The chess board, made up of 64 squares, has a middle area that if a chess player dominates using forward thinking and strategic skills, he can restrict the opponents moves, and control the maximum pieces in the game.Similarly business leaders can limit the options of their competition by asserting leverage or control over certain resources, prices or land. Several big players of the oil industry have deployed this chess strategy to gain unfair advantages.

Seizing The Middle

The game of chess helps build strategic thinking, a must-have skill in business. 
It is a game of kings that goes back 4500 years under various names and rules, reflecting and teaching important business skills that have remained timeless.

Chess And Strategic Thinking

Many business leaders think in terms of first principles, where they control their own means of production, eliminating dependence on external suppliers.Managers need to anticipate the future and think a few moves ahead, just like in the game of chess. This includes investing in Research and Development, being able to forecast what the future may hold.

The First Principles

Much like Chess, seizing the middle in any business requires taking control of as much as possible, so that every change is anticipated and winning action can be taken easily. Apart from Oil barons, this strategy was heavily deployed by Hollywood studios.The Golden Age Of Hollywood, the 1920s to the 1960s, had many movie studios owning and controlling every aspect of movies, from production to distribution and screening. They had strict long-term contracts with Hollywood stars and owned the movie halls that showed the flicks.

Seizing The Middle In Hollywood

To control the game, one tries to control as much of the board as possible. At the outset, using your pieces to seize the middle of the playing field is a great strategy, because it gives you the widest possible vantage point from which to control the movement of the other pieces. Both Rockefeller and the studio system in Hollywood employed this strategy successfully, allowing them to anticipate change and maneuver effectively for decades.

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Seizing The Middle: Chess Strategy in Business

IKEA expanded to other countries, Norway in 1963, Denmark in 1969. Over the next decade, IKEAs spread to countries like Germany, Japan, Australia and Canada.
There is a system to the unusual product names. Beds have names of places in Norway. Sofas are named after towns in Sweden. Kitchen tables get their names from geography in Finland. Rugs have Danish names. Chairs are named after men. Glasses and cups have adjectives as names.

IKEA expanding. Weird product names

<ul>
<li>The name IKEA comes from Ingvar Kamprad's initials, followed by the name of the farm he grew up on and the name of his home village: Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd.</li>
<li>Kamprad made a mail-order catalogue - an essential part of IKEA's business from a remote location.</li>
<li>At first, he sold small household goods like pens, wallets, and picture frames. Five years later, the store started selling furniture made by local manufacturers. The prices were so low that people questioned the quality, so Kamprad rented an old workshop to display his furniture.</li>
</ul>

IKEA: From household goods to furniture

The brainchild of IKEA is the late Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish businessman. He envisioned a store full of functional furniture that's easy to assemble.
He started his first business at age five. He bought matchbooks in bulk and sold them individually. When he was 10, he was selling pens, pencils, seeds for flower, and Christmas tree decorations. Kamprad started IKEA in 1943 when he was 17 years old.

The beginnings of IKEA

Ingvar Kamprad solved the problem of shipping large furniture when he disassembled a coffee table so it could be packed flat. From then on, as many products as possible were packed this way.
By 1955, Kamprad's manufacturers were boycotting IKEA due to its low prices. He addressed the issue by designing and producing in-house.

Designing self-assembling furniture

If you’ve ever been inside an IKEA, you know how hard it is to leave the store in any sort of timely manner. You didn’t know you needed five new dishtowels, but there you go, it’s yours now. And don’t forget the Swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam on the way out. All of this is the brainchild of the late Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish businessman who came up with the idea for a store full of functional furniture that’s easy to put together. Kamprad passed away in 2018, but the story of how he built IKEA into one of the world’s best known brands is a rags to riches story for the ages. Today, we can get our “Billy” bookcases with ease and that’s thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of Ingvar Kamprad.

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A brief history of IKEA: From cheap bookcases to Swedish meatballs

A credit report documents your credit history, your current status of accounts and payments, and when companies have pulled your report when you've applied for credit. A credit report is the source of your credit score.
It is vital to keep an eye on your reports and notice anything that could cause long-term damage to your credit. You can request a free credit report per bureau every year.

Credit scores are different from credit reports

Mortgage lenders usually use FICO scores to determine one's ability to pay them back. Since the three credit bureau scores are different, some banks look at all of them to get an average, or tri-merge, score.
Two common factors in determining your creditworthiness are timely payments and credit utilization. Other factors like credit history, types of accounts, and recent hard inquiries are used to varying degrees. It means that the score you see may be different to the score a lender use.

The reason for different scores

<ul>
<li>Late or missed payments will drive down your credit score and remain on your record for seven years.</li>
<li>Credit utilization is the percentage of available credit you're currently using. If you use more than 30% of your available credit, scoring models will consider you unreliable.</li>
<li>Credit history considers your long-standing credit accounts. A long account history in good standing increases your score.</li>
<li>Too many recently-opened credit accounts can be seen as risk.</li>
<li>Having different credit accounts increases your credit score.</li>
</ul>

Factors that make up your credit score

Bill Fair and Earl Isaac developed credit scores in the 1950s to create a standard system to measure credit. They called it Fair, Isaac, and Company, known as FICO. Another credit score is the Vantage Score.
Both FICO and Vantage Score base their scores on analysing each credit report as collected by the three major credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. But FICO and VantageScore use different methods for a credit score, taking various data into account.

