On Pricing

Let’s talk about pricing.

Not in terms of spreadsheets or tax prep. I’m not an accountant, and this isn’t a math lesson. It’s about our relationship to money and the value of our work.

For years, I undercharged my work. It wasn’t some secret sales technique. I was scared.  Scared I wouldn’t get the job. Scared of rejection. Scared of disappointing the client. 

So I’d trim the number and tell myself I’d “make it work.”

Plot twist: I didn’t make it work. I made it worse.

When you don’t charge enough:

• The work suffers.

• You rush.

• You cut corners.

• You start resenting the project.

• You stop thinking creatively.

• You just want to get it done and get out.

Even if you love the work itself, undercharging puts you in survival mode. And you can’t do your best work from there.

You can’t build beautiful things when you’re stressed about bills. You can’t create magic when you’re running on fumes. You can’t give your clients the best of you when you're worrying about how to cover payroll or fix your truck.

Pricing properly isn’t greed. It’s the opposite. Pricing well is how you show up fully. It’s how you honor the work and the people you're doing it for.

A healthy price means:

• You can hire good help.

• You can buy the best materials.

• You have the space to solve problems creatively.

• You can do your best work. Work you’re proud of.

• You can give the project your full attention and energy.

It’s not personal. The number you send in your estimate isn’t a declaration of your self-worth. It’s not even “your number.” It’s the number. The one it takes to do the job right.

And if a client says no to that number, it doesn’t mean you're overcharging. It doesn’t mean you’re not worth that number. It just means your price and their budget didn’t align.

That’s all.

You don’t owe anyone a discount. But you do owe the work the price it takes to do it well.

So price for your best work. Not your worst fears.

Pop Quiz

Let’s do some math.

Not the kind you learned in school. The kind that hits you one quiet morning when you realize you won’t get to do this forever.

I'm forty-six. How many more years of stonework do I have left in me? No one knows how much time they’ve got, for anything, let alone stonework. But let’s take a guess.

Could I keep doing this physical work for another ten years? Maybe. If I stay healthy. If I take care of myself.

Fifteen? That puts me at sixty-one, which is wild to think about. But yeah, with some luck—good or bad, depending on how you look at it—it’s possible.

Twenty more years? I’d be sixty-six. There are guys still at it at that age. They’re rare, but they’re out there. Maybe I’ll be one of the few who gets that chance.

More than twenty? Well, my dad is 83 and still lobstering. It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Let’s say I get that kind of stretch. That’s generous.

Last year I worked on four projects. Some years, it's less. But let’s call four the average. That means I have, at most, eighty projects left in me.

Eighty.

Fifteen more years? Sixty projects.

Ten more years? Forty.

Somewhere between 0 and 80 projects. And that number is shrinking every day.

So here’s the question I’m asking myself:

Shouldn’t I make those projects count?
Shouldn’t I choose the ones that turn me on?
The ones that light me up?
And if they don’t show up on their own, shouldn’t I go make them happen?

I’m not talking about a frantic sprint. This isn’t about saying yes to everything in a panic. It’s about finding clarity. It’s about getting clear on what you want. It’s about taking responsibility for your choices.

For me, for however many projects I have left, that means this:
Work with great people.
Take on projects I love.
Charge enough to live well and do my best work.

How many projects do you have left?
What are you going to do with them?

Two Out of Three IS Bad

The people were great and the money was good.

It was a project with a respected, high-end contracting firm I’d been wanting to build a relationship with. I priced the job properly and brought in a team of top-tier subcontractors to help me with the work.

People and pricing were on point.
But the project itself?

It was… fine. It wasn’t bad. It just didn’t line up with the kind of work I want to be doing. I took the job anyway. I wasn’t excited about it, but I thought it might lead to better things later on.

Once the project started, I realized my mistake. I tried to fake enthusiasm, but I couldn’t. I got bored. Every little obstacle felt like a mountain. I just wanted to get it done and move on. And the quality of the work reflected that.

