Matt Smith, welcome to the Thank God for Bitcoin podcast.
My pleasure to be here, Jordan. Thanks for asking me to be on.
All right. So for those who aren't familiar with who you are, why don't you introduce yourself?
I'm 50 years old, you know, so it's like, where do you start?
Well, I'll tell you now, I'm a serial entrepreneur, started a lot of businesses over the course of my life.
the most recent one that people could see, I guess, is a business called Royalty Exchange,
which is a marketplace for music royalties. Oh, no way. Yeah, I no longer run that business. I
have one of my protégés as the CEO of it currently, but I still own the majority of it.
But, you know, I live in Uruguay on a cattle ranch, and I do a podcast with the legendary
Doug Casey, who's my personal hero and a good friend of mine. And I have two kids, one who's
just turned 20, one who is about to turn 18. Scary. My daughter about to turn 18. And so my
primary concerns are, my focus is just trying to make sure they launch well into the world.
And, you know, which gets us to the book part. But yeah, I just, you know, I start businesses.
If you leave me alone for too long, I'll end up starting something.
That's kind of how it works.
Love it.
So, yeah, we are here to kind of get to meet you a little bit and get to know you a little bit.
And then to kind of chat about this book, The Preparation.
Nice big book.
I love workbook-sized things.
It's great.
It had to be.
We tried it in different formats.
We just couldn't make it work.
It'd be like 500 pages and hard to use.
No, I absolutely love it.
It's great.
So we're going to chat about that a little bit.
first of all, I just want to kind of hear your story. So you're a serial entrepreneur,
you start businesses, you had this other business and now you're living on a cattle ranch.
Are, are, is it a working ranch? Are you guys, you know, producing steer and stuff?
Yeah. Yeah. We've, we've got, uh, um, like a little over 300 head of cattle and 150 of them
are pregnant. And, you know, so we've got a bunch of babies. It's a calving season now. So we're
right in the middle of it. Yeah. It's, um, yeah, it's, it's all regenerative, you know, so it's,
we're trying to make it work and uh this is our you know we started in 2022 so you know this is
what we're getting to full scale with the property we have at this point so finally we're getting
really close to i will probably handle a little more but um yeah it's a it's an interesting
business because i'm used to businesses that move really fast yeah you know where you iterate really
quickly this is like a annual iteration yeah so it's like you know you get it you get a wallow in
your mistakes for a year before you can really correct them but it's great it's beautiful we're
surrounded by life you know with all the animals here and i mean it's a beautiful place and we love
it very happy that's awesome and well i mean i want to chat a little bit about uruguay in a little
bit but just kind of going back a little bit so the the music business how in the world did you get
into the music business well it wasn't really yeah so i wasn't in the music business at all
but i knew people that were in the music business and you know i learned one of one of my friends
i was traveling with him in italy and um he's a producer and a manager and he managed some some
big acts that you would know for sure okay and he was telling me that during the financial crisis
that he was that basically these some artists were really needed access to capital and so
were selling rights to their music.
Wow.
Essentially these royalty streams for prices that were unbelievable to me.
You know, when I look at what was, what's available on the market, you know, where it
could get that kind of a yield, I mean, it was nothing close to it.
Yeah.
And so I thought that was, so that kind of piqued my interest at first.
I'm like, well, how can I get some of those?
Like, how does that work?
And so that's, it started there really just trying to understand how you could, how these
assets work.
They're very esoteric and confusing.
So it started there, and then I learned that there are kind of two groups that I really don't like.
I really don't like people involved in music, the music business.
I like artists.
Yep.
Okay?
Do not like the people, the lawyers.
Yeah.
And I don't like finance people, generally.
There are some exceptions to this.
This is just demonstrating that you're a good human being, but continue.
Both of these groups kind of have the same problem.
They both view the world as a fixed pie.
In order for them to win, you have to lose.
Correct. Yep.
And so I thought that if we could sort of disintermediate them,
essentially making it so the artists could liquidate portions of their royalties
as much as they wanted,
you know,
not necessarily have
a whole catalog
or all the rights
where they have
a lot more control over it
and not have to go through
these gatekeepers
in the music business.
Yeah.
And that you could make it
so the general public
essentially could buy these things.
Yeah.
Then that felt like,
it felt good to me,
honestly.
I just liked,
I liked the idea of that,
of, you know,
of opposing those two groups
that I generally don't
get along well with.
So that was really
the reason for it.
Yeah, so you kind of played intermediary between those two worlds.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And so we had to invent a lot of weird stuff, even the way to, because everyone thinks of music as totally unique.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, like, how do you value music?
Yeah.
Well, so we had to invent, like, the methodology for valuing it.
And it's pretty simple.
It's like just a financial analysis, looking at the length.
You're using the Lindy effect, right?
Yep.
The longer something's around, the more likely it's going to be around.
Sure.
a big impact. So we, so, you know, a couple, a couple of key things like that we had to invent
along the way to make it work, but yeah, the business is, you know, it's not like a gigantic
blockbuster success, but it produces plenty of free cashflow and it's working. It's making
customers happy. So we like it. That's wild, man. So basically when we first started this podcast,
I was reaching out, I had a couple of bands in mind that I wanted to use one of their song,
one or two of their songs for the intro music on the podcast. So I was like looking around and the
one band, I found everything pretty easily, pretty straightforward. But this other band,
they had had records with four or five different companies. And I spent literally a week or two
trying to find and track down the rights to this one song. And I could not do it.
I'm like, guys, I want to give you money. Like I really, I mean, I'm willing to pay,
but I just couldn't figure it out because it's such a rat's nest.
It is a rat's nest. It is a rat's nest. I mean, and it's weird because there's also,
and we could go so deep in music royalties uh you know there's like there's two parts to it
there's the sound recording that's the actual music you hear yep all right and then there's the
the songwriter yeah portion yes so it's like it's like the publishing and there's one part of it and
then the sound recording is the other yeah and you really need the permission of both and often
different companies or different people involved in order to use it yeah it's horrible yeah there's
I'll share this real quick.
So we're going to chat about Bitcoin later.
But there's a website that's called Wave Lake.
Are you familiar with this?
Have you heard of this?
No.
So basically, Wave Lake, it's trying to disintermediate the music world.
And so what you can do, I can't see here, but what you can do, I guess I'll try this.
You can upload music directly to here.
On the back end, you can set up music splits.
So if you've got your music people, your writing team, you can set up splits.
and then as people, people can stream you Bitcoin in real time as you're listening.
So, you know, for as long as you're listening to it, you can get paid out and you're getting
paid in real time versus having to wait a month or two or three, whatever, for the music to clear.
And so there's, it's cool to think about what could happen eventually.
For independent artists, that stuff is great.
Yes, exactly.
But if they're tied up in the label network, I mean, no chance.
I was just had this conversation with somebody the other day and he was asking all the same
questions he's like so what would it look like for like taylor swift to bring her catalog and so we
were like talking through what that would look like and in her case it actually probably would
be easier because she owns her own catalog she does well yeah she owns a version of her catalog
yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah exactly so but for others so that's what we were talking about i was
like as a forward-facing thing it can actually be really interesting it would still it's that
wouldn't necessarily provide the same benefit to people who've already have catalogs that are owned
by other people and all that kind of stuff well that's fascinating i would love to do another call
where we kind of talk about that and how you got interested in that.
So, but in terms of this book, which again, guys, go get this book.
It's a great copy.
It's a really interesting book.
You can get the hardcover copy for a hundred bucks, 99 bucks,
which some people I've watched in the comments or in the reviews
and people were like balking at that.
I don't balk at that at all.
As somebody who's published two books right behind me
and then have a third kid's book on the way,
Like the cost of publishing in America and doing things right is just going to be more than it is.
And so it's just a way to kind of raise.
Let me say about the $100 version.
It's full color.
And there was an attempt on my part to try and make it as beautiful as possible.
So because, you know, I imagine like, you know, I'm a father and I want my son to read it.
And luckily my son, if I say, hey, I think this is really important.
he usually, you know, will like give it a, you know, a reasonable look. But like, it's,
I know it's not that way with all parents. And so it's designed as a lure. Like when the young
man holds a book, he will know he hasn't hold a book like that before. And he starts flipping
through it. Maybe it just brings him into it a little bit. Maybe he just reads the preface,
reads my son's story, you know, and then it starts to bring him in. So that was the reason for that.
but of course it's offered on you know kindle for a lot cheaper and there's the paperback version but
exactly yeah well and and again i think one of the you mentioned the scarcity mindset like one
of the problems that you have with finance people and in the music world is like they can tend to
look at this like uh you know just split everything down into money and how much can i how much value
can i extract from these artists for my own benefit and one of the things that i've just
been working on for reasons that we can get into later. But I've just been thinking, just looking
at, rather than just looking at how much money can I make, looking at like what, how much value can I
add? And so this book purports to be something that can replace a college education to basically
help you be a productive, ethical, you know, just hardworking man out in the world. And if it lives
up to that, then a hundred bucks is a joke of a price. And so based on, I mean, some of the reviews
that you have, I actually found you out of nowhere. It was a, it was an ad on, on Twitter, uh, that
featured a quote from Tom Woods, been a listener to Tom Woods and a Tom Woods appreciator for a
very long time. And Tom Woods said something to the effect of the quote was, I have the degrees
from all the places that people would want to get degrees from. And I would trade it all to do what
they do in this, what they talk about doing in this book. And so that kind of floored me from
coming from somebody like Tom Woods. But again, I think that just makes all the sense in the world.
And so again, if there's a hardcover version, you want to invest in that. And this is how I
kind of think about it, would be I bought the paperback version. And if this ends up being
something, because I've got younger kids who are just reaching teenage years, if this is something
that we end up doing and it ends up being a meaningful part of the life, I'll go get the
hardback cover and come find you in Uruguay and come get you to sign it. And I'll be happy to do
it. So, yeah. So, kind of tell me, I mean, you mentioned on the interview, I've watched a few
different interviews with you, with people asking about the genesis of the book. But for those who
haven't seen those, how did this thing come about? Yeah. Well, it's been a long time coming.
