Tristan’s 7+1: What I'm reading, watching, listening to, etc...

Hi ,

Watch who talks the most in any room. Most of the time, it isn’t the leader. The loudest person is usually the one working hardest to convince the room, and themselves, that they belong in it. Volume is what people reach for when they don’t fully trust what they’re saying. Real leaders don’t need it. 

They stay quiet because they’re secure, and they let everyone else fill the air while they watch, listen, and decide. The strongest person in the room is almost never the one fighting to be seen. 🩵

^{WHAT I’M EXCITED ABOUT}
1-on-1 AI Consulting for Agents. 1-on-1 AI Coaching. We’re launching one on one AI coaching for teams, brokers, and agents. This isn’t another webinar about what AI might do someday. We sit down with you and solve the actual AI problem in front of you right now. Emails are going out today to everyone in our workshops. If you want in, just reply and let me know.

^{BOOK I’M READING}
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. I read this one with my son and it’s stayed with both of us. It’s short. You can finish it in an afternoon. But it hits like a freight train. Two men, one dream, and the weight of looking out for someone who can’t look out for himself. If you’ve got a kid old enough to read with you, this is the kind of book that opens a conversation you didn’t know you needed to have.

^{WHAT I’M WATCHING}
How to Journal for Mental Clarity: A Simple 2026 System. Forget the pretty-notebook version of journaling. This one’s about using it as a tool to clear the mental clutter, all those open tabs running in the back of your head. It’s a simple, minimalist system with nothing precious about it. You can’t think straight for anyone else when your own mind is noise, and this is a clean way to quiet it down. It pairs with everything I said up top.

^{WHAT I’M LISTENING TO}
David Senra. This is the podcast where Senra sits down with founders and operators and pulls the timeless principles out of how they actually built. He’s read hundreds of biographies, so he knows exactly what to ask and what to dig for. The recent run has been some of his best. If you study the people who build things, this one earns the time.

^{WHAT I JUST BOUGHT}
Wobble Wedges Plastic Shims. Got some plastic shims to fix a drawer that's been sticking for months. I genuinely didn't know they were called shims until I needed them. Two-dollar fix. Months of annoyance gone in five minutes. Worth it just to add a new word to my vocabulary.

^{ARTICLE I’M READING}
The Best Leaders Embrace the Role of Supporting Character by Jamil Zaki. Zaki cuts against the whole “founder mode” idea that the leader has to be the hero who imposes the vision on everyone. He makes the case that the strongest leaders play the supporting character. They stay intellectually humble, ask better questions, and help their people connect the work to what they actually care about. Stanford research backs it up. That approach lifts performance, satisfaction, and loyalty. For anyone running a team, it’s a gut check on whether you’re building your people up or just standing in the spotlight yourself.

^{WHAT TECH I’M TESTING OUT}
Beehiiv Newsletters. We already run our newsletters on Beehiiv, but lately we’ve been leaning into its AI features and they’re working great. The part that caught my attention is the new connection that lets you run your newsletter straight from Claude or ChatGPT. You ask a question about your list, it pulls the answer live from your account. If you’re publishing a newsletter and you’re not using the AI side of your platform yet, you’re leaving time on the table.

^{WHAT I’M WORKING ON}
What I’m Working On: I’m building a “5 Things I Need To Outsource” document and I keep adding to it. It’s forcing me to get honest about what only I can do versus what I’m holding onto out of habit. If you want it, just shoot me an email at [email protected]

Thank you for reading A Brilliant Tribe.

Thank you for reading A Brilliant Tribe. 

Best regards,