380 – His daughter inadvertently started his company: Tom interviews Robby Besner

Episode 380 – Robby Besner
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode three hundred and eighty of screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Robby Besner. Wow, what a guy. And he's got a really, really cool company that he started. But the reason he started it, I mean, let him tell you the story of his daughter and what went on with her that led to what he's doing now. Now, I hope you didn't forget from listening to us to download a copy of our automation ebook. It's yours free for listening to the show. It's called How to Automate Your Business, the seven figure guide of Handling More Customers Without Pulling Your Hair Out. And we figured it out one time. Just one of the tips in this book is Save Me Seven and a half million keystrokes definitely saved me carpal tunnel. It's free for listening to the show. Pick it up at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're over there, pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app. You can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:01:34] Now, how would you like to hear your own voice here on screw the commute? Well, if the show's helped you out at all in your business or giving you ideas to help you start a business, we want to hear about it. Visit screwthecommute.com, look for a little blue sidebar that says send the voicemail, click on it, talking to your phone or computer. Tell me how the shows helped you. And hey, also put your website in there because we'll give you a big shout out on a future episode of Screw the Commute. All right, folks, I know everybody is hurting with this pandemic. It's crazy out there. The kids are supposed to go to school one day and then they call you up or text, you know, don't go to school. The kids are going to catch on fire, you know, whatever kind of stuff. They're sticking a stick in at you. And then you got to quit your job or you don't even have a job to watch the kids at home fool around on on a computer.

[00:02:25] I mean, it's just crazy situation out there. Well, for over twenty two years, I've been railing against this. I want you to be able to sell stuff from home, make a living from home, screw the commute. That's how the genesis of this podcast is. I have been screwing the commute for forty four years, OK, long before the Internet came along. And it's allows you to live two or three lives, but especially especially now with the atmosphere in the world. If you could be selling from home, you wouldn't be going crazy about paying the mortgage and paying the rent and the car payments and and quitting your job to watch the kids fumble around on Zoome. So check it out. Twelve years ago, I made a formal commitment to get licensed, the only licensed, dedicated Internet marketing school in the country certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to live in Virginia. It's good quality distance learning and the skills that you learn are in high demand. We have people making money a couple months into the school long before they graduate. So check it out at IMTCVA.org and a little later I'll tell you how. If you're in my mentor program, you can get a scholarship that you can either use yourself or gift to someone. And I'll tell you what, it'd be the best legacy gift you could ever give to a young person. So they're not going into massive debt in a four year college where they all they do is learn how to protest and then they compete for jobs at Starbucks with their MBAs. So we don't want that around here.

[00:04:05] All right. Let's get to the main event, Rob or Robby, as he likes to be called, Besner. He's the chief science officer and device developer and co-founder of a company called Therasage. They're the makers of the premier infrared healing products in the world. They're the recognized as the leader in integrated infrared technology. Robby, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:34] Of course I am.

[00:04:35] I know you've been doing it for a while. So good to have you here. We were introduced by Cary Jack, another podcast guy and the really wonderful guy. And I'm so glad he he hooked this up because I've been looking at your Web site. And while you have some really I was going to say killer stuff, but it's actually opposite of that. It's putting life into people. So tell us about therasage.

[00:05:00] Well, we're a company that's founded on about twenty two years ago. We started our journey mostly born and sort of that pain to purpose scenario that you hear about have a pretty medical background, engineering and business also. And what happened was my oldest child, my daughter and probably early teens, 12 to 15 contracted Lyme disease. Not twenty two years ago, Lyme was somewhat at its infancy. There weren't that many Lyme literate doctors available as resources, but we found the one that was considered the top notch doctor in the field, of course, where we live in South Florida. And he was positioned in out on Long Island in New York, New York State.

[00:05:54] Let me let me ask you, though, at the beginning, did you know it was Lyme disease or did you go a while before they even figured that out?

[00:06:02] Actually, a long time without figuring it out. We found out as way back then because Lyme again was in its infancy and my daughter was experiencing abdominal pain, which was diagnosed as endometriosis. We took her and she had a small procedure done.

[00:06:23] Wait, wait. Was that endometriosis a misdiagnosis?

[00:06:29] No, no, no. She had that.

