Sep 29, 2017
As entrepreneurs we have heard this expression so many times our mind finishes the sentence for us, "you become the average of the five… people you spend the most time around.”
This never sat well with me. I always knew there was something wrong with this statement. In principle, it sounded good and I heard it from so many people so many different times, it seemed like it was just accepted fact.
Early in my career, I had a chance to work with some of the most successful people in the world, and I can tell you that this statement simply isn't true. The billionaires that I worked with did not hang around with five equally as successful billionaires. In fact, mathematically it would be impossible for one person to become riches in the world because he wouldn't have had at least two people who were richer than him to bring up his average.
I thought about this for a long time, because it didn't feel like it was treated in this statement. Then it hit me one day…
We don't become the average of the five people we spend the most time around, we become the average of the five people we learn the most from.