Doug Casey, like I said, my personal hero and good friend of mine, probably 12 years ago,
you know plus or minus one i was visiting him in aspen i lived in denver at the time and i'd go
up during summer or he'd always be in the summer we'd spend some time together and we were driving
to lunch one day and he said you know matt i've been wanting to write this book for a long time
um called the renaissance man and uh you know i'm like okay well tell me more about it and you know
doug can be very sometimes he could sometimes he can you know expand deeply and for a long time
on a physical topic and other times it just is very vague and he said well you know the three
most important verbs in virtually every language are be do and have and i want the book to be about
that and i was like okay what do you mean and he said i'm not really sure and uh you know and i
kind of ended there for that for that day but he'd bring it up every couple of years with me
and say yeah i really want to do this book i really want to do this book and it took me a long
time to figure out what he meant by be do have which i'll explain because it's very important
and um but it really wasn't until my son was approaching 18 and i could see in him
the anxiety he had about his future and what he was going to do and this was also in the
era so like things were more screwy but um you know and also because i'm a college dropout you
And I only, and as an entrepreneur, I didn't propagandize him with like, college is the key to success.
Which maybe if I'd done that, he might have had less anxiety and he might have been, you know, at least.
But so he, you know, he was decided on his own that he didn't want to go to college.
He always kind of knew that, I guess.
And so I could see in him this stress and this like almost fear about the future.
and and so i felt an obligation to try and do what i could to fix that and that this book is really
was done for him uh first and foremost uh it's it wouldn't be quite as well constructed if it
were just for him uh it took a lot but i've heard it put the polish on it to make it so it could be
published and useful for everybody but that's really the reason for it and let me get back to
this be do have part because this is really important our society is completely oriented
around half it's we think about our goals are oriented in having uh especially in a mass consumer
culture we're surrounded by it constantly and i also discuss in the book like the psychology
behind it the effect it has on all of us when you know humans tend to want what others want
and um and so have dominates but what people don't understand is that have is a byproduct
Yeah.
It's not a, you get it by doing.
Yeah.
And doing is the operative.
Doing is the key.
Action is what really matters.
And especially when you're a young man and you have enormous amounts of energy.
And you're like open to novelty in a way that you, as you get older, it starts to shut down, you know?
Yeah.
Which I've been trying to read Kindle and myself because of this book and because of seeing what my son has been doing along the way.
So do is the operative.
Do is where the power is.
do is something that you can that you can that you can affect but the only thing that really
matters is the bee the bee and no one no one ever asks a young man well what they do ask them is
like what are you gonna do when you grow up from when you're little i'm sure with your kids it's
like you know it's like it's like it's like what they can imagine it's a fireman or it's a astronaut
or whatever right that's what it is stuff like that when they're young as they get older the
questions get this question is the same but way more serious yeah and you're expected to have an
answer like and basically what the question fundamentally is saying is who are you going
to work for yeah like who's going so you can pay the bills you guys you can pay the rent and if you
don't have a responsible answer to that uh then people look at you pretty poorly and the only
responsible answer if you're uh well for 53 percent of americans apparently is to go to college
Yeah.
And college is, in Doug's words, you know, he said this way back in the 80s.
He went to Georgetown.
I mean, he's a high, unlike me, he's a highly educated man.
He thought it was a giant misallocation of his time and capital.
And that's when it was cheap.
And that was, and it was for a very prestigious university.
So that's always been true, but it's also become much worse since then.
And we can talk about the downside of college.
But anyway, no, but no one ever asks, what kind of man do you want to become?
Yeah.
What kind of man do you want to be?
And this is very much something that drew me to this book is, and I'll just kind of give you a little of our background, where I'm coming from.
So we're Christians.
And so when we look, I look around, I look at the college atmosphere.
I mean, we're recording this a week removed from the death of Charlie Kirk, murdered on a college campus because of just people who don't tolerate free speech, which is ostensibly one of the reasons why you go to college is to have your ideas challenged.
And so obviously more and more of the college campus is becoming something that you can't even recognize, I would imagine, you know, in many ways.
And so this has been something that's a very live issue for a lot of people in my orbit.
But we're also, you know, I have five kids.
I've got friends.
Congratulations.
And good for you.
I'm proud of you.
Yeah, thank you.
So, well, if you can believe this.
So the other three members who normally host this podcast today on Tuesdays, I have the least amount of kids of the four of us.
Holy cow.
The biggest one, he has eight kids.
And then it's two of them who have six.
And then I bring up the rear with five.
Man, I love it.
I'm a total.
I only have two.
I'm a pro natalist, man.
I encourage people to have kids as much as possible.
I wish I had more.
I really do.
And so, yeah, it's a lot, all of us who are on this pod, who are, you know, host this
podcast, I mean, you are, you're very much a kindred spirit of ours.
Just, I mean, they're, these are guys who are entrepreneurs.
They've started businesses.
They lived in multiple multiple countries or multiple places around the world starting businesses at the same time as they you know ministering in different capacities um training their kids
You know, there, there's, uh, one of the guys, he's got a 19 year old and, uh, and, and I think
the next one is either 17 or 18 years old. Both of them have been, you know, working on, yeah,
one of them, they both have been, one of them has been a programmer since he was 11 years old.
The other one's been, uh, you know, working on photography and videography for the last five
years. And so very much, a lot of these ideas are just resonating with us a lot. But just for the
sake of the audience, can you just unpack a little bit about Doug? I read the little,
it looks like a handwritten page. It is handwritten. I hand wrote it in there.
So the description of the three, the tri-part description of how to describe Doug Casey was
incredible to me. I'll have to read it to remind myself, honestly. But Doug Casey is part Indiana
jones part socrates part james bond and he's lived different chapters of his life like each of them
yeah and this is absolutely true doug is the most interesting man in the world he's 79 now
so you wouldn't get it if you'd see him today but this man has done he's been a competitive shooter
he's been incredibly financially successful he's published lots of books i mean he's a he's a
celebrity in a small world um you know uh those who know him really know him um i mean really know
of him but he's just he's done he's been played professional polo i mean yeah he's got he's like
he's you know what is it 57 jumps as a skydiver i mean he's you know scuba diving like he lived
his life full of adventure sure yeah i mean i've gone with him to tiny countries to try and convince
them to reform their governments you know because that's his personal hobby wow you know i mean
yeah that's incredible so so how did you guys meet where where did this initiate well i so i
was a fan of his i was a reader of his okay um he wrote a book just for the audience he wrote a book
called crisis investing that became like a bestseller he's written a bunch of other books since
then yeah it was and it was like on the bestseller list for you know half the year in like 1980 it
was a huge huge bestseller um but uh let's see i so i was a reader of his newsletters in the in the
2000s and and he accurately predicted the financial crisis i so i sold my business and um you know i
did my my daughter was two weeks old at the time and this was 2007 it was october of 2007 and i'm
thinking i'm a i'm a believer the financial crisis is coming and so i'm i think i tell my wife i'm
like i think i gotta go to argentina and look at some property and i know it's not a good time
yeah i understand yeah daughter two weeks old right i'll make it as fast as possible you know
i'll be in and out in three days it's a long you know i'll spend more time in the air really than
there but i just get i gotta see so while i was down there looking for and and buying an apartment
um one day i i as i walk out of the hotel lobby toward the sidewalk for an evening walk i literally
run into him as he's walking by on the sidewalk that's how i actually met him yeah that's incredible
yeah we moved out yeah we moved down to buenos aires then um a couple months later and then
you know i ended up and it turns out i bought an apartment that was like eight blocks away from his
you know it's uh yeah i don't know i don't know how these things happen sometimes but uh
serendipity i guess but um you know i've just been a real strong admirer of him because he's
He's helped shape the way I saw the world, which that's one of the greatest gifts you can give somebody.
It's like, no, no, let me show you the way the world works.
Yeah.
So that's how I met him.
That's incredible.
Man.
So, I mean, yeah, I mentioned to you I've lived in Montevideo, Uruguay, and then we spent some time in Buenos Aires.
I've been over there multiple times and actually saw U2 play in 2017 for their 30th anniversary of the Joshua Tree Tour.
We really enjoyed that.
Always spent a time there.
But, man, they've gone through a whole lot of stuff.
So I saw Doug mention – so he has – do you guys still have property in Argentina?
He mentioned that he's at property in Argentina, in Uruguay, and then – I can't remember another one.
I know he said somewhere stateside.
Yeah, right.
at the moment he's in Virginia.
Virginia.
So he has,
he has a property there still now and he owns a lot in Argentina still.
Yep.
I mean,
I mean like,
uh,
a lot,
like one piece of property is like 50,000 hectares.
Oh my gosh.
So it's like that you get 2.2 times that to get acres.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
So,
so is he near,
um,
okay.
So Joel Salatin is,
plays a role in the book.
Uh,
Joel Salatin, friend of a friend.
Do you know who John Moody is?
The name sounds familiar.
So John has spoken at a bunch of the conferences that Joel, he's a real close friend of Joel's.
John's a good friend.
We go semi-way back, probably about 15 years on the internet and stuff.
And he's spoken at one of our conferences we did a couple years ago.
So got that connection.
So my eyes just lit up when I saw him in there.
And then my family and my mom's side, their family farm is, I mean, I think within an hour of Joel's farm in Virginia.
And so is Doug nearby there, him and Joel kicking around together or is it someplace further away?
No, he's probably about an, like he's on the water.
So he's probably about two hours away from there, hour and a half or so.
But, you know, I will say I was lucky enough to have Joel here, host him for lunch here on our property.
in Uruguay when he was down here for giving a speech.
And, you know, I interacted with him a little bit, you know, online and stuff.
Sure.
But he's friends with Doug.
He was a big fan of Doug's, actually.
So when Doug showed up one day at his farm, you know, and Joel saw Doug there,
he's like, Doug Casey, let me give you a tour, you know.
So when I found out Joel was going to be down here, I'm like, yeah, come over for lunch.
And, you know, Doug and he were here.
And so I got him to get a little personal advice on the property and stuff.
So I love it.
Oh, that's incredible.
So, yeah, I've also got a I've got a cousin who's in the in the cattle breeding world, more of the show cattle.
But he, again, just real big fan.
His grandfather is one of the most well-respected cattle breeders in that world.
And so I've heard a little bit and discovered a little bit through him about, you know, cattle breeding and just what you can do in that world.
So you and Doug meet, you guys start hanging out within this little window while you left your wife with a newborn in the United States.
So what kind of came out of that first meeting?
Was it something, hey, we're going to go become friends and write books together?
Or was that a—
No, not at all.
In fact, I actually, you know, I'm never, like, I'm not impressed by stars.
Sure.
I've run into them, you know, people in film and whatever.
Not impressed.
Never.
But when I met Doug, I actually made a total fool of myself.
I really did.