[00:06:31] Oh, she did have that. OK, but I was wondering, what were the symptoms of Lyme disease before you knew it was Lyme disease?

[00:06:39] Well, she was experiencing basic general body pain and she was also having some challenges with her normal monthly menstrual cycle and things like that, but that's not necessarily uncommon for teenagers or for people to go through. That wasn't anything that was necessarily alarming the abdomen. The abdominal pain was something that was sort of into the chronic phase for her. So we investigated that symptom, discovered that she did have endometriosis, sent her to a surgical center for a small procedure to be done, which she was supposed to fully recover and be in no pain within two months and three months. And she's still experiencing pain that might have been dialed up a little more. When we delve in deeper with that surgical group they set as well. Ninety nine percent of the women that still experience pain after this procedure have Lyme disease really wasn't ever on our radar. We live in South Florida. And so the line Tri-State area in Connecticut, New York and Vermont or some three states that are up in that area are predominant, where purportedly it was it started and was the epicenter again 20 years ago. So we weren't really thinking about Lyme. In fact, in South Florida, there were very few Lyme literate doctors in the infectious disease areas of various different medical centers here, really didn't have a lot of knowledge about Lyme disease and so forth.

[00:08:18] And as you generously sort of pointed out subtly, Lyme mimics many other kinds of diseases and in terms of the symptoms. And so that's part of the problem with Lyme in general, is that it's misdiagnosed often because it mimics neurological challenges like as or so forth. And so with that, it's Lyme has gone on for a long time, possibly been prevalent for a long time, being misdiagnosed. So that's probably the worst scenario you can think of Tom, because you got a wrong diagnosis. So the doctor is actually labeling you with a diagnosis that's wrong. They're treating for the wrong diagnosis and they're also not treating you for what you do have. So it's probably the worst perfect storm you can imagine having gotten better at it now. Yeah, there's been a lot of advancements, I only wish I knew now what back then because I could have been a little bit more helpful and my daughter in hospital helping her with their own challenges and so forth.

[00:09:30] So. You went on a quest to help her write.

[00:09:36] Yeah, that kind of was the whole idea behind it, it was I was thinking about two things. One, and many people out there even listening to they could probably relate to this. You know, you're not alone with your your your health challenge. You've got the support systems, if you're lucky, like your immediate family and friends around you.

[00:09:55] And for us, we had to explore the professional work.

[00:10:01] So in other words, we were I was every six weeks or so, I was going up to New York with my daughter. We'd spend a couple of days in the city enjoying a movie or a show or a good dinner. My feeling back then, and I still feel it now, is that I don't didn't want my daughter to be somewhat confined or her life be defined by her diagnosis, because eight out of 10 diagnosis is wrong anyway, mostly because doctors don't care enough these days to ask the right questions so they don't get it right from the get go. But that is a label that's carried with you. And sometimes people are debilitated just by the label all alone. And I didn't want my daughter's memory of her adolescence and childhood to be surrounded around her chronic illness. And so we would travel up to New York, we would get treated, we'd get a little tweak in her protocol, come back down to Florida, had to deal with another practitioner here. That was sort of an extension of the primary doctor in New York to be able to get the medications and things that we needed to spend here in Florida. So there were a lot of different moving parts or plates to the to that dynamic, as you can imagine.

[00:11:20] But mostly what came from that was my understanding that basically you see your practitioner maybe zero one percent of the time, but ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the time you're managing your own health care for yourself personally or with your support systems locally. And that made me think about basically at that time what my daughter's main symptoms were, which were body pain. She was experiencing cognitive challenges. She was experiencing what I considered high levels of toxicity and or inflammation. And from that, with my medical background, I focused on toxicity, the most efficient ways to detoxify. There were the invasive kinds like dialysis and the less invasive, which were certain kinds of like supplementation that would cause the toxin to purge a key light from your cell or from your tissue. And then I discovered that there are certain frequencies of sunlight that will mobilise all your toxins in your body. That was the infrared spectrum that really floated my boat, so to speak. And so understanding that I then took a look at what available devices of the individual and the country could buy that had infrared technology that virtually went none.

[00:12:49] What year was this?

