The Best Thing I Can Do (for now)

A Radical Alternative to College

Sunday, July 26th, 2026

Writing to you from Uruguay

An idea hasn’t left my mind for two months now — an idea tied to this question:

If all of the necessities of life are taken care of — shelter, food, water, bills, and the presence of good people — what’s the best thing a person can do with their time?

The answer to this question, at least as it seems to me at the moment, is to create or build. That could mean building something in the physical world, maybe a house or garden for example. It could mean building good relationships. It also could mean martialing your time, skills, and resources for the sole purpose of creating something beautiful. Of course, what that beautiful “something” is could be tangible or intangible, but it’s always done for the sake of simply creating something beautiful — not for any specific financial outcome or obvious personal gain.

The beauty of what’s created serves a purpose that can never be easily explained.

But, the creation of something beautiful takes time. Usually decades, a lifetime, or multiple lifetimes. It takes intention, cultivation, continuous work, and an irrational drive to see it through.

Anyway…

That’s a topic for another day, but it’s been stuck in my mind over the past month as I’ve been trying to create things that could end up helping people.

Something for us…and potentially thousands of others

My most productive time of the day recently has been from 12am to 6am. Then after 6-8 hours of sleep, I get up and have another 2-4 hours of productivity. Not good in the long term, but it works for now.

At the end of one of my “night shifts” last week I had an idea come to me.

What if I built an app to help Uruguayan cattle ranchers manage their cattle, keep track of vaccinations and other treatments, track weight gain of specific cattle and of an entire herd, and combine that with week-by-week updates on cattle prices?

That’s where it started, but it’s turned into a whole lot more than that after just finishing version 31 of the app.

And before you say it — I know that everyone is making an app nowadays using AI. AI is shoved in everybody’s faces and most of what comes from it is low-quality slop. That’s what happens at the beginning of any major technological advancement…especially when people think they can use it to “farm” money through apps or videos or defer their thinking to something that does their schoolwork for them.

Side note: It’s shocking to hear the stories about just how many people are using AI to get through every step of college from people who’ve seen it firsthand.

But, the real difference lies in whether or not — at least in the creative and productive front — a person can actually identify a clear problem that could be solved or a process that could be made easier and they build something for a very specific type of person.

Now, I’ve seen and done the work firsthand here on our ranch in Uruguay. The most wholesome work I’ve ever done is actually ranch work. It’s peaceful (most of the time), real, tangible. Yet the one area we are lacking in, which I’m sure is the same for every other rancher in Uruguay, is the personal data tracking. Everything is very rudimentary here in ranching as it is in almost every other part of the world.

You can have sheets and sheets of paper or pages upon pages of Excel spreadsheets full of disorganized data: vaccines and other treatments, weigh-ins and overall cattle weight gain month-by-month, births and deaths, etc…

But, at least in Uruguay, that data can also be spread out across handwritten notes, spreadsheets, and data entered into your personal account in the national database (SNIG — the national livestock information system in Uruguay).

Disorganization and lack of data get in the way of clarity which could be leaving profit off the table.

How my app solves the problem

I’ll leave a screen recording here for you to watch so that you can see what the app actually looks like.

Let’s get the features of the app out of the way so that I can start to paint the picture of why this could be very useful:

• My Herd page: This page contains all of your cattle, their weights, displays the type of cow, it’s date of birth if applicable, and any other important info on specific cows, along with their specific national database numbers. Total head count along with total herd weight (in kilos) is displayed at the top. Cattle info can be updated, weights can be manually updated, and each cow’s national database number can be searched and verified.

• My Batches page: New groupings of cattle can be created here. Herd weights can be updated as well. A target weight can be set and you can also set a date for the next weigh-in. When that date is set, you’ll be notified a week in advance of the scheduled weigh-in date.

• Health Records page: Administration of vaccinations, vitamins, antibiotics, or any other medication or vet visit is added here. You can also add the specific dosages of medications, date of application, next scheduled date for a medication, etc. To make it easy, any administration of anything or any vet visit worth noting can be assigned to a specific cow, group of cows, or the entire herd.

• Market Prices page: The app scans the national average cattle prices each week from INAC (national institute of cattle) and updates current market prices in the app. Specific cattle prices are displayed along with a chart that goes back a year to show the overall market trend. On this page you can also create an alert to be notified when the price of steers (for example) hits a number that you want to sell at.

• Management and Tools: There’s a lot of features in these two categories, but it’s worth skipping over some of them for the sake of time. These categories contain features with everything from the ability to track sales, calculate sales based upon your cattle weight and the current market price, an annual summary of cows sold and money made, a “Fattening Margin Calculator” to calculate your margins based upon a cow’s purchase price and weight vs target weight and current cattle prices, a performance tracker that tracks your herd’s weight gain over time…

Needless to say, there’s a lot in it…

The bigger picture

But, the additional “Uruguay specific” thing that I think will be valuable is the ability to use all of your organized data to much more easily fill out the annual livestock report (that occurs every July) for the government.

