Sequoyah was an illiterate Cherokee silversmith who, in 1821, created a syllabary to write the spoken Cherokee language. This was the first and only time in human history that a single man created an entirely new writing system.
Sequoyah got the idea while he was dealing as a silversmith with white settlers in the area. Impressed by those “talking leaves”, as the Cherokee people named the settlers’ writings, he started working on a way to reproduce them in his language. More than ten years later, he had created a system of 85 characters, each corresponding to a different syllable in the Cherokee language: a syllabary similar in principle to the Japanese Kana, for instance. Interestingly, he borrowed a few characters from a spelling book, so that some symbols resemble Latin letters, although there is no correspondence in the sounds since Sequoyah was illiterate.
A very remarkable result: Sequoyah created a syllabary alone and in a relatively short time compared to the long history of writing systems. However, nobody was interested in learning the syllabary. Sequoyah had to face a great skepticism, and he even raised suspicions of sorcery. Anyway, after teaching the syllabary to his daughter and giving public demonstrations with her, the Cherokee people rapidly began to use his syllabary and their rate of literacy even surpassed that of the white settlers. And they lived happily ever after.
I first heard this story in a book titled “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by J. Diamond: in the book, the tale was told to make the point that, although Sequoyah could not read, he knew that a solution to the problem existed and this gave him a great advantage. My opinion is that this tells something about how innovation works.
Sequoyah had a question, “how writing works”, and he thought that the answer was the secret of the white success. He also knew that a solution was feasible. Then, he spent a long time trying to find a character for each word, namely a logographic system, until he realized that a syllabary would work much better. Motivation was really the key factor. You might have an idea which looks brilliant, but then you are left with even a more challenging question: is it worth investing time and energy on it, at the cost of leaving your fields unplanted? Sequoyah firmly believed so, and he had good evidences.
In conclusion, great pioneers, on the top of having an idea, have the visionary strength to carry it out. I could list a number of examples to support this statement. Instead of doing so, however, I will conclude with one wisdom pill: be brisk and optimistic.