And because it was such a shock to me.
It was the whole reason I was there.
And so I think I came up to him and I said,
Doug Casey, you're my hero.
That's what I said.
Okay.
And of course, he's real cool.
Yeah, exactly.
you know and then as soon as you know and then i quickly gained some sense over what i did and i
you know i'm you know i'm like oh i'm sorry you know i don't i'm not trying to accost you or
anything you know but um but he was super polite and uh he was just walking back from dinner and
uh you know and it was just nice to meet you and let it and then he left like that was it
but then when i but then through other people well i said we moved on there two months later
through other people, you know, people know people,
ended up being connected with him again
and meeting him various times, you know,
while I was down there.
And, you know, the first, I was with a group of people
that were just hanging out with Doug one evening.
There were probably four or five other people there.
And Doug said, hey, you know, I got an invitation
from the, you know, the president of Palau,
which I didn't know what Palau was.
As one does, yeah.
Yeah.
And he said, you know, anyone want to go with me?
And, you know, I sold my business before that, right?
So, financial crisis, you know, got out of the markets, all this shit.
And I didn't have that much to do.
So, I'm like, not even understanding what I'm signing up for.
I'm like, oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, I'll go.
So, you know, I get home and I'm Googling Palau.
How do you spell that?
You know, it's a South Pacific island, tiny little country.
um anyway so so i ended up going with him a few times to palau um traveled with him a lot in
different places actually over the years and basically i just i wanted to be around doug as
much as i could so i was like any way i could provide any value to him in any way i tried to
um if nothing else by you know being someone who is sincerely interested in learning from him i
think that helped uh and then there was just this luck of proximity because we were so close in
buenos aires eventually we moved back to the u.s and we're in denver colorado and turns out he
spends his summers in aspen get out of here you know so you know just gave us lots of opportunity
for us to spend time together and i would just any chance anytime if i ever got an invitation
i said yes yeah you know and um yeah that's that's just then it's the number of years pile
on with that kind of thing and yeah you know eventually uh you know i ran a company for a
while the only job i've ever had was this uh newsletter publishing company a friend of my own
he asked he got kind of big and he got a little out of control and he wanted some help
just kind of burnt out so i ran that company for him for three and a half years and ended up buying
doug's publishing company then and um anyway that was just uh yeah and i did lots of things with doug
over the years, lots of different things,
but nothing business-wise, really.
We never did any business together,
except, I mean, I was running a company
that did buy his company, so you could say,
technically we did then,
but really the only thing we ever,
was during COVID, we started this podcast
that we do called Doug Casey's Take.
And at that point, you know,
the world was just messed up, right?
And I was just, and I thought,
we were kind of trapped at home anyway.
So I'm like, Doug, how about
the conversations that you and I have normally,
why don't we just record them?
Yeah.
And just see how it goes.
Yep.
You know, give him something to do
because he was kind of shut into,
you know, from a social life.
And that's,
and so that was kind of the first business,
which wasn't really a business.
It isn't even a business now.
Hard to say that we did.
And then we ended up starting a newsletter after that
because, you know, Doug's, you know,
thinks that if we do anything,
we should make money doing it.
um you know he doesn't need the money and i don't need the money but so we started that and then
um yeah i guess a couple other businesses since then but mostly what i've done is i've been i've
been trying for the last three and a half years i would say in great part i've been trying really
hard to help doug do the things that he really still wanted to do in his life because you know
but didn't doesn't have the energy to do or doesn't have the inclination to do on his own
because I just admire him so much and I'm just trying to help.
I love it.
Yeah, I mean, you talk in the book about mentorship
and, I mean, it seems like really that's kind of what you found in him
accidentally stumbling down on the street in Buenos Aires.
Yeah, and I actually even considered him my mentor before I met him.
Yeah.
Because he changed the way I thought, you know?
And a lot of people consider Doug a mentor of theirs, honestly.
That's just the kind of guy he is.
But, but yeah, but our relationship evolved into something different that I, that I described differently about mental relationships in the book, which is how mentorship relationships really in practice really do work effectively where it's a two way street, you know, it's not just me learning from Socrates, you know, uh, like it's, it's something where, you know, I, I, I'm additive, try to be additive.
Yeah.
And this is, man, it's such a great point.
This is something that we, I've spoken about in relation to churches.
So a lot of times you'll have churches where you'll have, it'll be a young person church,
or it'll be like an older, or it'll be a family church.
And it's pretty much almost exclusively families or pretty much exclusively young people.
And really what you miss out on is the health and the, like really the beauty that comes
when you have intergenerational groups of people.
because you have this, you have the, you know, a lot of, in a lot of cases, you have the younger
people who have all of this energy and all of this passion, but they don't have the wisdom
of experience and they're just wisdom of the years, just through, even if you're just made
horrible decisions, you can still learn from that. And then the middle-aged people or the families,
they had passion. Now they have kids and they're sitting here like, man, is this how it's going to
be forever? They're making it work. Exactly. They're making it work, but they can be sitting
And they're like, is this how it's going to be forever?
And so then to have older people who can help them see the light at the end of the tunnel
is really vital.
And then if you have older people, they have all of these, I mean, just all these stories,
all these experiences that they can, you know, then share, they can share with the younger
generations and they can encourage the families who are, you know, just like, Hey, this isn't
going to last forever.
You know, don't, don't despise these days because they go so quickly.
So quickly, so quickly.
And then they can be encouraged by the younger people, just by the energy that they have, which is kind of what you're describing.
So it is such a beautiful thing, you know, the way that, you know, God's designed the world to work, where we all benefit from one another and doesn't leave room for us to despise each other.
Right.
You know, and that's what's happening now.
Yeah.
Right.
This anti-boomer talk.
Yes.
And it goes the other way, too.
Yep.
With the boom, you know, and I'm like, I'm against all of it.
Yeah.
Because I've, and I think this is part of the way our institutions are structured to this point where we segregate you by age group and you're that way through your whole life.
Yeah.
You know, through college and then usually in your career track and you, you know, and people don't, you know, people are separated from their families.
So even your grandparents, the relationships aren't as strong as they once were.
and i think this is one of the biggest mistakes that is made in our in society today the value
of intergenerational relationship relationships are so powerful like i'll give you one sad story
so doug had um there was this men's group in aspen they would get together every week for lunch and
these guys in aspen i mean these are like super successful guys oh but they're all old retired uh
but they were like titans of their industry.
You know what I mean?
These guys were like,
everybody was at their back end call
because they like,
these were guys with a lot of power.
They still have a lot of money.
And so I went to this,
you know,
and I called it the old man lunch with them
because it was all old men.
I mean, you know,
much older than me.
I was the youngest person there by far.
And it was,
I was like,
and I was like,
going there and because I was actually interested in these guys and their stories, and they had all
had interesting stories and they all had to live extremely interesting lives and very successful
lives. Um, I was like the, you know, a bar where there's, you know, there's all guys and one hot
girl walks in. They all wanted just someone to listen to them. Their kids didn't even listen to
them anymore. You know, they didn't want to hear their stories anymore. They wanted anything to do
with them. And so these guys, and it was so sad actually to me, these, these mountains of wisdom
We're basically separated from the youth.
And what young people,
so what I try and dispel primarily in that chapter
is this intergenerational problem
and let people know that like,
it's the fastest way to succeed in life
is actually through intergenerational relationships.
Because not only, you're young, you have energy,
you can be really intelligent,
you can be really resourceful,
but you don't even know where to point that energy.
and they could be like,
hey, you know, there's this thing,
like this side project
that I basically have thrown away
because I just don't have time for it.
But you might be interested in that.
And you're like,
and it could be a wild opportunity for you.
Yeah.
You know, or the introductions that they make.
And I mean, there's,
it's in the, and they want to.
The older generation wants to help.
Just like you might experience this yourself
with younger generation now,
where you're like,
you see somebody who's like full of good faith and fire and energy and intelligent is going
somewhere and you're like, how can I help? Yeah. How can I help? Yeah. You know, you want to,
and people have been, people think that those people don't want them to win, but it's not true.
Yeah. And this is something, I mean, again, it's, it's funny that we're, I wasn't anticipating
talking about this, but that really is, I mean, I would attribute and would love to kind of hear
what, where you would attribute that, that fault to you. Like what, what happened?
What happened to where that started being, go ahead.
School.
School and work.
I mean, it's mostly school though,
because you are with your peers all the time.
Yeah.
And you meet a lot of young people today
who are totally institutionalized through the school system.
Like, you know, if their parents come over
and the kids are with them
and the kids don't even think
that they're supposed to talk to the adults.
They're like, oh, this is an adult thing.
So I just sit there on my phone or whatever.
You know, they don't even understand that,
they think that the adults are for the adults.
Yep.
And it's because they've just been so isolated.
Yep, yep.
I think so much And of course there lots of other dynamics where you know this this idea that you uh you know in Latin America it very common for a young man uh to live with his
parents until he gets married. Yep. About when he's 18 and out the door, it's like, why would
you go and take on that extra expense and set up a whole nother household when, you know, you could
be here, you know, and of course, you know, you have to balance and the, you know, the understanding
that the, you know, it's no longer a kid.
And so you have to constantly adjust
your expectations of them in the household,
you know, like giving them more freedom
so that they can still be an adult living with you.
But like that idea that 18 and out the door
is this American idea, it's just insane.
And that's what I grew up under.
But I think it's just crazy.
Yeah, no, it absolutely is crazy.
And we've talked about this.
One of the big reasons that's enabled it,
I mean, we talk about the radical individualism
that the United States is known for.
And there's a healthy form of that to a degree.
But I think another factor that contributes to it
that doesn't get discussed a lot
is the fact that the United States
has held the reserve currency of the world
for 75 years, whatever it is, however many years it is.
And so this is something that it just gives you
much more purchasing power
and enables you to have the monetary freedom
at a higher rate than many other places
to be able to live out on your own
and kind of not need your parents or not need to rely on extended family to the same degree
as you would. Or again, the PSYOP that you're describing is more within the public school or,
you know, if you're public schools or public universities, they're trying basically to
just work to just independentize you from your families as much as possible just by,
in a lot of harmful ways, I would say. And so like, this is one of these things where
we're trained, yeah, exactly, to get rid of, to get out of, to get outside of our parents'
constraints is kind of the way that it's looked at as soon as possible.
