I tried to find some source for this, but could not trace it back further than a YouTube video from 2016 [1], which is very light on details, to say the least.

This kind of "research" does not really warrant the amount of inspirational blog posts that has resulted from it. In fact, as an adult I tend to reject 80% of these stories as nonsense.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVKR4A8a4lw