We did a good job. A quality job. A professional job.
But it wasn’t…exceptional.
And that’s what I want to do.
That’s what the client deserves.

They deserved someone who wanted to be there.
Someone who was lit up by the work.
Someone who would give it everything.

This time, that wasn’t me. And that’s why I should have said no.

I’m not proud of that. But I did learn something.

Before we wrapped up, the contractor asked me to bid on another project. It enticed my ego. Private island. Semi-celebrity client. Good money.
But the work itself? Same story.
Not aligned. Not for me.

This time, I said no.

I wasn’t going to say yes to something I didn’t really want again in hopes it would lead to something better someday.

That’s not how it works.
You don’t get to do the work you love by saying yes to the work you don’t.

I said no. The world didn’t end. The contractor respected it.
And now, a few years later, we’re working together on a project that actually fits.

Pain Point

It was the worst project I ever took on. And I’m grateful for it.

Winter was coming, and I didn’t have much work lined up. The guy helping me at the time was relying on a steady paycheck. And rightfully so. So when a project came along that would keep us busy all winter, I said yes. Even though, from the very first meeting, something in me was saying no.

I didn’t listen.

The work didn’t excite me.
The people—the client and the contractor—were a nightmare. I don’t say that lightly.
And the price? I underbid the job I didn’t even want because I was afraid I’d lose it.

I told myself I needed it. I told myself I’d make it work.

I was wrong.

Every day on that job made me feel smaller. Less creative. More resentful. My helper nearly quit. I wasn’t making money. I hated the work. And the people. And myself a little bit for taking it on.

As bad as it was, I needed that project. Not to survive the winter, but to change my life. The pain of that project showed me how far I’d drifted from the kind of work I wanted to be doing. And who was to blame for that.
Not the client.
Not the contractor.

Me.

Another Wave

It’s tempting to say yes to every project that comes your way.

I have some white space in my schedule right now. In January, I was excited about it. It felt like an adventure, uncharted territory where something magical might happen. That white space looked like a fluffy summer cloud where my stone dreams would come true.

But here in the early days of April, instead of inspiring dreams, that white space is inducing the slightest tinge of anxiety.

What if nothing comes along?
There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world right now.
What if this is the year things dry up?

I don’t judge myself for those thoughts. It’s a perfectly human response to uncertainty. And as much as I love talking about leaving room for dream clients and epic projects, the fragile, finite human in me craves the safety of a tightly booked schedule I can wrap around my worries like a blankie.

I’ve had inquiries. There’s still potential work coming in. But I’m staying firm and saying no to things that aren’t a good fit. I’m not ready to settle.

I have faith there’ll be another wave.

I never learned to surf when I lived in Hawaii, but I enjoyed watching people glide across the water. I noticed something: most of surfing is struggling through the surf to get to where the waves are—and then waiting. Waiting for the right one.

Sometimes the waves are steady and plentiful.
Sometimes they’re few and far between.
Sometimes they seem like a waste of time.
Sometimes they’re monsters. Riding them will either lead you to greatness or take you under.

But no matter what, there’s always another one.

So be patient. Be selective. Don’t panic.

Another wave is coming.

Spring Training

I don’t watch much baseball these days, but there’s something about spring training that still stirs a little excitement and nostalgia in me. It’s a sign of spring. A sign of warmer days ahead. And a reminder of all those carefree afternoons on the field with my friends and, even better, in the backyard with my dad.

I used to think spring training was just about getting back into shape after a long winter off. Now I see it differently.

Professional athletes don’t stop training once they make it to the big leagues. If anything, they double down. They train harder. Study more. Fine-tune every part of their game to keep their edge. To stay sharp. To stay in it.

At least the great ones do.

I’ve been doing stonework for a long time. Long enough to call myself a pro—even if some might argue that point, especially after watching me try to back a trailer down a long, tight driveway. But that doesn't mean I get to stop training. If anything, it means I need to train harder because I'm more aware of all the areas where I could keep improving.

