How Regenerative Medicine is Rocking the Future with Dr. Tommy Rhee

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. Today I’m talking to the president of Rheegen and he’s also also the author of the Future of Regenerative Medicine, unlocking the Potential of Topical Stem Cell Therapy. So we are talking, we’re rocking out today with Tommy Rhee.

Hey, Dr. Tommy Rhee, are you ready to rock?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Absolutely. And thank you very much to, uh, to be on this, uh, podcast.

Tim Melanson: No problem. So we always start off hearing a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Wow, that’s a good question here. Success. So I think the biggest success was, uh. Looking back, it’s probably the, you know, what really started this whole journey of like, you know, learning to go through hard work and, and win and be successful. You know, if it’s an event, it’s, it’s always, it always draws me back to the military days.

And, uh, there was this task, it was a, it was tough for me for some reason. It [00:01:00] was what they call the, um, you had to tread with all your flight gear on. And these flight gears were not inflated. So it’s like your boots, your flight suit, your, you know, survival vest, your helmet, and I’m not that buoyant back then, you know, I was like, I was like a rock.

So it was difficult for me to like stay floating and then with all that gear it’s even more difficult. And I remember like having a such a difficult time and it was like one of those things like when you fail, you’re out of the program, you’re not gonna be in flight. And it’s just one of those things like just, just.

Just kind of like, you know, put you in that perspective. Like Uhoh, this is a lot of stress. So not only is it physically, but now it’s mentally stressful ’cause now you think your future is gonna be like entangled by this thing. So I remember just, just going at it and just, just trying to get my mental state into a, like a zen like a.

Be peace. And that comes the physical side of my body. And then I’m, I’m allowed to tread because one of the things that they don’t allow you to do is swim. If you can swim, you can [00:02:00] stay afloat, but they say stay still and tread. So in that successful moment of breaking, if it was a five minute tread and a five minute, what they call the, um, drown proofing or, so a total of 10 minutes, uh, after that.

You, you, you feel this weight off your shoulder and it’s like, okay, I, I know now that this is something that you know is as possible and it leads you to the next challenge, the next challenge. So it’s like a cascade of events. So that always draws me back when I think about, I mean, there’s other successful moments in your life as an adult, but when you look back, you look at that one moment, like, I mean, I just remember the fear in my eyes, looking at that pool, looking at these people, you know, like failing and like, I gotta get through this thing.

So I think that’s one of the biggest stories.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah, and it’s, it’s, it’s funny how that happens, right? And, you know, people get scared to even try in the first place, but you do it and you make it through, and then it just kind of leads you to the next challenge. Right now, that one doesn’t look so bad anymore.

Dr Tommy Rhee: [00:03:00] Absolutely. That’s the thing about life. You have to put yourself, you know, like move that benchmark, move that threshold up higher with more challenges, either mental or physical. Just gotta keep on applying it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I was in university, when they, you know, first year when, you know, we’d be talking to the professors and they’d, you know, you sort of have these, uh, mentors that’ll be like, okay, well if you look at the syllabus. You know, don’t worry about it because the end, you’re gonna be shocked that you completed that.

Right. Now you’re like, I don’t have any idea how I’m gonna get this done right in this term. But at the end of it, it’s done. And then you’re onto the next syllabus, right?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah, that’s what, what, that’s what the military teaches too, is these micro victories, these small little wing and not, don’t look at the whole picture, look at the small steps, and then those steps will increase into a larger accomplishment. And finally, the goal is achieved.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and, and I think probably as an entrepreneur, you know. I, [00:04:00] I mean, you know, when you’re gonna school or when you’re in the military, or even when you’re working a job, you know someone’s gonna break those down for you and just give ’em to you. Just do this little task. Right. You know? And then at the end of it, it’s done.

But as an entrepreneur, you know, you’re looking at a big thing that you have to accomplish, and you have to be the one to break that down into those tasks. Right?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah, that’s what, that’s what’s interesting about the entrepreneur and just, it’s almost like there’s a group, but really the group is you. It is you, and just just the knowledge that you can. Get from yourself and the, the stamina and the drive to accomplish that. So it’s a combination. A lot of things.

There’s so much information to get, but you have to, you know, take it upon yourself to go get it. You know, you have to find, get those resources, get that. I mean, nowadays you got podcasts, you’ve got, you know, ai, you’ve got all this information out there you can get. But the hard part is that. Who’s gonna go out and do that effort, right?

