We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emma Ecklin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Emma, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
If I’m being honest, I used to think resilience was something you earned only after your life fell apart. Something you had to go find after the breaking. Something I’d have to build from scratch once I felt strong enough again.
But the older I get, the more I realize resilience is something I’ve been rehearsing my whole life without knowing it.
I think my resilience began long before I ever named it. Before any marathon. Before Substack essays. Before I started writing my way through my 20s with the hope that it might help someone else feel less alone.
It started when I was a little girl in short black riding boots, learning the strange math of athletic performance. Like the way a number on a scoreboard could make you feel both proud and not enough in the same breath.
Competitive sports teach you things long before you understand them: how to handle being judged, how to lose with dignity, how to win without losing yourself, how to show up even when your confidence doesn’t. It wasn’t the early mornings or the ribbons that shaped me. I was shaped from the discipline, the pressure, the quiet self-coaching you learn when you’re trying to do something hard and make it look effortless.
That was my first language of resilience: showing up even when no one claps.
But the real truth is that resilience became non-negotiable the day my mom passed away.
There is no manual for grief in your early 20s. No checklist for how to be an adult when the person who taught you what love feels like is suddenly gone. I didn’t feel brave at the time. I felt shattered, angry, hollow, and confused. And yet, there is something about losing the person who loved you most that quietly rewires you; you begin to understand how temporary everything is, and how important it becomes to live your life with intention, presence, and strength.
Grief made me honest. It made me ask: What actually matters? What do I want my life to stand for?
It made me slow down enough to hear myself again.
Resilience, for me, isn’t about pushing through every hard moment with perfect posture. It’s about becoming someone who can stay with herself when life gets uncomfortable. It’s sitting in the mundane without assuming it means something is wrong. It’s choosing not to abandon yourself when things get messy or inconvenient.
I get my resilience from the accumulation of tiny moments I used to overlook:
From the 5 AM training mornings, I laced up my shoes when I didn’t feel like it.
From the nights, I wrote in my journal instead of spiraling in anxiety.
From every time I honored the version of me I’m becoming instead of the version of me I was scared to outgrow.
From community: the run clubs, the friends, the readers who show up for my words even when I’m still figuring them out.
And from my mom, whose love still feels like the quiet backbone behind every brave decision I make.
But more than anything, my resilience comes from choosing to live a life that isn’t built on fear.
Choosing a life that makes space for hard things and beautiful things to coexist. A life where I can hold grief in one hand and possibility in the other.
I’ve learned that resilience is a relationship you form with yourself. A practice. A conversation. A commitment to keep going, not because you’re unbreakable, but because you’re willing to break open and grow anyway…
And that, to me, is living boldly.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Today, my work lives at the intersection of storytelling, wellness, and community. It is all anchored by a brand I created called A Graceful Stride. At its core, it’s a space where I explore resilience, grief, and intentional living through long-form writing, real conversations, and the everyday discipline of showing up for yourself.
I started A Graceful Stride after losing my mom in college. Grief cracked something open in me and made me start paying attention to the quiet, unglamorous parts of being human: how we heal, how we keep going, how we rebuild our identity when life forces us to start over. Running became the place where I processed all of that. And writing became the way I made meaning from it.
Professionally, I balance this creative work with the work I do in Charlotte’s entrepreneurial community. I help build and support collaborative ecosystems for growth-minded entrepreneurs, working alongside SEEDSPARK CoLAB. My role combines community-building, event strategy, partnership development, and the kind of behind-the-scenes operations that bring big ideas to life. I love it because it mirrors my personal philosophy: that growth rarely happens alone. Collaboration is the most underrated superpower we have.
What feels most exciting about my work right now is that everything I do, whether it be writing a Substack piece, helping an entrepreneur bring a project into the world, or building community through run clubs, it is rooted in the same mission: helping people strengthen their mental and emotional resilience so they can live a life that feels meaningful.
On the personal side, I’m coming back from a fractured heel and ran the 2025 Boston Marathon in 2:57:22. I’d like to say it is a full-circle moment of grit, healing, and honoring the girl who started running to survive grief and found herself in the process 🙂
If there is one thing I hope people take away from my work, it’s this: you don’t need to have it all figured out to take a step forward. You just need the courage to begin where you are. That’s what a graceful stride really is. It is movement with intention, even when life feels uncertain.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Looking back, the three qualities that shaped my journey the most were self-awareness, consistency, and starting before I felt ready.
1. Self-awareness: Everything changed when I started paying attention to my patterns instead of ignoring them. Such as how I reacted under stress, what drained me, what grounded me, and what I was actually feeling beneath the surface.
Advice: Slow down enough to notice yourself. Journaling, therapy, and honest conversations help you understand why you are the way you are.
2. Consistency: Resilience for me didn’t come from big, dramatic moments. It came from the daily, unglamorous act of showing up: tying my running shoes, writing a little each week, taking small steps toward goals even when I didn’t feel motivated.
Advice: Pick one habit your future self benefits from and commit to it. Discipline builds confidence faster than motivation ever will.
3. Starting before I felt ready: Everything meaningful in my life happened because I acted before I felt qualified. Such as launching A Graceful Stride, running marathons, building community, pitching myself. Confidence came after the first step, not before it.
Advice: Don’t wait to feel prepared. Begin messy. Send the email. Try the thing. Readiness is a myth; momentum is real.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Yes!! I’m always open to collaboration. I love connecting with growth-minded women, fellow athletes, creators in the wellness and storytelling space, and anyone building something with heart and intention. Whether it’s content, community events, creative projects, or simply learning from those with more experience, I’m always excited to explore aligned opportunities….if you’re interested in collaborating, you can reach me at [email protected] or on Instagram at @emmagecklin. I’d love to connect 🙂
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emmagecklin.substack.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/emmagecklin
Image Credits
Hayley Brown Photography – CLT
Jason – @notafraidtofail
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
