Mehdi Khatiri

Business Consultant

The Base Stage

🧱 The Base Stage

Stage Two of The Path Series

Entry is about seeing. Base is about building.

This is the point where you can’t just watch from the sidelines. If you really want to engage with a topic, you need to build something solid—something you can stand on.

The Base Stage is where you construct meaning: concepts, language, logic, mental frameworks— everything you’ll later use to make decisions with confidence.

👷🏻‍♀️ What Are You Building Here?

  • A shared language with yourself
  • The reasoning behind the terms
  • The internal structure of key ideas
  • A model to help you think clearly

What may look like “just content” from the outside, is actually laying down a kind of structured understanding—from within.

📦 How Is This Stage Different From the Others?

In the Entry stage, you were just observing. Your mind was engaged—but not yet building.

Here, observation isn’t enough anymore. You need to understand a word more precisely. You need to separate concepts from each other. You need to be able to hear a sentence and know exactly how it fits (or doesn’t) into your own mental model.

If you skip this stage or rush it, you’ll likely feel lost in the Mastery stage— like building a house without a foundation.

🧭 How Do You Know If You’re in the Base Stage?

Pretty simple:

  • You’ve heard the terms, but can’t quite explain them
  • During analysis, words blur together in your mind
  • You struggle to choose between two similar definitions

That means you’re still in the Base stage— and that’s completely okay.

On the flip side, a solid base makes your Mastery stage way smoother. Because you know what you’re standing on.

🧰 Exercises? Yes. But Not the Test-and-Grade Kind

The exercises in this stage are more about thinking. They’re simple—but foundational.

  • Write down your own definition of a concept
  • Identify words that still feel vague to you
  • Sketch out the mental model you’ve been using so far
  • Then compare it with the models offered here

There’s no “right” or “wrong” here. But there’s also no room for rushing through lightly.

🧭 Examples of “Base” Work in Different Topics

  • Management Base | Roles, styles, and power structures in management
  • Brand Leadership Base | Brand language, meaning, identity vs. image
  • Consulting Base | Core elements of a consulting process, client dynamics, distinguishing analysis from solution
  • Negotiation Base | Interests vs. positions, power in negotiation, stages of reaching agreement

In the End…

The Base stage doesn’t make you feel smart. But when things get more serious, you’ll realize how much these “basic” things are actually what hold everything up.

Base is for building. Not to memorize. Not to present. But to stand on.

And if you build it right, it’ll hold you steady—for years to come.

Mehdi Khatiri Summer 2025

Published Base Stages

Drafted Base Stages

Favorite Ideas for Future Base Stages

  • ◻️ Advertising Base
  • ◻️ Copywriting Base
  • ◻️ Leadership Base
  • ◻️ Learning in Public Base
  • ◻️ Learning Base
  • ◻️ Passion Base
  • ◻️ Personal Branding Base
  • ◻️ Purpose Base
  • ◻️ Storytelling Base
  • ◻️ Wisdom Base
  • ◻️ Archetypes Base
  • ◻️ Ikigai Base
  • ◻️ Mental Models Base
  • ◻️ Cognitive Biases Base

1 item under this folder.