I believe developing ability to adapt yourself and keep an open mindset is the way to go.
We had become kind of close friends and all the time I stop to think what if the obsessed one was me, what I’d do in his situation… The last time I talked to the guy was 7 years ago when I left hometown, adapting was a must, not many things happened as I planned.
I talked to him a few times online and was very weird for both when I was explaining I had become a programmer;
When we did talk online I noticed he often pointed that learning English had become a barrier too high for him (we aren’t native speakers).
Then because he already had two kids he never left town and the fact that there wasn’t established industry there only made things worse… Later on he got involved with drugs and the rest is story.
So yeah, maybe half the trick is: don’t aim so high, focus on reasonable steps you can accomplish one by one instead of dreaming of dominating the whole world at once. We are humans and human is limited by nature.