Pneuma

Connecting deserving brands with their next customers 

3rd Fastest Growing Company in the Rocky Mountain Region
16th Fastest Growing Marketing Agency in the US
170th Fastest Growing Company in the US

Founder

Cancer Treatment Centers of America (acquired by City of Hope)

Management Consultant

TEDx

Working with TEDxWabashCollege has truly been a blessing.

I've had the chance to test my leadership and management skills with a group of 30 students across Wabash College's campus, and also learn more about Event Planning and Marketing.

Our event has seen much success over it's four years, growing from 100 attendees to over 350 attendees, and selling out Wabash College's largest event venue.

We've also seen much professional growth, as our NPS Score has reached a new high of 78 over our 2018-2019 year.

If you're interested in sponsoring TEDxWabashCollege, or speaking at our next event, please contact me directly!

Event Organizer

My first position with TEDxWabashCollege was in the role of a curator.

For our 2018 event, I researched prominent topics on the TED platform, as well as topics that would be prominent to our local community.

With this information, I moved forward and contacted individuals that I believed would be powerful speakers to have at our event.

Once I decided on the three speakers I would like to bring to the event, I worked with these speakers to outline and develop their talks in the TED format. 

Then, it was the day of the event! I prepped each speaker on professional speaker techniques derived from TED to ensure their talk reached its potential.

Curator

Eli Lilly and Company

Corporate Financial Reporting

Founder, Pneuma Media | I turn $1 into $8.12 with a content-first SEO Strategy | DM Me for a Free SEO Audit | John 3:30

At Pneuma, we’re more than a marketing agency - we’re your long-term growth partner in The Search Economy.

Every day, billions of people search for answers, solutions, and opportunities online. We help businesses show up, stand out, and become the clear choice when it matters most, regardless of where people are searching. Through specific Paid, SEO, and Website tactics, we build sustainable systems designed for measurable growth - not quick wins or fleeting spikes.

But what sets us apart isn’t just our expertise—it’s our commitment to partnership. We treat your business like our own because your growth is our growth. That means aligning with your goals, investing in your long-term success, and showing up with care, clarity, and consistency every step of the way.

We’re not here to deliver just "campaigns" and "deliverables"; we’re here to build something meaningful, sustainable, and worth celebrating—together.

David W. Riggs

Hate is a strong word, but it might be the only one to describe how I feel about "traditional" 1:1s

Nothing got under my skin more than to wake up 30 mins early on a tuesday morning to tell my manager about my to-do list, so they could feel productive.

So, when I started Pneuma, I did my best to spin that model on it's head. 

1:1s shouldn't be about work. And if you're talking about a task list for more than 5 minutes, you're doing it wrong. 

Some thoughts below :)

What’s Happening In My World I used to think no one cared about what I was actually doing day to day. I assumed subscribers (you) only wanted the clea

Open article: Building people > building companies by David W. Riggs • 4 min read

Today would be a great day to ask yourself why you have notifications on

4 years into building Pneuma...

Plenty of reasons to have slack and email notifications on...

... and not a single one of them have changed my mind

I've done this for so long I assumed everyone else does it as well, but I don't think that's the case

I'll jump on a meeting with a vendor, and during the meeting the individual sharing the screen has to swipe away notifications every few minutes.

Why? What's the point?

Schedule time to check your notifications, or notifications will end up scheduling your entire day

PS - Use an app like Opal to block socials from your phone to not get distracted

PPS - Use Apple's DND mode to simply turn off everything.

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Martin Lindstrom

Newsweek

Host of "Why Do We….?" – a new global show on NEWSWEEK – reveals why we do the things we do.

TIME

Under its Scientists and Thinkers category, TIME Magazine selected Lindstrom one of the most influential people in the world (along with Oprah Winfrey, Michele Obama, and Paul Krugman).

One of the World’s Most Influential People

Thinkers50

For ten years running, named one of the Top 50 Business Thinkers in the World by Thinkers50, a biennial ranking of the world's leading management experts sponsored by Harvard Business Review.

