How To Develop A Mindset That Creates Focus And Facilitates Success

Hey, it's Mark Pulsky, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's Roundtable podcast, we have a special guest and really special like I'm going to put on my anchorman voice. Richard Thallheimer is a big deal. Now, you might not recognize his name, but I guarantee you recognize his company. Richard Thallheimer is the founder and former CEO of the American consumer brand the Sharper Image, which began in 1979 with only three employees. At its peak, the company had annual revenues exceeding $750 million, 200 stores, an active catalog and website, and 4,000 employees. The company became a public corporation in 1987 when its stock was offered on the Nasdaq. Richard now runs the Sharper Fund, a successful private fund. Richard is an expert in the field of investing who is sought after by journalists for his trend setting observations about products, companies and market movements. He has a new book on Amazon, the Sharper the winning Formula to boost your returns. We all want to boost our returns. Richard, welcome. Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Mark.

So I know we're all gonna have a lot of questions for you, but I'd like to start if you don't mind.

Sure.

Okay. So we're all geeks. We're all gadget people. Right now. I've got the Apple watch on. I've got this thing that Eric Peterson got me on called the Whoop. I'm tracking metrics. I have a remarkable too. Like I did. We love all these gadgets. How did you see back in the day, this is 1979, when this is before you created your own category. So how did that all come about?

Wow, what a saga. I started actually when I was 23 years old. And my mission was to find new technology products and present them to people and in a way they could understand and use. So that was all kinds of products, from the first digital chronograph to the first answering machine to the first cellular phone. It was just a world of gadgets. And one after another. I just love products, love toys.

Just love toys. Okay, Eric Peterson, do you want to start with the first question? Are you passing on the first question? Should we give it to Zano?

I am not prepared for the first question today. I'll go back to admit I need some time.

No problem, I'll go.

Richard, it's an honor. It's a pleasure. I certainly know the company. I didn't know your name, but I definitely recognize the rest. You know, if I was sitting down Having lunch with you. I would probably ask you something along lines of this. There's people out there that are, that are successful, right? But, you know, there's a difference between being successful and ultra successful. Like what, what, what mindset does it take or what, what sort of advice you would have with somebody. Whatever niche they're in, they're, they're successful. But there's another level, right, where you, you step out and you, you become a front runner. And just regardless of the niche I was in, what would, what advice might you give me to, to, to, to help me facilitate that type of success?

Great question. You know, the one thing I noticed over my career, and it lasted about 40 years, was that there are good times and bad times. There are times when the wind's at your back and it seems easy. And there's times when you wake up and you think, how the heck am I going to get through this? I mean, I'll never forget one Christmas, around December 1st, our warehouse was robbed. All the products were taken. We had nothing to ship, but it was Christmas. And, and that was just typical of over 40 years. Some crap happens and you got to persevere. So I guess if I have one word, it's persistence. Keep plugging away and work through those difficult times, man. It's hard.

Well, thank you. That's. That's awesome. I appreciate that.

I love it. Dude. Buddy the Nightcap OG Scott Bossman.

Richard, nice to meet you. Nice to speak with you. I've definitely spent a lot of time in your stores, munching around with my boys and my wife and whatnot. Actually, last summer, my wife and I spent some time in a store in Las Vegas. But anyway, I guess we have a lot of people in our Landgate community or in our real estate investing community who are just starting a business. So you may have similar advice regarding what you just gave Mike, but what advice would you give people who are just starting their business? Maybe they don't have much experience in business, and they're maybe a little bit overly cautious, maybe a little bit afraid to take the leap.

