]| Herbert Lui
In Clear Thinking, Shane Parrish writes: Too often, the people we ask for feedback are kind but not nice. Kind people will tell you things a nice person will not. A kind person will tell you that you have spinach on your teeth. A nice person won’t because it’s uncomfortable. A kind person will tell […]| Herbert Lui