I didn’t take the winter off. I don’t need to “get back in shape.” But that doesn’t mean I get to coast. There’s so much room to grow. Not just in the craft itself, but in all the supporting skills that hold the work together: planning, logistics, communication, efficiency. The quieter disciplines. The stuff that doesn’t always make the highlight reel, but matters just as much.

Spring is a good time to remember that. A nudge to recommit. To show up with a little more focus. A little more discipline.

I never want to feel like I’ve fully arrived. Like I can skip the workout. Like the training’s over.

Chasing the Dragon

I didn’t have any big epiphanies on this trip. No breakthroughs, no big ideas. I went to Italy to eat pizza and pasta and look at old stones. Mission accomplished. But secretly, I hoped time away from work and routine might create space for something to bubble up. Some new insight that might improve my life.

Walking around the ruins of Pompeii, I wasn't thinking about things I could build with stone when I got home. Staring at the horizon to avoid seasickness on the choppy ferry crossing to Capri, I wasn't thinking about what writing project I'd tackle next. Even though I didn’t spend much time actively thinking about work, part of me thought Maybe when I get home, I’ll have the next idea, the next insight, the next shift in perspective.

Here's a scary thought:

What if I already have what I need?

What if I’ve had the insights and found the clarity, and now it’s time to follow through? Ideas feel good. Epiphanies feel even better. But without taking action on them, what good are they?

Sometimes, chasing the next breakthrough is just another way of avoiding taking action. I know what I need to work on now. It's time to do that work.

———

Turns out, something did bubble up after all: I need to stop waiting for a new epiphany and get to work.

S P A C E

For months, I’d been thinking about writing a children’s book about Sasso. Thinking about it, but not acting on it.

This winter, while waiting at the hospital during Eliza’s surgery, I just... started. I don't know where the impetus came from. But I opened my notebook and started writing. And once I started, to my surprise, I kept going.

In the days that followed, I stayed home to take care of her while she recovered. Well, I did my best. I may have eaten more saltines than I gave her, but her meds only got mixed up once. Maybe twice. Anyways, with no stones to be laid, I kept writing.

When I went back to work, I kept it going.  Working in small chunks of time early in the morning before work or at night before bed made the project feel more manageable. I wasn’t overwhelmed at the notion of spending a full day in front of a blank screen. Working like this, I finished it. 

How many ideas wither before they can take root because we don’t leave enough space for them?


Sasso’s book crept up like a weed through a crack in the concrete. What’s waiting for space to bloom in your life?

Less But Better

Less but better. Every time I read that line, my brain plays a trick on me and sees the word butter. Actually, less but butter would work, too.

Less but better is most famously associated with Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer known for his minimalist and functional approach to design. Less but butter is now not-so-famously associated with me, an American stoneworker trying to design his life.

I love butter. I want the rich stuff you don't need too much of to be full. 

The typical way of doing stonework, and most trades, is to work 8 to 10 hours a day, at least five days a week, for as many years as you can take it, until your back and knees give out and they take you out behind the barn to put you out of your misery.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't work for me. Why can’t I set up my work in a way that does? It turns out, I can. And so can you. I don't know why I had that realization so late in life. But butter, sorry, better, late than never. 

One way is to take on fewer projects. The blue-collar part of me recoils from the thought. What a lazy son of a bitch. You should be just as miserable as the rest of us. I don't know where that voice came from. I didn't grow up with it. I guess it came from wanting to fit in on job sites when I first started out, trying to prove that I was something that I wasn't. 

I don't have to listen to that voice. There’s another voice, one that thinks less might lead to more. More of the good stuff. More energy to bring my best work to the right projects. More connection to clients and collaborators. More money. More space between projects for creativity, for the unexpected to arise.

Less but better. 

More butter. 

