Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Eckhardt
Hi Lauren, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It’s so important to return to our early years because we often had such clarity then, even if we didn’t recognize it at the time. We allow events, people, and expectations to derail us from the things we know we’re called and gifted to do.
I knew I wanted to be an author since I was 6 years old. I was continually fascinated by stories and would lose myself in them. I started writing them as gifts for people and illustrating them using the computer mouse—which was impressive back then. Starting in 4th grade, I won the Young Author Award every year. In 5th grade, I had an incredibly supportive teacher who encouraged me and told me I would be an author someday.
When I was 9, I wrote a collection of essays about my opinions on various deep life issues. I had a vision then of someone stuck in a glass box, pounding on the walls, screaming for help as people walked by. This person could see out and felt agonized at being ignored, yet the passersby couldn’t see in—they thought it was just a box. I titled that collection of essays “One Burning Soul.”
By junior year of high school, my English teacher offset my 5th grade teacher’s encouragement by marking up a story I had written (one that had made my entire class cry when I read it aloud) because the grammar wasn’t perfect, giving it a C- in red ink. I stopped writing for a while after that, feeling suddenly inadequate. Everyone at that time said it was impossible to make a living doing something creative like writing. I listened to the wrong people.
But the weight of my calling stayed with me, suffocating me, because I wasn’t living as I was meant to. I chose the more predictable path of a successful corporate career—until I couldn’t continue that way any longer. My two boys especially made me realize that I needed to prove to them that when we know we’re supposed to do something in this world, we can’t let anything stop us.
Within 9 months of my youngest being born, despite having postpartum depression and other challenges, I wrote 5 books. I had found a new drive, a new purpose. Once I finished the books, people started reaching out to me for help with their own. I discovered how much I loved coaching others with their books. I didn’t even know if “book coach” was a real profession, but that’s what I called myself when I opened my business, naming it Burning Soul Press—a reference to the collection of essays I wrote at age 9.
Within the first week of starting my company, someone reached out about ghostwriting, a service I had never considered and viewed somewhat negatively. But once I heard this woman’s life journey and understood that she simply didn’t have the time or energy to write the book—yet knew her story needed to be shared to help others—I was all in.
It became one of the most transformative processes of my life. Through becoming a ghostwriter and helping many others write their memoirs and inspirational stories, I discovered my true calling: helping people share their life stories—the ones that have been pivotal in their own journeys and can help, inspire, and empower others who need encouragement.
I still help people with books, but as we enter a new year, I have a new focus as a Life Story Journalist: I want to capture as many individual stories as possible to provide hope, faith, and deep connections between people, helping them realize they’re not alone and that every step in their life has a greater purpose when we allow it to be used.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
When I launched my company, I simply wanted to help as many people as possible fulfill their dream of writing a book. I wasn’t thinking about or expecting the company to grow into something big. It snowballed quickly in 2020 when everyone slowed down and started reflecting more on their lives. We had a lot of clients fast and I needed help—fast. Despite my corporate career in human resources, I wasn’t approaching my business with the same professional mindset. People offered to help because they wanted to be part of what I was building, and I was so honored that I hired people who weren’t the best fit for specific positions. That approach doesn’t help a company succeed, and I experienced many losses and learned many lessons as a result.
I also got divorced during that time, and with two small children, it was terrifying to stand boldly as an entrepreneur through the natural ebbs and flows of owning a business without giving up. People often called me crazy and reckless. In hindsight, I can understand their perspective. But I believed so deeply in this mission, and I knew there was no going back to my former life once I had found such fulfillment and light in what I was doing now.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in people’s life stories. It’s fascinating to me because when people find out what I do, I often hear responses like, “Oh, my life is boring. I have no stories to tell.” I just laugh and say, “Sit down with me for ten minutes and I will draw the stories out of you.” The truth is, most of us haven’t had people in our lives who are truly fascinated by us. So we don’t talk about certain elements of our lives, or we don’t recognize how interesting our stories actually are. But they are interesting, because they’ve made you who you uniquely are. We only see that when someone shows genuine fascination in our experiences.
Also, many of us carry around stories without realizing their impact because we’re still holding onto how they made us feel in those moments, instead of being able to shift our perspective with who we are today—the growth mindset we’ve developed since these stories first occurred. This is why writing about them, or even writing a memoir, can be so healing for people. They’re releasing their original perspective on these stories and viewing them through the lens of who they are today.
We simply don’t give time or energy to this kind of reflection until we have the opportunity to look back, whether through writing these stories or telling them to someone who asks the right questions. What sets me apart is simply my genuine fascination, which helps me ask those right questions.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
In 2025, I am launching an app called Burning Soul Collective that will give people the tools to capture their own life stories—whether for themselves, their families, or to share with the world through a book if they choose. Anyone interested can follow the app’s development and learn about opportunities to share their story by visiting www.burningsoulcollective.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.burningsoulcollective.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/laureneckhardtwrites
- Facebook: www.instagram.com/laureneckhardtwrites
