Managing Your Psychology

A Template for The Preparation...and Life for That Matter

Jun 06, 2024

I am now on my 44th week into a program developed by Doug Casey and my father, this program is meant to prepare young men for the future.

College, the military, and a dead-end job are all set aside in this program, which we call The Preparation, to allow for the complete and unarrested development of the individual participant.

At this point I believe it’s safe to say that I have achieved more in these past 44 weeks than most college students achieve in 4 years time.

The skills I’ve gained are practical, the knowledge I’ve accumulated is useful, and the development of my character is evident.

Much of the credit goes to The Preparation. I wouldn’t have made significant progress without it. Many young men like myself could derive almost unbelievable benefit from this program.

But, there are major difficulties that come with it…

The Preparation is not a cookie cutter program, it’s unique to you. Put simply, the program is meant to launch you on your own path.

Because of that you will face the challenge of going at life alone, making your own decisions, and carving the path for yourself.

I’ve experienced this challenge myself, and I want to help you get through it all whether you decide to enter into The Preparation or not.

Stepping out on your own

In college your peers are all with you going through the same process, in the military you and your buddies are all suffering together, at a dead-end job you and your coworkers are all punching the clock together.

The shared experience provides a sense of comfort. Any suffering that comes with it is easier to endure because that, too, is shared. When large groups of people converge on the same path it instills the belief in a common goal or outcome.

The primary motivation comes from the collective, not the individual. Competition and conformity are the primary drivers of action in most groups. A small portion of the group compete among each other, but everyone is pressured to conform.

When you’re in The Preparation you’re going at it alone. No peer group to follow, society doesn’t cheer you on, and many of the agreed upon social norms are opposed to you. There is no clear cut path to follow.

You’re in the dark, and all you’ve got is your ambition and will power to succeed. Every act is a self-made decision, every pain is yours to bear, every achievement is brought about through your ability to imagine what the man you’d like to be would do, and to act upon it.

You stand alone, building yourself brick by brick.

It won’t be easy for you. Trust me, there was a time when I questioned if any of this mattered. I didn’t know if what I was doing would make any difference. When you are on your own path you have no guarantee of anything. No diploma, no Dress Blues, no salary.

But, you are free.

Your success is self-driven and self-determined. There will be many times where you are going to be brought down by the uncertainty of your situation…Be ready for it.

I want to give you some solutions to the difficulties that I have faced, and that you will face as well.

Who could you be?

“Know thyself” is an ancient Greek maxim which was inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo. It takes time to know thyself. You have to start on your own path to figure out who you are. To do that, you must first know who you want to be.

The ultimate version of yourself…Who is he? What is he capable of? How does he live his life? Burn these questions into your mind until you find the answer.

For myself, I want to emulate Maximus from Gladiator and Edmond Dantes from The Count of Monte Cristo. I know their stories, I know who they are. They are men of courage, compassion, strength, virtue, influence, capability, confidence, and sheer will.

They learn, they persist, they overcome.

The thought of being like them uplifts me. Becoming that type of man is my path. When I live in accordance with that idea I am reassured by the sense of fulfillment I receive.

With a precise vision of who you could be, of who you want to be, you can pull yourself out of any rut and get back on your path or give yourself a reason to continue on.

Your council

Speaking of Maximus and Dantes, these two men are on my “council”. A personal council is a concept Napoleon Hill came up with in his book Think and Grow Rich. Each night before bed, Hill would assemble his council of men he admired in his mind.

He imagined himself sitting at the head of a table with his council of admirable men sitting around the table before him.

He did this to get the insight of all of these men. He wanted to know what they would do if they were in his shoes. One by one, he’d go around the table to Emerson, Paine, Edison, Darwin, Ford, Napoleon Bonaparte, Lincoln, Burbank, and then Andrew Carnegie to hear them all speak.

Oftentimes the hardest part of anything is figuring out what to do.

When you assemble your own council in your mind of people you wish to emulate (real or fictional) you can power through the process of figuring out how you want to walk, talk, and act. It becomes easier to make the decisions you need to make.

Music

We have thrived on music since the beginning. We’ve used it for times of loss and times of celebration. Music has a way of hitting a nerve that nothing else can. It uplifts us, brings us nostalgia, darkens our thoughts, and spurs us into action.

No doubt this sounds cliche, but you should use music for motivation.

Be incredibly careful with what you listen to consistently, as it can affect you in ways you might not fully understand…your emotions and thoughts can be manipulated by it. The lyrics, the frequency, the tone…all of it will pull you in one direction or another. So, stick to the type of music that makes you want to get up and get things done.

Hans Zimmer, Pantera, Metallica, Alice in Chains, some country music, and some classical music does it for me. Find songs that paint a picture in your mind of the person you want to be, or one that gives you an image of what you want your future to look like.

Again, it sounds silly, but it works.

I’m convinced that some of my days have been made infinitely better just because I listened to one song that brought a positive and productive energy with it.

Win your own favor

The majority of your peers who find a job, go into the military, or go to college will do the bare minimum to coast through. It’s the natural way of doing things for most humans.

But, in the coding of some individuals is the trait of ambition. You may have this trait yourself. Ambition has got to be backed up by grit, which is something that must be trained and developed.

