Sunday, August 10th, 2025
Writing to you from Punta del Este, Uruguay
Learning any skill is never easy. Waves of embarrassment, anger, and fear crash into you with seemingly no end in sight of the assault in sight. New information is being thrown your way and, whether it’s because of misunderstanding, poor memory, or bad execution you can feel the full brunt of your (often completely understandable) mistake.
This brings you and I to a fork in the road we must take…
Our choice is between resentment and a change in attitude (coupled with a shifted perspective). We can, as most people do, begin to hate the process we’ve thrown ourselves into - dragging ourselves through it or even dropping the pursuit overall. Or, shift your attitude by thinking of each difficulty as a task…your task to overcome.
If you’re like me, then the subject matter of something or skill itself is rarely enough to sustain your desire to continue on through the learning process. You need an greater, overarching aim with some gravitas. The aim, at least for myself, is like Epictetus’ quote: “Devote the rest of your life to making progress”.
If doing/learning something can get me closer to becoming the man I want to be, sign me up.
But, no matter what your overarching aim is, it must hold enough weight to make any natural difficulties that come with learning something new seem trivial.
There’s plenty of bumps in the road…here’s one of mine
Never - not once - have I done done something new within the past 2 years in The Preparation that was easy.
This time last year I was working on a wildfire as an EMT when I realized that 4 months of schooling and a successfully-passed national exam didn’t prepare me for an EMS job nearly as much as I thought it did…
Getting lost on a Forest Service road after being given vague directions of the patient’s location was the beginning of the trouble. We drove 15 minutes in the complete opposite direction after being told by the freaked-out fire fighters on the radio to go “up” the road, not down the road from where we were. Anyway, we flipped a U-turn and rushed down the road to a turn off where 5 or 6 engines (“engines” meaning pickup trucks with a water tank and hoses on the back) were all parked together.
Immediately we were swarmed by people wanting to give information on the patient who, strangely, I didn’t see until several minutes later.
It was his first day working on fires this year. Hot day. Didn’t drink much water. After he was found crawling on all-fours trying to get back to the road he was called in as a heat illness patient. By the time we got to him he was throwing up consistently, could barely walk, and wasn’t sweating very much - which could have marked a transition from heat exhaustion to heat stroke.
Arriving to the scene and jumping out of the ambulance felt like a movie.
Everything was rushing by, somehow I had forgotten everything I had learned, and my help was minimal. My paramedic had to practically hold my hand through the entire call - all the way to the hospital where we dropped off the patient - in order for me to do what I needed to do.
Is there a word to describe a stressful experience multiplied by a thousand?
Before then I thought I knew what I was doing. After that, I realized that I’m not clueless (thankfully) but always learning.
I continued to work on fires for many days after that happened last year on the Falls fire in Burns, Oregon. Funny name for a town that’s burning, right? And, wanting to learn more and improve my skills further, I completed a Wilderness First Responder course a few months ago. From this, my foundational EMT skills were vastly improved and I was taught an array of new things that weren’t part of my EMT school curriculum.
That first experience with a patient on a wildfire was a fork in the road.
Were there lots of negative feelings about it? Yes. Choosing resentment was perfectly possible, but using it as a motivating factor to improve was where the good came out of an embarrassing situation.
Learning the ropes
Learning to fly hasn’t been a smooth process either.
It wasn’t until now (at 25 flight hours) that I began to be more confident in my abilities. But, back in the beginning of this process, when I was flying near Denver, it was tough. Lots of information being thrown at me - not only during flight, but through the hours upon hours of personal study. And, when it came to radio communications and learning to land, I was having lots of trouble.
Flight school isn’t overwhelmingly hard, but there’s a reason why 80% of people who enter pilot private flight school never complete it…
Going back to the core of this topic, the thing that has helped the most has been to keep a good attitude that focuses on my overarching aim. In doing that, you’re able to take a step back from what you’re doing and detach yourself emotionally from the simple fact that you are going to look like a fool.
I’m convinced that if you do this enough times you will also begin to learn how to learn - something which is more important than learning any single skill.