Great Scott. Thank you for mentioning that. Well, here's one thought. My business was started with what I call one brick at a time. And by that I mean I didn't have any fancy venture capital. I didn't have any loans. I just thought of a formula that would make money, and then I started one brick at a time to build it into a bigger business. So I guess my point here is don't be embarrassed or afraid to start small. Take One step. The smallest step you need to take to get going and keep moving forward. One step at a time. And don't get seduced by what we see in the paper all the time, which is somebody gets some venture capital deal for a zillion dollars, and now they've lost control of their business and they've got a lot of leverage they could lose if it goes south. So I guess I took a more conservative approach, but I like to think it's a more solid approach that over a number of years, build something that you don't worry about losing and that you can slowly build into something much bigger. So I guess it's the one step at a time approach.

Oh, that's great. Thank you.

I love it. I love it. All right, Terea putting in the reps. Harris, what questions do you have?

Hi, Richard. I am also very familiar with your store, so thank you so much. I have a question because a lot when you hear about successful people, you don't necessarily hear about them without also hearing about some of the failures that they've had to endure. So what was your mindset when you started? And how did you keep the faith even in the midst of adversity? And how did your mindset change over the course of your success?

Great question. Okay, two thoughts on that. One is the phrase management by opportunity. And by that, what I mean is as you start, you see an opportunity which may not be exactly what you thought you were going to do the day you started, but it's an opportunity, and so you manage it by taking advantage of that opportunity. So maybe you go in a slightly different direction than you thought a year ago. The other part of that thought, which I have done many times in my life, I call failure way to success. What the heck does that mean, failed your way to success? And what I mean is hurry up and try something and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, then try something else. And I noticed Elon Musk Tesla mentioned that recently in one of his speeches, and I just loved it because he did that. Many times they try something. If it worked, they continue. If it didn't work, they try something else. So sometimes you have to fail to get to the next step. But that's part of the business. You just have to have confidence that if you keep trying things, eventually something will work and you will manage that opportunity. So there you go.

Thank you.

I love it. I love it. This is like the sharper advice. Eric Peterson, the technician. What question do you have?

All right, we're back to me. How are you doing, Richard? So, you know, something that we see in our community with our students, et cetera, is just kind of this idea around shiny object syndrome, staying focused on the business that you're building. So obviously you were successful with the Sharper Image. You did that for a long time. Can you talk to us about how you stayed focused and didn't chase things that maybe didn't fit and would have led you in a different direction, Especially maybe early on, because it seems like when businesses are just getting started, that's probably the most opportune time to go off and chase something else because maybe you didn't have the success as fast as you wanted or something.

Well, I love that question because in my career I tried a lot of different things. People, people don't remember, but we had a Sharper Image Home Collection catalog. We had a Sharper Image Spa store and catalog. We had a Sharper Image Wine cellar. So I tried different things. And here we're back to management by opportunity and feeling your way to success. Some of them worked, some of them didn't. And your question's more pointed. Your question really is, well, how do you keep from getting distracted? How do you keep from going off at a tangent that's doomed is not going to work at all. And yet it's the shiny object in front of you. Wow, that's a tough one. I'm not sure you're asking the right person since I followed too many shiny objects. All I can say is, over time, something's going to make the money, and that's the management by opportunity. So let's not lose focus. That's something that's making the money we've got to keep our attention on and make sure it keeps growing. If we want to try these other things. Things, let's not bet the ranch on them. Let's just put a little bit out there, see how it goes. But don't bet the ranch. Don't lose everything on some tangent. I'm a big believer that you want to invest in things, you want to try things, but you don't want to invest so much that if it fails, you've lost everything. And that works for land or for businesses.

I love it. Scott Todd, the flight school Sherpa, the brain, the professor. What's your question?

Can I get more than one question?

I know because I know because I have a question. We're going around.

Well, am I going to get a chance to answer? Ask three questions because I got three important ones. All right, here we go. Number one, I'm going to take them anyway. Richard, thank you for being here. Look, one of the things that I see a lot, I know it's within me, I know it's within everybody. Person that walks this planet, successful or not, we all have this, you can call it self doubt, you can have in call it your inner critic. We all have this thing that, that like maybe our brain wants us to stop because it's trying to protect us. How did you overcome that inner critic and like silence the self doubt and just keep marching forward? Forward.

