For over two decades, I’ve taught that positioning is not what you say, it’s who you become. It’s not messaging. It’s not brand. It’s not storytelling. It’s the gravitational core of your business. The noun you own. The mental territory you occupy. The identity you help your customer step into.

Now, along comes Chase Hughes, a former military behaviour expert turned neuroscientific thinker, with research that doesn’t just confirm this view, it deepens and biologically grounds it.

Hughes spent 20 years studying behavioural intelligence, decoding how humans actually make decisions. His conclusion? 95% of decisions are made before rational thought. The part of the brain responsible for emotion, social belonging, fear, and status, what he calls the mammalian brain, acts first. The cortex justifies it later.

Sound familiar?

It should. Hughes’ FATE model (Focus, Authority, Tribe, Emotion) is a neuroscientific map of everything I’ve been teaching through positioning frameworks. His work doesn’t replace the practice; it illuminates why it works. And it helps us all get even sharper.

Why Your Value Prop Doesn’t Work

Hughes proves what we’ve all intuited: Your audience isn’t evaluating your pitch. They’re evaluating your pattern. Their mammalian brain is asking:

• What’s different enough to matter? (Focus)
• Who’s safe to follow? (Authority)
• Where do I belong? (Tribe)
• How does this make me feel? (Emotion)

This is why “better” doesn’t land. Why “clear messaging” isn’t enough. Why rational comparisons never create dominance. Because the brain doesn’t lead with logic, it leads with survival, status, and story.

If your brand doesn’t trip one of those ancient levers, you’re not being ignored — you’re being filed. Into the category the brain already knows. And once filed, you’re invisible.

Why Positioning Must Be Embodied, Not Expressed

Most businesses want a better way to explain what they do. That’s not positioning. That’s marketing. Positioning is the decision to become something that renders alternatives irrelevant. It’s the decision to act in ways that cost you, but prove your concept.

Tesla didn’t say “we’re the future.” They behaved like it. Everything from how they distribute cars to how Elon Musk speaks reinforces that one mental frame.

Patagonia doesn’t say “we’re eco-conscious.” They told people not to buy their jackets. That’s Level 3 and 4 positioning in action, where behaviour carries the message.

This is precisely what Hughes describes with the agentic shift: when Authority is recognized, the brain stops evaluating and starts following.

Where the Two Bodies of Work Intersect

What This Means for You

If you’re leading a business and still asking: “What should we say?” you’re asking the wrong question.

Instead ask:

• What identity do we help customers step into?
• What authority have we earned?
• What category must we own, not compete in?
• What decision can we make that costs us, but proves us?

This is the heart of positioning. It’s identity, not information. It’s behaviour, not branding. It’s authority, not articulation.

FINALLY

I love Chase Hughes’ work not because it adds something new to positioning, but because it confirms what those of us who’ve practiced this deeply already knew: the brain decides before the words ever arrive. Positioning is not what you say. It’s what the customer’s mammalian brain feels before they know why.

You can’t win by sounding right. You win by being the thing their brain is already looking to follow.