This is a topic that needs more time - its own time - to be discussed properly.
Anyway, I had another flight this past week that was clear proof of progress. All but one of my five flights here in Uruguay have been entirely focused on practicing landings. For 1.5 hours, my instructor and I would do nothing but stay in the traffic pattern and do touch-and-go landings on a small airstrip not too far from the capital city.
It was good practice, no doubt, but somewhat frustrating to adapt to a new instructor. His teaching has been different from what I am used to, but I went with it. He has definitely been giving me a constant flow of information in each lesson, correcting all of my little mistakes. So, the plane is still flying, but my mind would be focused on something that happened 10 seconds ago.
That doesn’t pair well with the common saying of: “Stay ahead of the airplane”.
I wasn’t getting frustrated, but performance wise I wasn’t doing too hot…Poor altitude and speed management, not great traffic patterns, and many landings that don’t make me proud.
Then, something changed.
My instructor turned to me during my flight this past week and said, “I’m just going to sit here and be quiet and let you do it on your own.”
“Got it, sounds good.”
For the rest of that lesson he hardly said a word. The altitude and speed management was on point, traffic pattern work was good, and the landings made me happy. It really did make me happy. For a second I thought that I must have forgotten how to fly and that all my time flying in the states didn’t do any good.
“Haha well I’m just going to shut up from now on. Now I know that you really do know what you’re doing”, my instructor said.
It was a win.
I like my instructor, but his way of teaching just isn’t for me. Again, I think it all comes down to attitude and ultimate aim. If I had gotten visibly frustrated at any point I’m not sure that he would have handed the controls to me and let me fly without his input.
Part of learning the ropes of learning how to learn is to possess a positive attitude - something I’m still working on - but this is proof that it works.
Not the only kind of flying
Part of my plan for September, October, November, and likely part of December is to start a drone agriculture business.
The business requires two drones and mapping software that can help measure areas of pasture lacking seed, urea, nitrogen…One drone gathers data by taking multispectral pictures (hundreds or thousands of them) of the pasture. The other drone is much bigger and can spread seeds and fertilizer on the areas identified by the software as lacking in seed or fertilizer.
To start this off, I bought the multispectral drone in Montevideo and mapped out half of our ranch.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a computer with the proper processor to process all of the data through the software, but we should get it soon.
The next part of the process should be learning how to use the software, buying the large drone, and taking the necessary classes to get the drone operator licenses.
Chores
The chicken coup was getting a grimy after not being cleaned for a little while. So, before leaving for a flight, I went out and cleaned it.
Ranch work is one of the most calming things to do. Manual labor that allows you to see the results of your work is wholesome and enjoyable. Whether it be building compost, working cattle on horseback, stocking wood, or helping chicks grow - its all fantastic.
Electives
2 hours of Spanish Practice (3 out of 7 days): I want to improve my Spanish further. Sometimes it seems like the more I learn the worse my Spanish gets, but I’ve been taking an intermediate Spanish course which seems to be helping.
1 hour of guitar practice (2 out of 7 days): I’ve been slacking on the electives recently. The numbers should read (6 out oof 7 days) or (7 out of 7 days), so that’s my fault. Though, I will say, driving back and forth from flight school takes around 4 total hours - a huge chunk of the day. So, it isn’t always easy to get everything done, but I can and should do better.
Working out (5 out of 7 days): I’ve said it for a long time…lifting weights is essential for young men.
Reading
Continued reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein
Continued reading Memorabilia by Xenophon
Looking forward
This upcoming week could go in several directions, but I have a few main objectives that I want to mention here to hold myself accountable…
I want to learn more about the drone mapping software, complete the meteorology course I am taking, complete the two books I’ve been reading, have at least one flight, and prepare for the release of The Preparation book…which is coming very soon!
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.
Gives this mom of a 16 year old a lot of hope! So appreciate your commentary.
“I’m convinced that if you do this enough times you will also begin to learn how to learn - something which is more important than learning any single skill.” That’s the magic, Maxim. Keep going. We are rooting for you. The Preparation is the Way.