Vishen Lakhiani describes a simple leadership technique — calling a "Yoda" or "Miyagi" moment — to change the energy in meetings. Inspired by wise fictional archetypes, the practice gives anyone permission to name when the emotional tone of a meeting is off and to reframe or smooth interactions, increasing transparency, trust, and psychological safety. Lakhiani illustrates the technique with a story of Keith Ferrazi introducing it at a manager meeting and a personal anecdote where a colleague used the "Yoda moment" to defuse his curt response.
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Do you recognize this face? That's Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid and Cobra Kai. Or how about this face? That's Yoda from Star wars, obviously. Unless you've been sleeping under a rock. And the reason I'm showing you these faces is because these archetypes can serve as a really powerful tool to bring into any type of group setting, any type of meeting, to really elevate the energy in the room. And I want to share with you how I learned this technique. It's called the Miyagi or the Yoda in the room. So before the pandemic started, I knew that as our company was growing, as we were approaching around 400 people, as many new people were getting promoted into manager, every now and then, there would be something in a meeting that would shift the energy. Not in a good way. Maybe someone might say something that was out of alignment. Maybe a manager or leader or even myself might be in a slightly bad mood, but it affects everyone else. But in most cases, people don't say anything. People go quiet. And we just accepted that as being normal, that one person's off energy could influence a room, and no one would be able to do anything about it. We just accepted it as part of life until Keith Ferrazi walked into our office. Keith came to one of our manager meetings, and he asked this question really simply. He said, when something goes off, whose job is it to raise awareness of that issue? When something goes off in a meeting, when the energy feels off, whose job is it? And everyone was quiet. And then one person said, well, would it be Vishen? He's the founder. And Keith goes, no, not Vishen. It's Yoda's job. And he pointed to a little Yoda statue that we had in the corner. So everyone was baffled. Yoda, that's a freaking plastic statue. It doesn't talk. What do you mean, Yoda's job? And Keith said, you can take the archetype of Yoda or Miyagi or whatever other wise character that you've read about and give that archetype to the energy of the meeting. Think of it as the collective emotional feel of everyone there. Keith said, when something is off, you raise your hand, you step into that Yoda feel or that Miyagi feel, and you bring it up. You don't care if you don't have a title. You don't care if the boss or the founder disagrees or not. Everyone should be given permission to step into that Yoda moment and then to step in and bring up the issue. And when you can deal this in any organization, you create so much greater transparency, so much better trust. You prevent something off from penetrating the room and disrupting the energy of everyone there. So I've had the Yoda moment called on me once. I was going through a very stressful day, and someone had presented an idea to me and I was really curt and I was like, no, we're not going to do that. But the way I said it made that person feel really bad. And someone said, yoda moment. Just want to point out it's not you. I don't think Vishen is upset with you. He's just really stressed out right now. And the idea probably isn't the best idea to consider at this moment. And then that person turned to me and said, envision. I just want you to be conscious of how your mood might make someone else feel bad. So I apologize to the person. I praised them for having the courage to come up to me with that idea. And I mentioned that it wasn't them. The idea was just mistimed. And that Yoda moment saved someone from walking out of that room, broken in some way, feeling that their idea was rejected. That could prevent someone from ever coming up with an idea again. So think about how you can bring this Yoda moment or Miyagi moment technique to your company culture, to your team. It can really help you elevate yourself as a leader. But the beautiful thing about it is you are empowering everyone in your team to step up to be the leader by teaching them this technique. And this is what great leaders do. Great leaders multiply leadership. So if you found this idea interesting, and if you want to go deeper into some of the most powerful ideas of leadership that could completely expand your business, grow your performance as a team, change your life as an entrepreneur, join us in this masterclass with Keith Farazi, SA.
