The researchers had measured ten dimensions for each pilot, so now Daniels set himself the task of going through the data, pilot by pilot by pilot, and counting how many of the 4,063 pilots were in the middle 30 percent on all of the ten dimensions.

The answer, when it came, was this: none. There were no average-sized pilots—none whatsoever. Even if you looked at just three of the ten dimensions, fewer than 5 percent of the pilots were average-sized on all three. Even in a population of humans deliberately selected against a set of criteria (if you were too tall or too short, for instance, you weren’t qualified to become a USAF pilot in the first place), there was no one-size-fits-all, not even close.

Just as Don Clifton discovered that the only predictor of performance was total score across a number of relevant variables—that there was no right pattern of abilities, only a right sum of abilities—Gilbert Daniels discovered that there were no average humans in a population of 4,063, and that the average is a mathematical concept, not something that exists in the physical world. While the outcomes of high performance are visible and clear, the ingredients of high performance vary from person to person. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to human beings; and 8 9 there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to great performance.

This very same sentiment could apply just as well to every single person in our study, not because of their “genius,” but because of how they played exquisitely to their unique constellation of encodings.

Each constellation of encodings is its own category-of-one distinctive blend. There was just one Barbara McClintock, one John Glenn, one Alice Paul, one Toni Morrison, one Benjamin Franklin. Just as there is only one of you, and only one of me. The thing that set them apart is their ability to play so consistently to their own individual (and sometimes quite peculiar) package of encodings.

Combat aviator in the Pacific, jet fighter pilot in Korea, test pilot in the supersonic age, Project Bullet— each iteration, each step, Glenn just kept volunteering himself into the future.

Second, even highly accomplished people can languish when they operate contrary to their encodings, when they fall out of frame.

Here we have two of the most accomplished people of a generation, two of the greatest pilots of all time who became national heroes. Yet even these two remarkable individuals had episodes when they fell out of frame, such as Glenn’s ill-fated run for president and some of Cooper’s business ventures where he trusted the wrong people. The main point here is not that they “failed” or “made mistakes.” The point is that anyone can fall out of frame, and when they do, they’re likely to struggle relative to when they’re in frame.

Third, to be fully in frame requires a suitable hedgehog home.

Both Glenn and Cooper flourished in the culture of elite military pilots and NASA astronauts, wherein they could count on the people around them to be reliable, trustworthy, and highly capable. And while their work came with extreme danger, they operated within a system of competence, chock-full of checks and counterchecks, with scientists and specialist engineers and support crews all working together to accomplish a clear mission and decrease risk to the pilot or astronaut in the cockpit.