When we are brought down by our circumstances we tend to lose our momentum. The challenge lies in getting back up and gaining momentum as quickly as possible.

The most difficult times for me have not come from external, unchangeable circumstances. They came from a steady loss of understanding of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Several times I have lost the “bigger picture” and I’m sure you will too.

It sucks because it causes you to lose faith in yourself, and when that happens it’s easy to reduce your overall effort in whatever you’re doing…leading you into a downward spiral where you lose conviction in your “why”.

When we are young we don’t have a record of a considerable number of life achievements to give us confidence in ourselves. We don’t even know exactly who we are yet. Our “why” is both our Fortress of Solitude and our driver of action. It is our shield and our sword. Only with a “why” can we become who we want to be.

When you forget your “why” and drop your weapons, you open yourself up to outside attack. Primarily, you make yourself vulnerable to the blows of negative thoughts from yourself and others.

Your first action should be to realize that you’ve lost sight of your cause. It takes true determination to do so because you have to keep watch over your thoughts and actions.

You have to notice when you become:

Lazy
Complacent
Fearful
Anxious
Jealous
Angry

These are all indicators that you’ve lost your path.

Second, you must gather your “council”, which I mentioned earlier. Address each member and ask, “What would you do from here?” The answer will come to you right away.

Third, you need to take direct and immediate action. If you already planned out your day, then make sure you do all that you said you would do. If you haven’t yet planned your day, you need to build that plan right away and follow through with everything. Place yourself in the present moment, focus on the day before you, and accomplish what you say you’ll accomplish.

Fourth–and this is if you need an extra push…do something uncomfortable. It could be as simple as going to the gym, but you need to do something challenging, something that the person you want to be would do if they were in the same situation you’re in. This will bring you back into alignment with your “why”.

I’ve had days where I’ve completely lost sight of my “why”. After realizing that this happened, I went to the gym, stayed longer than I wanted to, and left the gym with the clear image of my “why” back in my mind.

Put simply: the key is to act.

Do things that win the favor of your ultimate self. With time, the blessing of the lack of peer support will shine through to you. By starting your version of The Preparation you are creating your fate, not letting it fall to the hands of the crowd.

Rest

Making significant improvements in yourself and aiming toward your “why” is no small task. It requires continuous effort every day, it’s a grind and that’s a good thing. The problem is it’s easy to burn out.

I neglected rest for a long time. I wanted to keep going, to keep moving forward even when it was clear that I wasn’t producing the best results because I was mentally and physically tired. I’m glad I learned the lesson the hard way, and I encourage you to burn out a few times in the beginning stages of The Preparation.

You’ve got to pick up the pace as quickly as possible and see how much you can get done with the time you have each day.

Once I began to incorporate short periods of rest I was able to enhance my focus and effort when I was aiming to get things done. Burn out a few times, find your limit, and then rest for a day every once in a while. Chances are you’ll find that you can continue on without rest for much longer than you may believe.

But, what do I mean by rest?

You need time away from everything, time to clear your head. Find a place where you can sit down, take a drive, or go on a walk. Don’t use electronics, don’t read books, don’t do anything that requires substantial focus. Let your mind rest.

Some of your best ideas will come when you have nothing to do and you let your mind wander. You’ll think of a place you should go, a thing you should do, a better way to learn a skill, or a new way to orient your day for increased productivity.

Use rest as a way to recoup. It energizes your mind and body while giving you time to step back and analyze where you’re at.

Do something fun

I’ve viewed pretty much everything I do for The Preparation as work–the games, activities, occupations, studies–I treat it all as if I have employed myself to do it (at least most of the time).

Why?

Well, you can’t daydream about the future all the time, about who you could be, if you did you wouldn’t actually get anything done. When I view it as work I have an obligation to show up and get things done everyday.

But, I’ve also come to think that you really can’t be all work and no play, at least that’s my experience so far. I’ve burnt out, noticed it, and rested–but I still felt like I needed something more. I was missing something. Well, I didn’t want to admit it for a long time, but you need to do fun things every once in a while.

Having fun is a form of rest (that should be had in moderation) and it enriches the spirit. Take a drive, go white water rafting, hike a mountain–anything to get the dopamine flowing for a bit.

The greatest motivation

All of these personal anecdotes and ideas are meant to assist you in managing your own psychology when dealing with hardship on your own path. I’m sure that as you and I progress through The Preparation we will find other more specific ways of combating discouragement and rising above difficulty.

The idea that gave me the greatest motivation, especially in the beginning, was that I was going at this alone. I’ve always loved the idea of the hero’s journey, the outline is nearly always the same, but the challenges and triumphs change from story to story. The hero does it alone. He either dies in the process or comes out on the other side as a man among men.

Our peers live in a silo, one that they will likely never escape. Some may view their place among their mass of peers as a blessing, but really, it’s a curse. You can be free, but you have to bear the burden of your freedom and make the decisions of your life for yourself. It’s daunting, but nothing compares to it.

Maybe this thought brings you the same strength and motivation it brings me.

-Maxim Benjamin Smith

I am being used 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 19 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.

The Preparation