Sunday, August 16th, 2026
Writing to you from Uruguay
This past week was the kind of week that happens every once in a while. It was the kind of week that makes you feel like you made real progress, real forward movement, towards your objectives.
It was the kind of week you have to appreciate.
Anyway…
A local electrician needed a hand this past week. He’s South African but spent many years in the U.S. where he met his wife and walked the long road to become a Master Electrician.
He brought his wife and kids down to Uruguay 3 years ago with the intention of starting anew here. The dream of homesteading in a far-off country captured them—sheep, chickens, well water, a garden to live off of—the whole deal. Originally, his plan (we’ll call him Joe) was to use the valuable electrician skills he had in order to work odd repair jobs around here to sustain his family.
Well, the odd-job-pay doesn’t take you far in this country of 3 million people. Not to mention that the prices of just about everything in this little country are (counterintuitively) too high and that labor is not highly valued.
But that wasn’t all…
He’s had to re-learn most of everything because of how differently things are done here.
Skilled foreigner + high expectations mixed with crude electrical techniques + little value for labor + expensive country is a tough equation to deal with.
But that led him to where we are today. Joe partnered with a local German to start a construction business and one of their most recent projects was on a property not more than 15 minutes away from us. So, Joe contacted me this past week to ask if I was available to help him with a one-off job — helping him funnel heavy ground wires into underground pipes and through trenches for a property that’ll have over 5 structures on it once it’s finished.
I accepted and went out a few days later to get my hands dirty.
It’s been a while since I did any manual labor. It felt good. There was zero technical skill to it, mostly just a lot of pulling, lifting, and moving heavy wires through the mud. Very little went as expected and we had to ask a guy to excavate through the middle of a dirt road to allow us to lay the wires down below it because funneling them through broken pipes wasn’t working, but I had a good time anyway and got a great back workout.
By the end of it, he asked if I’d be willing to do some work for him over the next month. As is always good to say when a new opportunity to learn and work comes your way — I said yes. We’ll see if that actually pans out, but it would be a great Builder Cycle if it does.
My app
I officially finished building my first app this past week. I’ve spoken about it recently, but overall, it’s an app specifically for Uruguayan cattle ranchers to track their cattle, expenses, births, deaths, vaccinations/medications, weights, weight gain over time, national cattle prices, and get insight into when is best to buy or sell cattle.
It’s most of all the knowledge and info a cattle rancher would want to have about his herd in his pocket.
Will Uruguayan ranchers actually use it?
I don’t know, but we already are.
All 200+ of our herd were registered in the app with their most recent weights. Soon, I’ll be adding the most recent/pertinent vaccination/meds/vet visit info as well so that we can start tracking that. The app is also able to measure and graph cattle (individual + herd) weight gain over time once several new weigh-ins are registered. We’re looking forward to seeing what that graph shows in the coming weeks and months.
The point is that the app already provides value.
To finish it off though, I added 4 new features this past week. First, I added a page where deaths can be registered. The volume of cow/calf deaths over time can give you valuable insight into genetic issues or diseases, but deaths also need to be recorded for the annual “declaration” of livestock information that you give to the government. A Births page was also added. A new calf can be added on that page along with the identity of the mother. The data on the calf will be saved on that page until you ear tag it and give it its official ID number.
For our cow/calf operation it was clear that adding an “Artificial Insemination” page would help us keep track of which cows were artificially inseminated and which weren’t to track successful/unsuccessful pregnancies. It’s very important to cull the herd of cows that don’t get pregnant. Each cow that can’t get pregnant is even more of a liability than an asset and could be costing us thousands.
The app now helps us manage the situation better.
The final feature I created was a “Rainfall” tracker. It allows ranchers to manually input the exact mm of rainfall they receive day by day. But I added something just for us. We have one of those small weather stations that tracks weather metrics like wind and rainfall. So, I added a button in that page that allows you to connect directly to that weather station for real-time updates and a record of rainfall for the past 90 days.
It seems to work well.
The AI that I used to build this is undergoing a major software change in the next couple days and will, according to the company, potentially cause all of your data to be deleted.
That would suck.
So, before trying to get this in the App Store or in Google Play, I’m going to have to backup all of my data properly to ensure that this project isn’t deleted. Other than that issue, everything else has been going well with the app.
Preparation Strategy Sessions
If you’ve been following my posts over the last month, you’d know that after creating The Preparation Community Forum, I also started offering what I like to call “Strategy Sessions”.
These Strategy Sessions aren’t for everyone. They’re for those who are having trouble with certain aspects of The Preparation and want clarity and/or for those who want help from me in building a solid Cycle plan…or even several Cycle plans that go months into the future.
I’ve done 3 sessions thus far, with two of them being in the last 3 days, and I’ve learned a lot from every call.
