staysaasy

In my (admittedly limited) experience, Very Successful People say versions of "that will be really hard" very often, and say "that is impossible / won't work" effectively never.

I'm not sure if this is causation or correlation, or even which direction a possible causative link would flow in (eg being positive + open-minded makes you more successful vs. being successful makes you more positive + open-minded). But it's absolutely a pattern that I've noticed.

IME most people will generally appear to be making things up as they go – even if they have significant relevant experience. Every situation is unique, and experience tends to look more like having a list of techniques with varying degrees of expertise, rather than having a playbook for every situation. You have to look for the expertise rather than raw confidence.

In sports terms it would be something like a baseball pitcher being able to throw a great curveball, a great fastball, and an all right slider, and knowing roughly what situations to use them in. There will still be a high degree of randomness and mistakes will be made.