Well, it has to be you. So that’s that. Again, going back to the military, that’s what [00:05:00] instilled in me was like, you know, if you want something, depend on yourself and pull through and get to that spot.

Tim Melanson: I think that’s the best way to live too. I mean, hey, it is just me, but I, I feel way more fulfilled, you know, figuring, you know, climbing those mountains or you know. Going in that pool and doing those things. Then if it were to just, you know, I go in, I collect my paycheck and then I leave. You know, it just seems like, you know, there’s just more joy when you get those ups and downs of like fear and, and failure and then, and then success.

Right.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah. You know what’s funny about the, what you just said, uh, you have to look at the personality too. Like, you know, you and I are probably that type of person that likes to like, you know. Be on the, on the, how would you say, on the outside of the box, you know, you want to like color outside the lines, you know, so, so you know when you have that mindset, you’re thinking like.

I can do a better job, or I can do like, especially like you’re saying in music, that’s a creativity you want to go, all right, there’s a standard process. [00:06:00] There’s a standard, but let me go outside and go, kind of push the envelope and make the sound different, make the beat different. So when I, when I start thinking about entrepreneurs, it’s a, it’s a different breed of people.

That think different. And then when they set themselves a goal, they get passionate. When you get passionate with a project, you’re unstoppable. And all you gotta do is just stay consistent and stay passionate. And then, you know, like I was taught in the military, if you never quit, you never lose. You just constantly keep going.

So, uh, yeah, so it’s, it’s that mindset that we all have that just constantly just find that passion, find that goal, love what you do, and then it doesn’t matter, you know, during the process. You’ll achieve it if you just keep consistency.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, you haven’t, you haven’t lost until you quit. Right.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Melanson: I love that. Okay. Well now not everything goes as planned though, ’cause there are some failures that that come up. And I’m wondering, can you share with me something that we can learn from that that happened to you?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Failures. Wow. There’s a [00:07:00] lot of failures out there. If you’re, if you’re in business, you’ll feel come, you know, we don’t call them failures. We call them like learning lessons or hurdles or something else. So I think, I think that one of the biggest thing is, uh. Is de is trying to depend on people. That’s one of the things that you have to be careful with.

You know, when you’re on your own and you’ve got an idea and you’re leading the charge of your own idea and business, and you’re a, you know, the CEO and your president and you bring on advisors, maybe a partner or something, and then what you envision in their task if it’s not in the foundation, in, in a solid agreement.

There’s a disconnect. It’s always gonna, it’s always gonna turn out bad. So the biggest thing that I’ve learned in my. In my lessons in life, you have to have a real strong conversation when you partner up, bring somebody on board into your vision. If they don’t have the same vision as you, or they’re not trying to, [00:08:00] you know, help you achieve your goal, maybe they take a selfish route and say, Hey, this is mine and I’m gonna, you’re gonna help me.

And so you got to be careful. So in my past, I’ve been, I’ve been burnt by people, you know, especially like when it comes to like, um. People you think you could depend on with partnerships and, uh, some type of advisory position. One of the things that you have to understand is that they have their sets, they have their own, you know, their, their, their reason why they want to join your

Tim Melanson: their agenda.

Dr Tommy Rhee: So what happened to me was that I had a big, uh, falling out with one of my, um, advisor partner guys, and we didn’t meet. The problem with that is that, uh. As I, um, as the company, uh, parted Waze. He set into a presence of trying to, uh, destroy me in the sense of like, shutting down all my infrastructure, you know, you know, like my CRM, the [00:09:00] banking system.

And it was, it was awful. It was awful. So the lesson I learned right there is that, you know, learn at the very beginning is. That’s, I know it’s difficult, but at the very beginning, try to get a really good foundational conversation about the real facts. What do you, what do you, what are your perception of him, yourself, everybody.

And then if it’s your business, you’ve got to, you know, have control, get more control. Like I trusted people. And then lesson learned there. So I guess the biggest thing that I, I can say about my lesson was. You have to really, you know, understand your partnership, your people you bring on board, and then, you know, make sure that you, you trust people, but you have to not micromanage them, but you have to have some type of like, like a, not, I wouldn’t say exit strategy, but you have to have some type of control in every aspect of your business, even if it’s, if it’s his responsibility.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, no, I, I agree. And, you know, it’s tough, right? Because, uh, I, [00:10:00] I, I think that one of the, one of the, the realities, I guess, is that trustworthy people tend to think that everybody’s trustworthy and untrustworthy. People tend to think that everybody’s untrustworthy. And I’ve noticed that a lot. Right? And, and, and, and it’s unfortunate because you know, when you, uh, when you trust somebody who’s untrustworthy, they actually don’t trust you and will try to screw you over, and you have no, you’re just going, what?

