Nice story about perseverance. But I do not know how helpful this is to young researchers.

My advice for young researchers is read more articles - like at least a solid month of reading and journaling full time (40 hrs per week) before you even start to think about what you want to start off with by replicating.

The other related mistake I see young researchers make a lot is not leveraging pre-existing work / results and wasting weeks or months reinventing the wheel.