Planning Permits Progress

A Radical Alterative to College

Sunday, September 21st, 2025

Writing to you from Uruguay

I can distinctly remember the first time that I put serious effort to planning ahead.

The end of last year was a pivotal point — not only for myself, but for the creation of The Preparation as well. At the time, I wasn’t sure of what to do next. Studying regenerative agriculture, doing some work on the farm, minor activities, and thinking about the book was where my mind was at. The problem was…I wasn’t planning for the near future.

But, two major solutions came forward.

Matt Bracken (ex-military man, sailor, and author) gave me a suggestion for a new skill I should learn: Sailing. He sent me Pelagic Expeditions’ website and said that I should consider taking one of their courses.

Well, it required lots of planning. I booked a spot on the Competent Crew course several months in advance, planned my flights from Uruguay to Chile to the Falkland Islands (where the course was held), and had to do additional planning to buy all of the gear I needed in Chile.

All of that planning paid off…

Not many people get to dive into the deep end of sailing by sailing in and around the Falkland Islands and through the Strait of Magellan. Sailing at 50 degrees of latitude — known as the “furious fifties” — is not only wild but awesome in the truest sense of the word.

You can read all about that experience HERE. It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever done. But, the sailing trip was a clear indication that I need to be thinking about, and planning for, the future.

Breakthrough

While I was planing the sailing trip, we (my dad and I) were meeting with Doug Casey to discuss how to move forward with writing The Preparation.

At that time the book was lacking a clear and actionable strategy for people to use. We were essentially telling people to “Go out and do some things like this” without giving them a useful and clear guide to do it. Well, a few weeks of frustrating deliberation over the book led to a new and very simple idea which changed the game…

Sixteen, 3-month cycles.

We created a direct path to follow. A cycle not only contained a main event (Anchor course) but also specific Academics, Reading, Activities, and Reflection to complete in that timeframe. From that point on everything became much clearer.

Shoot, it’s been helpful for me. Before the cycles came along I just had to pick some major skill to pursue and go after it without any time limits or clear goals to hit.

I’ve been using the cycle framework to increasingly greater degrees throughout this entire year. Starting with the Sailor Cycle, moving to the Pilot Cycle, and now in the Entrepreneurship Cycle.

But, it gets better…

I’ve used the framework to plan the Fighter Cycle (going to Thailand to train Muay Thai) for the beginning of next year — 4 1/2 months in advance.

What I’m trying to say is: Planning is incredibly important for constant progress.

Planning on a smaller scale

Looking at my list of what I’ve done in the past week, most of the last 7 days have been spent planning. Whether that be scheduling podcasts, communicating with the Muay Thai school, messaging the drone seller, or speaking to another pilot in Uruguay.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve sent so many emails in such a short time period in my entire life. Yet, all of that communication and planning will allow for the future, near and far, to be better than it would be otherwise.

For one, I’ve paid and scheduled the training in Thailand.

Two, I’ve been scheduling different podcasts to further promote our book. Actually, I’ve been communicating with Glenn Beck’s team to make an appearance on his podcast this upcoming Thursday. With his audience of many parents and grandparents, we should be able to get the book into the hands of many more young men. Seriously great news.

Three, I’ve been messaging back and forth with the DJI drone seller here in Uruguay to get our DJI T40 drone to the ranch ASAP. Speaking of, my dad and I picked up the drone, brought it home, and did a quick test flight a couple days ago.

Switching tracks

If you saw my last update you’d probably know that I’m dissatisfied with the flight instruction I’ve gotten from the company in Montevideo. It seems like they are trying to get as much money out of this gringo as they can.

It’s not good to watch money flow out of your bank account while those you are paying aren’t allowing you to progress.

Luckily…with oddly good timing…my family met a man around our ranch who knows a good flight instructor. Long story short, I called the guy to ask if he could be my new instructor. He not only seemed happy to do so, but he also had a good hourly rate and was willing to let me fly out of an airstrip 15 minutes from the ranch.

No more driving 4 hours just to fly for an hour or two?

Sounds great to me.

I still have to get everything sorted out with him, and it probably won’t happen this upcoming week, but I expect I’ll be flying with the new instructor soon.

Something I’ve realized about the flight training industry:

It’s hard to find a good instructor. It’s much harder than it should be because of the system that is used internationally: pay the flight instructor per hour. When you pay people per hour they (especially morally questionable people) are going to put little effort into making good use of that time…or helping you (the student) make serious progress in short time.

Actually, most instructors don’t really care either way. Most people become CFIs (Certified Flight Instructors) to use the certification as a waypoint — an easy way for them to gain hours to advance their career while not paying the full price of having to fly the planes supplied to them. Let me repeat: they want more hours to advance their own careers and they get more hours logged by simply flying with students.

Let me be clear, you definitely can find higher quality flight schools that have high quality instructors.

I’m simply saying this as a warning to you. CFIs (even here in Uruguay) are mostly instructing to (reasonably) move forward in their own careers. If you find a good instructor—great! But, don’t expect it. From my experience you have to take the bull by the horns and independently push for progress.

Electives

1 hour of Spanish practice (4 out of 7 days)

Lack of vocabulary has been a weak point in my Spanish for a while now. I’ve started reading Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish to help with that. It’s been pretty helpful thus far!

1 hour of guitar practice (6 out of 7 days)

Basic practice — nothing too special to speak of. It was either last week or the week before when I learned how to play Nutshell by Alice in Chains and I’ve been practicing that for most of the week. Along with that, I’ve been practicing the intro to Nothing Else Matters…it’s getting smoother!

Worked out (4 out of 7 days)

Still working out as always. There’s tons to do which doesn’t allow for very much time to eat. So, it isn’t easy to gain very much muscle or get stronger for that matter. Meal prepping would be a good idea to solve that issue.

Reading

• Continued Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

• Started reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Things I published

Article from this past Monday:

Video for paid subscribers only:

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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

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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 three fold:

1. Documenting my progress holds me accountable.

2. I hope these updates will show other young men that there is another path we can take.

3. 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.