Meet Ulrich Mannchen | Co-founder of Live As Lions: Photographer & Life Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ulrich Mannchen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ulrich, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
What comes to my mind with this question is a drawing I found one day and had to laugh about. It was a piece of paper with a circle drawn, and “comfort zone” was written in the circle. The rest of the paper was blank, except for the words “where the magic happens,” written outside of the circle. I actually printed it out and hung it in my office. However, I can recall that my laugh was a gallows laugh. Because, frankly, it was not funny.

I have a complicated relationship with risk. On the one side, I hate it. I want to avoid it because I want to be in control and know the outcomes of my decisions. On the other side, I need it. It pushes me, and I can see personal and professional growth when I take risks. Once I commit to taking a risk, it can be great fun. It all comes down to the question of what level of risk is healthy for me.

Many of our business dynamics worth the effort are based on higher risk. We empower people to live wild and free through life coaching, products, art, and global projects we support through our work. We exist to help others find freedom on the other side of risk, and we are not shy to it ourselves.

My wife Liz and I have spent 15 years traveling around the world to remote, impoverished, warzone areas in pursuit of serving and empowering others. We have embraced our share of adventures working in areas of human trafficking, extreme poverty, refugee camps, and slums.
Heck, we moved countries from Germany to America, started from scratch, and birthed this vision of Live As Lions from nothing, believing it could one day be something.

Over time, I became more comfortable with risk because I became more comfortable with failure. Allowing myself to fail, crash and burn and try it again was one of the most freeing experiences of my life. That was the harder part of learning about risk – to go easy on yourself. Once you learn to accept that failure is not the end, then entering into a season of “risk” becomes an invitation to new adventures, no matter the outcome.

Here at Live As Lions, we believe you can not truly live wild and free, void of risk, so you must figure out how to work with it, not against it! As a life coach, I have the honor of helping people embrace their fears surrounding risk to empower them to move forward to reach their goals. I would not be able to do that for others had I not learned to be comfortable with risk myself. Do first, then teach!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My wife Liz and I are two misfit artists that have spent over a decade traveling the world helping people to live Wild and Free. What that means is that we worked with NGOs all over the planet and used our creative skills to run fundraising campaigns for children’s homes, women’s shelters, and youth-at-risk programs. Liz is a writer, illustrator, and musician. Although I tend to “schlap the bass” in our band Liz and the Lions, I am a photographer who also became a certified executive coach for other creatives and NGO workers.

I am a black-and-white analog film photographer working with large and medium format cameras. I was born and raised in a small village in Frankonia, German, and I discovered photography at a young age as a medium to help me make sense of the world outside my hometown, as well as to explore, experience, and express it.

This love for photography took me on this crazy journey. I was never a big fan of school, although I love to learn. I held on for dear life to the things that made sense and felt easy and natural. I graduated from college and did my MA in design, communication, and photography. I mentioned that I grew up in a tiny village in Germany. As a child, I had a lot of freedom to roam around, and the world felt big, but in reality, it was super small. My everyday life was made out of me visiting all the neighbors on our street and yodeling for chocolate. I am not kidding. I never thought I would see much more than my neighborhood or maybe my city. Fast forward, I traveled and worked in over 40 countries, spending time with indigenous tribes and underground youth cultures. I photographed people from all walks of life, including native tribes in Southern Ethiopia, villagers in rural India, and the dying nomadic culture of the Mongolians.

With my photography, I am trying to honor the stories of these individuals. Still, I also experienced photography’s power in building bridges to greater awareness of issues like globalization, human trafficking, orphan crises, and extreme poverty.

I believe in the power of photography and how it can help on the journey to Live As Lions – Wild & Free, just like that little boy who roamed around on the hunt for chocolate.

Eventually, between my photography and my wife’s music and art, we transcended into starting our brand Live as Lions.

Our mission is to empower people to live wild and free — like a Lion. We want to see people living to their full potential, using self-awareness and compassion to move onward and forward through their personal doubts and fears, so they may pursue their wildest dreams. We seek to create equal access to all LAL resources — with ethical working opportunities for creators, high-quality coaching and client relationships and rooted storytelling from Lions around the world — where each person is thriving, creating an international community of Lions living wild and free.

Was it easy? It still isn’t haha. (gallows laugh again). I often feel like Marie Kondo. Not due to popularity or cleanliness. Trust me; I embrace my creative chaos followed by seasons of meticulous tidiness. No, more in terms of nobody really understanding me with what I am trying to do. Not because it is crazy or unrealistic but because it is a new and innovative concept. I read that Marie Kondo rocked her approach and concept of a tidy home and happy life for years until she had her breakthrough. She released her book, and seven years later, people started listening to her when she popped up on Netflix. In other words, she was an idea-preneur. She pioneered something new that needed time to grow into something everybody else could understand. That is how it feels a bit with Live as Lions. Watch out, I might show up on Netflix in 7 years, jodeling and eating chocolate on TV. Sounds like a good show to me!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We live a little south of the city in Palmetto so I’d ensure our guests get the treasures of the small Georgia towns.

For breakfast joints and cafes, check out Hero Doughnuts & Buns at the Trilith Studios (the best donuts and dinner food with a modern flair) and Cirque Antiques (grab the best matcha latte and shop beautiful antiques)
And for our favorite restaurants and pubs you won’t regret Lucy Mexican Restaurant in Palmetto (authentic Mexican food and burritos the size of your head), Poke City in Newnan (best bowls and kindest staff), Halsa in Serenbe (grab some clean food and go walk in the forest.) And for a great brew, check out Cochran Mill Brewing in Fairburn!

Go stretch your legs at Cochran Mill Park, find the best antiques at a store actually called Treasures in Newnan, and make sure to come out to the Serenbe Farmers Market every Saturday, where you’ll probably see us with our booth full of Heirloom Children’s toys!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

Live as Lions would not be here today without a few core people who championed and challenged us to “take the risk” and bring this vision to life. David Skews, Mary Valloni, Jess Puccinelli, and the Burkhard and Mannchen pack, thank you for believing in magic with us!

Website: liveaslions.com & https://www.ulrichmannchen.photography/

Instagram: @liveaslions @ulrich.mannchen

Facebook: Live As Lions

Youtube: Live As Lions

Image Credits
Photographs by Ulrich Mannchen