Top 50 Business Thinkers in the World

Lindstrom Company

Martin Lindstrom is one of the world's most respected consumer branding and culture experts and a pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, innovation, business transformation, marketing, and neuro-marketing research. He uses his expertise to help his clients, strengthen company cultures while enhancing sales and productivity of the store/service/product brand, while developing a custom consumer/customer experience for their clients.

Branding & Culture Transformation Expert

Martin is a very accomplished writer as the New York Times Best-Selling Author of 'BrandWashed', 'Buyology' and 'Small Data. His is latest, much anticipated book, 'The Ministry Of Common Sense'. will launch January 2021.  Martin has also been featured as a contributing writer in Fast Company, Forbes and various other publications.

NYT Best-Selling Author and Featured Columnist

Martin Lindstrom is Founder of Lindstrom Company, his Branding Expert & Consulting Firm. He is also one of the world's most respected consumer branding experts and a pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, marketing, and neuro-marketing research. He uses his expertise to help his clients, both individual and corporate, to enhance sales and productivity of the store/service/product brand, while developing a custom consumer/customer experience for their clients.

Founder & Owner of Lindstrom Company

Penguin Random House

The Ministry of Common Sense (Financial Times #1, Wall Street Journal #2)

Small Data (New York Times best-seller)

Brandwashed (Wall Street Journal best-seller)

Buyology (New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller)

Brand Sense (Wall Street Journal best-seller)

Brandchild

Clicks, Bricks & Brands

Brand Building on the Internet

Author of New York Times & Wall Street Journal best-selling books

#1 Branding & Culture Expert, New York Times Bestselling Author. TIME Magazine 100 most influential people in the world, Top 50 Business Thinker in the World 2015-2024 (Thinkers50). Financial Times & NEWSWEEK columnist.

Martin Lindstrom is the founder and chairman of Lindstrom Company, the world’s leading branding and culture transformation firm, operating across five continents and in more than 30 countries, serving a who’s who of Fortune 100 companies and Governments.

Martin has been featured as one of the world’s top 50 business thinkers for 10 consecutive years by the prestigious Thinkers50 list. TIME Magazine has named Martin one of the “World’s 100 Most Influential People.” He was recently selected as the #1 LinkedIn Top Voice US Influencer.
He has delivered keynote addresses to Google, UBER, META, Kraft Heinz, Disney, Amazon, LEGO, Unilever, Hallmark, Adobe, UBER, Mattel, the Coca-Cola Company, the World Business Forum (WOBI), TEDx, and the World Economic Forum.

Martin is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author of eight books translated into 60 languages. He’s coined such terms as neuromarketing, sensory marketing, texting, small data, and contextual marketing. Lindstrom’s writing has appeared in all major US publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He is currently a columnist for Financial Times, NEWSWEEK, and Management Today.

The Wall Street Journal praised his book Brand Sense as “one of the five best marketing books ever published” and called his book Small Data “revolutionary.” TIME called his book Buyology “a breakthrough in branding,” and the Economist and Financial Times named his latest book, The Ministry of Common Sense, one of the top books of 2021.

Martin has made more than 20 appearances on NBC’s TODAY show and has also appeared in the late Morgan Spurlock’s movie The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, as well as several times on America’s Next Top Model. He is the host of the popular NEWSWEEK show "Why Do We...?" co-hosted with the legendary Liza Donnelly, the house cartoonist for CBS, the Oscars, and the Emmys. The show features legendary guests such as Tony Robbins, Suze Orman, Jake Tapper, and David Foster.

Click the "subscribe" button to learn more, go to MartinLindstrom.com - or check Martin out on Instagram: #LindstromCompany or on X: #MartinLindstrom

Martin Lindstrom is Founder of Lindstrom Company, his Branding Expert & Consulting Firm. He is also one of the world's most respected consumer branding experts and a pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, marketing, and neuro-marketing research. He uses his expertise to help his clients, both individual and corporate, to enhance sales and productivity of the store/service/product brand, while developing a custom consumer/customer experience for their clients.