[00:12:50] Roughly twenty two years ago. So figure like late 1990. Ninety eight. Ninety seven somewhere out there. And so what I did know was that infrared technology was used by sports medicine doctors mostly to, along with other kinds of cocktails, to enhance the player's lower player's pain from an injury and also expedite their healing. So that intrigued me, but mostly I was challenged with the fact that there weren't any available devices. And so I did some research. I found sixty five factories in China, spent seven weeks over there going from factory to factory to find three and then down to one that I wanted to work with to develop my own devices, mostly just for personal use. What happened from that was that my daughter experienced some pretty good success from it. And her main doctor, who is probably considered now the top of the field, saw her success and asked if we could start to develop some of these devices for him and his limitations. His practice was almost a hundred percent time wasted. Sure, why not? If it's helping Julia, then why why not try to help other people? And that really was the genesis of their research company.

[00:14:07] Wow. Wow. A what a story. And the and now you have. How many products do you have now?

[00:14:15] We have twenty two active skewes. Mostly it's all around, it's all about integrated full spectrum infrared frequencies, our devices are credentialed with the FDA as class to medical. That means we have five, 10 days. And the reason why I took that route was because basically initially for the first 15 years of our company, main sort of delivery system was the medical model. That means that I do my research. I developed the device. Then I meet up with a doctor practitioner and clinic, hospital and so forth. I trained the staff as to as to how to integrate our devices into their normal flow of their practice, their protocols. So I need to understand what their practice is about and then I need to understand how to integrate what we're doing with them, not take the place of the practitioner, but to enhance the efficacy of what they're already doing. And so that was my main my main way of delivering our technology to the general public, because our our great goal was to basically get our technology into every household America. And what I thought was if a practitioner had an active practice and they saw, let's say, ten thousand patients a year, and I taught them how to improve their own performance with our technology, then in a sense I might be touching ten thousand lives. And so the first phase would be to go to the practitioner and then phase two, the practitioner repairs the technology with theirs.

[00:15:55] There they get a enhanced experience. So everybody wins. The patient gets a better health plan. The doctor feels more fulfilled because actually their own practice is thriving and they were all performances that enhanced the higher end Tom and I know you could appreciate this because they're all about leveraging. Then that patient, which is sort of a common person there, then telling their friends about what an amazing response they're getting from this practitioner and about our technology, and that leaves that second filial or second relationship to do one of two things, either search for us on the Internet and or go to that practitioner to try to get some of our products to get the same kind of health performance enhancement. And so that has really been an amazing sort of dynamic that we've tapped into, that we have taken on and utilized on many levels, one on the simple system that I just mentioned. And then we dial that up a little more because I've been spending the last 15 years or more on these medical conventions, getting on stage, talking to anywhere between 30 to 50 to two hundred practitioners. We did last November, I was invited to a forum in Beijing and I spoke to in front of maybe seven hundred practitioners there in China.

[00:17:25] I'll tell people what these devices are or what they're like or they like heating pads. What are they?

[00:17:32] Well, our main what we're known for right now, and we're probably considered number one in the world. And this particular device is a portable infrared sauna. Portable. Portable. Yeah, yeah. It folds up. It weighs about twenty eight pounds. Oh, wow. You can put it in a camera in case it's in the carrying case. It's sort of about the size of a massage table, as you can imagine, and then it virtually takes up. No space unfolded in about a minute. Set it up and when you fold it up, it takes another minute or so to do that. I'm not joking when I say a minute, virtually a minute, and then it could fit in your closet under the bed. It's very space saving for those who have a challenge with space.

[00:18:15] So you just plug it in. These are 110?

[00:18:19] Well, we make everything we make in 110, we also make it to 20 so that we are now exporting to 11 countries outside the US. But but, yes, they are 110 and you don't need any special electricity. In fact, they're very economic. The the portable sauna based on the oil, which is the utility company in South Florida, plus seven and a half cents per hour to drive. So it is the most efficient way to deliver heat to the body and actually even heat to a room.