That's a great question, Scott. So one of my favorite sayings is from Ross Perot. He founded a big enterprise in Texas. Ross Perot even ran for president one year. He woke up. He said, I wake up every day scared as hell. Every day I wake up, I'm scared as hell. And I thought, that's funny. That was sort of like my career. I'd wake up every day with plenty of self doubts and always be nervous that I wouldn't succeed. And yet, you know, that sort of what drive, that sort of is what drives you, I think, to do better is that you're scared and nervous. Once you get overconfident. Let's think about that. If you get overconfident or you're complacent, then you've got a problem. Right? So it's good to be scared.

All right.

I mean, I think that's a great. I mean, I'm not going to say it's a great. I mean it is a great answer. But. But I think that that's a lot. One of the things that a lot of people miss is that we all have that. I don't care where you are, you've had it. Ross Perot had it. I didn't know he had it, but okay. I'm sure the President, United States has it every single day. And you know, you just gotta confront it and keep moving forward. And you know, I think that for our audience, we see that a lot of times people get scared and then they freeze. And just listen to Richard. Don't freeze. Wake up and move on. I won't ask my other two questions yet, Mark.

I'll be.

You can ask them, but I have a question. I think it's a good question.

Okay, I don't think mine's going to interfere with yours. But Richard, one of the things that I heard in your bio was that obviously you started with three employees and you didn't finish your career with three employees, but yet you're growing your own company. And probably one of the most difficult things besides your self doubt and inner criticism is adding that next employee. So you know, every, every time you want to go add another employee, I'm sure there's fear in there, right? Because you're going to pay someone, your expenses go up. What advice do you have for people that are looking to add that next employee? They're continuing to do that work today themselves, but they know that they need that next person. Like, is there any, is it just going back to just believing and management by opportunity, or is there something that, you know, you just got to know when the time is right to add that fourth employee or the 400th employee.

Right. It's funny how many times that came up in my career because obviously when it started small, I had to personally be involved in a lot of the hiring. And one little tidbit I'd love to pass along was that I found first of all, you've got to add that person sooner or later. You know, if you're not using, using your time on what you want to do because you're doing too much of this busy work you'd like to assign to somebody else, okay, go for it. So hire that other person. But here's my point is I found they fall into two categories. One is the person that simplifies things. You hire someone and they reduce the problems in the business. They reduce your time involved. The other type is someone who's increasing the problems, they're increasing the amount of time that you're spending, and you hired them to reduce the amount of time that you're spending. So you've got to hire that person when the time is right. But you've also got to evaluate carefully, are they actually causing more problems and causing more time sink, or are they reducing things and then just a small, a small tributary to that. A lot of times somebody would say to me, you know, boss. They wouldn't call me boss, but you know what I mean? They're speaking to the boss and they're saying, the problem, Richard, is you're micromanaging what I'm doing. And my retort to that would be, you know what? If you were doing your job well, I wouldn't have to micromanage what you're doing. I would leave you alone completely. So just two thoughts, one on are they creating more problems for you? And the other is, do you have to micromanage them because they're not doing their job well. So two warning signs to think about.

Great advice, boss. And my last question for you is this one Sharper Image and your company, I mean, I think, and I'm just an outside observer here, but maybe you've heard this throughout your career. It seems like the products that you guys sold and to this day still sell do come at a premium. Right? You know, like, there's always knockoffs. There's always people that are trying to sell it for less than you, the Walmart Club. And I wouldn't put Sharper Image in, like, the Walmart Target kind of price point. I think that it's a premium brand with a premium price. And, you know, when you look at that and you're building your business, I think a lot of times people are afraid of asking for the premium.

Right?

