Monday, March 30th, 2026
Writing to you from Cordova, Illinois
Well, I don’t know what to say…
So much yet so little has happen since I last spoke to you almost 4 weeks ago. I didn’t mean to go so long without posting an update either, but if you can believe it things have managed to get even crazier recently. Let me list off everything that has happened in the last 2 months and then I’ll fill in the details about what’s happened recently:
Travelled from Uruguay to Japan, stayed in Japan for 3 weeks, then travelled to Thailand to train Muay Thai
Scratched by a dog in Thailand which led to me getting 4/5 rabies shots over the course of several weeks
Chest pain, tightness, and crazy hypertension 24-36 hours after the first 3 shots
Got sick twice in 3 weeks in Thailand
Picked up a fungal infection in sparring that I falsely assumed was staph
Went back to Japan
Took Dicloxacillin for what I thought was staph, found out it wasn’t, then treated the fungal infection with a topical cream
Decided to start training Muay Thai again in Japan, got strange cuts on my arm after the second session, cuts turned into boils and spread everywhere
Went to the doctor who falsely diagnosed it as dermatitis or psoriasis
Went to another doctor who diagnosed it as staph and prescribed Cefalexin
Started taking the antibiotics and feeling lots of strange effects
Flew 10 hours back to Denver from Tokyo
Got up the next day and drove 4 1/2 hours to Grand Junction, Colorado with very little sleep to attended a conference
Woke up feeling bad — super shaky, anxious, and hot
Went to the hospital to get blood tests, nothing showed up, but found out I have an oral yeast infection from taking antibiotics
Decided to not go to conference or rope rescue course in Utah
Felt a crazy tightness in my throat for an entire day
Drove 15 hours from Colorado to Iowa
Felt very weak, poor circulation, headaches lasting for days
Feeling better now after March 28th
And that’s about it thus far…
My unwillingness to allow extra time to rest certainly has made it worse. I never should have trained again in Japan because that created a whole slew of other issues to deal with, but I assumed that it wasn’t a problem at the time. In retrospect I was pushing the limit to try to salvage the rest of the cycle since I’d only spent 3 weeks training in Thailand instead of the intended 6 weeks…and I didn’t fight like I wanted to.
At this point I’m certain that it’s the antibiotics that have caused much of my suffering over the last couples weeks. My brain has definitely been affected. Those close to me know that I’m not the most positive person in the world. The destruction of my gut microbiome lowers serotonin and dopamine levels, which has increased overall negative feeling and definitely heightened anxiety. I’m not someone who goes around saying I have anxiety. I don’t and I’m not one of those people. Feeling anxious can be great at a certain level because it makes you want to get up and do stuff. Over the last 2.5 years I tend to wake up with at least a low level of anxiety in the morning due to the fact that there’s often quite a lot that I want to get done in a short amount of time.
Anxiety stemming from wanting to do what you need to do is good, but what I’ve felt recently is way over the top.
Anyway…
These last couple weeks have been the worst part of the last two months. I’ve never felt anything like it. My current conclusion is that the combination of all the travel, medications, changes of environment, hard training in Thailand, infections, and poor sleep have led to my nervous system going haywire. Too much going on in too short a time.
Recent symptoms which have brought me to this conclusion: poor circulation, muscle weakness, band-like headaches that last 12+ hours that also cover the neck, poor cognitive function…
As I write this I’m feeling much better. I’m staying with family in Illinois and getting plenty of rest. The only thing I need to do differently is eat better food to get my gut back on track, but that’s easier said than done when so many of the nasty fast food staples haven’t been available to you in quite a while. With some more rest, good food, and very little stress I’ll feel better in no time. I want to get back on track ASAP because although I’ve had plenty new experiences this year I want to be more productive again.
Asia for 3 Months
We left Tokyo on March 18th after spending our final week in Japan with a friend we had met at a conference my family hosted in Uruguay last year. Not much to say about that except that it was good to see him again. He’s a good friend — very positive, extroverted, and smart. We took showed him around parts of Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.
Overall, I think he enjoyed the experience, but he was much less impressed with Japan than I was when I first got there. This is probably because he’s lived in Asia for much of his life.
My view of Japan was beginning to fade around the time he arrived, so my negative thoughts about the place might have swayed his opinion slightly. My default is to spot all of the negative things about a place or people — and I’m very good at it. Once the initial wonder of being in Japan had faded (after 5 1/2 weeks) there was a shocking contrast to what I saw around me.
I won’t speak about it because I don’t want to dissuade people from going there. In truth, all places are the same after you're there long enough. I’ve seen parts Africa, much of North and South America, some of Asia, and a strange set of islands in the South Atlantic. There are large cultural differences, lots of different languages and customs, but people are largely the same at their core. Some better than others, a few extraordinary ones, and a ton of crap.
Don’t get me wrong, travel is good. Travel with purpose is the best.
If you go somewhere new with the intention of learning something specific you’ll meet some of the best people, walk away with interesting stories, and truly gain something from the experience. Travel without purpose — tourism — is cancerous. It’s destroyed Thailand, Japan, parts of South America, much of Europe. Travel with purpose gets you working right alongside locals and learning from them. Respect is earned that way.
So, that’s a long way of saying: Don’t travel aimlessly. Don’t believe that travel will allow you to “find yourself”. Find the best of a country or people by putting yourself in the position of a student.
Anyway…
Spending 3 month in Asia turned out to be a very different experience than I thought it would be, but I don’t regret it. The events of the last couple months were proof of something I’ve thought to be true, but I wasn’t certain until I saw it firsthand. You see, one of the things I love most about The Preparation is that it’s difficult and occasionally dangerous. Oftentimes I’ve heard people wish me “good luck with your adventures” with a very lighthearted emphasis on the word Adventure. Sometimes it is said in a demeaning tone, but more often than not it’s said with total sincerity. The funny thing is that adventure comes from a difficult, and sometimes dark, set of circumstances that are incredibly challenging and sometimes painful.
