Brain Driven Brands

After years of weekly conversations unpacking consumer psychology, growth strategy, and how brands actually make decisions, they step back to talk candidly about priorities, growth, and what it looks like when your work evolves faster than the containers around it.
They unpack why Brain Driven Brands started, what it became, and why it's time to pause and rethink what comes next. Along the way, they reflect on personal growth, career shifts, and the behind-the-scenes realities of running fast-growing businesses without pretending it's all tidy or linear.
You'll also hear:
Why "packaging" matters just as much as skill when it comes to brands and personal brands

What Tether Insights actually does, and why most research misses the real reasons people buy

Nate's work scaling supplement brands, building from zero to one, and treating messaging as a growth lever, not "just copy"

Why pauses can be strategic, not stagnant

This isn't a goodbye it's just a pause for now. A reminder that growth sometimes means stepping back to build the next version properly.

In this episode of Brain Driven Brands, Sarah and Nate play a rapid-fire game of Smash or Pass with some of the most overused, misunderstood, and quietly dangerous ideas in modern marketing.
We tear into things most teams can't say out loud… and the ones they're afraid to admit:
– Why you can't optimize an emotion that was never there
– Why most "testing" is really just for the founder's ego
– How beautiful creative can hide a serious idea drought
– Why iteration can be growth (but usually isn't)
– And how creative fatigue is often just leadership fatigue in disguise
This isn't a how-to episode. It's a how-are-you-thinking episode.
We talk about idea tracking vs. concept hoarding, empathy vs. data, AI vs. taste, speed vs. depth—and why most ads fail because they're answering questions no customer ever asked.
If you're running paid media, managing a creative team, or quietly wondering why "doing more" keeps working less… this one will feel uncomfortably familiar in a good way.
(Listen for the moments where we disagree. That's where the real insight lives.)
Original tweet:https://x.com/SarahLevinger/status/1994428068220273056?s=20

👉 Join my community: skool.com/tether-lab
CoHost: Nate Lagos
Twitter: https://x.com/natelagos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natelagos/
Tactical and Practical Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tactical-practical/id1752915534
CoHost: Sarah Levinger
Learn more at: https://www.tetherinsights.io/
Twitter: https://x.com/SarahLevinger
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahlevinger/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah.levinger/
Watch me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKwfjt_7PU5N_2fTfHemXXg

What's going to happen to DTC in 2026 once the AI noise dies down, tariffs stabilize, and brands stop pretending vibes are a strategy?
In this holiday episode of Brain Driven Brands, Sarah and Nate don their ugly sweaters, roast underperforming AI tools, and make real predictions they'd actually put money on.
They break down why 2026:
Could be a breakout year for disciplined brands

Why community is shifting off rented platforms and onto brand-owned ecosystems

And why the biggest risk next year isn't effort…it's distraction.

You'll hear takes on:
• Why brands who "hang out" with customers will win
• The rise of on-site social and owned community ecosystems
• How AI should actually be used (hint: not for final copy)
• Why messaging and copywriting are about to matter more than ever
• Dynamic pricing, premium buyers, and letting your best customers spend more
• Micro-movies, PDP under-optimization, and where content is heading
• Why UGC is evolving into character-driven storytelling
• And a hopeful prediction about marketers finally sharing real signal instead of shilling
If 2025 felt like learning to ride with training wheels again, this is the conversation about what happens when brands finally stop wobbling, and start moving with intent.

👉 Join my community: skool.com/tether-lab
CoHost: Nate Lagos
Twitter: https://x.com/natelagos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natelagos/
Tactical and Practical Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tactical-practical/id1752915534
CoHost: Sarah Levinger
Learn more at: https://www.tetherinsights.io/
Twitter: https://x.com/SarahLevinger
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahlevinger/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah.levinger/
Watch me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKwfjt_7PU5N_2fTfHemXXg

In this episode of Brain Driven Brands, Sarah and Nate pull back the curtain on the exact AI prompts they actually use to generate high-performing ad ideas—the ones that don't sound robotic, generic, or like every other brand on the internet.
After revisiting one of the show's most-downloaded episodes, Sarah shares why most AI-written copy fails, how she rebuilt her prompts from first principles, and what happens when you tell AI which psychological mechanisms to use before it writes anything at all.
Together, they live-test these internal prompts on a real brand ad (cowboy boots), exploring how different psychological levers change the creative direction entirely—including:
First-principles thinking paired with loss aversion



Quiet status signaling and open loops



Curiosity-driven hooks and reverse psychology



Instead of asking AI to write headlines or scripts, Sarah shows how to use it to generate raw ad concepts—and why the last 10% (the human part) is where all the money is made.
This episode is part live teardown, part psychology lesson, and part behind-the-scenes look at how six-figure ads are actually born—not from clever wording, but from properly framed ideas.
If you care about better creative, higher prices, and ads that don't feel like ads…this one's for you.
Sarah Makes Nate Cry With a Prompt Episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2cVZ3nIE8YUMAlO6Qm0NFN?si=UWSUywsJTmqoz5bkRVgADw

👉 Join my community: skool.com/tether-lab
CoHost: Nate Lagos
Twitter: https://x.com/natelagos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natelagos/
Tactical and Practical Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tactical-practical/id1752915534
CoHost: Sarah Levinger
Learn more at: https://www.tetherinsights.io/
Twitter: https://x.com/SarahLevinger
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahlevinger/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah.levinger/
Watch me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKwfjt_7PU5N_2fTfHemXXg

For years, marketers have been told to "find the why"...which drives Sarah absolutely nuts. 😅
In this episode of Brain Driven Brands, Sarah argues with Nate that this idea of the "one true why" is what broke modern marketing.
People don't buy for one reason. They buy for many reasons—depending on mood, timing, environment, identity, stress level, and context. The real driver isn't why someone buys. It's when.
Using real-world examples (from whiskey splurges to Starbucks rituals to Rolex buyers at different life stages) this conversation breaks down why over-optimizing for a single "why" leads to brittle brands, shallow segmentation, and wasted creative effort. Instead, Sarah and Nate explore how brands should think in terms of emotional "whens," behavioral states, and consistency over persuasion.
If you've ever felt stuck hunting for the perfect insight, this episode reframes the problem entirely…and gives you a more realistic way to build brands, messaging, and creative that actually scale

👉 Join my community: skool.com/tether-lab
CoHost: Nate Lagos
Twitter: https://x.com/natelagos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natelagos/
Tactical and Practical Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tactical-practical/id1752915534
CoHost: Sarah Levinger
Learn more at: https://www.tetherinsights.io/
Twitter: https://x.com/SarahLevinger
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahlevinger/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah.levinger/
Watch me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKwfjt_7PU5N_2fTfHemXXg