> he went to all his friends and family and told them his plan. Every single person told him he was nuts and it would never work.
> the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work.
Those are interesting reasons for being certain it will work. The combination of all the people you cherish the most telling you it's a bad idea and the fact that no one had tried it before. I mean, sure, I understand the romance of it and these reasons giving someone the drive to try it and succeed. But making you certain it's going to work? That I don't understand.
If people are universal in their opinions that something isn't going to work, you then have to assess their credibility.
If you decide that the problem is they lack some specific insight that you possess (and you're really sure about that fact), then in combination with their universal negative position, I believe you can be confident that you're on to something. There's a tendency for strikingly new things to be laughed at, or otherwise denounced as absurd; once you notice that effect at play by people, and you can reasonably confirm your own thesis that you know something they don't, it's a great indicator.
> the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work.
Those are interesting reasons for being certain it will work. The combination of all the people you cherish the most telling you it's a bad idea and the fact that no one had tried it before. I mean, sure, I understand the romance of it and these reasons giving someone the drive to try it and succeed. But making you certain it's going to work? That I don't understand.