Everybody thinks that a lot of people are just cost conscious and looking for the lowest price, but they're not. They're looking for either an experience or they're looking to. Some people look to pay the highest price for. For anything they can buy. And you know what, what advice would you have for someone starting out, like, you know, in terms of price point? Is it, I mean, obviously it's okay to go for a premium and to build a premium brand, but is there something that someone should pay attention to in that building process of asking for the premium?

Well, that's a good analysis. I mean, the market, especially this year. I've been watching real estate prices in Los Angeles, and it's astounding that you see homes selling for 55 to $100 million. And I'm thinking, wow, who pays those kind of prices? But I guess the point is there's a buyer at every price point. And so there's Ralph Lauren at the top end, and there's TJ Maxx at the lower end. There's Gulfstream jets at the top end. And I guess at the lower end, well, every jet's expensive. There are Pipers. Yeah, there you go. Pipers.

So Scott's a pilot.

There's a price point for everyone. And some people want the finer things, they want the better quality, and some just want the best price at Walmart. And I respect both a lot. For my career, I enjoyed being at the higher end. But you have to make sure your product is able to command that higher price. I mean, obviously your point I think is good, which is if you're not delivering something special, some originality, some premium content, if you're not delivering that, you're not going to be able to charge a higher price. So you need to know your market, and we haven't really talked about that.

Much.

But knowing your market, whether it's property, products, gadgets, knowing your market is essential to being successful. There you go.

Thank you so much. That's the end of my questions.

I have actually two questions. First one's a serious one, and then one's a little less serious. So the first one is I'm going to just premise it by saying that Scott, Todd and I, and I'm not sure about the rest of the crew here, we're a big fan of the show Billions. Have you seen the show Billions?

I love it. Yeah, I've watched it a lot.

Okay, so the main character has a hedge fund called Axe Capital. This guy, Bobby Axelrod. Now, we don't know Bobby Axelrod's backstory necessarily. We don't know if he ever took a company public. But he's got this big hedge fund, and people give him billions of dollars to manage it. And when I think about other funds in the world of funds, you don't see a lot of people who have already been successful in business where they've created their own category that's a name brand. Who's the big fund person today? Cathie Wood. What did Cathie Wood do before she was Cathie Wood? I don't know. She's just Cathie Wood. She's made some great tech investments. She's bullish on all these things, and she's famous from the media. The Sharper investor, however, with you at the helm, is different in the fact.

That.

You actually have crazy amount of experience seeing markets. Right. So I just want to talk about the last five year performance of the Sharper Fund. In 2017, you're up 92%. In 2018, you're down 10%. In 2019, you're up 96%. In 2020, you're up 261%. 2021, up 42%. Your largest positions, by the way. You do puts, you do calls, you hold stock funds. You know, you're an Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Starbucks, Nike, Facebook.

Right.

Richard, my question is, why the hell are you doing this?

Well, I think you saw that Bobby Axelrod loved what he was doing. Axe just thought that was the most fun thing he could do every day. And I feel the exact same way. To me, it's. I don't want to call it gambling, because I believe there's more to it than that. It's not just luck, but the fun of investing and seeing it produce a return. And again, whether it's land business or stocks, that satisfaction is tremendously stimulating. And I wake up every day energized to do it, even though it's been, as we all know, in a really odd market the last two months.

Right, right. Do you think based on your experience, you have a intrinsic advantage?

Yes. Okay, so my point in the book the Sharper Investor is that because in my career, I was thrown so many pitches. Sell this product, sell that product. And I'd have to evaluate what are they worth in the marketplace, will they succeed? And I had to learn. And this translated into stocks. The most striking example was the first time I test drove a Tesla automobile. And that was like seeing a new product, seeing a new gadget. And the first thing I thought after an hour in the car was, this is going to be so successful. So the stock back then was the equivalent of like, $2, and now it's $900. But the same education translated into stock investments.

I love it. I love it. And then my final question before we get to your tip of the week is, of all the products Sharper Image has sold through the years, do you have a favorite?