Crossroads

I’m at a crossroads. Metaphorically. Physically, I’m sitting on the couch in the long johns I wore under my insulated overalls today while I harvested stones out of the woods for a wall project here in wintry Maine. But it feels like I’m at a crossroads. Maybe that's the way having a business always feels?

I suppose it's healthy to continuously evaluate what you're doing and where you're going. Hence this most recent arrival at the crossroads.  It’s been just over a year since I decided to do stonework with no full-time help and I'm trying to decide if I want to keep moving forward like that. 

It’s been a great year. I’ve worked on some engaging projects and brought in and worked with some talented subcontractors. There were some bumps along the way; aren’t there always? To no one’s surprise but me, it took longer to get things done by myself than with two other people. But almost everything got mostly done. And now it’s almost spring again. Another season starts soon. 

Do I want to do it the same way again?

I think I do.

Am I positive about that?

No.

Should I bring in some full-time help? Maybe someone to manage that help? And I can spend my days lining up work to keep them all busy, never touching a stone again?

It’s an option. It certainly has more leverage than what I’m doing now. But it doesn’t feel right.

Should I bring in more subs? Expand my network of professionals I work with and have a steady flow of work to keep an alternating lineup of pro's busy all the time?

Maybe.

A network of professionals that do great work and can do that great work without me present every day sounds like a good option. I love working with other pros. And there’s some leverage in this approach.

Could I take on two or three big jobs a year with an A-team of subs? And in between those jobs do some other fun, engaging, life-affirming, cool shit? Write, travel, build a house, start another business, just live?

That sounds pretty good.

It also sounds like I need more clarity on what I want. 

The best and worst part of this is that it’s up to me. I get to decide. Just like you do with your affairs. All these options and an infinite more are possible. We get to choose how we do this. That’s some awesome responsibility.

What will we do with it?

What Do You Want?

What would you do if you weren’t tied to your 9-to-5? Or whatever your version of that looks like. My 9-to-5 is being self-employed, which has it's perks, but it’s still a job. It still requires me to show up, do the work, and get paid. If you didn’t have to do that anymore, if you had total freedom, what would you do?

Most of us dream about having complete control over our time. No boss, no deadlines, no obligations but those of our own making. But that begs the question: What do we actually want?

I don’t think many of us know.

Years ago, some friends and I were talking about what we’d do if we were rich. One of them, and I don’t mean to pick on him because I think this is completely relatable, said he’d "get in really, really good shape and drink a lot of beer." We don’t have to wait until we’re rich to do that. We can do that now.

I think almost all of us crave the ability to control our lives. But almost none of us know what we would do with that freedom.

Travel? Sure. That sounds great. But is that the whole plan? Just travel… forever?

I don’t know what the right answer is. Maybe the answer is different for everyone. Maybe it’s creating, serving, unplugging, or just being. But I do think it’s a question worth answering. And we might find that we don’t have to be rich or live with absolute freedom to start living the lives we want right now.

But what do I know? I’m not rich and I’m not in great shape. Hell, I don’t even drink beer.

Mailbox Money

Are you collecting money on a regular basis from something you created in the past? Something that keeps earning long after the initial work has been done?

A book you wrote and published years ago about the best walking trails in southern Italy. Proceeds from rental property in Caribou. An app that helps florists track their inventory. Stocks that pay quarterly dividends. A song you wrote for a Taco Bell commercial.

That’s what some people call mailbox money: income that keeps coming in long after the work is done. It frees you from the endless cycle of trading your time for an hourly wage.

Lately, this has been on my mind. Have you ever thought about mailbox money? Have you tired it? What’s worked for you? What hasn’t? What are you working on now?

Leverage

It sounds like a euphemism for exploitation. For gaining an unfair advantage. And sometimes, it is. But it’s also a tool to create more impact.

Working alone, I can only stack so many stones in a day. There’s a limit. Bring in one person, and now twice as much wall gets built. I’m doing the same amount of work, but more gets done. That’s leverage.

