Hi, I’m Eli.
Solo-Performance Artist, Speaker, Author & Founder of The Uplift Center & Drunk Yoga®
I created The Uplift Center to make it easy for you to build belonging in our modern world through human-centered live experiences.
I've always loved helping people from different backgrounds get on the same page. Bonus points if I can achieve this while inspiring them to live joyfully, empower them with new perspectives, and make them laugh at the same time.
After earning a BFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a decade of experience teaching yoga across the globe, I developed a knack—a superpower, if you will—for making people feel like they belong. Specifically, fostering community engagement by making wellness events more interactive and playful. So, it was no surprise (to some more than others) that in 2017 I married my lifelong passions of live storytelling and mindful movement to establish my first claim to fame: Drunk Yoga®—breaking the rules of yogic convention by infusing it with the social ritual of a happy hour.
As Drunk Yoga® grew to international acclaim, I discovered how to translate the very same theatrical devices I use to make yoga feel like a party into a methodology to create authentic communities, cultivate deeper connections, and inspire sustainable belonging.
Enter: The Uplift Center, where I teach my signature P.L.A.Y. Method that has helped thousands of organizational leaders, event producers and entrepreneurial facilitators enhance engagement through play and mindful connection…and fall in love with their jobs all over again in the process.
When I’m not delivering talks, workshops and curating interactive wellness experiences for corporate events, you can find me working on my one-woman shows in New York, hiking in the Hudson Valley and geeking out on astrology.
Methodology
Using my innovative P.L.A.Y. Method (Place, Language, Acknowledgement, You), I help leaders, teams and individuals foster belonging by tapping into the power of play within live experiences. Play is a vital yet often overlooked tool that creates shared moments of joy, breaks down barriers, and invites vulnerability—key ingredients for cultivating authentic connections.
Through reimagining our notion of what “belonging” means in the modern world and harnessing playful tools to facilitate it, we foster engagement, retention and trust within our communities.
The P.L.A.Y. Method
The P.L.A.Y. Method is a framework to help you find center within any environment—empowering you to deliberately optimize your live experiences, rituals and relationships for belonging.
-
"PLACE" refers to the physical environment of your gathering; this consists of what I refer to as “the container.” Containers inform perspectives and perspectives inform the stories we tell about our experiences, with the belief that everything we see is true, but so is everything we don’t see.
-
“Language” is everything we say or send in writing. Proper use of language creates structure of integrity, informed by the belief that accountability is the opposite of entitlement.
-
“Acknowledgement” is to break the 4th wall, naming the unsaid in order to get participants off autopilot and into the present moment—the only place belonging can be sparked.
-
“You” is the art of getting over yourself. Lead by example with the understanding that in our personal, professional and communal experiences, we get what we are, not what we want.
-
A greater sense of belonging is the solution to nearly all of your problems, as it’s our underlying motivator for almost everything we do. Want more engagement from your people? Build belonging. Retain your members? Build belonging. Fall back in love with your sense of purpose? Belonging. Plan an event that people can’t stop talking about? Offer unlimited ice cream. …Just kidding. Build belonging.
It’s no secret that we’re experiencing a loneliness crisis in our modern world, and while buzz words like “community” and “inclusivity” hover in almost every future-of-work conversation, few have tangible solutions for integrating these concepts into our individualistic societal structures. In fact, according to Deloitte, 79% of companies acknowledge they have a belonging problem, but only 13% feel prepared to address it.
Enter: The Uplift Center, your #1 belonging buddy, here to support you with practical tools to foster belonging at your events (and teach you how to do the same!) to create engagement for the long haul. -
Eli Walker's experiences and trainings focus on optimizing live experiences for engagement by leveraging the power of play, because participatory moments of human connection in the “here & now” are the only circumstances in which belonging can be sparked.
Working with Eli, sometimes this looks like adding interactive yoga parties to your events, sometimes facilitating games and [non-cheesy] icebreakers to spice up otherwise stale networking gatherings and sometimes it means working with leaders directly to advise on best practices for enhancing human-centered touch-points within your meetings or conferences by designing a belonging roadmap or “script” for your run-of-show.
However you choose to work with The Uplift Center, Eli will help you and your people feel uplifted and centered—(ahem, like they belong)—during your events through laughter, playfulness and unexpected moments of connection, setting up the conditions for lasting engagement long after the event is over.
-
At the heart of The Uplift Center’s philosophy is the idea that belonging isn’t a happy accident—it’s something we cultivate with intention and a solid grasp of our own story.
Belonging isn’t just about fitting into a group or space; it’s a dynamic, ever-evolving process of aligning our inner worlds with the outside. It’s less about finding your place and more about creating it, continuously re-centering yourself through the encounters you have—whether with people, communities, or your passions.
Belonging isn't a destination, but rather a journey of constant adjustment, where the boundaries we meet shape us and deepen our connections. It’s about recognizing the shared stories we have with others and the world around us, turning those often invisible threads into real, meaningful interactions.
The Uplift Center's philosophy highlights belonging as a key to building true connections and engaging meaningfully with our communities. It’s about making those invisible threads of connection visible and using them to enrich our modern, digital-first lives.