Your culture doesn’t collapse overnight.
It erodes quietly, every Friday at 4:59 PM.

Monday: “We’re a purpose-driven company.”
Friday: “We’ll deal with that next quarter.”

That’s how it starts.

Not with one big failure, but a thousand small choices you avoided:

👎🏻 Habits you ignore.
👎🏻 “Just this once” patterns you justify.
👎🏻 Small compromises,
👎🏻 Delayed conversations,
👎🏻 And the things you meant to fix but didn’t.

Because every time you let something slide,
You teach your team what really matters.

What you allow becomes normal.
And what becomes normal becomes who you are.

If you want to fix your culture, don’t rewrite your words.
Rewrite your actions.

#1 Branding & Culture Expert, New York Times Bestselling Author. TIME Magazine 100 most influential people in the world, Top 50 Business Thinker in the World 2015-2026 (Thinkers50). Financial Times & NEWSWEEK columnist.

💡 “Stick to what works.”

Wrong.

Sometimes, what feels safe is the biggest trap you’ll ever step into.

Picture this: Six months in a cage. Then freedom. Green fields. Open space.
The chickens? They shuffled, hesitated, and walked back into the cage.

I call it Chicken Cage Syndrome, the fear of freedom after too much routine.

After years of “this is how we do it,” we fear change even when better options are staring us in the face.

In business, it looks like:
-  “We’ve always done it this way.”
- “Let’s play it safe.”
- “Maybe next quarter.”

It’s not laziness. It’s fear.
And fear doesn’t fade with pep talks; it fades with psychological safety.

Because innovation doesn’t grow in comfort.
It grows in curiosity, chaos, and the courage to try again 📈

The real cage isn’t metal.

It’s habit.

💀 And those four deadly words: “That’s how we’ve always done it.”

#1 Branding & Culture Expert, New York Times Bestselling Author. TIME Magazine 100 most influential people in the world, Top 50 Business Thinker in the World 2015-2025 (Thinkers50). Financial Times & NEWSWEEK columnist.

Your brand could be worshipped. Literally.

I’m not exaggerating.

When people feel emotionally connected to a brand, the same brain regions light up as when they pray.

Your marketing campaigns aren’t just ads, they’re potential rituals.
Your customers aren’t just buyers, they’re potential believers.

Most brands are boring.
They pitch. They make noise. They vanish.

And then they wonder why no one remembers their name the next morning.

But the great ones?
🧠 They become part of someone’s life.
🧠 They evoke ritual.
🧠 Create identity.
🧠 Forge community.

I break down the 3 science-backed pillars behind “brand worship”:

Belief. Ritual. Community.

Here’s what science (and 25 years of brand anthropology) has taught me 👇🏻

How To Build a Brand To Become a Ritual

Love starts small, a glance, a moment, a feeling that says “I see you.”

It sounds dramatic, but brands are no different.

Every time a customer sees your brand and its small data details,

They’re subconsciously asking one thing:
“Can I trust you to be consistent?”

That’s what creates attachment.

And attachment, repeated over time, becomes loyalty.

Real loyalty isn’t built through discounts or fancy slogans.

It’s built the same way love is: through emotion, attention, and trust.

So if you want loyalty,
Stop thinking like a marketer.

Start thinking like someone falling in love.

I’ve worked with hundreds of companies. 

And in most of them, the biggest energy drain isn’t the workload.

It’s the lingering, undone tasks.

📌 The unsent email.
📌 The “we’ll decide next week” meeting that drags on for months.
📌 The leader who hasn’t given feedback in six weeks.
📌 The team member still waiting for clarity that never comes.

We call it “being overwhelmed.”

But really? It’s unclosed loops, and they’re exhausting.

Want your team to move faster?

Start by clearing the mental clutter.

Silence is not strategy, and delays are not leadership.

Decide.
Communicate.
Resolve.

Loops don’t close themselves.