What’s happening here? Right.

Dr Tommy Rhee: You know, it’s, it’s exactly what you said. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of like you, you, you want, you want, like for instance, like what I, in my personality, I’m that person that I trust people, but also. Don’t trust people at the same time, like, you know, I want total control. So you start, you know, thinking that, all right, on this new adventure I’m gonna give more, uh, maybe some objective findings and figure out if it’s really me that’s kind of hampering the past relationship with other [00:11:00] partners and stuff like that.

So then you go the other extreme, you know, not so much a conservative, now you. You just, you’re liberating all your responsibility to somebody else. So then now the problem is, oh wow, now you give them too much control. So it’s a balance. You just got to learn that balance. And that’s a difficulty when you start thinking about like joining on with a partner and just figuring out, you have to really secure yourself.

And it’s kind of weird because it’s like, you know that saying like, nice guys, finish last and you know, don’t, don’t see my kindness as weakness and it’s just. It’s tough, you know? ’cause my personality is that I enjoy people and I love conversation and my, my feeling is that I just wanna help people and spread the word and make a product that helps people.

But when you get business and money, then you get people that get kind of greedy and they kind of like, they don’t see that vision. They wanna say, oh. I want to make money and I want to be, I, I said, uh oh. So that’s, that’s what the difference is, that you have to find something that understands that your [00:12:00] role is this, and then don’t exceed that, because now it’s a difficult conversation after the relationship has been built.

So it’s like, learn that lesson.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s probably a course on its own to figure all that

Dr Tommy Rhee: Oh my gosh.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But I mean, you know, the good news is that there are plenty of trustworthy people there that are building, you know, something. But I, I think, I think, uh, I think you’re right. I think, uh, you know, getting a little bit of that. Uh, you know, get to know you type stuff in the very beginning.

I know I’ve heard, uh, so many people talking about, you know, the difference between hiring, you know, for culture versus for skills. Right? And, you know, skills can be taught, you know, there, there are, but the, the culture, the personality of a person, you know, it is what it is, right? And so if you focus a little bit more on that in the, in the beginning, then you know, you might, you might get some.

Better results, right? Because I mean, oftentimes we will go out there and get the person who’s the best, at the best at whatever it [00:13:00] is that they’re doing, and they might not be the right person for you. Right?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah, especially when you like, like you said, you gotta be careful what you wish for, right? You want the best of the best, well, that best might think that I can take your job too. So you gotta say, wait a minute, that that best is a little too in the gritty and exceeding his role best. So, yeah, absolutely.

So I do like that thought process, what you just said about the, the culture. Get the culture, you know, I’m not to start thinking about that. Like I, I, I didn’t, I didn’t look at it that way. So thank you very much for that, Tim. I’m gonna look at that angle.

Tim Melanson: you’re welcome. It, uh, it’s, I, I think, I think it’s, uh, I think it’s big. I think it’s, it’s, uh, especially, I mean, in small business, I mean, we don’t have time. I mean, you can’t be hiring and firing people all the time, like it’s. You gotta figure out the, the best way to bring the right people on board. But I think that another thing too is that I, I like the idea of hiring people that are self-employed because, you know, if they’re, if they’ve got their own business and their business just aligns with your business, [00:14:00] then you know, it’s one of those things where you’re both working.

It’s hard on your own thing, like you say, I mean, they wanna make money. Hey, I get that. I get that. You know, you gotta feed your family, right? I mean, if you know you’re part of my journey and you’re doing it for free, well that’s not good. I mean, there’s gotta be a win-win somewhere. Um, but on the other hand, uh, you know, if there’s a way that they can have their little bit, that’s what they do and that’s what they love doing and they don’t do your bit on purpose. Right. That’s probably a good place to be now that you know they’re not gonna steal you.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah, yeah. Definitely win-Win is the best scenario. You know, I always think even. On my side, I always think that I want them to have a little bit more, so then they have some like, like, you know, like, like skin in the game they would say, right? But absolutely you’ve got to get a partnership that understands that we both benefit working together for the the common goal.

