What if, instead of asking which college your teen should attend, you started asking what kind of person they want to become? That one shift changes everything about how you prepare your kids for adulthood — and this episode lays out a completely different path forward.
This episode introduces a 16-cycle blueprint designed to build genuine life skills for young adults one quarter at a time — from EMT certification to sailing through the South Atlantic to starting a business and making the first sale. You will hear a father and son tell the real story of what this journey has looked like, how it was funded, and what the outcome has been so far.
Discover ways to build character, and create confident, capable adults by age 20.
✅The one question that replaces "what college should I attend"
✅How 16 hands-on cycles stack real skills and real-world experience
✅How one teen earned $600 a day to fund his own real-world education
✅Why a personal code of rules and virtues is the foundation of true self-government
✅The patron relationship that opens doors traditional mentoring never could
✅Why most teens launch into adulthood anxious, unprepared, and waiting for someone to tell them what to do
Grab the book mentioned in this episode and start building the kind of young adult your family is proud to launch into the world.
Resources for You
The Preparation by Matt and Maxim Smith
Maxim's Substack
More life skills for teens help
Show Notes:
Preparing Your Kids for Adult Life — A Conversation With Matt and Maxim Smith
Today I have a long-time friend Matt Smith here with his son Maxim, and we're talking about a brand new book they wrote together called The Preparation — all about preparing young people for adult life. Matt and I met in a mastermind back in 2009, so it's great to reconnect. Maxim is the guinea pig for the whole thing, and he's got some incredible stories to share.
What Kind of Man Do I Want to Become?
Instead of starting with outcomes like career and college, the book opens with a much bigger question — what kind of man do I want to become? Matt explains why.
The whole idea of college is — so that what? So you can pay your own rent? That's not a very motivating vision. So they started thinking about what the real outcome actually is. What would inspire a young man, challenge him, and make him want to come into his own adulthood? The only answer to that question is one he has to find for himself — what kind of man does he want to become?
The book is designed as a program that could fully replace college. It lays out exactly what to do, quarter by quarter, and still covers all the academics. But the motivating driving force behind it — the thing strong enough to push you through the hard parts — is that personal vision of who you want to be.
Maxim says when he was first introduced to the program, the question took shape through a concept called be, do, and have — the three most important verbs. Most people focus on the have. But be is the most important. And do is where young people have their greatest power, because when you're young, you have unlimited energy and high openness to new experiences. Doing is your leverage.
For his own answer to that question, Maxim found inspiration in a fictional character — Edmund Dantes from The Count of Monte Cristo. Not the revenge part of the story, but the 14 years he dedicated to gaining as many skills as possible. Learning to read and write, sword fighting, hand-to-hand combat, economics, math, multiple languages. That was the vision Maxim worked from.
Wisdom as Righteousness in Action
The Preparation focuses heavily on the classical virtues — courage, wisdom, hospitality — and especially stoic thinking, particularly the work of Epictetus. Matt says wisdom is the key to being a happy, healthy, successful individual, but you have to make it practical. Get away from abstract ideas and give young people real examples of what good looks like and how to model it.
One of the most powerful exercises in the book is building a personal code. It has three parts.
First, they think about their own actions — what are the things I do that make me feel small or ashamed? No one else might even know about these things, but the kid knows. They decide to stop doing those things — not because someone else made a rule, but because they made the rule for themselves. This is the very beginning of identity formation. For the first time, they're choosing not to do something on their own authority.
Second, they go through a list of the ancient virtues and find the ones that call to them. Unlike the rules, which are binary — you either kept them or you didn't — the virtues are aspirational. You can always be more courageous. There's no ceiling.
Third, they start listing their accomplishments. When you're starting out, you feel like you have nothing. But skills stack up fast in the preparation. After just one cycle, looking back at the actual skills you've gained — not just what you've studied, but what you can actually do — gives you a sense of pride and identity you didn't have before. And that's what young people are missing.
Patrons, Not Just Mentors
Most people think of a mentor like Gandalf — someone who shows up and offers you everything for nothing. That's not really how it works. The Preparation uses the term patron, drawn from ancient Roman society, where an older established person would come alongside a younger person who had skills, motivation, and hunger but not much yet. It was a two-way street. The patron would publicly say — this person is under my protection. One of us.
The key insight is that you can earn a mentor or patron. Young people who are ambitious, smart, detail-oriented, hungry, and virtuous — when Matt encounters young people like that, he wants to help them. But the relationship only works if the young person is adding something to it in return.
Intergenerational relationships are often the richest in life — because there's no competition, no status jockeying. You're not trying to prove anything. Matt says the best relationships in his life are not with his peers. They're intergenerational.
The Cycles of Preparation
There are 16 cycles in the program, each centered around an anchor course — anything from a cooking school in Florence, Italy, to a heavy equipment operator course in Florida, to an entrepreneur cycle, a sailing cycle, an EMT certification, learning to build a house at the Shelter Institute in Maine, a fighter cycle in Thailand. Sixteen different real-world skill areas.
Each cycle also includes activities the student chooses themselves — skydiving, learning guitar, a second language, motorbikes — plus online academic courses related to the anchor activity, and a required reading list. For the entrepreneur cycle, there are about 10 books to complete in three months, along with courses in sales, marketing, and social media marketing.
Students are also required to post a weekly update on Substack — for accountability and to build a public record of what they're doing. Maxim now has over 6,000 followers on Substack, which has opened up opportunities he never expected — working on wildfires, a sailing cycle recommendation from a reader, geophysics crew work in Nevada, mule packing.
The most memorable cycle so far? Sailing. Maxim had never been on a sailboat in his life when he flew to the Falkland Islands — all the way at the bottom of South America — to join a 72-foot sailing vessel for 21 days. The winds were so strong the bus was swaying on the road. They couldn't leave for several days. He got seasick two or three times. They crossed the South Atlantic through the Strait of Magellan — from the Falklands back to Chile — and he said the moment the water calmed down on the Pacific side, he finally understood why Magellan named it the Pacific.
Each cycle, virtually every anchor activity, leaves you with a real skill that has real economic value. Something you could get a job from. And when you stack 16 of those, by the time you're 20 you are the most interesting 20-year-old you'll meet.
How to Fund the Preparation
Yes, some cycles cost money. But compared to college — with one year of college tuition, Maxim has been funding multiple real-world experiences. There's also a work cycle built into the program where the entire three-month focus is earning as much money as possible.
Maxim's first cycle was getting his EMT certification. Because of that — and because a reader found him on Substack — he was offered work on wildfires earning $600 a day. That funded his sailing cycle. He also worked at Office Depot and as a pizza delivery driver. In six weeks at Office Depot, he saved over $5,000.
And here's a perspective shift — training Muay Thai in Thailand for two months, including room, board, and meals six days a week, costs less than EMT school. Not everything real costs more than college.
Maxim's Advice to Teenagers
If you could tell another teenager one thing about preparing for adulthood, what would it be?
Realize how limited time actually is. Figure out as soon as possible what you should be doing to make the most of it — not pursuing vices, but pursuing what is actually fulfilling. Gain as many practical skills as possible. Study the classical virtues. Study the stoics. And see how many opportunities open up from that work and that effort.
You can find The Preparation on Amazon. Read the reviews before you buy — many of the reviewers are parents who read it first before giving it to their kids, and many say they wish they had this when they were that age.
If you want to follow what Maxim is doing, go to maximsmith.com on Substack. We'll put a link right below this video.