[00:18:57] So this is when one person sits in this thing or whether they do. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:02] It's a soft cabinet. Looks something like what would come out of an episode of I Love Lucy has pops out, come up and you can pop your hands out so you can multitask. And my wife, when she does the sonic, she's got a little keyboard stand and she likes to answer the mouse from many of our customers along the it. Well, for the average person, for the average just I want to feel good every single day type of thing. It's probably 30 minutes when you're dealing. We've got protocols are part of our lineage or part of the things that we do is we don't feel that here is sort of a mission statement. We don't feel it's good enough just to deliver a really great device. We want to deliver the full experience. That means that we take responsibility for FedEx and UPS and mess up and and so we've got a system for that and personnel. And then also we've developed a lot of the integrated health protocols. So how do you get this device and actually get the most out of it? And so we're super, super, super dialed in to the end user and what's best for them because we live that side of the equation. So long with my daughters now. Right. So we're very sensitive to that.

[00:20:19] But you said you had twenty two different skewes. So what, what other types of products do you have besides that.

[00:20:26] Well, the standard comes in two different models that regular and in a souped up model that we call the there are three 60 plus. And then we have a line of five different size pads using the same technology. So where the infrasonic is sitting in this cabin and you're basically surrounded three hundred and sixty degrees, you're bathing in these amazingly heeling infrared full spectrum frequencies. The healing pad is more like something more like a floodlight, where the heating pad is more like a spotlight, where you can bring the same technology directly to an organ that is healing or a muscle group that might need your grandma or a joint that's that's giving you some challenges and so forth. And so they they really are sister, brother kinds of technology because where the song, the 30 minutes that you can use for hours and hours on end and our and our customers and patients do that. So if you're one that has chronic back pain and you throw this pad on within five or six minutes, you can reduce that pain without using an opiate. I know they're facing opiates out, but when they were prevalent in the pain, doctors were thriving. This this type of technology and our healing is really the answer to a non drug natural way to heal, certainly lower brain drain sorry, pain thresholds. But that's I guess phase one is to do that so we can reduce the swelling, we can improve circulation or oxygen to the area that you're suffering the injury. But so first thing we do is we lower the pain. The second thing we do why we call it a healing, that is we actually reverse a health challenge, a chronic health challenge as well.

[00:22:15] Wow. So now, besides the really good things you're doing for people health wise, you've taken an angle on it. Come on your company that I don't see that often. And I interview lots of people. You you you claim that you don't claim to be green.

[00:22:32] You are green and you actually have codes of ethical conduct conduct in your company. Tell us about that.

[00:22:42] Ok, it's great.

[00:22:45] Well, it actually just comes from years of experience in business, but also pretty sensitive, like it's as good as I am. And what I do, I set intentions and everything I do, but I'm a very active listener. And so it's not enough just to make a good device. But you really need to be tapped into the feedback that you get. And I learn more, I feel from my customers, my doctors and the patients that we work with very actively. I hope they learn from me, but I also learned a lot from them. We like to surround ourselves with like minded people, Tom and sure, you can appreciate that we make money and what we do, but we keep our margins very low so that our pricing is very affordable. And that also comes off the back of our experience with my daughter. At some points, her medication and traveling and the doctor's fees and so forth were in excess of twenty five thousand a month. So knowing that and being super sensitive to the Lyme community online, being even though it's not talked about, is clearly in pandemic proportions in the country. Is one of those ones that we really are very sensitive to, the other families out there that are experiencing these strains on their economics, and you probably know these stats better than me, but most bankruptcies in America are caused by challenges, coverages that they think they're being covered by their insurances or they don't have insurance at all. Then they've got the challenge and next they're putting a roof over their heads and putting food on the table.

[00:24:29] Health care is probably the number three or in the top five of people's consciousness. And there are some concerns. And so we we don't really work with people that we find are out of integrity. And we've started relationships in good faith and then discover along the road somewhere. And we actually put out a couple of little speed bumps in the road Tom. And I'm sure you probably do the same thing when you meet relationships just to protect yourself over the years, just to see how well the the answers or the the other side of the table will respond to a little bump in the road. And we take notice of that. And that's one of those things that we notice. What we know is so, so, so in that way we kind of create a scenario where we keep calling and screening and bringing to our inner circles the people that support us, that think like us. They don't have mostly they compliment our thinking in terms of their skill sets and or their bodies of work. But but we want to make sure that they come from a place of integrity, that it's not about the money. It's about like we feel it's about healing and helping people first. And when we've taken that position, the money always follows somewhere there. And so we're not really focusing on money and the financial benefits. We're really focusing on the good people and the sense of abundance and spreading love. I don't want to be corny about it, but that's one of the things that we feel is super important.