For those who celebrate, Thanksgiving is meant to be a holiday about gratitude. 
But if you look closely, most don’t really mean it.

Gratitude in 2025 looks a lot like performance.
We say “thank you,” but rarely feel it.
We’re thankful for time spent with family but checking emails under the table.
Thankful for what you have but already hunting for Black Friday deals.

We’re living in an age where even gratitude has become transactional.

The more we perform gratitude, the less we feel it.

Because genuine gratitude doesn’t live on a screen.
It lives in noticing. In pausing. In being present.

So this Thanksgiving, don’t post it.
Live it.

The algorithm might not notice, but your humanity will.

⚡ “FLASH SALE! 3 HOURS LEFT”
And suddenly, logic leaves the room.

🧠 Black Friday isn’t a sale.
It’s a social experiment.

We say we want “value.”
But what we really want is validation that we didn’t miss out.

So we click. Fast.
Because “3 hours left” feels safer than “think about it.”

That’s not value.
That’s velocity.

Brands know this.

Most people aren’t underqualified. They’re just undifferentiated.

They don’t hate their job. They hate how replaceable they feel in it.
They don’t hate their boss. They hate that they need permission.
They don’t hate Mondays. They hate being invisible.

So no, you don’t need to manifest or meditate. You need positioning.

Figure out what you’re the best at.

Say it clearly.
Say it often.
Say it in places that decision-makers actually see.

You’re not stuck. You’re just too generic.

Take inventory, and then find ways to fix it.

The Marlboro cowboy without a logo was twice as powerful as the one with it.
Read that again. TWICE.

❌ No logo.
❌ No tagline.

Just a silhouette. And yet, it sold millions.

Not because of the product, I’m proudly anti-smoking, but because of the identity wrapped around it.

One character.
One feeling.
One mirror of who people wished they could be.

Freedom.
Rebellion.
Masculinity.

People didn’t see a cigarette.
They saw a story.
A feeling.
A version of themselves they wanted to inhabit.

That’s the power of Small Data: the tiny, human cues that hit before the brain even thinks.

Great brands don’t shout.
They leave space.
Space for us to fill in the story ourselves.

Brands don’t live in logos.
They live in what we feel when they’re gone.

P.S. In Buyology, I spent years helping change global cigarette health warnings.
Sometimes the most powerful lessons come from industries we don’t admire.

Mariboro Country - A Lindstrom Case

Most leadership mistakes don’t start loud.

They start with silence.

A gut feeling ignored, a conversation postponed, or a decision that felt easier in the moment.

Until one day, you realize:

It wasn’t a glitch. It was the culture.

What do you think is the most expensive mistake a leader can make?

What’s the most expensive leadership mistake?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

Over the last few days, we unpacked the story behind Bright Bites.

Where some brands may expect clicks, likes, even sales,

Bright Bites wanted behavioral proof.

Parents wrote:
“My kid asked for broccoli.”
“For the first time, dinner isn’t a battle.”

That’s when it clicked:
They didn’t sell snacks.
They built trust.

Branding, like parenting, isn’t about control.
💛 It’s nudging behavior.
💛 Rewarding progress, not perfection.
💛 Understanding what moves people, quietly.

This is the lesson for brands:
💡 Lead with empathy, not ego.
💡 Quiet influence lasts longer than short-lived attention.

Bright Bites didn’t just change what kids eat.
It changed how families feel about food.

And that’s the kind of transformation the best brands are built on.

Most brands look great in a pitch deck.

But guess what? Great brands aren’t built in campaigns.

They’re built in quiet decisions. Ones made when it’s harder, and when there is no playbook.

So tell me: what’s the real test of a brand?

What’s the real test of a great brand?


taplio

The Battle

David W. Riggs

Martin Lindstrom

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreDavid W. Riggs's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMartin Lindstrom's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

David W. Riggs

Martin Lindstrom

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}David W. Riggs's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMartin Lindstrom's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDavid W. Riggs's LinkedIn Performance