It's considered a failure. The basic standard is that you should be financially independent
from your parents, right? That that should be, and I agree, that's a great thing. There's
nothing wrong with that. I mean, that's a healthy thing. But no other form of independence is
considered by the way correct it's just that you can pay your rent yeah exactly you know so you get
a job you start paying the government taxes they do yeah and you get your own rent yep you know
it become a good consumer yep and it's it's a crazy ideal so i like i value uh independence in
every other category higher with my children than financial independence yeah because that
too that's that's a have it's a byproduct so the other forms of independence have a lot more to do
with a being. Yeah. Yeah. And this really is, I mean, I just was so encouraged by that aspect of
things, just focusing on being, because it is such a temptation, especially in where you have
an atmosphere of heightened inflation and heightened currency devaluation, where you get
on this hamster wheel, where you're just trying to make enough money to get by or trying to maintain
your standard of life, monetarily speaking, or economically speaking. And so you get to this
place where you don't like, because you're so busy trying to stay in that wheel that you lose out on,
you lose the time to, or like you, you just fall into the choosing not to prioritize spending time
with your neighbors or spending time with other people. Or, you know, it's, it's, it's one of
these things where it is a choice, but then it's kind of not at the same time. It's, it's like this
reinforcing, you know, hamster wheel that you get onto. Um, and I just think, again, just thinking
about it and looking at the societal consequences over the course of decades, over the course of,
you know, years, really the, the big winner, the big winner with all of these things is governments
in government, you know, educational institutions and the big losers are the kids themselves,
then their parents, like the family goes in there, they, they drop their kids off and then basically
they get blown up because they give away all of this authority and authority to these governing
structures and government educational institutions who don't have the same, um, they don't have the
same, uh, incentive alignment for, for the good of the family. Like they have, they're trying to
just exist. This institution is, and the kids are a means to that end. And so it is just the more
that you think about it, you're like, why are we doing this again? The entire thing is screwed up.
And this is why sending your kids to college today is much more than just a misallocation of time and capital.
It's actually literally dangerous.
I have a friend who told me, when I told him I was working on this book, he told me one of the scariest things I've ever heard.
He said, I lost my daughters to the university.
Yep.
They will have nothing to do with him.
Yep.
And, you know, his son he still has.
He says his son is still okay, but he lost his daughter.
Sent him to the best colleges in the U.S.,
and he lost his daughters to the university.
Yep.
I mean, how terrifying is that?
I mean, that's unbelievable.
It's horrifying.
And then again, as we mentioned,
we're talking a few days after Charlie Kirk was shot,
and this, you know, kid, the guy who shot him,
apparently, you know, grew up in, you know,
a decent home at least, it seems like,
based on a little bit of information.
Mom and dad in the picture.
and then goes off to university, is even only there for a year or something like that, but then
meets people and apparently gets radicalized to do all these different things. And so just who
you give your kids with and who you entrust your kids with to shape the way that they view the world
and to shape then how they see themselves, this identity question. This is who you are.
The being question is such a humongous thing. It's so, so big and so important.
and the downstream consequences last for so long.
Like that's the horrifying thing about it.
Right.
And the thing is, it's such an,
it's a question we all want to answer for ourselves.
Who are we exactly?
And what makes us different from other people around us?
What is something substantive, something meaningful?
A young man wants something of meaning.
And, you know, they want to be somebody.
And so they recognize they need to do something meaningful in order to become something meaningful, you know?
And so, but without this rootedness around being first, you get into a lot of trouble.
And so the way we try and handle this in the book, it seems trivial at first when I describe it.
But it's, let me explain.
It's three, but we have them do, we have them draft their own personal code.
Their own personal code.
And there's three parts to it.
The first part is essentially a set of rules that they set for themselves.
Now, in general, I do not like rules.
I don't like rules.
However, the rules that I set for myself, I found to be incredibly powerful for myself.
And essentially, so we asked them to do some introspection about looking at themselves and look for the things that when you do them, you feel small.
like for instance if you you know if uh if you ask me to have dinner on friday and i and i wasn't
up to it i just didn't feel like it i could i could say the little white lie i'm busy yeah
right i like it's no great deception it's a little white lie but for me personally
it makes me feel really crappy when i do that yeah you know it does and so so so it's one of
my things like i'm just gonna tell the truth i'm and i'll say i'm not up to it this friday
you know it's been a long week and so how about another time it's not and it's not harder to tell
the truth but we are but but by by we we go otherwise we're going with the flow if we don't
create these rules for ourselves we end up just mimicking the crowd or going the path of least
resistance and so for a young person when they do this though when they if they if they pay attention
to things that they do that when they do it makes them feel small or makes them feel a little bit
shame and it will be things mostly that only they are aware of the rest of the world might not even
know that these things have that effect on them but if they simply say i'm they write them down
i'm not going to do these things anymore and again it may sound trivial but what this is this is the
formation of the self yep this is the formation of the being this is them deciding what they are
as opposed to going with the flow this is the beginning of masculinity which real masculinity
is not all the manosphere nonsense.
You know, it's the ability to say no.
Yeah.
No, I'm not going to do it.
Yep.
I'm not going to do it.
That's it.
I'm just draw a line in the sand.
Like that meant that,
and think about how different the world would be
if men did that today.
So are you familiar?
I guess I want to kind of unpack that a little bit.
So when you think about,
obviously there's going to be rules,
you're going to find these things.
Is this something where,
like you think that these rules are something that you kind of like that each individual person
creates for themselves kind of like out of thin air or is it something that they kind of discover
as being desirable so is it is it something that's like i created from a person or is it something
that they go out into the world and find and then align themselves to because they see it out in the
world no and i think the risk is seeing when they see things out in the world it does not make them
I do think there's a, obviously having good role models is very important.
Young men have really crappy role models.
But that's something different.
That's something different.
I'd say that relates much more to the second part of this.
This is an internal thing.
It's recognizing when you do something, it makes you feel small.
And just saying, I'm not going to do that anymore.
I'm not going to do that.
And, you know, and everyone has them, you know, and they could be things that, you know, really make them feel ashamed when they do it.
And, you know, or it could just be a little thing that just makes them feel small.
And I do think, you know, when you talk to your kids about these things and that you raise them well, like they might be more readily recognizing in themselves these things.
Sure.
But anyone who pays attention to themselves for even just a couple of days, just while I monitor, they'll see it.
So, and I think these have to come internally because they are rules they must set for themselves.
Because, again, this is the defining of the self.
This is the place where they, you know, they're, for a lot of people, they will think like the little white lie is no big deal.
There was zero harm caused.
Yeah.
You know, and it's no big deal.
For me, for me, it hurts.
So I don't do it.
But I wouldn't expect that of anyone else necessarily.
I understand.
Yeah.
Deception, I don't understand.
Like real deception, you know, that's bad.
But, but anyway, so that's step one.
Now, step two is we share with them a set of virtues, ancient virtues, the virtues that basically were rediscovered in a period of time we call the Renaissance era, these ancient Greek and Roman virtues.
And, you know, they have to do with things like courage, things like dignity, you know.
There's a whole bunch of them.
We list about 15 of them in there.
And we ask them just read through those and if there are any of those that call to you.
Sure. Just note them. Just whichever one stand out to you is like, that sounds cool. Like, I like that. I like, you know, I'd like to be courageous, you know, and I'd like to be disciplined and I like to, whichever one's, they'll appeal differently to different people.
Yeah.
But just pick the ones that appeal to you and write those down. And these are things unlike the rules. Rules are binary. You succeed or you fail, you know. But virtues are like a lifelong aspiration.
Like muscles.
Yes.
Like muscles that you can strengthen over time.
Yeah.
I can always be more courageous.
Yeah.
You know, I could always, I could always, I could always conduct myself with more dignity.
Yeah.
You know, I, I could be a better, I could always be more hospitable, you know what I mean?
Like this, so there's things to aspire to.
And so now this person has, they're starting to, they're beginning to form this idea of the man they want to become.
The man they want to become.
And it's something that's good role models help, but they need something higher, like something beyond that even, you know, to make them like climb the ladder toward it, you know, just like to be drawn toward it.
And so the third part finally is accomplishments.
You know, do what you do.
And this book is 80% what exactly to do.
So, you know, we've been talking about a lot of different things this whole time, but almost the entire book is devoted to doing.
And so, and for young people, if you're thinking about your typical American, for instance, they'll be looking at the world and saying, okay, my choice is I'm 18 years old.
I can join the military.
I can go to trade school or I can go to college,
or I guess I can get a dead end job
and maybe work my way up to, you know,
shift manager at McDonald's, you know,
nothing wrong with those things.
But these are the choices.
It's all, they don't know the world.
They don't even have no idea what's possible.
And so what we attempt to do is lay out a very specific,
here's a totally different idea,
exactly what to do over the same period
that it would take you to get a college education.
And along the way, you're going to have, you're going to experience a hero's journey, a true rite of passage.
Yep.
And you're going to get a better education academically than you would in college.
Yeah.
Because by the way, most of these things, MIT offers all their classes for free online.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a whole bunch of them that do.
Yale has a whole bunch of them online that you can take for free.
So these things are all available.
And we tell them exactly which classes to take.
Sure.
And we tell them which books to read.
And then there's, just like in college, you know, you have your core and you have electives.
Take these for sure.
And here's a whole bunch of others, like, that pursue your curiosity along the way.
So, yeah, the book's mostly about doing.
Because for a young man, that's where their power comes from.
And they develop this set of accomplishments that my son, after two years, you know, he went from this child who was anxious and uncertain.
uh no very little self-esteem probably yeah uh to uh in all ways but one i would say a man
yeah i mean he doesn't have children yet yep that's like the final step i think
but in other every other way he's a man now and his list of accomplishments are shocking
i mean you've done what you sailed through the strait of magellan and i never you know uh you
know you're a pilot you've uh you know you know how to fight um you know you know how to save a
life uh it's he's done some really wild stuff over just the two years so far he still has two
years left yep yeah and maybe i didn't explain this my son has been our beta tester for the book
so we he's uh this wouldn't be possible without him simply because we had to problem solve along
the way from both managing uh there were two main problems had to do with practicalities like how
well, how and what and when and how to structure things.
And then the other part was the psychology of it because you're swimming against the tide.
You're doing something no one else is doing.
And to most people, they'll be like, what are you, what is going on?
Yep.
You know?
Yeah.
No, and I just love the, I mean, just the element of just like looking at the world
and just not being afraid.
One of the most repeated commands, and I'll throw out the Bible, is do not be afraid.
