Expectations, Not Averages
You're not the average of your five — you're their expectations.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 80%
Trucks refines the familiar 'you're the average of the five people you surround yourself with' — he says it's about 90% true, and the missing piece matters enormously. You are the expectations of your five, not their average. If you earn $500k and want $2M, the obvious move is to hang out with millionaires. But if none of those millionaires want more than a million, their expectations cap you. The person earning the same $500k who also wants $2M is the better companion, because his expectations point where you're going. Around higher-expectation people you harmonise — their thinking and flow rub off, and they elevate your conscious sense of what's possible beyond anything your own brain would have generated.
Origin
Trucks grounds it in a view of humans as designed for connection — handshakes, eyeballs, brain chemistry pushing thought through vocal cords into someone else's ears and changing their brain. He cites a book on harmonising, and describes the fish-out-of-water feeling of first being around higher-level people. Hala Taha's counter-case in the episode — building to 63 employees while a partner told her she was crazy to quit her job — is the environment failure the framework diagnoses.
Core principles
- 01You are the expectations of the five people you surround yourself with, not their average.
- 02Current level is a weaker selector than intended trajectory.
- 03Humans are designed for connection; you cannot do the work in a silo and then pop out to the world.
- 04Around higher-level people you harmonise — you naturally adopt how they think and flow.
- 05Peers elevate your conscious sense of what's possible beyond what you could reach alone.
- 06Information can be acquired anywhere; expectations cannot.
How to run it
- 1
Audit your five by expectation
List the five people you spend the most time around and write down not what they have, but what they expect for themselves.
Watch out Current level is seductive and misleading. A millionaire content at a million caps you below a peer who wants two.
- 2
Select for trajectory
Deliberately get around people whose expectations sit at the place you want to go, regardless of where they are now.
Pro tip Separate your sources: go elsewhere to grab information, stay with the people whose expectations match your target.
- 3
Tolerate the fish-out-of-water phase
Being around higher-level people feels wrong at first. Stay — harmonising is what elevates your thinking and your sense of what's possible.
- 4
Stop trying to do it in a bubble
Abandon the plan of building alone and then revealing yourself to the world. There are vast amounts of knowledge you'll never realise you don't have access to without other people.
In the wild
Trucks poses the case: you have half a million and want two million. Convention says hang out with millionaires. But if none of them want more than a million, their expectations stop short of yours. The guy side by side with you at $500k who also wants $2M has expectations above the millionaires.
→ Trucks picks the peer: 'I want to be with the people that have expectations the place I want to go.' Information he'll go and grab elsewhere.
Hala Taha describes starting the company she now runs with 63 employees while her partner at the time told her she was crazy for quitting her job and that she couldn't do it. She proved them all wrong, but says the shift into being an entrepreneur would have come far faster in a healthier environment.
→ Trucks confirms environment is a big piece — friends, family and where you place your energy are explicit sections of Roots and Fruits.
Common mistakes
Selecting peers by status
Picking the room by what people have rather than what they intend caps your ceiling at their contentment level.
Building in a silo
'They think they can do it in a bubble and then all of a sudden pop out to the world and say hey look at me world.' Humans aren't built that way — you forfeit the insights you'd never have generated alone.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone choosing a mastermind, community or peer group, or trying to escape a discouraging environment.
Not ideal for
People who need specific technical information rather than elevated ambition — Trucks says you may need to go elsewhere to grab that.
From the transcript
“people are like get around the great people you're the average of the five people you surround yourself with and i don't believe that to…”
“okay but what if none of them want to make more than a million there's a guy that's side by side and we both 500…”
“when you're around higher level people you'll naturally harmonize what they think how they flow it'll feel like a fish out of water when you're…”
From the episode
Anthony Trucks: Transform Your Identity
Anthony Trucks