Tim Melanson: Let’s talk about practicing now. I mean, you’ve probably done a lot [00:15:00] of practicing in a lot of different areas, but what, what is it? What do you think practice is actually,

Dr Tommy Rhee: Well, practicing everything you can think of. If it’s the mental side of it, the physical side of it, just repetition, building a behavior, you know. You know, we all have those bad behaviors. Well, you can also make good behaviors. You know, you can, like, for instance, like get up in the morning and make sure that you make your bed.

Get up there, because that sets your day off, right? Once you start accomplishing these little micro victories, then all of a sudden you’re, you’re set off, right? That’s one goal I accomplished today. Let’s keep on going. Then all of a sudden. Those tasks in hand are gonna be easier and easier ’cause like, all right, I’ve got those now and then, you know, like, like, like, like I said, I always have to go back in the military days, it’s these little micro victories that they just teach you.

Like, here, take this, take that. And all of a sudden you, you, you end up like, I’m done. That was easy. ’cause they just show you how those steps were. So that’s why I think about like these. These lessons practices, it’s this repetitive emotion. Like nothing’s worse than, uh, [00:16:00] like when I get up in the morning, I have my ritual, you know, meditation, prayer, and then I listen to something positive, positive motivation, something, uh, it’s a YouTube video.

It’s a testimonial something because it’s sets in a, an emotion of the day. You’ve got to continue on from that point on because everything else is like sunshine, you know? You know, maybe at the end of the day you can do something else, but. I always think that if you can set yourself in that mold, everything becomes easier.

So then when you put yourself in a task, you already have the actual template. You just gotta apply the actual subject matter inside this thing, and you just continue on.

Tim Melanson: That’s great. I, I love what you said about making your bed. I mean, this is, this is one of those things where people will just kind of go, what? Come on. What does that have to do with me having a successful day? Right. Make my bed, I mean, no one’s gonna see my bed. I’m, I’m, I’m out in the office. Right. Why do I need to do this?

And I think that that’s in the beginning. I mean, I [00:17:00] thought my mom made me make my bed so that it looked good. Right? I mean, that’s ridiculous now that I’m thinking about it. But why, why does it have to look good? Right? But, but I like what you’re saying. It’s, it’s sets you up with that, with that micro victory, right?

It sets you up with something. And I mean, do you make it real good or do you just pull the covers over? What, what do you do?

Dr Tommy Rhee: So I’m, I’m like, I’m like the generic, you know, like 50 50 now. But, but the most important thing is that it forces you out of bed. You know, when that alarm clock, there’s no snooze button, you get up and all of a sudden, by the time you realize, you know, I’m waking up. You’re done with a bed. He’s like, okay, now let’s just continue on getting ready.

So it just puts everything in that practice mode of just repetitive movement and behavior. See, here’s the thing with if, when you start really being objective, like really being objective with you, you know, like really finding out who you are. Like I, I can become very lazy. I can be one of those guys.

Sleeps [00:18:00] in, and then let the, the whole weekend go by without any just like conscious thought. I could just like zone out and knowing that, and then there’s project at hand, well, I have to force it. So I have to start off with those little, little tiny victories to get me going. So if I didn’t use that little, like that bed making in the morning and all, oh, I, I would lose it.

I would definitely be. You know, from Saturday morning to Monday morning, I’m like, what happened? What’s going on here? Where, what, what did I do this weekend? So that’s why it really sets into the first step of everything I want to achieve.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, you know, in sports, I, I was watching something, I can’t remember what it was, but they were talking about how a lot of athletes. We’ll have this warmup routine that they do, and it’s the same one. It’s like this ritual that they do every time, and then they just, you know, jump off the diving board or whatever it is that, that they’re doing.

And I think that what they said is that the thought pattern is that it’s, it’s like a ramp. [00:19:00] It’s like, it, it, it sets your brain up that, okay, we’re going, and then that little routine is something that it’s very predictable. You know, there’s no way it’s gonna go wrong. Right? It’s just something very easy and that, that ramp just gets you going and then now you’re in your event like, yeah.