It's the thing that is most repeated because there are so many bad things that happen when you act out of fear.
Either for yourself, you make dumb decisions, you do things you shouldn't do, you don't do things that you should do.
It's one of these things.
Basically, there's a number of places where people are commended for not being afraid.
There's one, I believe it's Proverbs 31.
It talks about a woman who basically isn't afraid.
And so it says that she laughs at the future. And so when I was, you know, I've listened to some of these, you know, listen to some of the interviews and been reading the book, that, that phrase just keeps coming to mind. Like you, the goal is to, is to create a man, to mold and create a man who laughs at the future.
And so who's somebody who's not afraid of, oh, we have a government uprising. Okay. I need to work with my hands. Okay. I need to fly a plane or a helicopter. Okay.
Like just somebody who has, who's developed optionality through their skills and just with their mind in terms of how they see themselves, they see the world.
I think that that's, it's just something that generally, I mean, again, I guess it's not required that it comes, but I think for a lot of men, we kind of, you kind of reach as you get older, you get into your, you know, late thirties, forties, you kind of get like a sense of confidence.
And some of it comes through the ability, like having some savings or having skills through your career.
I think for a lot of people, and again, it would be interesting to talk about the relationship of fathers and sons or the lack of relationship that we just described and how that's kind of delayed some of this happening to the degree and to the extent and to the degree at the same pace as maybe it's happened at different points in human history.
um and so yeah but all that to be said i i just this is a converse set of conversations
that i'm just so grateful that you guys are helping to exist um again there's i'm sure there's
there's going to be lots of people who especially in this in that initial part the the being you're
going to have the full gamut of of different opinions about hey should we do is socrates
really the guy what about you know what about aristotle you know like what do i know it's like
you're going to go back and forth. But by and large, I think the thing that people can take
away, it's not that it doesn't matter because again, we should want to know and interact with
and be sharpened by the ideas of the past that have stuck around until today. But I think at the
end of the day anybody can basically identify hey this is who I am and this is how I know And this is the confidence that I have to rely on that going forward And then with that confidence can take the doing
aspect of this and the different skills and can benefit from that, even if there's disagreements
on that first part. So let's get into that. I would love to hear, kind of hear, so I just want
to, for the sake of the audience, you've got, basically you kind of break this into 16 cycles.
You take basically this whole program can take place that is designed to take place over a course of four years through 16 cycles, four cycles per year.
Kind of unpack some of that for us.
What does this look like?
Yeah.
So fundamentally, we're competing with college.
It was the idea.
Although I have to say, I have heard from many people of all ages, a lot of people that have finished college recently and realized it didn't go as they expected and go, you know, I'm going to do this.
Or literally three people in their 70s have reached out to me and said, I'm doing this.
Retired people.
Like, I'm going to do that.
Maybe I have a whole thing, but I'm going to do some of this.
I'm going to do some of this stuff.
my first instinct when i read this was like i want to go do this with my son
yeah this sounds so awesome a lot of it yeah and you know that and that's one of the tough things
a good friend of mine said the same thing and i'm like you got to be careful about that this is
their hero's journey you can't be there they need it some of this they have to walk alone but there
are some parts of it that maybe maybe possibly like the shelter institute you know you know uh
learn design and build a home but i but you got to be careful with that but i do think um
yeah these these are all things that i saw that i go i would want to do as a 50 year old man too
you know these are skills that i wish that i had i've got some of them but i definitely don't have
all of them and they're all things that are uh that are economic well the vast okay so let me
get to the structure yeah there's a cycles 16 of them uh they the the key part of every cycle is
what we call the anchor course.
Now, the anchor course could be a couple of weeks long.
It could be a couple of months long
of that three-month period.
It's the main event,
the main thing that you're doing during that period,
like getting your pilot's license, for instance,
might be one,
or getting your EMT certification is another.
The sailing thing that Max did
around the Falkland Islands
and then through the Strait of Magellan,
that was three weeks long of the three months.
so you you basically pack that in first that first thing that's the main event and then you build up
everything else you're doing around that you know all the other layers of a cycle and the other
layers of the cycle are the academic portion you know which is online based we tell you which
classes when you know and give you and show you some electives too there's some specific reading
assignments and also and like my son read more than 50 books last year yeah you know so um
um that's that's a lot i mean i didn't read 50 books until a year until i was like 35 i think
you know when i it took me that long to get to that reading level but um but it was driven
by a lot of it by his own curiosity you know because a lot of the there's a lot of room in
there to fit in other stuff so he's studied other things just interested in and read several books
multiple times because he's they've meant different things to him as he's going through all this so
So reading is a big part of it.
And then there's, we have, we have a whole list of activities, things that could be potentially an anchor course in and of themselves.
But that we encourage people to devote a portion of their time to.
And this is all broken down in the exact number of hours per week and all this stuff.
And I can explain that in a second.
But we encourage them to do, to get exposure to these different activities.
And these activities range from learning a musical instrument to foreign language to playing chess to skydiving and scuba and all kinds of different things.
Okay.
But to set aside that separate time to do these things as part of it.
Because, again, this makes an interesting man.
One of the things that Tom Woods said is like this, the person who does this will be the most interesting man you know.
You know, they will have done it.
And Max is totally head and shoulders above his peers in that, no doubt about it, and in many other ways.
Let me read this.
I just want to read this one, just kind of to illustrate this point.
This is on page 17.
It says, you're referencing Robert Persig's book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
And it says, in one vignette, we find a poor, uneducated, greasy-haired, but curious motorcycle mechanic
who realizes that if he's going to torque a bolt properly,
he should learn a bit about metallurgy
and how aluminum relates to steel.
That leads him to chemistry.
An interest in that leads him to physics,
which will lead him to astronomy and astrophysics,
which leads him to philosophy,
which takes him to ethics,
which leads to ancient history,
the modern history and English literature.
And so I just absolutely love that.
As somebody who's a philosophy major in college,
I'm just like, this is what happens to me.
I just, I'm like, oh man, this is super cool.
And then you find yourself going down this rabbit hole of all these different interests that you never would have imagined you get into.
And so I just absolutely love that.
This is how we actually learn.
Yeah.
This is how learning actually occurs.
Learning does not occur through the structured process that is offered in the classroom.
We learn the game.
The game is there are certain facts that have to be memorized.
We don't really understand how we put them all together or how they relate to one another.
but we memorize them and then we pass the test and then we move on to a new set of facts and over
time hopefully you begin to piece things together and understand how they connect but like for me i
could say at 30 years old uh my my understanding of history was so poor i couldn't like i these
events i might know yeah this thing happened uh but i couldn't tell you what century it occurred
I mean, I didn't have the connected tissue, the latticework to tie it together.
And so what we attempt to do with this is for every cycle, we try as much as possible to make it so that the academic stuff that one is doing relates.
So you're learning these abstract concepts you learned in college, but they relate to the thing, the anchor course, the thing you're actually doing in the real world at the same time.
Because when it connects, you know, these abstract principles make way more sense when you see them in practice.
Yeah. Okay. So I want to kind of just start, if you don't mind unpacking some of the different cycles.
So like what, and you guys mentioned that these don't have to be done in any certain order, but there might be an order that might make more sense in order to, because the goal is that this thing is self-funded as one of the goals.
So you basically said, you know, on average, now, again, we're going to have to adjust for inflation as this book is out for as it exists for more years.
More than a month.
Yeah, exactly.
So you mentioned right now, rough estimate college, at least 160 grand for a good college.
You're looking at 40 grand a year.
Your goal is basically for students to be able to walk away completing this whole four year program for about the cost of one year of school.
Yeah.
At a prestigious college.
So I'd say if you took, now, because there are two cycles in here that are expensive.
Yeah.
The private pilot one.
Private pilot.
No, I did find a, I did find a, I'd actually recently found an alternative to this where
you're doing a, where you can do it a lot cheaper because it's not, it's a different
aircraft rating, but you get all the same benefit from it.
You can do it in less time.
Cool.
Which, so we'll, in a future update, we'll add that one and it'll save a lot of money,
but that's an expensive one.
I mean.
So what does that cost?
What does the private pilot's license cost?
It depends on how many hours it actually takes you, but let's say $20,000 to $25,000.
Okay.
So, it's an expensive one.
Yeah.
But you don't have to do, this is like you don't have to do.
Sure.
We also teach people how to make their own cycle, so you can build it on your own.
But the 16 we have, that's an expensive one, and then there's another expensive one called
Heavy Now, where basically you learn to operate all this crazy heavy machinery.
That's right.
Okay.
Now, it's, you know, I think that's like 12 grand.
Okay.
So that's also an expensive one.
But you become certified to use this equipment.
I mean, it's an economically valuable thing.
And you can work from it.
So it does provide a lot of value.
And it's cool.
It's really cool.
I believe a man should be able to operate basically any vehicle or machine you get into.
You know, I mean, I think you ought to be able to.
At least it should be something you aspire to.
Yeah.
you know, to do that.
And so the first one is actually,
probably the easiest one for people to start with
is the one my son started with, which was EMT.
And I say that because it's not expensive.
It's, you know, maybe $1,200 to $2,000.
It can be done in as little as,
I mean, he did it and it actually took him,
this was the first,
we didn't have the cycle structure yet.
It took him four months to do it.
Okay.
Because he did this one where he did half a day,
twice a week.
Okay.
But you could do it
more,
they had ones that were
more frequent than that.
Okay.
It was just half a day
twice a week.
And during the rest
of the time,
you know,
he like worked at
Office Depot
and delivered pizzas
and would play his guitar
and did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
and all the other stuff
at the same time.
Yeah.
But it's easy to pay
for something like that.
Yeah.
You know,
that's not a big deal.
And now,
what does an EMT
qualify you to do,
really?
For a job?
I mean,
it's not a great job.
You can work on an ambulance
is like a minimum wage.
It's not great income.
So, but it is a real skill.
Yeah.
Like having the ability
in, if you encounter
a terrible, unfortunate situation,
have somebody who knows
actually what to do.
Yeah.
Who knows how to assess the situation
and can leap into action.
I mean, what a gift that is.
That's incredible.
To give an 18-year-old
who basically otherwise,
they go, they come out of college
and they literally don't know
how to do anything yet.
Yeah.
Yep.
I mean, you know,
they know these ideas.
So in terms of EMT, I absolutely love this. This is the greatest. I have a buddy who kind of, he lives his life like this to maybe not the same heights, all the different cool things, but he's lived internationally. He's actually lived in Argentina. We worked together in Uruguay. He's a great guy. But what's the youngest you can be to get your EMT certification? Is it 17 or is it, what is that?
