Hearts on Fire: Concept of Aliveness

Marvin Liao
2 min readMay 18, 2024

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I heard this term and concept on a podcast interview with David Perell. I love this idea of “hearts on fire”. Aliveness. Similar to Samo Burja’s “Live Player” which I wrote about earlier: defined as “a person able to do things they have not been able to do before.”

Basically, people who live with creativity and who can make something new. Someone with purpose. This is the reason they seem so animated. Excited. Alive. You feel energized talking with them.

But most people we meet are the opposite of this. They take your energy. You feel drained after spending time with them.

It’s because most people you meet are living broken societal scripts. Unhappy. Barely getting by. Unoriginal. Unthinking. They are zombies or lichs (archaic English form for “Corpse”). Not yet dead but not alive either. Going through the motions of life. Blind on remote control. Comfortable but unchallenged. Following, not leading.

What does it take to break out and become alive? To find their purpose and authenticity. 3 very simple things: Honesty, Courage and faith.

Honesty about your feelings and reality. How about how unhappy you really are and how much your life sucks because of your own choices

Courage to take action and do something about. Even if it goes against what society, friends and family tell you. Gain a Willingness to fix and upturn the scripts in your head.

Faith that you will figure it out eventually and that you can deal with the inevitable challenges that come up.

This is how you get to live a life worth living.

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Marvin Liao

Ever curious: Tsundoku, Reader, Aspiring Shokunin, World traveller, Investor & Tech/Media exec interested in almost everything! www.marvinliao.com