Dr Tommy Rhee: You could do that with anything, not only sports, but music, you know, anything you could just imagine that you can apply, like any of that type of scenario. Ramping up into, you know, a work mode, working out music, conducting, you know, constructing a building, you have to warm up to it and then all of a sudden the juices flow and all of a sudden there you’re in, you’re in the thick of it and everything is a, is a hundred percent just activation.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your brain does, does need that. I think. I mean, it, it’s, uh, and I actually did use that for music. I played the same song as my soundcheck song for a decade,

Dr Tommy Rhee: Oh, that’s

Tim Melanson: and it, it just turned into a bit of a joke. ’cause now, [00:20:00] I mean, everybody like at My Jams will know that that’s a song we’re starting with.

It’s so cool.

Dr Tommy Rhee: But that’s cool. That’s just like making a bed in the morning. You, you, you got, you got your little starter kit. I like that. That’s great.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It works really well. So let’s talk a little bit about the band now. Who do you have in your business that helped make the magic happen?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Well with Regen, you know, it’s pretty much a one man shot right now, so it’s me, I, you know, the company. Okay, so when I developed this thing, which is a topical stem cell cream. I’m the developer, I’m the r and d, I’m doing the research, I’m doing papers, and then once you get to a point where you’re starting to grow with sales and learning how to use a CRM and just really applying, then you, you know, I, I brought in a partner and that partner, you know, didn’t work out too well.

So that, that sort of destroyed a lot of things. But, so at this point, it’s just me. And that covers all the hats of running a company [00:21:00] from, you know, from basically the, the reception, you know, answering phones, taking the orders, doing the actual, like the, the, the shipments, the delivery, the actual, like making sure all the supplies.

So I’m everybody right now on top of doing, you know. You know, working my other job, which is the chiropractic physical therapy stuff. So it’s very taxing and that’s why, uh, you, like I said, once you set yourself and you see the vision. And then you have that, that practice, that, that condition of driving and you never quit.

Well, that’s where I’m at. I mean, it, it, it, it seems to other people like, wow, you work a lot, but you know, when you’re in my world, it’s like, it’s just normal. It’s just something that we all know as an entrepreneur that you, this is part of life. You just keep going. You don’t feel sorry for yourself. We just keep going.

This is, this is something that we see as our passion and it’s, it’s easier for us. It’s like fun.

Tim Melanson: yeah, yeah. I, I compare it more like to a hobby. You know, nobody, nobody gets mad at [00:22:00] you and says, oh, you know, you’re wasting your life away with that hobby of yours. You know, you should, you know you, but they say that with work, oh, you work too much. They don’t say, oh, you play your guitar too much.

Well, maybe they, maybe they will. Won’t feel bad for you.

Dr Tommy Rhee: But you, you know what’s funny is that when you start going in this world of like, you know, doing your own business entrepreneur and just really you start finding out who your friends are and who supports and who really antagonize you, you know, and it’s kind of like you, you’ve gotta have not so much a thick skin, but you have to have the strength to like know how to.

Turn your head and not listen and don’t take their advice or their criticisms. And that’s difficult because these lifelong friends that you may have that are like telling you that, like, don’t go for your passion. Don’t go for what you wanna do. You know, go into the box, go be a normal person. You know you, you got to find out who you are and who they are and see if that’s worth your relationship with them.

Tim Melanson: [00:23:00] Yeah, it, that is really unfortunate. I mean, and you, you, you see so much of that, uh, the thing that’s most frustrating is like the ones that tell you you shouldn’t do it. It’s not a good idea. And then once you do it and you’re successful, they’re like, I knew you would be, I knew you could do it.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Oh my gosh, that’s so true. So true.

Tim Melanson: What do you mean? You knew I could do it? Oh yeah. I was just testing your resolve.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah, you know what, but the, but the, on other side of that coin is the one that supports you. That person, you sort of lean on that person. I mean, you’re not looking for advice, but it’s that cheerleader. It’s like the, Hey, you got this. Continue on. And then it’s just a, I use, like, I have a great friend, you know, great friend Jeff.

He’s my, he’s who I vent to. Like, I he, he sits back and he doesn’t judge. He just says, you got this, you keep going. You’re, you’re doing fantastic. And he puts me back into my, my path. Sometimes you get kicked to here. So you know, you guys out there, find that person, find that, find that one person [00:24:00] that’s always gonna give you the positive feedback, the encouragement and continue, and the belief.

I think that’s huge. So I, I, I do think, Hey, Jeff out there. Thanks a lot man.

Tim Melanson: Well, and now outta curious curiosity, what does Jeff do?