I don't know. He was 18 at the time.
Okay.
And I think he probably could have done it younger than that.
And I'm sure it varies by state.
And so with that one, how did you get, was it like a, was there a school that he went to or was there?
Yes.
Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.
Yeah. And this is the one where we don't tell them, the other ones, we tell them exactly where to go.
Okay.
The EMT one, it's very local.
Okay.
So you could still be at your parents' house.
There's one around you.
if you're in the U.S., there's one not far from Max.
There was one that was 15 minutes, you know,
from where he was staying at the time.
And so it was easy.
It was so easy for him to do.
Very low risk.
Love it.
You know, it's part-time, you know, like easy, easy.
So stepping into this for a guy who, you know,
had a lot of social anxiety, you know,
and it wasn't like sending him off to Thailand
to do Muay Thai for three months,
which he started, which he's doing in January.
yep um so that's an easy one to do and and and from there i think you could work during that time
as well i we encourage people to work as much as they can you're young you have energy like
earn some money and you realize i mean for the two months he worked at office depot he saved
like five thousand dollars yep that's enough to if you don't have obligations like if you don't
have rent to pay because you're staying with family and friends or yeah love it you're making
it work i mean there's it's that that can fuel the next thing 100 but it turns out for him what
actually happened is he got his emt certificate and because it was part one other part of the
cycles i did not mention is there's an accountability like a reflection piece of it where we ask people
to what for max i said just publish what you did this week every week just as a method to hold
yourself accountable you know and and he started publishing it on sub stack at first and no one's
paying attention didn't matter you know yeah but he's writing it down every week it's just a bullet
list at first you know and now they're these now he's actually become a good writer and it's writes
these long essays and they're really interesting and he's awesome she helps he teaches what he
learned you know that's right but but basically through that he got some subscribers one of them
happened to own a company where basically they worked with states western states in the u.s to
fight wildfires and they said you know this emt thing you know these jobs kind of suck yeah but
during the summers,
you know,
we work for,
you know,
you can work for us
for the summer
and I'll let you
get the certification
and when you do that,
you earn $600 a day.
Let's go.
You know?
And so that's what he did.
So,
and one of the cycles
is a work cycle
because at some point
along the way,
you're going to find something
and you go,
this is,
I want to pursue this
a little further
to see more of what,
it's,
you don't want it
to be a forever thing,
but you want to go
a little deeper on a topic,
you know?
And so,
so he spent one summer
doing,
fighting wildfires
and he earned quite a bit of money doing it.
You have no expenses, you know,
all your food is paid for everything, all that.
And I mean, at that age, I was in the army
and I think that was my take-home pay for a month, I think.
So, you know, but that's inflation is a big part of it,
I understand.
But 600, there are people that he worked with there
on those fires that that's literally the only job they had.
They would do that in the summer
and the rest of the year, they wouldn't work.
Yeah, that's incredible.
Yeah.
Okay, so EMT, cycle number one.
cycle number two well you know kind of depends what you want to do but you know the the the we
like this this cowboy cycle we think is a good one um this is flying to uruguay to work with you
that's uh well no well though my my son owns actually a wrangler school which is not what
is in here um but uh but there's what we actually prescribe for people is there's there's this uh
cowboy academy essentially which you go to five days and they teach you all
mostly working with horses but a lot of stuff around a farm cowboy type stuff cool it's fun
yeah it's fun and then and then after that there's uh actually it's it's a horse and mule packing
and i know yep where basically you go and you do these you'll learn basically these guys take people
on these long hunting trips no right but you learn the school like how do you actually do it
working with the animals and all that and you're like out and roughing it and it's a little hard
for sure it's challenging so i say this is like a rite of passage which young men need and they
cannot get elsewhere i don't think no matter even if we try and manufacture it for our kids
which i did try and manufacture it can't get it like you can get it here yeah so so that's one
uh we would definitely recommend like uh trying to do something on a regenerative farm like
joel salad and we like your odds of getting in are low you should apply yeah because you'll learn a
lot but there are lots of other ones out there that are looking for looking for help they'll
They'll give you housing and food.
You know, you learn, like, where food comes from, how it really works, and you'll learn to work hard.
And it's a good skill.
For my son, because we have a ranch, we apprenticed him to our gaucho.
Yeah.
So, he was working for our gaucho, and, you know, he worked him pretty hard.
He learned how to shoe horses and, you know, use all the tractors and treat cattle and all that stuff and doing that.
So, that's what he did specifically.
You know, then there's the flying.
So the private pilot one, there's a welding cycle.
There's a great school in Canada where you can learn to weld.
Just a great skill to have actually in high demand and pays up extremely well.
If you take it far, you can make a lot of money doing that.
So most of these, most of them are designed to deliver real skills that have real economic value.
Which then as they compound, you get this like, Scott Adams has this concept called skill stacking.
You know, you add these weird things together and, you know, the value you can provide to the world is really unique.
It's awesome.
You combine these things together.
Another one is going to the Shelter Institute in Maine where you design and build a house in three weeks.
Yep.
Now, you only put up a temporary frame of a house, you know, in one week.
But the design part, the first two weeks are the really key parts because, you know, for most of us, it's a mystery.
We don't even understand how it works.
We don't understand any of it.
but,
but you really would have the ability to design and build your own home after
that three week course at the shelter Institute.
Wow.
So that's fantastic one.
You know,
the,
we incur the sailing one is,
has been by far for my son,
the most extreme adventure one that he's done.
He got terribly seasick a couple of times.
Sailing around the Falkland Islands.
It's known to be extremely rough.
And he was with one of the best high latitude captains in the world.
And so we recommend using the same people.
So with that one, did he have sailing experience before or was just totally, totally virgin, hops on a boat?
Zero.
And so this is, you just, you found a random guy or you found like friend of a friend connection to a captain who's like, hey, we can take somebody who knows nothing.
You know, this was recommended to me by a ex Navy SEAL who is a captain himself.
Let's go.
He said, Max should do this.
That's incredible, man.
Yeah.
Yeah, so there's a...
Yeah, go ahead.
No, I was going to say that's the one we recommend.
So that's what the one is in here that we recommend people do.
In the book.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a school, a Christian school here locally,
and they do a bunch of things that are very similar to this.
So they have...
They do, I see, they do like normal, quote unquote, normal school.
They go half day, Monday through Thursday,
And then they have no school on Friday.
And on at least I think two Fridays a month, they do something as a school.
And so one of the things that they do every month is they go sailing.
So they have like a sailing club.
And so they're like instilling this.
Another day they're processing chickens.
So like they go and they get all these chickens and they teach you how to do all this stuff.
It's not a pleasant process, but it's a good experience.
Exactly.
Great thing to learn.
Very helpful thing to learn.
So, okay.
So, sailing, that's been the most, the one he's enjoyed the most.
Well, it's been the most intense.
It's been the ones where he, that was the first one he came back from and was different.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
It was just different.
Yeah.
I mean, it was at the ends of the earth.
It was, yeah.
Where it really, like, a profound change came, I think, from that one for him.
yeah like i've tried to identify the point where he went from boy to man and maybe it was that one
maybe it was after that um you know he did the private pilot one also yep um and so that's where
he is now at this point now okay well he's currently in the entrepreneurship cycle okay
okay so um in this the way the cycles are fundamentally structured it goes from like the
the like doing things real things you can really wrap your mind around get your hands on in the
real world, like very physically oriented, shaping the world around you first, and then
moves to more abstract things.
Okay.
So like entrepreneurship is fantastically abstract.
Like what problems do I need to solve?
Like what product would I offer a service and then figuring out who the customer is.
And I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff.
And so in three months, setting up and at least securing the first customer and delivering a product, at least that is the basic benchmark.
Does it mean it's a business that they would continue on?
Maybe they fail completely at it and learn it.
I mean, I've failed a lot as an entrepreneur, so there's no problem with failure here.
But you'd know within three months whether or not the business ideas makes any sense anyway.
So his entrepreneurship cycle is now.
After that, he's going to Thailand.
He's going to study Muay Thai at one of the schools there for three months.
Well, it'll be for about two months of the cycle.
He'll be doing that.
Let's see.
What's after that?
I'm trying to recall off the top of my head.
There's one about programming.
It's more oriented around my son and just what he's been doing.
Yeah.
There's a programming course.
Yes.
So it gets into more abstract course.
So we call it Hacker.
Basically, I don't believe you hear people talking about vibe coding all the time now.
Yeah.
The truth is, is that with a set of tools that are out there now, we're just like we want people to be able to create things in the physical world.
We want them.
They need to be able to understand how the virtual creation process works.
Correct.
building products that, you know, because if you,
the thing is if you don't understand how the world works at all,
it always feels like you always feel intimidated by it. And you, you know,
you're the way you approach the world is different. So we, we,
we call it a hacker. It's not a hacker at all,
but it's being able to hack together a product or something to,
so we essentially we tell them where to go and what to do for that.
And then one of the, one of the coolest ones out there is, I think,
is there's these things called fab labs.
Have you ever heard of a Fab Lab before?
Is this like 3D printing stuff?
That's scratched the surface.
Okay.
So these all came out of MIT and they're all over the world now.
You can look it up at fablabs.org.
They're all over the place.
They all have to be open to the public for at least a portion of the time.
They all share all the information.
They're all connected together.
And essentially they have nine machines there that allow you to digitally create virtually any product you can imagine from circuit boards to furniture.
Okay.
With these nine machines.
That's super cool.
It's super cool.
And they are like, yeah.
So the idea is that they, now this is not, you cannot do like large scale manufacturing, but this is all bespoke.
it's all bespoke yeah so but you can create anything at these things and there's a lot huge
knowledge base you get a you get to leverage there and how it works and so we tell them
some courses to take along the way in doing it but a lot of time spent just in the fab lab and
all these are open like i said to the public some are open uh you know seven days a week to the
public in other words there might be only open two days a week to the public but essentially you can
go in there and you can, the idea is that you actually build, you figure out something you want
to make and you learn to use the nine machines there. And then you actually create that, create
your own product. And so the Fab Labs, when you say courses, so you're saying the Fab Labs themselves
offer courses for people who are interested to learn different things. No, there are, there are
courses, um, in the software that you use essentially the, like the CAD software, things
like that that you use to use the different machines. Got you. And it's all available for
free also yeah i mean but when you show up and you still have questions about it like you don't
understand people there are people that could help you actually these things are like connected to all
the other ones so if there's someone working in another fab lab somewhere else in a different part
of the world and you go hey i'm having problems with the machine how does it how do i make this
work like they're there they can help out so yeah so but the idea is yeah to be able to be able to
use these things because i mean you like i want a fab lab in my barn okay that's what i want that's
because then you can make anything you need.