Two more things I should mention are that any existing herd data that is kept in a database or spreadsheet can be imported into the app instead of manually entering it all in. Also, I’ll be adding a feature to track all expenses — hay, vet bills, vitamins, salt blocks, medications, vaccinations, etc.

Anyway…

The features are interesting, but the important stuff is in the benefits.

Ultimately, it should make any serious Uruguayan cattle rancher’s life easier because all of the information he needs to know about his livelihood (and how to move forward towards progress with it) will all be stored in one place. He can make decisions of when to buy cattle or sell. He can view all of the important information about his herd — individual weights, health information, weight gain over time, births and deaths — and he can do it without sifting through handwritten notes, spreadsheets, or a collection of receipts.

Once this app is complete, it should be a no-brainer for any rancher here to want to use.

On the other hand, this app will help my family directly. You see, my father works all the time, my stepmom is nearly always busy and she does manage the ranch as well, and I’ve been gone for most of the last 3 years. We, as many other foreigners do in similar situations, have (and currently need) ranch hands that do just about all of the work.

They’re great people, in fact I think we lucked out in finding them but getting the full picture of what’s actually going on, what our herd size is, how the birth to death ratio is in a given year, and other valuable data is not tracked or presented well. We never get the full picture. This matters to us because we really do care about making our operation successful in the long run. We want this ranch to sustain many generations of our family after us, but our current situations don’t allow us to do all of the “boots on the ground” work ourselves quite yet. At least not consistently.

Making it successful in the long run requires the work — of course. It also requires organized and understandable data to make wise and profitable decisions.

Some additional context: Anyone who’s spent a significant period of time in South America knows that productivity, high achievement, and hard work are not valued. At least not to the same degree or same way that it is in the western world. Sounds harsh, but that doesn’t matter because it’s just the truth. Data collection, attention to detail, and organized effort to improve one’s situation or improve a business are much rarer qualities here. Again, it’s nothing but the blunt truth. There is a good side to that, for example many people here are content to have nothing but just enough money to live off of and the people they love around them. Ease and a pleasant life are usually the main goals. That’s great. It’s also not conducive to shaping the future, building things to outlast you, or significantly improving yourself and your overall situation in life.

With that, foreigners like us can use this app to have a very clear understanding of what’s going on with their ranch. What’s working? What’s not working? When should be actually sell or buy? When do we need to vaccinate? What animals have been treated for health issues?

All of those questions can be answered with this and laid out in front of you.

It’s going to take a lot more work going into this next week to eventually come out with a finished product. I need to gather all of our data and import it into the app for one. I also have to add some features, remove a couple, find all of the bugs with the code, and make sure it all works before it’s ready for use.

I’m excited to do that whether or not it can eventually be sold as a product to ranchers here. At very least, it’ll help my family.

How do I help those on an alternative path?

I won’t go into a lot of detail on this because you’ll be hearing more about it very soon, but this past week I’ve been trying to figure out how I can help more people with the Preparation Strategy Sessions I’m now offering. There are only 7 spots open to book a session.

Many hours went into figuring out how to get the word out about the sessions, detailing specifically who they are for, and what people will get out of them.

I think that the strategy sessions are one of the biggest ways I could have an impact on a person’s life. Living through The Preparation for the last 3 years, I’ve been able to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Not only that but I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way and seen massive success from the entire process.

If a young man is lost and needs help getting started on his own path, I can help him do that in The Preparation through a strategy session. I can help him design a solid cycle to make serious progress, give personal input to tell him what he needs to know before going into it, create a plan specific to him, and leave him with that detailed plan (that we design together) that will make his next 3 months successful. If that young man followed through with the plan (and has drive and ambition) I have little doubt that success from the initial 3 months could translate to success over many years.

The same applies to those who are already in The Preparation.

I’ll leave it there for now. Like I said, I’m working on stuff at the moment, but you’ll be hearing a lot more about this very soon. So stay tuned.

In the meantime, you can get more info about the Preparation Strategy Sessions by clicking HERE.

Activities

Chess practice (5 out of 7 days)

Chess has been going pretty well. It’s one of the first things I do to start the day. That’s usually when my mind is fresh and ready to sit down and really think about the pieces, the moves, analyzing what’s changed with each move, ect.

Working out (4 out of 7 days)

Feeling pretty good on the physical front. Still very far from where I want to be. Eating more and eating consistently would help with that, but it’s a tough thing to do when you want to get a lot done.

Academics

I continued working through a financial analyst course for the Investor Cycle of The Preparation.

Reading

• Started reading The Charisma Myth by Olivia Cabane

Not my typical kind of book, but I do think that one of the most useful qualities a person can cultivate is the ability to be charismatic. I can’t think of an aspect of life that isn’t improved when you’re charismatic. Building relationships, getting around dumb rules, managing people, building things with others, day-to-day interactions — it’s all easier for the person who’s charismatic. So far, I’m only about halfway through the book. Most of the content is fairly obvious, but I think there’s some useful stuff in it.

• Continued reading Enlightened Leadership by Ed Oakley and Doug Krug

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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 threefold:

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.