Huy Pham's Personal Blog

I look for quality conversations, especially now when it is increasingly hard to know what is true and what is fabricated

I'm a guest on a new podcast about men in training
Huy Pham·Jul 30, 2026·
Podcast The Apprentice Men. In episode 1 they asked me about 2016, the empty footsteps, and the coats I wore until they stopped fitting.
- Productivity
- Core Memory
My personal coaching service
Huy Pham·Apr 25, 2026·
You lie in one spot. No dreams, no ambition. You know you're going to die soon. I was exactly there, and I climbed out within a year. Ten sessions, about $4,000. Finish the first one and hate it, I refund you.
- Productivity
Our full wedding album, free to browse before you plan yours
Huy Pham·Apr 5, 2026·
Giang and I released the whole album and lookbook of our wedding, on the same website that started as our online invitation. Built for free, and open for anyone planning a wedding this year.
- Core Memory
I've read only ebooks for 15 years. This is my whole setup
Huy Pham·Dec 7, 2025·
If you still read paper books, you're in one of two camps. One I respect, one I pity.
- Productivity
I'm not religious. You should still read the Hebrew Bible
Huy Pham·Oct 15, 2025·
Read it the way you'd learn the local dialect before moving somewhere. It opens up Western idioms, allusions, and the shapes of plenty of classics you've read.
- human things
How to sell anything with a story, and where it turns into a lie
Huy Pham·Aug 26, 2025·
A wizard sells a pen. Or a product, an idea, a belief. The trick is that he rarely sells it directly. He echoes a greater wisdom and shows how it changed someone just like you. Steve Jobs worked this way. So did Elizabeth Holmes. One built the future he promised, the other sold a future that didn't exist.
- DESIGN
Your self-improvement journey needs a hard mode
Huy Pham·Aug 1, 2025·
We all know the burning ambition. Launch the project, ace the exam, build the dream body. Then procrastination, distraction, and no follow-through. Apps, books, goals, and the momentum still fades. Today I'm launching PushThroo, a system that turns every setback into fuel.
- Productivity
- Tech
I proposed during a live improv show. Her mom was hiding in the audience
Huy Pham·May 26, 2025·
We volunteered as a couple, and the comedians acted out our first date. Right in the middle of the act, I took over and proposed. She said yes, then saw her mom, who had secretly flown in from another city.
- Core Memory
Why you still suffer when you already know what to do
Huy Pham·Apr 26, 2025·
You know the cause. You know the steps. And it still hurts, almost impossible to shake. I think the feeling is only pretending to be about your problem. The method I use to let it out, I call dry squirming.
- Productivity
Never miss a loved one's lunar date again
Huy Pham·Jan 25, 2025·
If your family's memorial dates live on the lunar calendar, you've missed one. This is how I automate lunar anniversaries and holidays, and sync them to everyone (even the elders)
- Productivity
My 2025 resolution: share everything I know before I die
Huy Pham·Jan 1, 2025·
If AI goes rogue next year, at least I contributed something. If it doesn't, I'm turning 30, I fly a lot, and who knows when my Jeju Air moment comes. Either way, everything I've written goes online.
- Productivity
I made my friends seasick before I learned to read the sea
Huy Pham·Nov 11, 2024·
The captain gave me the wheel of a catamaran in rough water. Hit each wave at 45 degrees, turn into it just before impact, then back out. I got it wrong and heard the screams from the cabin below. By the end, me and the boat were one.
- Core Memory
11,000 meters above sea level
Huy Pham·Oct 17, 2024·
Night. Over 11,000 meters above sea level. I was on a flight from Bangkok to Vienna, Austria. Something caught my eye outside the window.
- Core Memory
confession of a narcissist
Huy Pham·Sep 20, 2024·
I love pointing out when people make excuses. Then a friend said I make a lot of them. So I asked ChatGPT whether I'm a narcissist. It said yes. I'd suspected it for years, and I still didn't want to hear it.
- Core Memory
An antidote to mind-numbing content: the humble essay
Huy Pham·Apr 15, 2024·
Tight reasoning. Clear evidence. No "people say," no "most sources indicate." I hated essays in university, then ChatGPT arrived and I thought they were history. Now I'm learning to write essays again and facing the 16-year-old who hated them.
- Productivity
not knowing
Huy Pham·Dec 17, 2023·