Dr Tommy Rhee: So he’s also a doctor, but he’s more so in just, just practicing. He doesn’t, um, he doesn’t expand himself. I do like, I go out and say, I want to expand out. I wanna go into like developing a product, writing a book, you know. So with that, uh, he’s, he’s just just a, a friend of mine since like, we were like elementary, you know, students.

So.

Tim Melanson: Well, and it sounds to me like, like he’s just, he knows who he is and he’s comfort, comfortable and confident. He’s got nothing to prove he’s. Not trying to, you know, take what you have. He is, he is, uh, he is confident. And that’s the thing, right? I mean, I think the people that tear you down are the ones that, you know, they’re, they’re missing something in their lives [00:25:00] and so they’re trying to take it from yours, right?

Whereas someone who is happy, they’re happy for you.

Dr Tommy Rhee: A hundred percent. And, and again, talking about like entrepreneurs, it’s our, it’s that mindset. We’re genetically coded for this. We, we are meant to do this expansion into the world of risk. You know about, hey, find your passion. It may penetrate outside of the box that’s protected by, you know, corporate world, but you believe in something.

That’s who I am. That’s a lot of entrepreneurs are so. That’s that mindset. His mindset isn’t that he’s, he’s happy where he is at, which I love, you know, I love his passion, his world, and he loves my passion. And that’s what’s so good for me to feedback from his, uh, his positive energy.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep. There’s all different types of people. I, I mean, I, I say this all the time. It’s like, if you’re happy, that’s awesome. Keep doing what you’re doing. If you’re not happy, then you can change, right? But I mean.

Dr Tommy Rhee: There’s a lot of people out there [00:26:00] not happy. A lot of people in that world of, and I, I, you know, I always think that if you’re not happy, change. Well, that’s the problem. That behavior, they’re stuck in that bad behavior, that bad, whatever they’re into, they’re into it and they can’t get out of it.

And it’s very difficult, you know, to change course while it’s going down a bad pathway. And that’s the difficult, that’s why you hear a lot of things about like, you know, substance abuse or like, you know, like. Dietary things, all kinds of cardiac health issues. Well, a lot of that’s behavior in a bad way that if you alter that, you can fix it.

But if that was easy then you know, you see a lot of, like medical bills go down a lot because, you know, health is one of the big things that are consequences of poor diet and poor exercise and stress.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, to be fair though, there are a lot of traps in our society that, you know, lots of. Very wealthy companies that spend a lot of money on trying to keep you trapped in some of [00:27:00] these things that you might get end up in. Right. And it, it does take a lot to pull yourself out of it.

And, you know, part, probably part of this would be finding the right band, finding the right people around you that can support you out of that and get you out of those ruts when you get into them. Because hey, we all, we all fall in the rut from time to time, right? And it’s just.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Hey, were, were you one of those kids in school that, uh, kind of like pushed the envelope, like a little more boisterous and then seeing like, Hey, I, I don’t fit. That’s who I am too. You know, we’re all like that. We don’t fit in that mold. Like the classroom setting. We like, I think like, I think I can learn this material not in a six hour period.

Maybe I can do it in 30 minutes and then the rest we can find something that we enjoy to study on, we want to do instead of like being forced to learn about. I don’t know, like, you know, like, like simple, like, like history of something, right? So I think that’s one of the things that, that when you see those students that are really, like, they, they fall in line and they’re perfectly happy with being [00:28:00] told what to do.

Well, they’re happy in that kind of world. Whereas like guys like us, we love the challenge, we love to expand ourselves and go for something we wanna be passionate about.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and, and I think that our challenge now is to also support and be happy for the people that are happy not being us,

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. We need those people, believe it or not, those are the ones that, you know, how would you say like they’re the ones that do the actual, like the, the, the operation, the one that, you know, you’ve got to do the assembly, you know, there, there are, there are, there are places for everybody here and just, just find that enjoyment and continue on.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Yeah. My happiness doesn’t have to be your happiness, and that’s a good thing,

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Tim Melanson: Right on. So now it’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Okay. Uh, so. Region. So it’s the, uh, first topical [00:29:00] transdermal stem cell therapy cream. And it derives from the same place where you hear about stem cell, uh, therapy from injections. So it comes from this, uh, you know, there’s a part of a umbilical cord. It’s called a Wharton’s jelly. And on the jelly there’s these stem cells, right?