[00:26:04] And the green stuff. I know when I was looking into infrared stuff in the past, I was like scared to death. I said, oh, you get this cheap crap and it's made with toxic chemicals and you're going to like, burst into flames. So. So you say you're really green. What do you mean by that?

[00:26:24] Well, we go beyond like there are certain requirements that FDA asked for, like all of our devices are actually third, but we bring in third party consultants. So it's not just an in-house perception and believe we actually outsource to what to what we feel are considered the highest and of all of the third party consultants. So, for instance, when it comes to electrical testing devices, we bring in other laboratories. When it comes to bio toxicity, we contract with a group called NAMSA. It's an acronym for something I don't know what it stands for, but basically they're kind of the UL of material testing so that some of these things are, by the way, required by FDA. But most of the things that we do are actually a higher standard than the FDA is considered the high standard in the world for medical devices. We actually dial it up even more because the people that we're treating than people, even though we're going for the main public, mostly our focus for the last I'd say at least 15 years has been on the chronically challenged people like cancer, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, chronic, all the chronic challenges out there, autoimmune diseases. And then kind of the concept behind that was if I can help someone that has that challenge and it's really easy to really shift and move the needle on someone with a chronic ailment for us.

[00:28:00] The real challenge and the one the actual the people that I'm enjoying the most these days is the optimal health category and that demographic, because these are people that are well and healthy now, I just want to stay healthy. They don't really want to get sucked into that big pharma circle or go to the doctor, but get some medication for the pain, keep it masked long enough until you have to go to the surgeon. Then it's going to be cut out and they make mistakes and now you're all messed up for the rest of your life. Our goal is to keep you healthy or get you healthy so that you can realize what I believe is part of the reasons why we're here in Earth. I call it Earth Camp, why we're here on Earth, and that's defined our purpose. Find our compassion, find our bliss, make a contribution to your family, your church, the things you love, live out your life to the fullest and be as healthy and as well all the way to the.

[00:28:56] It's a beautiful, beautiful goal, so tell people how they get a hold of you, how they check out the products.

[00:29:03] Well, we have the main ways through our website therasage.com or you can call our toll free 888 416 4441. Or you can actually email us that info at info@therasage.com. Those are probably the best ways.

[00:29:29] All right folks, we'll have all that in the show notes for you, therasage.com, we'll have his toll free number and the email address and the products are absolutely fantastic. They came recommended to me by someone I trust quite a bit. So thanks. Thanks so much for coming on, Robby.

[00:29:52] Tom it's a pleasure. Love talking to you, love your audience and anything we can do to try to just elevate awareness, change that. You started off earlier today talking about it. And it's really an interesting dynamic because people in a heartbeat, everybody's lives have been affected here in the country, actually globally. But certainly the US seems to be leading in its inability to take command of and have a unified front as to how we're going to manage this challenge.

[00:30:25] This morning, I was listening to the news and they said, you know, there's a billion, a billion three people out there in the world that are covid free countries that have no challenges whatsoever. And then we're dealing with our challenges here.

[00:30:39] And so, you know, maybe the light at the end of the tunnel on the blessing here is that it was a real wake up call for all of us to really take a look at where we were going and who we are and bring us closer to our families and closer to the real truth about what we can do and in keeping the integrity of our own health and wellness and communities intact. And I hope that we're just a small part of making that happen. And I certainly appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and meet with all of your viewers.

[00:31:11] Really, really great. And Julia lives on, put it that way. So, yes, that's true.

[00:31:19] So thanks everybody for checking in. I promised you at the beginning I'd tell you how you could get a scholarship to the school. Well, if you're in my mentor program, greatInternetmarketingtraining.com, it includes a scholarship to the school that you can use yourself for extra training or gift to somebody else. So you can check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com.

[00:31:42] Make sure you check our show notes, visit therasage.com and check out the great and the leading infrared technology in the world. All right. We'll catch y'all on the next episode. See ya later.

Join my distance learning school: https://www.IMTCVA.org
Or join the mentor program PLUS get a FREE Scholarship to the School: https://www.GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com