Yep.
Anything.
It's incredible.
So, yeah.
So, I think that's all 16.
I think we've probably covered,
I don't think we've missed any.
Yeah, there was,
oh man, I can't remember what the one,
one of the latter ones.
Yeah, so you said,
your son's done about half.
He's pumped.
He's pumped about continuing on.
Are there any more that he's,
or any ones that he's kind of intimidated by at this point?
Like he's not looking forward to him as much or?
That's a good question.
And I will say there's a lot of them that he hasn't looked forward to.
Yeah.
You know?
Because all of them sound, you know, like the EMT for his first one.
Yeah.
He really, with that one, he was like, he had no interest.
Sure.
You know?
Sure, sure, sure.
Like, it's also, I mean, it's part of human nature.
Like, the less we know about something, the less interested we are in it.
Correct.
Yep.
You know, and then once you start to see it, you go, oh, actually, this is like, look at it like this.
Look how cool, you know, look what you can do with it.
And so, but he, you know, but he trusted me enough to basically just like, just go, just show up, just do your best and see how it goes.
And then actually, then he started to really build real confidence in doing that and return to real skill.
So, yeah, but I haven't asked him if there's any of them that he's really intimidated by.
I know he's really looking forward to the Muay Thai one.
Yeah.
You know, he's been doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a number of years?
Yeah, and well, throughout this period,
he did it a little bit before.
Okay.
When we were still in Denver, he did some.
And then he's done it throughout,
because in most places you go,
there's a gym around that you can go to.
And it's also a different community,
and they're very welcoming typically.
And so it's a good,
BJJ overall, I think, is like the best default,
just because the community is going to,
and there's enough of them around now,
it's popular enough.
But he's also done some kickboxing along the way.
But, you know, this is, this is,
this camp is much more intense.
Like, so it's, it's very serious.
So he's looking forward to that.
Cool I remember I vaguely remembering from one of the other interviews you said like one of the latter stages is kind of like you it doing that skill stacking like you stacking some of the things you learned So it like it like taking one of the skills that you learned in building a business off of that And then and then I can remember there were some you mentioned something about drones There was something where you thought
Well, that's what my son's business is actually that he's doing.
Okay, cool.
His entrepreneurship business is basically, he's trying to do precision drone agriculture.
Okay.
Oh, that's incredible.
Okay.
So, I don't know.
So, what does that look like?
Or is he, I don't know if this is like proprietary.
I don't want to.
No.
Okay.
No, it's not.
I mean, you know, basically you can use the drones to map the land and through this multi-spectral analysis.
Sure.
And it can tell you basically the amount of food essentially is in a certain area.
So like we have where we rotate our animals.
Okay.
There's a lot of, and so you can see exactly if we're overgrazing or undergrazing.
Yep.
You know, better that way.
Sure.
You could also see if there's nitrogen issues.
Okay.
So you can understand that basically the health of the pastures in general.
And a lot of times when, like, you really don't want, like, the Joel Salatin method, it's like you don't touch the land.
Sometimes you do need to do things.
Sure.
Like, for instance, around here, it's endemic around us for it to be very low in phosphorus.
Okay.
And so you need to, like, you need to put some phosphorus in the soil, you know, to get healthy growth.
Yep.
But it's not necessarily everywhere.
Yeah.
And so you can essentially map out exactly where to do it, where you might need to put some seeds.
Got you.
Also, and you just deliver specifically with the drones.
So you map first and then the drones go and they do it.
So if you don't have tractors, you can do it with the drones.
Yeah.
And the drones can do it just in targeted, just the right areas.
You don't waste seed.
You don't waste, you know, the fertilizer you might be using.
And yeah, it's a more effective way of doing it.
And a lower cost way of doing it for the farmers that are doing it otherwise than right now.
That's incredible. Yeah. So what are the, just real quick, one of the, basically we host two
versions of this podcast. One of them has, uh, that's me and one of my best friends and then
two guys who are real good friends of ours as well. And then on Thursdays we, it's me and my
real good friend and then two other guys. And so one of the other two guys owns a drone company.
And so there's part of me, I'm like, oh man, it'd be cool to connect, you know, him and Maxim. And
he's, he's like basically a proprietary drone software company, you know, people buy their
software and then use it with DJI drones.
So, yeah, it'd be super interesting to see what that could look like.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm learning as he's going.
Like, I've always had, like, camera drones.
I mean, I've got my – I don't know if you can see it in the camera,
but I've got a drone there.
I love drones.
You know, they're good.
They're useful.
But I didn't even realize that there were drones that, like,
did what these drones do.
Yeah.
You know, this giant drone that carries the seeds and fertilizer,
I mean, it's massive.
Yep.
And it's cool.
And the software, what you can do with the software is amazing.
And you add that AI element to it and the kind of predictive ability of it.
Exactly.
It gets interesting.
And so I think it could be, we live in the middle of an agricultural area here on our ranch in Uruguay.
So as far as businesses, if you're going to be here, and I want them to be here over Christmas and stuff.
So I was strongly encouraging.
Yeah.
You know, let's do something you could do here.
um and i'm still you know i i like my son being around even though he's got to do his thing
um but uh you know so this is what this is what he came up with for for what could be
it could work and i actually think it could be a gigantic business yeah actually yeah no it makes
a lot of sense to me so with this zone one of the things you you mentioned in one of these other
interviews was you said this is this plan is specifically for a guy like this is this is kind
of laid out with the guy in mind. I would love to hear kind of what's, what's your philosophy
and thinking on that front. And you've mentioned potentially doing this, creating a girl oriented
version of this. Would love to hear kind of your thoughts on that. Well, um, there's two parts.
I think a lot of the specific, uh, cycles are just as applicable to a woman as a man. I don't
think there's any difference in that whatsoever. Sure. Uh, there are a couple of, there are a few
changes i would make sure um that i think things would be just more more drive more curiosity
among a woman and i say so i'm right now my daughter is right now the same age exactly that
max was when he started yep so i have a i have a new problem right that i want to write it's great
or at least at least yeah be able to speak you know so to figure it out for her is just as
important to me as it was for max so the but it's really the first part of the book that i think is
most different yep that makes sense yep because we're we're we're calling like a man wants to
become something you know and and a woman like the the amazing thing about women is they are
they already are
something
you know
now
they
like
we
in its purest form
you could say that
we describe in here
how a young man
can become powerful
powerful in control
of themselves
and in their ability
to shape the world
now a woman
a young woman
has
just because
biologically
yep
an unreasonable
amount of power
yep
that is
dangerous to them
mm-hmm
in a way and so helping them exercise that power yep to its fullest potential you know and to to
where because like there isn't a hero's journey for for a woman yeah there there is not that same
it's that that same it doesn't work yeah it's it's a different fundamental drive yep that that
that a woman still goes through this experience to become a woman in full.
But it's not the same exactly.
So this book is written to talk to a young man in a way that a young man would get and say and connect with right away.
And that part has to be different for a woman.
Yeah.
And I just can't tell you how refreshing it is to hear this.
Because, again, this is one of these things where one of the heavily subsidized governmentally lies is that basically men and women are exactly the same in every possible way.
We don't need to change anything.
You don't need to even think about writing an alternate intro.
Matt, how dare you?
You sexist pig.
I got that.
I got someone's comments.
Definitely.
But, again, it's just like we have thousands of years of recorded human history.
and even just if you just again use your brain and think about just that even the physical
biological differences like there there are real differences that are designed to be complementary
and that are designed to foster human flourishing for you know throughout the throughout the ages
and so it doesn't do anybody any good to pretend in the name of political correctness that people
aren't that men and women are exactly the same they're just not you know and we've there's been
all kinds of studies that have borne this out.
When you give, I think it's in some of the Nordic countries,
that's one of Jordan Peterson's famous illustrations,
where he like you give maximum choice you let anybody do what they want and they just self to these different things you know in terms of the you know The choice is to be a caretaker caretaker roles and things like that
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
And so again, to act like we're going to, we're going to put 50% of women and 50% of men in every single thing.
And then we're all going to be happy.
It's like, no, that's not how, that's not how this works.
And so just even your project articulated, I feel like you're going to, especially from our audience, we have tons of people who, you know, see who are, who are going to appreciate that.
just appreciate what's called, I've got a buddy who has coined this term called,
he basically calls them reality respecters.
So people who-
Yeah, I'm going to have a total right reality respecter.
Exactly.
It's like, we're not out here trying to be reality revolutionaries, okay?
Where it's like, oh, we're going to go fix everything out in the world to make it the
way that we think it should be.
It's like more of a, we go out in the world, we're as scientists, like what do we observe?
And we observe these differences.
And so we want to respect reality. And we want to, again, not necessarily conform in the worst way, but we want to align ourselves much like a sail. A sail is designed to catch the wind. And so you want to position the boat in such a way that you can catch the wind that's there in order to then use that for, you know, your own purposes. And so, yeah, so I'm really fascinated. I'll be looking forward to hearing more about, you know, the female side of things and as somebody with boys and girls.
So, yeah, I, so I think the reason why it is boy oriented is because this was my best attempt to try and the information that I thought my son needed at that time.
Exactly. Yep.
And the direction he needed in order to become who he hoped to become, you know, that was it.
And with my, my, and so the version for my daughter will be the same.
And my daughter's a totally different human being.
I mean, she's like, you know, my daughter is like radiant, you know, my son was, is not radiant.
I don't know what, you know, they're different, they're totally different.
So I'm just dealing with reality because I'm only, I'm only concerned with the boy who is in his state of mind, his hopes, his dreams, his fears that he's dealing with at that particular age.
And his motivations are different.
Absolutely.
And this is something as well where, I mean, this book is written by you and Doug, right?
This is written by two career men who've been men for their entire lives.
And so some of this, another thing that I appreciate about this is really what's embodied in this book is just stewardship, right?
You guys are taking your experiences and you're trying to steward those experiences by passing them on and package them and thinking about and excluding and including.
and you're trying to do that in an effective way.
And again, just the project overall
is just something I'm just really encouraged by.