The history of the credit scores

Common factors that could damage your credit score are negative items, such as bankruptcies, foreclosures, late payments, high credit utilization, and credit inquiries from potential lenders.
Some people employ the services of credit repair companies to dispute incorrect or fraudulent credit items on your behalf, but the outcome is not guaranteed.

Credit repair companies

It is a three-digit number that lenders use to assess your creditworthiness and your ability to pay your bills on time.
<ul>
<li>The score ranges between 300 and 850.</li>
<li>The higher the score, the more creditworthy you are, and the more likely lenders will lend you money at a lower interest rate.</li>
<li>The FICO score is the most widely used, but there are also other systems.</li>
<li>Your history of payments determines your score as well as your credit utilisation.</li>
<li>Your credit report determines your credit score.</li>
</ul>

The credit score

A guide to the differences between FICO and VantageScore credit scores, what goes into them, and how to improve them.

What Is a Credit Score?

<ul>
<li>This is the most basic indicator of the overall market value of a nation's finished domestic goods and services and the country's health and size.</li>
<li>There are two types of GDP: real and nominal. The former is the economic output after inflation is factored in while the latter does not take inflation into account.</li>
<li>The GDP is important because it gives us an idea of whether the economy of the country is growing or contracting.</li>
</ul>

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

<ul>
<li>This is the metric used to measure a country's economic output that is produced by all the citizens of a country regardless of their location.</li>
<li>It represents how its nationals are contributing to the country's economy.</li>
<li>In order to calculate the GNP, you must add the same components above along with the net income by domestic residents and businesses from overseas investments, then subtract it from the net income earned by foreign residents and businesses from domestic investment.</li>
</ul>

Gross National Product (GNP)

In order to calculate the GDP you must add all of these components:
<ul>
<li>Consumer spending: this is the value of the consumption of the goods and services of the country's households; this is the largest part of the GDP</li>
<li>Government spending: ALL consumptions, investments, and payments made by the government for current use</li>
<li>Capital spending of businesses: Expenditure on purchases of fixed assets and unsold stock by private businesses</li>
<li>Net exports: represents the country's balance of trade</li>
</ul>

GDP: Component Overview

Gross domestic product is the value of a nation's finished domestic goods and services during a specific time period. Gross national product is the value of all finished goods and services owned by a country's residents over a period of time.

GDP vs. GNP: What's the Difference?

Stoic investors make smart, balanced bets. Most of us invest in secure funds with low returns. Investors looking at bigger returns opt for index funds. If you are okay with losing money, that does not mean that you should.
The 90/10 investing thumb rule states that we should put 90 percent of our money into stock investments in index funds with moderate to high returns. The rest of the investment money should be used to speculate on the short-term risks like currencies, Bitcoin etc, that offer a high upside.

Stoic Path To Wealth: Grow Money

No matter how little you earn using income-generating skills like writing, speaking, coding or managing, you can get started with investing by simply earning more than your expenses. 
One needs to focus on the income-generation part and create value out of nothing, using one’s skills.

Stoic Path To Wealth: Earn Money

We all have loss aversion, preferring to avoid losses even with the opportunity cost of gaining profits. Losing money, in fact, is a necessary rite of passage that most are not okay with. 
The best investors are the ones losing money, but who are smart enough to never lose more than 10 percent of their investment by applying diversification and other investment philosophies.

Stoic Path To Wealth: Lose Money

Investing is about 9 percent theory, 1 percent execution and 90 percent emotion management.
Not everyone becomes a multimillionaire, at least not in the short run. The good news is that there are a lot of financial opportunities in the world, and it is possible to build wealth using public markets as a long term investment. Investment requires managing our emotions, and not to be bogged down by the ups and downs of the volatile markets.

Wealth In The Modern World

Stoicism is a life-survival strategy, a way to protect one’s sanity while facing the ups and downs of life. It helps us focus on what we can control and to let go of the stuff we cannot control. 
While not many are aware of this, stoicism embraces money and wealth, and advises a person to make money with honesty, dignity and trustworthiness.

Stoicism And Investing

The Stoic path to wealth is one that embraces money. But at the same time, it recognizes there are other important things.

Seizing The Middle: Chess Strategy in Business

A brief history of IKEA: From cheap bookcases to Swedish meatballs

What Is a Credit Score?

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

GDP vs. GNP: What's the Difference?

CURATED BY

Seizing The Middle: Chess Strategy in Business

A brief history of IKEA: From cheap bookcases to Swedish meatballs

What Is a Credit Score?

It's time to Read like a Pro.

GDP vs. GNP: What's the Difference?

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.