400 Hours, Of AI work in 2025 and The Truth About "Overnight Success"

In 2025, I’ve been as transparent as possible. I’ve told you about my personal wins and losses, but I’ve also told you about the burnout. At 320 hrs, I hit a wall so hard I got depressed for a weekend and didn't even go to dinner for Thanksgiving with my family. Why am I telling you this?

Because I want you to ignore the fake Gurus on social media who claim they made millions but never show you the struggle, the grief, and the difficult setbacks that happen daily behind the scenes.

I know many of you are working 9-5 jobs. You see me clocking 400 hours since the Summit on Nov 6th and you think, "I can't do that." You’re right. Maybe you can't. Everyone is different!

I am in a position to spend this amount of time to explore and learn at a faster rate, and I know not everyone has that kind of time right now. I am building a company from the ground up, so I have the "luxury" of obsession. But I would really luv everyone to save real time by learning from my mistakes.

But here is the COLD HARD TRUTH: You cannot build a 2026 life with 2020 habits. Whether you have 40 hours a week or 40 minutes a day, if you are doing manual data entry or writing emails from scratch, you are dragging an anchor.

As a former Marine, I treat this like a battlefield: We either adapt or we die. It's that simple. Let AI pull the weight. Let’s be honest: Learning AI is easier said than done! What I learned in 2025 was that it takes consistent discipline and awareness to use it efficiently. You will have setbacks, especially if you start vibe coding. You won't save time in the beginning! You will spend time learning the AI curve. I lost about 100 hours to headaches and setbacks.

But being obsolete in 2 years is a struggle I refuse to accept. I chose the struggle of study and using AI over the struggle of regret.

Does the grind work? YES, In fact, just 15 days after the AI Summit on November 6th, 2025, I acquired an investor/partner who saw the value in the AI workflows I was building. We opened a joint account, and I was funded in less than 30 days—not because I asked for money, but because the AI output was undeniable. In just two months, I still use both main LLMs, but for my "brain work" I switched from ChatGPT to Gemini Pro and took advantage of googles ecosystem which is better in my opinion!

Through rigorous prompt engineering, here is what 400 hours actually looks like today:

Infrastructure: Company setup with layers, Virtual Address, and Bank Accounts.
Marketing Machine: 10 Automated Email Campaigns (Brevo), 50+ AI-generated assets, and full setups on YT, TikTok, Insta, and FB.
The Tech: A fully operational landing page, a VAPI voice agent (still debugging!), and a Twilio SMS system.
Development: Vibe coded report generator web page (still in progress and developing for Phase 2 in 2026).

I didn't list this to brag. I listed this to show you what is possible when you go from "dabbling" with basic prompts and start building real, solid systems that will save you time and make you money in the long run.

My foundation is laid. The hard part is over.

For 2026, my goal is simple: Reach 2,500 hours of mastery with Artificial Intelligence, use N8N workflows, debug—rinse and repeat—and disrupt my niche market.

There is a lot of noise out there. Some say AI is in a bubble. But I am seeing tools every day that give us superpowers we didn't have before. I aspire to be a transparent AI user who makes mistakes and learns from them but who can also motivate others to follow my path and be transparent and genuine without all the AI hype!

What is the ONE task you are going to let AI take over in January-March? Let's hold each other accountable.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2026

Till my next post,

Thanks Rick

create, Create and CREATE!

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