I find myself, yeah, I find myself just longing for,
in different aspects of my life,
longing for experience and longing for,
all right, oh man, I would love to talk to somebody
who's kind of walked through this process.
And I find that I have found them to varying degrees,
but I really do think there's a lot,
especially among younger guys,
there's a lot of frustration and they feel frustrated and hopeless because they've been
kind of, because there's been an absence of, of, uh, an absence of specific instruction on this
topic. They're just thinking it's totally normal just to be a lone wolf out there in the world,
trying to vibe code your life. And in reality, like this is just a totally abnormal situation
throughout time. You were just throughout all of human history. You have men who are leading on,
leaning on their fathers or leaning on other men, leaning on grandfathers or again, people in your
community. And, and now we just don't have that as much because of this heavily subsidized
institution of the university that's supposed to fix everything for you. As long as you surrender
your children and enough cat and enough coin. Uh, and so I think that this is, I, I just, I think
the way, when I look at the world right now, I'm like, this is this heavily subsidized experiment
that's doomed to fail. It's not sustainable in any, in any real way, it's going to fail. And so
where are the off ramps? I think this book is, is one of a great off ramps. It's, it's one that
you should take, you should chew up, you should question, you should, you know, yell at it. Just
be like, no, I disagree completely with this element of it, you know, but go out there, go to
town and, and really just do the work. Because I think in, in doing the work and thinking through
these things, you, the exactly what your goal, what you've talked about being your goal is going
to happen. You're going to find out things about yourself. You're going to discover things about,
about the world and all these things and you're going to be a better person for it coming out the
other end you'll be the you'll be the man you want to be yeah which is what matters yeah amen yeah i
think so and i mean you know for us like you know doug and i you know we this is what we would both
do yeah today if we could so that's that's the key for us it was like thinking about it knowing
what we know and what we've done what we're and and also knowing the way the world is today yeah
which is very different.
And I think, you know,
the college situation is way worse.
We talked about lots of reasons already,
but the whole other reason is the AI thing.
And they're,
do you know the biggest,
most common business or major in the U.S.
is business administration.
Really?
That's the most common major.
And that is the easiest one
to sort of scrub from existence
that I can imagine by AI.
Yeah.
You know,
it won't exist. And so these kids, these poor kids who are in college and are thinking they're
doing the right thing the entire time because they're doing what they've been told and they're
taking on debt are going to come out and they're going to have real, real job problems. And we're
already starting to see it. It's horrifying to think about. One of the things that, again,
the principle you articulate, it makes me think about. So there's this principle,
there's this passage in the Old Testament in the Bible. It's from 1 Chronicles 12.
it talks about these men it says from the tribe of Issachar there were 200 leaders of the tribe
with their relatives these were men of understanding who understood the times they understood what
Israel should do and so what you you have this description of this family this like crowd of
people who uniquely understood they looked around it wasn't just that they had general skill like
they had abilities but then they looked around and they knew they understood had a better
understanding of the broad time and what they're in. So the wisdom is this, it's skill combined
with timing. There's some people who've talked about the idea that being early is indistinguishable
from being wrong. And so it's one of these things where you have to have, you have to have wisdom
and you need to be able to apply it at the right time or else you can be, you can be doomed. If you
plant seeds in winter, it's going to be catastrophic. And so this idea seems really just right on key
to me, it seems very valuable just to be, you know, it's not enough to have vague general ideas
about what would be good. It's also like taking those ideas and then looking and figure out what
time is it? Is this a time, again, is this a time to store up seeds? You know, is this a time where
you're thinking about it as an investor, right? There's times where the best thing you could have
done in the years leading up to 2008 was maybe, you know, own homes and then sell once you start
to see things getting hot. So you've got capital on hand when everything crashes and then you can
come around and pick up the pieces for pennies on the dollar. Like it's, um, and so, yeah, I just,
I really appreciate your time and just your, your expertise and, uh, your experiences and would love
for this to be, uh, you know, the first of a number of conversations, whether they're on the
podcast or not So I going to find you and then I chase you down and be you know tell you my my hero you know see if we can make things happen So it been fun talking to you man It been really good So I really enjoyed the conversation I think it it been great
And yeah, the, um, the one last thing I'll say about the book is that, um, you know, we,
Doug and I, in our podcast, we basically just talk about problems all the time.
Yep.
And, you know, in our personal lives, we're always focused on solutions.
Yep.
I mean, that's why I live on a regenerative cattle ranch in Uruguay.
That's why, you know, there's a, but, but the thing is, is a lot of that doesn't translate well to others.
And so, you know, but focusing on problems will make you insane.
And the only answer to the problems that we face, I think, are radical personal responsibility.
That's it.
And so this is, we're trying to, for the most, for the people that will shape the future, we're trying to sort of pass that to them as much as we can.
Yeah. And you guys talk about this at the beginning. You say like this book isn't this book and this process isn't for everybody. You guys are trying to just put your hands up right off the bat and say, hey, we're not saying this is a one size fits all solution. But yeah, this it really is. We live in a world where it's easier than ever to just outsource any hard things or responsibility. You farm it out to the government. You farm it out to the state. You farm it out to, you know, to the school. You farm it out to other people.
I've had friends who've started businesses doing just things you can't even believe in making
ungodly amounts of money just because they're willing to do banal things that wealthy people
don't want to do. It's just crazy. Yeah, no doubt. And I mean, this is one of the great things about
our economy. I know we're going long, but one of the great things about our economy is through
specialization, it has created all kinds of abundance. Now, and I think it's healthy for,
it's really healthy in that way.
You know, and that specialization
does have a real powerful impact.
But I think it is really bad
for the individual.
Exactly. Agreed.
It really strips a person of their core
when, you know, when literally
you can operate as an economic unit
in the world
with no understanding
of the world around you.
Just the thing that you do
that generates the income
and then it's Uber Eats
and then it's, you know,
like Amazon shows up
and you're just a car that's basically it's like yes i mean and it's it's dehumanizing yeah
100 100 yeah yeah i do i do think that it's something that we're i mean then you factor
in the ai stuff and it's just even more like just the idea of elon musk saying oh we're gonna get
rid of work it's just like it's a faulty it's a totally insufficient understanding of what it
means to be human, that you would try to just get rid of work rather than, you know, looking at work
as, you know, this is something that was designed to be something that is part of our identity.
You know, it's not an all-encompassing thing where if you lose it, then you're crushed as a human.
But it is this very important way. And from a Christian standpoint, I look at this like,
you know, your work is one way that you are able to love and serve your neighbor. Like,
this is a big part of, you know, this is where I can take my skills, my time, my mind,
and I can fabric, you know, package that in a way that then allows me to, to actually provide
for your needs in a meaningful way and in a way that not just meets your, uh, you as a, as a meat
suit, uh, your physical needs, but can also, I can also present it to you in a way that demonstrates
that I care for you. Uh, and that I, I'm, I'm, I'm invested in your good. That's in a way that's
beyond just your physical good. It's also your mental and emotional. And so I think that it's
real easy to, it's real easy for businesses and for governments to focus on the things that they
can, uh, that they can, uh, denominate. They can like count up the countable things, countable
success, KPIs, they can do all these things. And yet I really, I think I agree with what you're
saying where there's a lot of, if we don't, if we're not careful, and I think we have failed,
We're like leaving the non-easily countable things.
We're not putting enough emphasis on how important they are.
We're not really understanding how important they really are.
And that's leading to some of the breakdowns of trust that result in things like we are seeing in the news in terms of politics and all these kind of things.
And I think it leads to also this loss of where people feel like nihilistic about life.
Yep, exactly.
Because they recognize I'm an economic unit.
Yep.
I work, I get money, but there, there is no fruit from my labor.
Exactly. Yep. Yep. And so it's, it's, yeah, it's terrible. And I, yeah, so there,
yeah, the work won't go away. Work, well, hopefully work is, produces fruit.
Yep. Amen. Man. Well, Hey, Matt, really appreciate you. Are you going to be,
I mean, some people come back and do conferences and stuff like that. Are you
going to be back in the States anytime in the future here?
You know, my only current trip I have planned is to Azerbaijan with Doug at the end of October.
Let's go.
Good.
And I don't know.
I think, yeah, I think we might do something.
We might, yeah, spend some.
Yeah, we don't have any plan to be in the U.S. anytime soon.
But that could change, you know.
We're flexible.
We'll see what happens.
Keep me in the loop.
Would love to hang out.
I'm trying to get down to Uruguay.
So there's a Bitcoin.
We didn't even talk about Bitcoin.
This is what a horrible Bitcoin podcast.
But no, it's been great.
But there's a Bitcoin conference in Buenos Aires every year.
I've been trying to get down to it for the last couple of years since we've been back here and just haven't been able to do it.
So maybe next year and we can hang out.
Well, if you do come down, let me know.
Would love to do it.
Well, hey, enjoy the Uruguayan beef for me.
For those of you who don't know, Uruguay is some of the best beef in the world.
It's just more cowl.
More beef consumed per capita in Uruguay than anywhere else in the world.
As it should be.
Matt, really appreciate you.
Actually, here, do this.
Tell people where they can find you in terms of website or Twitter.
You can put your Twitter handle or something.
Okay.
So first of all, for the preparation, you can go to thepreparation.com.
Essentially, this, we hope, will end up being kind of a hub for young people who are doing this.
Because we encourage people to post on Substack what they're doing.
And then we can connect them and feature them and all that there.
So thepreparation.com.
Obviously, the book's available on Amazon.
It's published through Amazon.
So it's the only place you can get it.
Unfortunately, I wish it weren't, but it's just the way it is.
And let's see.
The other thing is Doug Casey's take is where you can see me talk to Doug.
We usually do two podcasts a week, typically,
mostly for good karma and to entertain ourselves.
And when we do them less often, it's because we just don't feel entertained, honestly.
So there's that.
And then we have on the financial side of things,
we publish financial newsletter at crisisinvesting.com,
which is also on Substack.
And it's got a free letter
you can subscribe to if you want.
And on Twitter, it's Matt Fius.
M-A-T-T-P-H-E-U-S.
Okay.
Matt, really appreciate you.
And we'd love to have you back at some point.
Maybe we can get Doug on here
and chat with him too.
Here's some of his James Bond stories.
That'd be great.
Yeah.
The thing is, he's so humble.
He won't even,
he can't brag about himself.
He can't.
Well, that's great.
We'll appreciate that.
All right.
Awesome.
Thanks a lot, Jordan.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.