Muhammad Badrah

I strive for enabling prosperity and joy for everyone by way of abundance and transparency, utilizing science, understanding, love of learning, systems thinking, and technology as tools.

Thoughts here are raw, developing, and most of the time are work-in-progress notes-to-self. They may have errors. They can and they will change over time. If interested, please share your thoughts, poke holes, give feedback, and help shaping them up further.

February 14, 2024

What would you do with a precious transformable free resource you can never keep?

Let's say.. • You have $43,200,000 in an account. • You only have access to $1,440 per day • You can decide to do whatever you want with that daily amount. • At the end of each day, the $1,440 (or whatever is remaining) will be deducted from the account and you will never get them back or get anything in exchange. • Remember, you alway...

February 9, 2023

The Habit Loop

On the topic of Habits, I liked the “Habit Loop” a lot from the Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's very simple and eye opening. Not sure how easy and effective to apply though. The Habit Loop: 1. A cue triggers a craving 2. The craving makes you want a reward 3. You respond to get that reward 4. The reward satisfies your craving To hel...

February 6, 2023

Squirrels and Range by David Epstein

TL;DR: • Like a Squirrel by Jason Freid https://world.hey.com/jason/like-a-squirrel-bd821787 • Range by David Epstein https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range • The world is broad and deep, and “we need birds and frogs working together to explore it.” Since Jason Fried shared the squirrel's approach analogy and I can't get it...

December 5, 2022

Basecamp Open Letter to Small Businesses

"These companies can’t even make their own businesses work, yet they’re trying to sell you software to run yours. Why would you follow their lead? Buying from them is like taking marital advice from someone who’s been divorced five times." Against the common wisdom even though it makes total sense. Some reality check questions and real...

October 23, 2022

Patagonia - New Path For Succession Planning

“(Reality vs. Equality vs. Equity vs. Justice) Image Credit: Equality/Equity/Liberation image is a collaboration between Center for Story-based Strategy & Interaction Institute for Social Change” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html ““I feel a big relief that I’ve put my life in order...

July 25, 2022

Abundance as a Corporate Strategy

Another read I enjoyed recently Satisfaction Guaranteed: How Zingerman's Built a Corner Deli into a Global Food Community was full of food-for-thought nuggets and a different approach to corporate strategy which has been successful for 40 years. Yes, it's not a typo, fourty years. One of the best nuggets in the book which resonated the...

July 10, 2022

The 37signals Employee Handbook

I was sharing 37signals' Employee Handbook with a friend, when I attached the following description: “A true piece of art! Which by definition means not necessarily perfect nor for everyone, but definitely something to admire and is beautifully in a good direction!” It was a spur-of-the-moment thought, without any prep or editing. Seem...

July 7, 2022

Your Brain at Work

A recent conversation about the "clever pun" ☺ behind the "What Works" project at 37signals reminded of such a good book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock (along his blog and podcast) with an equally clever pun in its title. The trail I left a few years ago: “Thorough and practical yet not overwhelming. The author had very good balanc...

June 9, 2022

Ownership Works

Unbelievable! A true example of how much we can do better in the corporate world. A new equity ownership model for every single person in the company, all 800 of them, drove a 10x ROI over 7 years for investors, as well as massive payouts to all team members on their equity. "Upon KKR’s acquisition of C.H.I., all 800 employees – from t...

February 26, 2022

The Active Learning Method - Sprouts

TL;DR: • Connecting a new piece of information to an existing piece boosts retention and understanding. • Having an attempt at a question or an "activity" beforehand generates such a foundation for when the educator eventually provides the answer or the instructions. • The whole process has an impact on many fronts: engagement, excitem...

February 20, 2022

Blockchain-Powered Credibility

I found the following very interesting and would love to hear your thoughts: https://youtu.be/dhJnt0N497c • Erasure• Blockchain-based trust protocol for general purpose online transactions. • Numerai• Information marketplace and a stakes-based stocks-trading built on top Erasure. I suggest watching the video first for the general overv...

January 25, 2022

I love Sticky Studio

Today I was introduced to Sticky Studio (thanks to a dear friend and an amazing mentor Gene Bellinger). I believe you will love it too! Just wanted to share it with the world for now. More to come about how it's going and how it was running the first Sticky Studio powered meeting.

January 21, 2022

It's all connected - A discovery journey

Introducing myself to the members of a virtual workshop, I wrote the following message. Sharing it here with the world also keeps it nearby, where I can revisit regularly to remind myself of why I'm doing what I do, where I'm coming from, where I stand right now, and recharge to keep moving forward. =========== I consider myself still ...

January 20, 2022

Understanding vs. Knowledge - How to "Start With Why"

One of the favorite thought-provoking talks to my heart and my mind is Russell Ackoff's masterpiece From Mechanistic To Social Systemic Thinking (Also, the article version of the talk) Worth mentioning, I've watched this video more times than I can remember to count. Every single time (literally not metaphorically) I come out with eith...