The fine print is also to master and absorb the knowledge of the other brilliant people which have come before you. Feynman certainly did this himself. His comment does not mean snooze in calculus while working on the Riemann hypothesis.
The "follow your own path" mantra is particularly important at the edge of human knowledge where established theories break down. As a physicist, I was personally surprised how much people blindly trust theoretical tools well outside their domain of original application. Even when the data is yelling at you "no that's wrong", people commonly persist because they read it in a book or heard it from a more senior professor. I believe this is the group think that Feynman was getting at.
The "follow your own path" mantra is particularly important at the edge of human knowledge where established theories break down. As a physicist, I was personally surprised how much people blindly trust theoretical tools well outside their domain of original application. Even when the data is yelling at you "no that's wrong", people commonly persist because they read it in a book or heard it from a more senior professor. I believe this is the group think that Feynman was getting at.