How can we live deeper?

Your answer is as valid as mine … personally I think mental strength, concentration, and living from the heart help.

Being wild, being biologically alive, feeling the force of nature inside us – I think it’s healthy and I think everybody can do it in daily life.

Living deeper makes us authentic and strong across professional and private life situations … and we feel better too.

Out of passion and fascination for the topic since years, I decided to now speak on living deeper in public. As a former ethics prof I keep a neutral perspective on spirituality and instead focus on pragmatic thinking tools everybody can practice and apply in daily life – simple “mind tricks” which may move mountains. For example, choosing your attention directionality and your concentration level consciously.

I adapt the speaking content and style to audiences (e.g. corporate vs. school) and I speak in person and online. Contact: livingdeeper.contact[at]gmail.com

Self-reflection is a reality-bending force – do you want to tap into it more?

Be yourself … life is too short for everything else.

Cheers,

Joerg Firnkorn





Experience – I focus on three aspects of living deeper:

Mental strength

I remember watching a video of a Canadian ultrarunner in 2013 – at first I thought “this is impossible”, then I thought “I definitely like it and I want to become that guy” … and I did.

I had my formative years becoming an ultrarunner while living in the USA where I ran races across the West Coast. Races like Bryce Canyon 100 miles (2014), Grand Canyon 100 miles (2015), but also shorter and more technical races like Moab Alpine to Slickrock 50 miles (2014) and Volcanic 50 km (2014). The linked videos are from other runners to give you an idea … during races I don’t take pictures or videos.

Back in Germany I ran a couple of German races like the Berlin Wall 100 miler (2016) … then I took a break from long-distance running and focused more on electronic music.

In the last years my running passion came back – in 2022 I ran a 100 km race in Lüneburg, in 2023 I ran races like Ultra Trail do Marão (Portugal), Restonica Trail (Corsica) and Nice Côte d’Azur (France), in 2024 Tenerife Bluetrail (Spain) and UTMB 100 miles (around Mont-Blanc through France/Italy/Switzerland), and in 2025 Val D’Aran 100 miles (Spain).

For the 100-mile mountain races I ran finish times between 28-44 hours – mental strength here is key.

What I observed is that people running ultras are pretty normal … you could probably do it too.




Concentration

In my view, the “thinking” part of our concentration is overrated. My first career was in academia (Oxford, Berkeley, ethics professorship) … I’m definitely happy I left it all behind and I think academic titles are largely irrelevant: we all learn lifelong – you too.

My second career is in AI – will AI help us to live deeper? Maybe … not when we “think” more.

However, I believe our ability to concentrate and be analytical can help in many non-cognitive contexts, particularly when your goal is to live deep and to truly be yourself (e.g. feeling your body).




Living from the heart

Having worked for 8.5 years on a consciousness book, I finally figured that love is something we let arise much more than forcing it … whether it’s love for life, others, or ourself.

I think it’s worth practicing love in all dimensions – and for this I believe a certain clarity regarding our ongoing inner self-reflection helps.


While these three ingredients help everyone since the beginning of time to live life well, I think many men would benefit particularly from the last one – strength is worthless without the ability to be vulnerable.

It took me quite long in my life to realize how I got conditioned as a man. “Be tough”, “men don’t cry”, “men are rational”, “men don’t have feelings” – often heard in our society, but really unhealthy advice.

Across genders, I think our mistakes and how we handle them are more important than our achievements … the finish lines not reached, the inner balance not found, the missed opportunities. And yet we can grow from it all … when we live deeper, when we decide to be our true self.




How is the culture at your workplace? What I observe is that basically every company on the planet talks about a great team/culture/purpose … but studies consistently show that a large part of employees worldwide are really unhappy – right now job unhappiness is at an all-time high.

I’m an empirical scientist by training and would be very careful to suggest ways forward … but I’m convinced that living deeper makes workplaces healthier and teams stronger.




How satisfied are you currently with world leaders? Personally I see too many aggressive machos acting more like immature boys than real alphas … less ego and more responsibility for the world would be constructive.

Same in companies … true leaders seem rare. There is too much “macho unprofessionalism” … guys trying to win at every price, guys not seeing the big picture – also here I have the feeling it’s because people basically don’t live deep. Ambition is good, but growing together as colleagues with a professional codex is better.

Living from the heart, personal growth, being internally strong – it’s not rocket science. The life attitude we choose, the values we cultivate towards others (respect, integrity, team play) … here we show our true self.




I think self-reflection is powerful – perhaps the most powerful tool humanity has.