Little, little helpers that help you kind of like regenerate your own tissues. So, you know, you take it, you get this stuff from the lab, and then you inject it into your body and it heals like damaged areas of like tendons, muscles that, that don’t heal well. So because of the cost and the risk factor, not a lot of people are eligible for that.

’cause it’s, you know, the cost could be up to five, $15,000. So. Now you think about, well, if there’s a cheaper way, a safer way of getting these stem cells in your body, well, that’s what regen is. So I’ve developed this topical transdermal that goes through the skin that does the same objective as the injectable, except for there’s no risk factor, and the cost is so much less.

So now you can get these stem [00:30:00] cells, right, these little guys that help you generate your tissue. On a cream that you rub on yourself, and it’s a daily application and it’s a 30 day process and it yields as much as the injectables. So that’s what’s fun about where my world right now, so. Right. I think the big thing with Regen is it was developed really for NFL players that I was, you know, working on.

And the big thing with them is that they were complaining about stem cell injections. They can’t do it during the season, so that’s why this was developed because they were wanted to a different delivery system than injectable. So that’s why I developed a topical. So then I said, well if it works for NFL players, I can go ahead, you know, provide it to civilians and weekend warriors.

So. And that’s where Regen has all started there.

Tim Melanson: wow. Okay. Well, so now does it, like, how does it work? Like what, where do you, like you got a sore elbow or whatever. You rub it on your elbow type thing. It’s

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so, so you’re thinking about these, [00:31:00] these stem cells, right? These stem cells have these little magical like signals called EVs, extracellular vesicles. These little EVs have like messages, these messages like target tissues, like the muscles and the tendons and ligament to regenerate. It’s called a cell to cell communication.

It’s called a pericrine effect. So what you do is you just rub it on your skin and then it goes through the scan, these little, little messages, right, and then it goes to the damaged area through a system called honing. It hones to the damaged area. Once it gets there, it says, all right. Tenets through the cytes signal.

Turn on to make more tenets because you have a little bit of tendonitis. If it’s a cartilage that needs to increase because you have joint space loss, it’ll tell the cartilage to grow bigger. So you think about all the connected tissue we have the ability to regenerate tissue, but the problem is the signal in our body has decreased with aging.

So now what do we need? We need a young, vibrant signal from the umbilical cord [00:32:00] that’s in region. To turn on your existing tissue to say, all right, regenerate. So that’s the fun part. So now you see the future moving into the patient’s hand, not so much as a doctor doing the injection. Now you’ll be able to say, all right, I know by listening to podcasts like this and doing all kind of my own, like, you know, research, I can figure out what I need and just get it and apply it to myself.

So that’s why it’s get more interesting In the world of regenerative medicine, it’s developing into a almost a patient type of provider where they take care of themselves by the information that’s out there.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s awesome. Well, and, and I mean, the rest of the marketplace has really cha uh, transitioned quite a bit too. Like I remember back in the eighties or seventies, you know, maybe even in the nineties when you walk into a store, I mean, you go find the salesman, the salesman tells you. You know, they, they’re more educators back then, but now you know, you walk into a store and you already know on your phone exactly what you’re looking for.

You just go [00:33:00] get it.

Dr Tommy Rhee: How cool is that?

Tim Melanson: Right?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah, that is the coolest thing in the world. This technology, especially in your hand by the cell phone, you can get information so fast. Remember the days of like you used to trust your friend that had a little better iq, and you’re like, so goes nowadays. He goes, hang on man. You get in, your phone, goes, I’m gonna Google that and all goes.

Wrong. You’re wrong. So that’s why everybody, you know, fact checking and all that information out there, and then you’ve gotta fact check the facts. So then you’re, you’re constantly checking, checking. So that’s what’s great about this is that if you’re out there and you’re really investigating of, you know, something that you wanna develop, there’s so much information out there, there’s so many things you can get involved with as far as like.

Chat, GPT is a fine piece of tool. Then you take that information and you cross reference that with something else, and then you make sure that all your references are checked. It goes okay, I believe that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Uh, with chat g PT especially, I, it’s funny you say that, ’cause back in the day you used to [00:34:00] debate with your friends about whatever it was and like, no, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. That does not happen anymore at all. Now it’s like, uh, you know. Did so and so do this, and you’re like.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Oh, Mike. So I’ve got kids, you know, my kids are kind of old, so they’re like in their thirties and late twenties. And you know, you know when you’re like little baby kids, you know, they would look at you like a superhero and they’ll believe everything you say. Right? Nowadays, we’ll have conversation and they’ll, they’re in the middle of conversation.

