Welcome
to The Uplift Center
From Drunk Yoga® to Building Belonging through P.L.A.Y.
The Uplift Center emerged from Eli's internationally acclaimed Drunk Yoga®—the world's first "yoga drinking game" that proved playful wellness could create profound connection. What started as a social experiment became a global phenomenon, teaching us that the gateway to belonging is play.
Now, The Uplift Center brings that same magic to diverse event environments—whether corporate gatherings, conferences, brand experiences, or entrepreneur communities—with the strategic intention your success demands.
The Way We See It
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The Way We See It /
We have a massive "wellness blind spot." Our culture champions routines for the body and practices for the mind, but we leave the health of our social lives—the very foundation of our well-being—entirely to chance. We drift through gatherings on autopilot, operating on social defaults while performing carefully curated versions of ourselves instead of simply being ourselves.
This neglect creates a quiet epidemic of loneliness and shallow relationships, but more than that—it guarantees we'll leave every gathering and social interaction feeling lonelier than when we arrived. This chronic disconnection doesn't just feel bad; it's a genuine health crisis, impacting our lifespan as much as any physical ailment. Meanwhile, our performance-based interactions create invisible walls that crush the spontaneity and vulnerability real belonging requires.
You have a routine for your physical wellness and a practice for your mental wellness. It's time to build your Social Wellness. Connection is a strength we must train, belonging is a skill we must practice—and play is the most powerful tool we have to build both. Because belonging doesn't happen by default; it happens by design. And the fastest way to design authentic connection is to strategically reintroduce play—through rituals, games, and shared experiences—into our adult lives.
The P.L.A.Y. Method
Using my P.L.A.Y. Method framework (Place, Language, Acknowledgement, You), I help leaders, teams and individuals create playful, practical social wellness strategies by tapping into the power of play within any environment. Play is a vital yet often overlooked tool that sparks 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’re empowered to foster engagement, retention and trust within our communities by optimizing our live experiences, rituals and relationships for belonging.
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"PLACE" refers to our physical environments, or our "containers.” Containers inform our perspectives and our 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, we can deliberately design our environments, routines and boundaries to create the kinds of inclusive, belonging-fueled and uplifted experiences we want to have.
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“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.
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“Acknowledgement” is to break the 4th wall, naming the unsaid in order to get us off autopilot and into the present moment—the only place belonging can be sparked. The best way to “acknowledge” reality as it is (not necessarily how we want it to be) and tap into the intersection of the personal and collective is through games and connective questions.
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“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.
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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.
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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.
Ready to P.L.A.Y.?
Fill out our booking form to connect with someone on our team about how we can help you build belonging at your next event.