Hometown: Berlin (Germany), currently on my hike around the world

Occupation: Founder / Author / Speaker / Funeral Celebrant 

What can we expect from the talk?

I would like to take you on a journey into the silence of death. A silence that holds answers to the meaning of life and shows which paths we can take and what we should better avoid.

Why do you want to be a TEDx Speaker?

I have always believed that when the universe offers an opportunity, you should take it. Even doors that are just ajar always prompt me to see what’s behind them. That ensured that despite a lousy school leaver’s certificate I became a TV journalist in Los Angeles via many detours. I went in search of the Titanic for a documentary. I taught at expensive universities. And, together with a handful of Palestinians and Israelis, I sailed from Chile to Antarctica in a 22-metre sailboat to make the first ascent of a mountain. And now I’m about to stand on the TEDx stage.

With a CV like that, of course, you don’t become a millionaire CEO, but live from day to day, always looking for the important answers to life from the universe and the next Euro for the rent. That my own death and that of my life partner would provide me with the answer for my current fulfilled life and that from now on I would walk around the world with Trees of Memory, I would truly never have thought possible!

Nevertheless, it should simply not be the case that only death makes a fulfilled life possible. Most people live more or less contentedly until a trauma tears their life into a thousand pieces. There is no going back. Continuing as before is out of the question. Those affected no longer see any future prospects. Nevertheless, hope is there. It hides in the darkness and speaks its truth through the silence.

As a TEDx speaker, I have the opportunity to talk about how one never loses hope and how one finds ways where the lack of perspective spreads.  I would like to talk about finding a central purpose and meaning, which will transform and renew your whole being.

What is hidden behind the meaning of life and why do only a few discover it for themselves, when it lies dormant deep in our hearts all the time and wants to be discovered?

I think TEDx is a good platform to talk about the fact that death is not needed to find mental health and fulfilment in life.

Do you have an important message to spread or a motivational life motto?

Leave only those traces in the universe that are worth catching up with you elsewhere in space and time, because “to be aware of the eternal is bliss”.