Galileo Galilei achieved several remarkable things during his lifetime. Two achievements that stayed with me were his proposal of heliocentrism and theory about falling bodies.

Heliocentrism is the astronomical model that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun which is at the centre of the solar system. This was in opposition to the prevailing model of geocentrism that put the Earth at the centre of the universe and was strongly propagated by the Church.

In the case of falling bodies, he said that the time of descent of falling objects was independent of their mass. He contradicted Aristotle who had preached that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.

What impressed me in both these cases is the courage and self-belief he must have had to go against stalwarts like the Church and Aristotle. The power of believing in oneself is like no other. It anchors you when the world around is spinning out of control. In some cases, we might never receive acceptance while we live, as it happened with Galileo. During those times, the only thing that can keep us going in the right direction is belief in ourselves.