No doubt he crosses the line - it's hard not to. I'm not sure I agree about that particular quote, though. If we all went by probability, nobody would do anything great. The soul does not live by statistics.
I am no authority, but FWIW my experience of creativity comes from a place I find hard to believe every human being doesn't have access to. As Bob Dylan sang: "In this you are not so unique". The difficulty is that we are governed almost completely by the desire to believe and do what other people say.
> If we all went by probability, nobody would do anything great.
You can be humble and productive at the same time. That's one of the goals of the Lean Startup.
Skeptically analyse the viability before doing something. That's different from avoid doing at all. You just need to be skeptical about your own knowledge and abilities, and then you can make a better decision. That's a good advice. But "believe in yourself above all else", not so much.
Funny you should bring that up. I dislike the Lean Startup ideology precisely because it is at odds with the creative process as I understand it. Did you see the interview with the Pinterest founder the other day? He said he was glad he hadn't known about it earlier because it would have convinced him to give up. Twitter may be a similar case; the founders said they kept going for a long time when people were telling them it was useless.
When you see something other people don't see, measuring their opinions is likely to tell you you're wrong. But what if you're not wrong? Emerson has a great line somewhere about the pain of having an original thought and giving it up under pressure, only to find out later that it was right.
I am no authority, but FWIW my experience of creativity comes from a place I find hard to believe every human being doesn't have access to. As Bob Dylan sang: "In this you are not so unique". The difficulty is that we are governed almost completely by the desire to believe and do what other people say.