Most founders use data for every part of their business - except hiring. They run numbers on their product, their marketing, their cash flow. But when it comes to the most expensive decision in the company, they trust a gut feeling and a resume.

Regina Chou is changing that. She grew up in a rice paddy in Taiwan, became the first in her family to attend college, and built a predictive hiring engine that analyzes 450 psychographic traits to determine - before the offer letter goes out - whether someone will perform and whether they will stay. Her REGI Blueprint powers the Performance Machine and has helped scale companies from Mercedes-Benz dealerships to CrowdStrike's $2 billion IPO.

In this conversation, Regina shares the data point that upended decades of hiring science (IQ hurting sales), the blind experiment that proved resumes are irrelevant, and why the most surprising traits - hope, greed, emotional resilience - are the ones that actually predict your next great hire.

In this episode, we talk about:

• IQ has a negative correlation to car sales at Mercedes-Benz dealerships - the traits you assume matter most might be working against you
• Hope, optimism, and emotional resilience are the consistent predictors of performance across industries and job roles
• A blind hiring experiment with 3,000 applicants and zero resumes produced hires still succeeding five years later
• "Greed" - aspiration for material goods - turned out to be a top performance driver for garage door technicians
• Same company, same product, different countries - top performer profiles were vastly different across cultures
• Gen Z wants the same thing every generation wants - meaningful work and an environment where they can thrive
• Regina's formula for founders: combine data and technology with heart to build a winning hiring system

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Why traditional hiring science is broken

1:16 Regina's origin story - Taiwan, poverty, and a grandfather's dream

5:55 The Mercedes-Benz IQ discovery

8:35 Building a model that predicts actual performance

14:32 Blind hiring at Diamond Asia Capital

19:55 Tommy Mello and the greed factor

23:22 Gen Z - same challenges, louder voice

27:02 Data + heart: advice for struggling founders

31:54 The vision - when resumes become irrelevant

PS – When you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

1. Join me for the Ai Accelerator Workshop this March 25th - LIVE from Genius Network Headquarters - register here: www.AiAccelerator.com/Live

2. Want to discover your next big opportunity? Meet me for a Cup of Coffee at my Digital Cafe (this is where we can meet): www.MikeKoenigs.com/1kCoffee

3. Ready to reinvent yourself, your business, and your brand, and create “Your Next Act”? Watch this.

Jonathan Whistman is The Sales Boss - the architect behind human powered organizations where identity, belief, and culture drive extraordinary performance. He helped Tommy Mello scale A1 Garage Door to a half-billion dollar exit, with technicians going from $200-300k producers to $900k average - and top performers reaching $3 million.

Andy Elliott had so much success running his team on Jonathan's system that he invested $2 million and partnered with Jonathan to co-create the Performance Machine - combining The Sales Boss methodology with ElliottHire's training and activation systems.

Jonathan's superpower comes from an unusual place: growing up inside a religious cult. That experience taught him how to read human behavior with precision - and how identity, belief, and culture shape everything people do. Now he applies those insights to help leaders build organizations where humans perform at their highest level.

In this episode, he walks through the Think | Feel | Act framework, explains Sacred Rhythms, and reveals why most companies are like a high school band when they could be Carnegie Hall. He also shares the Talent Reveal Interview - a group hiring method that lets you find your first $100k producer in 30 days.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Introduction and opening hook

3:08 The saddest thing about hiring

7:14 Predictive hiring and the Reggie Blueprint

12:59 Jonathan's cult backstory

19:07 Think | Feel | Act explained

28:41 Sacred Rhythms in action

31:41 Inside Andy Elliott's sales meeting

40:03 How the software platform works

51:08 The Talent Reveal Interview

55:55 Final question and closing

🔗 Explore resources & next steps: TheSalesBoss.com/free

Most entrepreneurs think the future is “Ai tools.”

That’s only half the game.

The other half is IP - because if you’re creating anything valuable, you either protect it, productize it, or you’ll watch someone else monetize it.

In this episode, Dan Sullivan and I make a 19-year commitment to a “Free Zone” collaboration - and we break down how to build 10x–100x partnerships using Ai + patents + thinking tools, without getting distracted, diluted, or stolen from.

You’ll see how Dan turns concepts into protectable assets (with an insane patent cadence), and how I’m turning conversations into prototypes, tools, and marketing - fast.

If you’re a founder who’s overwhelmed with ideas, half-finished Ai outputs, or “vendors” who don’t actually collaborate… you need to watch this.

In this episode, Dan and I break down:

• The Free Zone collaboration model (and why vendors don’t count)
• How Multiplier + Simplifier partnerships create patentable output
• Dan’s real IP engine: 78 patents issued, 75 pending, and the workflow behind it
• Defensive vs. offensive IP: copyright + trademark + patents
• Why the real bottleneck isn’t your market—it’s distraction, isolation, and personal-life ceilings
• How to turn “what you already do” into a tool, framework, and protected asset
• Why the future belongs to entrepreneurs, not giant corporations

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 The 19-Year Commitment
01:28 Why This Collaboration Became the Model
03:10 AI + Patents + Free Zone: The Big Bet
04:25 Dan’s Patent Engine (78 issued, 75 pending)
06:23 Staying Simple in an AI World
09:57 Fast Filter Applied to Our Collaboration
15:52 Defensive vs. Offensive IP
18:13 “I Self-Medicated With Thinking Tools” (Dan’s story)
21:33 How Dan Spots Patents Everywhere
27:08 The Real Problem: Isolation + Distractibility
33:28 Mike’s “$10M Opportunities” AI Tool
38:52 “Hero To” Clarity + Real Numbers
45:35 The Hidden Growth Ceiling: Lifestyle + Identity
54:59 The Plan: 10x the Podcast Audience
58:31 “Instant IP” for Every Episode
01:01:44 Why AI Talent Leaves Big Companies
01:05:36 Next Steps: Story → Animation Trailer
01:07:18 Wrap Up: Build Bigger With People You Like

PS – When you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

1. Join me for the Ai Accelerator Workshop this March 25th - LIVE from Genius Network Headquarters - register here: www.AiAccelerator.com/Live

2. Want to discover your next big opportunity? Meet me for a Cup of Coffee at my Digital Cafe (this is where we can meet): www.MikeKoenigs.com/1kCoffee

3. Ready to reinvent yourself, your business, and your brand, and create “Your Next Act”? Watch this.