Adventure is best enjoyed in a chair with a coffee and a book. Louis L’Amour said it best:
“Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it’s hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place.”
As I said, I had an inkling that adventure isn’t what most people think it is after doing a number of “adventurous” things over the past couple years that didn’t seem so glamorous when you were in the middle of it. It wasn’t until Thailand — and the events that ensued — that Louis’ quote finally came true for me. Bacterial infections, fungal infections, dog scratches, rabies shots, and sicknesses — a set of completely unexpected events after diving head-first into the romantic idea of training Muay Thai in its birthplace.
Now that’s adventure. I wouldn’t change a thing.
You’ll have plenty of adventures in The Preparation. Don’t let these past two months of weird issues I’ve had turn you away from doing new things in strange places.
Changes
“If you could use one word to summarize what you think your time in Thailand will be like, what would it be?”
“Meditative”, I said.
In retrospect, that was by far the funniest thing I could have said after taking into account what actually happened. Though, at the same time, it was the most true thing I could have said. My time in Thailand wasn’t peaceful and calm as I thought it would be, but the difficulties that came out of it set the stage to allow me to make it a meditative experience.
I must confess that it wasn’t until very recently that I took advantage of the situation to actually meditate on the experience.
It was 2am. I had been feeling pretty rough since getting back to the states, but now we were making the 15 hour drive from Grand Junction, Colorado to Iowa where my family is. I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad I’d been feeling, was feeling, and would probably feel after this long drive. So much had happened in the last couple months and, to make things even more angering, I had been so unproductive. Then a switch flipped again and I realized once more that everything happens as it’s supposed to happen, all that matters is that I do the right thing regardless of the circumstances. The thought of what Socrates or Marcus Aurelius would have done in my situation made this clear. No matter what, they would have acted like men. They would do what needed to be done, rested if necessary, and would have continued to do, say, and think the right thing.
I’ve said it before, but I’m often painfully reminded of it again and again: You can throw all of the skills, experiences, money, and interesting stories out the door — all that really matters is the kind of man you are.
Sometimes the endless pursuit of skills — or any other external thing for that matter — can throw you off course if you don’t frequently reflect on what actually matters.
That same night that I was driving I thought back to the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. 14 years of his life were taken away after being falsely imprisoned and betrayed. The first six years were full of endless pain and hopelessness to the point that he no longer believed there was any higher good in the world. Something changed (I won’t spoil it) in those final eight years that led to him becoming an extremely impressive man. He learned and improved continuously while still being confided to the dark and dingy cell that he thought he might die in.
That story is always beautiful to me because, although it is fiction, it showed what a man can do even in seemingly hopeless circumstances. Edmond Dantes (the main character) didn’t worry about the passage of time or external circumstances — he did what he believed he needed to do regardless.
(Of course, he was motivated by the bad external circumstances he faced, but I’m only talking about those 14 years he was imprisoned…not the rest of the revenge story.)
One last note
I know I haven’t been responsive to messages, emails, and comments from you guys.
That will change along with the lack of videos, paid-only content, and weekly updates.
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.
If
by
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
Frank's Travel Rules (while I'm on a roll...)
~ In summer go north. In winter go south.
~ I avoid wet, tropical third world countries. Hot, wet conditions sustain diseases--bacterial, fungal and viral--to which we have little to no immunity. And health care may be spotty. Have known too many people whose trips to tropical countries, like India, have been ruined by getting sick. Often just from eating the food in restaurants.
~ Your plane will land in a big city, or what I call "the tourism zone." Flee.
Seeing "the sites" is nice and all, but I would rather find my way to a rural/small town/non-tourist place where I can chat up a friendly person and they will say, "you know, I've never met an American before." That's how you'll know you're in the right place. You'll make friends who will invite you for fun times and adventures: foraging for wild, edible mushrooms, going to a party where they're cooking fish stew over an open fire, traipsing through the woods to a non-commercial hot spring next to an icy creek, hitch-hiking to the next town, getting on a small boat to poke around or fish, learning which wild herbs to add to dinner, hopping on a horse and galloping through the surf, etc, etc.
~ Think twice about going to countries where The Enlightenment is not a big part of the cultural DNA--you will find that women are often treated as being two steps above livestock, especially in rural areas. After spending two weeks in rural Morocco--where I befriended a goatherd who invited me to meet his family and spend the night in their cave--I could see how women's jobs were to essentially be barefoot and pregnant--I decided I didn't want to support that with my money ever again. Something to think about.
On that same trip, at a guest house, I met a Canadian woman and a Brazilian woman who wanted to go to a club one night in the small town, so they invited me along. In the club there were about 100 guys and 3 women: the two women I came with and the Senegalese woman fronting the band. On the walk back through town, we were accosted by four guys who started grabbing the women by their arms and by their ass--guys assume a woman out after dark is de facto, a prostitute. I had to get loud enough that people turned their lights on and I had to act big and holler that I was calling the cops and swinging my arms around and praying that one of them wouldn't stab me in the neck with a knife. My two female friends were a bit freaked out. Something to think about.
~ Sign up for WWOOF.org. You can land a part-time gig on a family owned organic farm in almost any country--you get room and board for 7 days in exchange for a 5 half days of pretty easy work. My wife and I did that for two weeks in rural Provence, France a short walk to the Sea and a week in rural Tuscany, Italy a short walk to a swimming hole. Made lifelong friends, ate great food, were given Opinel pocket knives by one friend and just had a great time in excellent weather.
Safe Travels!