What if I bring in a second person? Now we’re getting three times as much done. The project wraps up sooner. The next one starts sooner. I have the potential to make more money than if I worked alone. And if I’m not a jerk, the people working with me are making good money too.

There’s another option. The two people I brought in could build the wall without me. They get paid well, and I still make money on the project. And I’ve freed up my time. I’m no longer trading hours for dollars. That time can now go toward something else, hopefully something productive. Building the business. Finding more work. Designing future projects. Sourcing materials.

There’s a ceiling to how much money you can make when you’re only getting paid by the hour. That’s where leverage comes in. Labor is the oldest form of leverage. It’s also where the exploitation concerns come in. If I bring in more people to build walls, pay them by the hour, and make money off their work, am I just putting them into the same situation I’m trying to escape?

Yes. And I don’t know how to get around that, other than paying people well and not being an asshole.

There are other kinds of leverage I want to explore. Creating something once and selling it over and over, like a book, a film, or some kind of thingamajig. I haven’t figured that part out yet.

What are your thoughts on leverage? Do you use it in your work? How is it working for you?

Fore

How do you define work?

Sounds like a simple question. It’s what you do for money, right?

For years, my definition of work has meant building things with stone. Hard, physical labor. If I wasn’t exhausted at the end of the day, it didn’t feel like real work. If I wasn’t getting paid as a direct result of that labor, it didn’t count.

That’s a narrow way of thinking, but I’m trying to expand it.

When I was young, once in a while my grandfather, great uncle, and their friend Oscar would take me golfing. Sort of. I’d walk the nine-hole course with them, twice, while they played. I loved it. I didn’t learn much about golf. I was too busy hunting for golf balls.

As we moved from hole to hole, I’d walk along the edges of the course, where the grass met the woods. I learned all the best spots where people lost their balls. By the time the round was over, I’d have a stash that I’d sell back to the clubhouse. I don’t remember how much they’d give me, but it was enough to make my sister jealous. I felt rich.

Somehow, I lost that way of thinking.

How did I come to believe the right way to work was trading labor for an hourly wage?

How do I find those golf balls again?

By The Hour

For as long as I can remember, I thought the goal was simple: work for myself, make a living doing something I love, and have control over my time. And I’ve done that. No boss. No office. No punching of the clock.

But the more I do this, the more I see the trap I’ve built. I make most of my money as an hourly wage based on the hours I move stones around. There’s no leverage in that. I haven’t built a business, I’ve built a job. If I don’t move those stones around, I don’t get paid. I can decide when and where I work, but I’m still locked into the same equation: an hour of labor for a fixed dollar amount.

I love stonework. I don’t just want to keep doing it, I want to keep learning and getting better at it. And I want to do it on my terms.

Maybe that means taking a break from stonework during the long cold winters and working on other types of creative projects.

Maybe that means having weeks or months away from stonework between large projects to focus on other creative endeavors.

Maybe it means laying stones 3 or 4 days a week and exercising other creative muscles with that newfound time.

I don’t know how this is going to play out yet. Or even what, exactly, I want to do with that “other” time. Work? Yes. Definitely. But on what?

Something that doesn’t pay by the hour.

On A Thursday?

It didn’t look like work, at least not the way I’m used to defining it. I sat on the couch, drank coffee, and plucked the keyboard of my laptop. On a Thursday.

I won’t be getting paid for this morning’s work. There’s no one to bill for that time. There’s not much that’s tangible to show for the effort: a blog post not many will read, a few pages of a book in progress, failed negotiations for a piece of used equipment, and a search for granite. But I believe this work will pay off. Not in an exchange of time for money, but in a shift in mindset. Because I now believe that this is work. 

I was raised with the idea that real work happens with your hands. That if you’re not doing something physical, it’s not really work at all. This thinking wasn't forced on me.  It’s what I saw my dad do every day. He's a lobsterman. At 82, he’s still hauling traps. His work doesn’t pay an hourly wage, but it requires him to go out on the water to earn his living. There’s a kind of freedom in that—you don’t have to go hauling if you don’t want to. But if you don’t, you make no money.

