Who are your first calls when everything falls apart? They might determine if anything comes back together. Mine were my sister Kelly, and my friend Emiliya.
Today, I’m excited to share a conversation with a longtime friend, teacher, and someone who saved my life. As the CEO and Founder of The Flourishing Center, Emiliya is a deep well in the science of human thriving.
She is also a first-generation immigrant from Ukraine, one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met, and pretty damn funny. To return the favor for officiating her wedding and performing a 3-minute rock opera I wrote for her and her beloved Shimon, Emiliya recently emceed my epic 50th.
I love all our conversations, but our latest deep-dive (through the lenses of perseverance, and purpose) is truly something special. I hope you enjoy it!
Listener Feedback
The best creative work starts before the money does. Early in a new project, whether it’s a business, an album, or a podcast, the process itself is the gift. The goal is to make something cool, and if it moves us, maybe it will move others.
That’s why, at this stage the feedback from this community— your feedback, is everything. This note found me on a roadtrip from Austin. Liz Kessler is an amazing intimacy coach, mom, and human being:
“Kristoffer, this podcast episode stopped me in my tracks in the best possible way. In just ten minutes, you wove together Susanna Hoffs, India, the Maha Kumbh Mela, motorcycle accidents, and Paramahansa Yogananda into something that felt like a sacred container, not a podcast intro.
The way you connected “hazy shade of winter” to this exact cultural moment we’re all living through gave me chills, because you named what so many of us are feeling without turning it into doom, and that is a rare and powerful gift.
As someone who found her own love of music later in life, I am in awe of your musicianship and the way that relentless backbeat pulses through everything you create, your stories, your coaching, and now this podcast.
Your vulnerability about the divorce, the addiction, the crashes, both literal and figurative, landed not as oversharing but as proof of concept: this is a man who has earned the right to talk about perseverance.
This podcast is already exactly what the world needs right now, and I cannot wait for what’s coming. Hell Yeah You Will, my friend and CAPP 116 family (shout out to Emiliya Zhivotovskaya and The Flourishing Center), this podcast is already exactly what the world needs right now, and I cannot wait for what’s coming.”⚡️
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1-min Video Clip
We All Live in Polarities
There are recurring tensions that show up in our lives and our work. They aren’t problems to solve—these are opposing polarities to navigate. This comes from Barry Johnson’s Polarity Management research.
Big polarities in my life show up as: humanity and spirituality, creative input versus output, art versus business. We get stuck in binary thinking. When we practice dancing with both, we keep moving.
Today’s polarity may be one of the most easily identifiable for me personally, and something I’ve also struggled struggled with. Rigor and play. Can evidence-based work be joyful? Can academic rigor still feel like magic?
Most of us were trained to believe that if it’s fun, it must not be rigorous. Or if it’s rigorous, it better not be fun. We all know people who stack credentials and degrees until the joy is gone. It can be just as easy to hide behind the walls of academia as it is to hide in the back of a yoga class.
But once you get that calling to start teaching, it’s time to step out front. My guest today has been practicing, living, and teaching at the intersection of rigor and play for over two decades.
About Today’s Guest
Emiliya Zhivotovskaya has certified nearly 2,000 coaches, consultants, and positive change agents in over 55 countries. She is the CEO and founder of The Flourishing Center, one of the first 75 people in the world to earn a master’s in applied positive psychology from UPenn, a master certified coach with the International Coaching Federation, and the creator of the CAP program, a 10-month certification in applied positive psychology. I’m proud to say I’m wrapping up this week in cohort number 116. Our final project actually inspired this podcast. Emiliya holds over a dozen certifications spanning coaching, yoga, Reiki, biofeedback, and more.
But before any of that, she spent a decade as a party entertainer. She weaves science with magic, education with joy, and rigor with play. And through all of it, training thousands of practitioners around the world, she keeps returning to this question:
Can the work of human flourishing actually feel like flourishing?
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Connect with Emiliya and her Work
Founder, CEO of The Fourishing Center, NYC
Order the brand new book: How We Flourish: Science-Backed Practices at the Core of Well-Being (Volume One)
The Certificate of Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) programs are now enrolling their Spring cohorts! Jump in now, or book a call to explore.