Wow, great question. Well, we invented the concept of silent air purification with the ionic breeze, and that was a breakthrough product for us. Oh, but I'm going to jump in and interrupt instead. I'm walking the Hong Kong Toy Fair. I see a product that's a toy. It's a shiny chrome scooter with two wheels, and it's called the razor scooter. And so I brought that product back home and said to everybody at the office, this thing is going to be huge. And everyone said, what? A shiny chrome scooter that you push? Are you kidding? And yet that became the single biggest fad in the Sharp Image history, and it changed our business forever because it brought women into the store. And they'd walk up to the cash desk and they'd say, I need two scooters for my two kids right now. Here's my credit card. And so it ushered in a new age for the Sharper Image. It really broadened our appeal.

I love it. I love it. Well, your wisdom has been invaluable, but we are now at that point in the podcast where we're going to put you on the spot one more time and ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else. Action for the auto. Passive income listeners. Go. Improve their businesses, improve their lives. Okay, what do you got?

I'm going to squeeze two things into the space of one. If you go to the website the sharper investor dot com. Thesharperinvestor.com we send you complimentary my 25 pro trading tips for investing in markets. And you'll get that free just for going to the website and registering. But here's my tip. This is hard to do. It takes a tremendous amount of emotional fortitude and that is to have the confidence in yourself that if you know your market, don't be afraid during the down times to buy in. You'll be discouraged. It's a down market. You'll feel totally sick to your stomach that values have dropped. But that is the time to buy because of this one mantra, which we all know, but we have trouble following it, and that is to buy low and sell high. Right? We don't want to buy at the top. And yet that's when most people get in, they go, wow, Bitcoin's at 60 grand. I'm going to get some. Well, no, buy it when Bitcoin's at $35,000. And it's the same with land, stocks or crypto. Buy low, sell high, overcome your emotions, don't be afraid. And if you want to prevent disaster, nibble in. Don't buy in all at once. Just average in over a period of weeks or months. There you go.

I love it. I love it. Well, my tip of the week is learn more about the Sharper Investor Fund. Just go to thesharperinvestor.com check out Richard's book, which looks so cool. And Richard, just real quickly, what are we going to learn from reading this book?

Well, because I go through a lot of real life examples, you'll live the ups and downs of a real trader and do it in a common sense, plain talk, down to earth way that teaches you how to do it yourself.

I love it, I love it. And I mean your returns are ridiculous. I mean 30 to 100% annual returns.

Yeah, it's average 90% for five years averaged out. That's good.

Yeah, not bad, not bad. Well, I want to thank you and I want to remind the listeners that the only way we're going to be able to get the quality of guests like the CEO and founder of the Sharper Image and Richard Helheimer, if you do us three favors. You gotta follow rate, review the podcast, send a screenshot of that review. Supporthelandgeek.com we're going to send you for free a signed copy of Dirt Rich. Also, if you want to learn how to start building that passive income so you can take those returns and invest them into Richard's fund, go to thelandgeek.com forward/training schedule a call with dude buddy, that ICAP OG Scott Bossman or the Zed Master, Mike Zano. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing quickly, safely, efficiently with Scott Todd as your Sherpa. And oh, yeah, that flight school tuition ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're going to make it back 180 days or less. Just show us your work. So please do that. All right, are we ready to do this? 1, 2, 3, let's.

Wow.

I bet you guys are all thinking, like, how the hell did we get. Richard, tell him on this podcast it was no I I. And by the way, he's not like, we're not related or anything, so. Awesome. Mike, what were you going to say?

I thought I was thinking that exact thing. It was really an honor, Richard. Thank you so much. I've been truly inspired in the last 20, 30 minutes.

It's phenomenal.

Thank you so much.

It's very special to be here, and I appreciate the chance to talk with you. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. And by the way, selfishly, we'd like to take another hour of your time, but I imagine you're a busy guy. So thanks again and we'll see you soon. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Scott.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations, or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com forward slash training. Let freedom ring.