Missed you last week. Here's where I've been.

Welcome to The Real Work, weekly insights for high-performers and entrepreneurs who've outgrown their current success and are ready to rebuild from their authentic foundation.

This newsletter is sponsored by Kit.

On March 31st at 1pm Eastern, I'm doing a live session called "What's in Terry Rice's Kit?" — a behind-the-scenes look at the exact email system I use to find warm leads, build trust, and generate income without pitching every week.

​Grab your free spot here.​

And now, lets get started.

My bad for going quiet last week. I was heads-down building, and I didn't want to send something random just to stay consistent. That's not how I operate.

Before I get into what I've been up to: if you feel behind on AI right now, here's the only thing worth doing first. Don't start with tools. Don't download the app you heard about in an article. Write down the tasks you're already doing every week and ask where AI could help. Build from what you already have to do, not from what sounds cool. Everything I'm about to share comes from that mindset.

And if you want to cut to the chase, I've linked to a few free courses at the end of this newsletter.

Here's why I've been up until midnight.

Being a parent of is the biggest pull on my time in this business, and I mean that in the best possible way. This is one of the only months lately where my kids haven't been home for at least a week straight, and they're back home for a week next month. I love every second of it. I'm exhausted by the end of the day, but it's a good exhausted.

That said, watching other people in my space talk about everything they're building, knowing I don't have the hours they have, I feel it. So when a window opens, I use it. And lately, that window has been late at night.

I built a new website. A family operations center to cut down on the daily scramble. A business one too. I've been documenting everything so people who aren't as technical can follow along. I don't mention this often, but I spent years as a systems integration consultant at Adobe. Those skills are suddenly relevant again.

Swinging kettlebells while my computer does the work.

Claude's Cowork feature is what made all of this possible without losing my mind. I give it a task, it runs, and instead of sitting there watching a progress bar, I exercise. Push-ups, air squats, kettlebell swings. Because the last thing I want to be is the guy who sits in front of a screen all day.

The movement keeps my head clear and my creativity up in a way that staring at a monitor never does. When the task is done, I come back, review the output, and move on.

I helped my son with homework and finished my website at the same time.

One night, my son needed help with an assignment. I also had to finish my site and pull logos from a dozen different places. Instead of telling him to wait, I set Claude on the logos and sat with him.

You can have opinions about that. But showing up for my kids is non-negotiable, and these tools help me do it without everything else falling apart.

Then I figured out how many of you I should already be talking to.

I connected Claude to Kit and ran a prompt to find people in my newsletter who might be a fit for the corporate AI workshops I run. Cross-referenced with LinkedIn too.

The list was longer than I expected. (Some of you are getting a very friendly email soon. You've been warned.)

Sunday system. Monday launch. Wednesday booked calls.

I built the outreach system on a Sunday. Sent it Monday. Had five responses by Tuesday. By Wednesday, three people had booked calls, an ex-coworker, someone who took one of my classes at General Assembly, and a friend from college. People who already knew me, already trusted me, and were genuinely glad to hear from me.

That's 24 people reached. Not a cold list I bought somewhere. People already in my world.

I also updated my welcome series so new subscribers get access to Stack, an app I built for daily planning and business decisions. It links to tools I use, and I earn as an affiliate when people use them. No hard sell. Just sharing what works.

Now, about this workshop.

Kit actually made a documentary about me. That tells you something about how they operate. They actually care. That's why I said yes.

I know a lot of you. You're busy. You don't need more information sitting on top of what you're already not using. You need something you can act on, so you stop chasing the next thing and get into a groove that holds.

That's this. I'm going to show you my actual system, how I find warm leads already in my list, and how I generate income here without pitching every week. Real stuff. No theory. Receipts available.

You'll see:

• Lead magnets that move people from visitor to subscriber
• A welcome sequence that builds trust before you ever ask for anything
• How I find warm leads in my list and on LinkedIn
• A monetization setup that runs through partnerships intsead of a weekly hard sell

Live session. Real questions. One clear next step when you leave.

March 31st, 1pm Eastern.

​Save your spot here​

Come as you are. Leave with a plan.

Hope to see you there.

Terry

Real Quick: Two free Claude resources worth bookmarking: Claude 101 and the AI Fluency Framework. Both free.

One More: This is live only. No replay announced. Register here if you want in.