Ego & Thou

Intro film coming

The place for this secret’s intro film is reserved here. It fills in when the recording arrives.

The concept of a meeting is key to understanding the depth of Buber’s insight. Based on experience, we can draw imagery from the miracle of life — where something entirely new arises in the encounter between the male sperm cell and the female egg. The naked meeting is always innovative. After such a meeting, the world is never the same. Something happens. Something new emerges. The experience leaves its imprint and changes us.

The secret behind this transformation of impressions, information and knowledge is that what you experience in a meeting with another — Thou — is transformed into feelings that shape how my I (EGO) relates to the world. Buber explained the dialogue using the German word pairs Ich-Du and Ich-Es, to categorise the modes of consciousness, interaction, and being through which an individual engages with other individuals, and all reality in general. When this happens, for example in an employee conversation, we call it an open and learning process — open because we can never predict the outcome, learning because something new is added to what already is, process because the result depends on the interaction and relationship between my own EGO and the other’s THOU.

From an original SGL worksheet

…where “IT” represents the coping filter of experience-based reflexes, values, customs, traditions, and others’ perceptions. The weaker our need for “coping”, the stronger the meeting between EGO and THOU becomes. In people who dare coaching or renewal, IT becomes small and EGO becomes large.

Real communication between living human beings will be the new success factor in the age of AI. Machines will be able to answer almost anything and simulate nearly everything — except the raw, genuine, and truthful between your own EGO and the other’s THOU. But before this encounter can take place, the message — the words, the content — must pass through the filter of attitudes, culture, life experience, and opinions, which Buber called the “IT.”

Leadership today is about more than setting direction and making decisions. It requires the ability to see, accept, and include a diversity of perspectives: differing opinions, genders, languages, cultures, and values. This is no easy task, but it is essential for building communities that can truly achieve greatness. The good news? It is easier to start locally than globally. By bringing people together around a shared horizon — a mutual understanding of what we aim to achieve — we can build teams that not only endure change but thrive in it.

The most successful leaders today are those who dare to acknowledge the reality we face and actively work to build bridges instead of digging trenches. Navigating diversity takes courage, but the rewards are worth it: winning teams that leave a lasting impact and create a brighter future — not just for themselves but for society as a whole. So how can you, as a leader, bring people together under the same sky, even when their horizons differ? Start by learning and listening to SGL. Take responsibility for creating a space where diversity can flourish. And above all, dare to think big — because while the world may be small, the possibilities are always limitless.

Which tint is colouring how you see other people right now? There is no wrong answer — just notice it.

Next lesson

Lesson 14,2 · The Lifecircle

Self-growth is not linear but cyclical — and why continuous improvement in practice means continuous change.