That’s the kind of freedom I’ve built for myself. I mostly own my time, but I only get paid if I show up and move stone. Today, I’ll leave in an hour to go to a job site. No one is making me. But if I don’t go, I don’t make any money.

That feels like a trap. A trap I built for myself. A trap I want to get out of.

It starts with changing how I define work.

Job Posting

In Unemployable, I cheekily said I don’t like the term self-employed because I don’t want to be employed at all. What I meant was this: I don’t want a life where I trade forty hours a week for an hourly wage, fifty-two weeks a year. That structure never appealed to me. That’s why I started working for myself early on.

But I made a mistake.

Instead of laying the tracks to freedom, I built a job. One that I love. One that gives me freedoms I don’t take for granted. But also one where I’m still trading an hour of my labor—often hard, physical labor—for a predetermined unit of money.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

I’ve known this for years, but recently, it hit me differently. With new clarity, I realized I am fully responsible for designing my life in a way that works for me. I don’t have to follow the path society insists on. It was never the path I wanted to take.

So, how do I get off it?

I don’t know exactly what that will look like. But I aim to find out.

Ten Minutes

Sometimes, ten minutes is all you get.

Not enough time to write a book, or a page. But enough to write a paragraph. Enough time to put one thought out into the world.

The wall we’re building now is taking longer than I want it to. After moving snow, unfolding an intricate layer of tarps off the wall, harvesting more stone to build with, it feels like there isn’t enough time to build, to get anything done. Is it even worth working on the wall for a couple hours?

Yes, it is.A few hours are enough to add some stones to the wall.

Ten minutes isn’t enough to write a book. But it’s enough for a blog post. Those posts add up, like the stones in the wall.

Momentary Weakness

I'm having trouble saying no.

Maybe I'm just tired. The driving, the relentless snow, the shoveling, the stone harvesting, the wall building—it all adds up. And as we inch toward spring, maybe I’ve lost some nerve about the white space in my calendar that I claim to love.

It takes strength to say no to a project that’s almost a good fit. When I’m not at my best, I fall back on the 3 P’s—and Eliza’s sage counsel—to keep me from saying yes for the wrong reasons.

Memory Hole

A friend gave me a compliment yesterday. He said my work has improved a lot in the short time he’s known me. And I think he’s right.

I’m not bragging. Far from it.

It started when he sent me a picture of a wall I built four years ago, asking if I could search my memory hole for the type of stone I used. I surprised us both by remembering exactly. Then I joked that, in my memory hole, that wall looked a lot better than it did in the picture. He agreed.

Four years ago, when I finished that wall, I thought it was a masterpiece. Because it was better than most of the walls I’d built before, I assumed that meant it was great. At the time, it was the peak of my skill level. But now, four years later, I see it more clearly. It’s fine. Good, even. But it’s far from a masterpiece.

I’ve had this experience countless times. Isn’t it unavoidable in any creative field?

Twelve or so years ago, I built a wall for my friend’s mom. I was obsessed with it. I’d take pictures at the end of the day and stare at them in bed at night, mesmerized. In the history of stone walls, was this the best wall anyone had ever built?

I just took a break from writing this post to find a picture of it. Needless to say, it’s cringe.

Here’s the bad news: Compared to your current work, your old work is shit. And if you extrapolate that out, compared to what you’ll make someday, your current work is shit too. So really, you’re only ever doing shit work.

Now what do you do with that?

It sounds bleak, but I’m being overly nihilistic. There should be a natural evolution in our work. I should be better at my craft now than I was twelve years ago, or four years ago. I should be better today than I was yesterday.

I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful I’m growing. And I’m grateful I’m not paralyzed by the fear that someday, I might look back on what I’m doing now and cringe.