Have Ambition - Will Travel

I'm Looking to Learn from You

Yes, I’m stealing the wording from Paladin in Have Gun - Will Travel.

You see, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet two great men recently - Jim and Kirk - who have been mentioned in several past articles:

Both of those men taught me very much in terms of philosophical ideas and practical knowledge (which often overlap).

Well, I’m looking to meet more people like them, and perhaps that means meeting you. My objective is to find impressive people who hold a set of skills that they would like to pass on.

I want to learn new skills and, if possible, do some work to make a bit of cash.

As I go through The Preparation (a program designed by Doug Casey and my father) I aim to get as many skills under my belt as I can in the next couple years.

Doesn’t matter what it is…I’m open to it all.

Here’s a brief list of my general skills thus far:

• Ranching

• Horse/Mule packing

• EMT skills

• Rappelling (and a tiny bit of rock climbing)

• Writing

• A little bit of Spanish

• Chess

• Horsemanship

I am currently based in Denver, Colorado. So, if you’re anywhere near this part of the country let me know.

I have ambition, and I’m willing to travel to learn from you in order to expand my skill set.

-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 40 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.