One of the calls from this past week went absolutely fantastic. The person came to me with some general ideas for future cycles, had clear objectives for where they wanted to go, had already planned a cycle themselves and just wanted verification that it was the best it could be, and was proactive in already trying to plan (a year in advance!) before we even started the call. The session was, at least from my perspective, valuable and productive because it was a clear collaborative effort. Both parties were putting forth sincere effort to work towards the overall goals.
That’s what these sessions are and what they can produce when there is strong collaborative effort.
Anyway…
I’m happy that a large chunk of my time this past week went to this new side project that allows me to be of service to people who already are, or are just starting, to make serious progress in The Preparation. I want to help those people — each and every one of them if I can.
Last note on this:
For future reference, I’m making a slight alteration to the expectations for these calls.
Unless the person who the call(s) is for is underage or there is an explicit reason for parents to be on the call, I will no longer allow parents to join the session. Instead, the calls will be recorded and sent to the parents to review afterwards.
My intent is to directly help the people who these calls are for and give them a clear path within the confines of The Preparation based on their interests, constraints, opportunities, and what seems best. The presence of parents alters the direction of the conversation often causes a split in objectives. For example: the parents want a solution or “fixer” for their kid, and the kid is seeking to actually improve and build a cycle. Two entirely different objectives…only one of which I can, and actually want to, help. In addition to that, the parents in any situation like this tend to take the lead of the situation which throws things in reverse because what could be a beneficial session is then hijacked. Parents also alter the chemistry of these situations. I know that I (and just about any other young son/daughter) defers thinking, judgement, and action to the parents if they’re involved in a situation about planning a serious future.
Well, I used to do that. Not anymore, but still, that’s how those situations go most of the time.
So, that’s not to say that parents cannot be involved in the process of these Strategy Sessions. I want parents to be involved if the situation makes sense. But as I said in the beginning, unless the person who the Strategy Session is for is underage or there is an explicit reason for parents to attend the call as well, parents will no longer be able to join.
If parents want to be involved, I will send a full-length recording of the session upon request once the call is over.
Anyway…
I learned a lot with these calls and enjoyed them. They were a good addition to a great week.
Activities
Chess practice (5 out of 7 days)
Got knocked down a few points in ELO after hitting a new personal record. Still working my way back up to my new baseline but going well overall.
Lifted Weights (5 out of 7 day)
Feeling stronger than I have in probably 8 or 9 months. In the past couple months with all of the travelling, courses, fire deployment, and not feeling physically great, I’d say I’ve averaged a meal and a half a day. Not ideal for a 20 y/o male. Eating more and getting more protein in has been key. Carbs are key too.
Reading
Finished reading Enlightened Leadership by Doug Krug and Ed Oakley
I’m shocked at the fact that this book only has 47 reviews on Amazon. I know close to nothing on leadership and haven’t been in a position to lead in any direct way, but it’s still obvious to me that the methods and philosophy described in this book are exactly what one must do and how one must think in order to be an effective leader. Certain aspects of the book actually helped me with the Preparation Strategy Sessions too.
Are these updates informative? Are they useful? Entertaining?
Leave a comment below if you’ve got any suggestions or questions for me.
And don’t forget to send this to someone who might benefit.
I’ll see you next week.
-Maxim Benjamin Smith
I am acting as a guinea pig for a program which is meant to prepare young men for the future. This program is designed to be a replacement for the only three routes advertised to young men today - go to college, the military, or a dead-end job.
All of these typical routes of life are designed to shape us into cogs for a wheel that doesn’t serve us. Wasted time, debt, lack of skills, and a soul crushing job define many who follow the traditional route.
This program, which we can call “The Preparation”, is meant to guide young men on a path where they properly utilize their time to gain skills, build relationships, and reach a state of being truly educated. The Preparation is meant to set young men up for success.
What appeals to me about The Preparation is the idea of the type of man I could be. The path to becoming a skilled, dangerous, and competent man is much more clear now. I’ve always been impressed by characters like The Count of Monte Cristo, men who accumulated knowledge and skills over a long period of time and eventually became incredibly capable men.
Young men today do not have a guiding light. We have few mentors and no one to emulate. We have been told that there are only a few paths to success in this world. For intelligent and ambitious people - college is sold to us as the one true path. And yet that path seems completely uncertain today.
We desperately need something real to grab onto. I think this is it.
I’m putting the ideas into action. Will it work? I can’t be sure, but I’m doing my best. I’m more than 60 weeks into the program at this point. So far, so good.
You can follow me along as I follow the program. Each week, I summarize all that I did.
My objective in sharing this is threefold:
Documenting my progress holds me accountable.
I hope these updates will show other young men that there is another path we can take.
For the parents who stumble upon this log, I want to prove to you that telling your children that the conventional path - college, debt, and a job is not the foolproof path you think it is.