Sunday, July 12th, 2026
Writing to you from Uruguay
I don’t know what it is, or exactly why it’s happening, but the best hours of my day have been from 12am to 6am. Another 2-3 hours of productivity come later in the day, usually around 2-5pm. How long I sleep varies slightly but usually is from 6am to about 1 pm. Not my usual schedule…that’s for sure.
But, a lot of good has come out of it.
Maybe the reason for it is because of what I’ve been trying to do recently by building The Preparation Forum. My mind doesn’t shut off at night — actually it only improves. My ability to imagine different things to do (or worth doing) and the outcome of those things is at least 10x the norm. I can power through monotonous tasks better than I usually can when the rest of the world around me is awake and busy. I can problem solve and think better overall.
Being asleep during a good portion of the day is the only downside. It reminds me of the time I worked the night shift on a wildfire in eastern Oregon. We stayed up all night—worked about 16 hours—before heading back to fire camp to sleep in an air-conditioned tractor trailer full of bunk beds during the day. Time moves strangely when you work the night shift. If you do it for too long it feels like your life is slipping away from you.
I guess one major difference between now and then is that my objective then was to do and experience something. Whereas my current objective is to produce and create.
Anyway…
Looking over all of the odd hours of work, I think I managed to get a lot done given the timeframe and all that I’ve needed to learn in order to build The Preparation Forum.
Version 1 — Finished
The Preparation Forum is live.
It isn’t perfect — no version 1 of anything ever is — but it’s real, it works, and it’s finally out of my head and onto the internet.
You can check it out for yourself here: forum.thepreparation.com
Most of this week went into the stuff that doesn’t show up in a screenshot: making the thing actually usable. I cleaned up the look of it, got the individual cycle forums in place, sorted out the registration flow, and wrestled with the email system so that when someone signs up they actually receive their confirmation instead of it disappearing into the void.
That last one ate more hours than I’d like to admit. Turns out getting a website to reliably send a single email is its own major issue.
But it’s done.
Along with that, I made tweaks to the achievement system. Preppers who complete cycles of The Preparation can now receive an achievement for that specific cycle — that’s how credibility and reputation is built in the community. The more achievements you have, the higher ranked you are, more respect is gained.
Those who complete cycles and want the achievement will have to ask me to give them the achievement due to the fact that there’s no obvious way to automate that system. Once you complete a cycle — and send proof that you did it — the achievement is applied to your account along with several thousand points which put you higher on the public leaderboard.
I still don’t know if it’ll be used consistently as a useful tool. I’ve said that before and I’ll probably say it again next week. But it’s built now, and whether or not people show up isn’t something I can control. Building it was. So I built it. There are some people who’ve joined the forum already which is very nice to see.
Writing to the List
The next chunk of my strange hours went into writing emails — to you, actually.
I’ve been putting together the emails that will introduce the Forum to everyone on this list. It sounds simple. Write an email, tell people the thing exists, hit send. But I keep catching myself over-thinking every line.
And I realized something while doing it…
I’ve spent almost three years doing things — learning lots of skills, meeting interesting people, traveling to strange places — and I haven’t used what I’ve learned (or my experience) to build something beneficial that I could offer to people.
This the Forum is the first big thing.
The Presentation
The last thing I worked on was a presentation.
I’m putting together a presentation for a call I’m hosting on July 18th to walk people through The Preparation — what it is, why it exists, how to use it, and how it can work for you or someone you love. The plan is to get on a call with whoever wants to join and actually show them around the thing live, rather than just dropping a link and disappearing.
What you’ll get from joining the call:
-The full presentation: where The Preparation came from, the program’s core ethos, how the sixteen Cycles fit together, and what an ordinary three months inside one actually looks like
-The honest economics: what it costs, how the anchor courses generate real income along the way, and how it compares to four years of tuition
-Live Q&A: bring the skeptical question. Bring the practical one. Bring the one about your own son or grandson.
-A first look at something new: the piece that lets young people do this alongside each other rather than alone. I will unveil it on the call.
Who it’s for:
-Young people wanting to pursue an unconventional path toward realizing their full potential - whether you’re pre-college, attending college, or a recent graduate unhappy with his prospects.
-Those already following The Preparation, please join. Maxim has something specifically for you.
-Parents/Grandparents who recognize the sorry state of higher education and want to set their heirs up with a better future.
Register for the Zoom Call here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Cj-vU_EiRWCURkMZFMN97w
It took quite a while to put the presentation together since a lot of thinking has to go into the most natural order of things. By that, I mean that a lot of attention has to be put toward introducing each idea in The Preparation in a way that flows well over more than a dozen slides. It takes time to figure out what I want to say, how I want to say it, and gather the concepts and ideas that shouldn’t be left out of the presentation.
We’ll see how it lands.
Activities
Chess practice (7 out of 7 days)
It took a few days to get back into the flow of things. Overall, there isn’t much to say regarding this. Practice is going well. Improving…very slowly over time.
Worked out (5 out of 7 days)
Weight lifting has been going pretty well. I feel much stronger than I did when I first came back to Uruguay a few weeks ago. Eating consistently, sleeping more, and working out has been pretty nice.
Reading
Started reading Enlightened Leadership by Ed Oakley and Doug Krug
Seems like a good book, but I’m not far enough into it to give a definitive answer on its quality. One thing I noticed: there’s an early emphasis on indirect or “soft” leadership, which is a good sign. From what little I’ve seen the indirect approach to leading people is nearly always the best possible method.
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 three fold:
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.