11pm. A terrible sense of not knowing, and suddenly I'm the college me again, curled up in the dark. Instead of avoiding it, I went after the wound. How I handle pain now, and why our leaders are only better-educated guessers.
- Core Memory
A handcrafted blog in the age of AI
Huy Pham·Jul 6, 2023·
I sometimes find myself hating AI-generated content. It feels like a waste of time: the writer of this piece is trying to fool me into doing something, so much that they employ the biggest companies on earth to help them.
- Tech
How a filmmaker ended up founding an edtech company
Huy Pham·Feb 25, 2023·
I loved film, didn't fit the industry, and gave up. Then a gap year, a stack of flyers, and one networking event turned the story around. My WARO interview on the long way here.
- Core Memory
Should I Build This? A Modern Survival Guide
Huy Pham·Jul 14, 2022·
I'm still young and probably stupid, but I think I have something to offer. All the knowledge you accumulate means nothing if you die or give up. So, a survival guide. Minimal assumptions, actual explanation, tactics tested over six years.
- Productivity
2020-07-29
Huy Pham·Jul 29, 2020·
Tôi thấy bà tôi ngồi sụp trước cửa nhà tang lễ bệnh viện 354. Tôi đoán, bà cũng vừa nghe tin ông mất.
- Core Memory
Toronto, 7:30 AM. Every phone in the room rang at once
Huy Pham·Jan 13, 2020·
I went back to sleep. A million other phones across the area were ringing too, and I found out why the next morning.
- Core Memory
10 Years: A Look Back
Huy Pham·Dec 25, 2019·
It feels just like yesterday.
- Core Memory
Someone asked what I do in my free time. I couldn't answer
Huy Pham·Oct 21, 2019·
It sounds like a simple question, and it isn't. If I'm only free when I'm not doing what I normally do, then I'm not free doing it, or I'm doing something that means nothing to me. Since I found my one purpose, free time just disappeared.
- Core Memory
I just ran 18.17km (11.3 miles)
Huy Pham·Sep 10, 2019·
I sit in front of a computer 12 hours a day and trained for none of this. I wanted to quit, I never felt the runner's high. One thing carried me: Repressing the petty inner voice begging me to stop.
- Core Memory
2015: I was begging for an internship. 2019: I was the one hiring
Huy Pham·Mar 17, 2019·
Same career fair, four years apart. In between, my GPA fell from 3.5 to 2.3 and I gave up. Then I came back. From the other side of the table I learned that no one checks your GPA when you're the employer. Getting there takes some very unrealistic dreams.
- Core Memory
How Ditching the Social News Feed Led to My Most Productive Year
Huy Pham·Jan 13, 2019·
In 2017 I made one rule. I could read my own posts, notifications, and messages, but never the News Feed. 2018 became the most productive year of my life. The feed is a slot machine. You don't have to quit Facebook to stop pulling the lever.
- Productivity
Near death experience
Huy Pham·Dec 27, 2018·
For a moment today, I thought I was going to die.
- Core Memory
"Let's be realistic"
Huy Pham·Nov 11, 2018·
is probably the most destructive thing that ever happened to my life.
- Core Memory
TRUTH & LIES
Huy Pham·Sep 4, 2018·
ALL MY LIFE I LIVED IN FEAR
- Core Memory
Graduation
Huy Pham·May 21, 2018·
Around this time 2 years ago, I was wondering if I can even graduate.
- Core Memory

Huy Pham's Personal Blog

I'm a guest on a new podcast about men in training

My personal coaching service

Our full wedding album, free to browse before you plan yours

I've read only ebooks for 15 years. This is my whole setup

I'm not religious. You should still read the Hebrew Bible

How to sell anything with a story, and where it turns into a lie

Your self-improvement journey needs a hard mode

I proposed during a live improv show. Her mom was hiding in the audience

Why you still suffer when you already know what to do

Never miss a loved one's lunar date again

My 2025 resolution: share everything I know before I die

I made my friends seasick before I learned to read the sea

11,000 meters above sea level

confession of a narcissist

An antidote to mind-numbing content: the humble essay

not knowing

A handcrafted blog in the age of AI

How a filmmaker ended up founding an edtech company

Should I Build This? A Modern Survival Guide

2020-07-29

Toronto, 7:30 AM. Every phone in the room rang at once

10 Years: A Look Back

Someone asked what I do in my free time. I couldn't answer

I just ran 18.17km (11.3 miles)

2015: I was begging for an internship. 2019: I was the one hiring

How Ditching the Social News Feed Led to My Most Productive Year

Near death experience

"Let's be realistic"

TRUTH & LIES

Graduation