They’ll pull the phone up and they’ll fact check you. And then the worst thing about their personality is that when I’m right and they’re wrong, and then they see it and then they just stay quiet and then like. Well, I mean, we gotta gotta be objective here. You know, I’m trying to help you out guys. And they’re like, oh man.

It’s like I lost an argument. Goes, well, you didn’t lose an argument. You just basically still on the wrong side. That’s it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it is funny. They’re look, they’re looking at the phone. They don’t say anything. Then you’re right.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah. But that’s what’s great about this. And then, you know, [00:35:00] continue on with the, the world of business on it. When you get your own business, you’re with this information. Now you can get to sources so much faster. You know, like for instance, you may have a question with taxation. Can I write this off? Hey, pull out the old phone and go Google it.

And you’ll find out real quick that answer instead of like asking an accountant or attorney that charges $300 an hour, Hey, what about this? And then you get the bill a month later goes, look at this bill just for a question.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, the, the tools are so incredible and so for people that, like you and I that wanna get out there and create something, you know, there’s, there the tools are out there to help us do it. I mean, back in the day, you used to actually, you used to be blocked by a lot of that stuff, even the marketing side of it.

I mean, you have to go. Buy a TV ad or a billboard or whatever it is to get that information out there. Uh, you know, or even go door to door, like it was just so much harder. Now it’s a matter of like, you still have to stick out, right? You have to, you have to figure out how [00:36:00] to stick out amongst all the noise.

But anybody has tools available for them now to be able to get something off the ground, even if it has to be with researching to find the right people to help us.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Absolutely. There’s so many creative people out there that can really hone into what the, uh, the, uh, the best marketing can. Pain and how to approach it and you know, but it all comes down to, you know, accessibility. So like you said in the past it was very difficult because there’s only like, what, three meetings, right?

Radio, TV, and print. Now you see internet, you see everything. I mean, there’s so many things out there that you can get involved with that some of ’em are free. That’s the cool thing about that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. So how do we find out more about your business then?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Well, if you can just go on to, uh, my website, which is, uh, regen, R-H-E-E-G-E n.com. You can, uh, take a look at regen the product. And of course my book is on Amazon. That’s the, um, future regenerative Medicine. [00:37:00] And just, and then I would use my last name, R-H-E-E-E and you can find me faster with that. It’s a real simple book too, so it has, you know.

Information about what are stem cells, what kind of, what are different types of stem cells, and then what’s the application in the present? And where the feature is, is topical, and it talks about the science of it, which people get lost. So there’s another version inside that book, which is a layman’s term.

It’s a guy named Jeff. It’s his journey through discovering stem cell therapy. So yeah, so that’s the fastest way to get me there on the, uh, website and uh, the book.

Tim Melanson: Beautiful. Okay, so one more question. The hardest one, who’s your favorite rock star?

Dr Tommy Rhee: know, YouTube, I mean, YouTube, I mean. I can listen to, you know, again, that brings me back to the Navy days. You know, this is back in 1987 and the Joshua t the Tree album that kept me alive. You know, back then there was no, like, you know, we, we had the Sony walk bands, you know, and the, you had to put the triple eight, [00:38:00] double eight batteries in that thing.

And I would waste that battery and I would just listen to, ’cause you know, when you’re deployed, you don’t get to have the luxury of like the streaming radio or anything. So you have to carry these cassettes. And it was that cassette. And I just played the hell outta thing. So when they had that, uh, remember the Joshua Tree reunion tour they had a couple years ago?

I, I made sure I went to that concert, so

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I went to it too. That’s awesome. Yeah, they put on a good show too.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Oh yeah. If you listen to the lyrics, I mean, there’s a lot of meaning. Even every genre, when I was twenties, it meant something thirties, forties, every set of age group, it means something like right now it means a different meaning than when I was 20.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Isn’t that funny how that happens? I, you, you get something different out of it depending on where you are in your life. And it, it works the same way with a lot of different songs, a lot of different music. Yeah. Even books, movies, all that stuff, right?

Dr Tommy Rhee: Yeah. It’s so interesting of like where you’re at in life and it, it just changes the, the whole meaning of that particular, [00:39:00] that music or that movie.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Tommy. This is a lot of, been a lot of fun.

Dr Tommy Rhee: Amen. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this. This is fun. I.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.