When building a home in Boulder County, you can load it with eco-friendly materials, from windows to wood. You can build a truth window to reveal the green interiors, and install a solar array to power everything in the house and even give back to the grid.

Now, a Nederland company is making sure the underbelly of your home is crafted with as much intention as the straw bale insulation and the VOC-free paint. High Performance Land & Home is bringing mindfulness to septic and excavation work — a move, founders say, is helping workers stick around in an industry rife with turnover.

Jesse Seavers was introduced to mindfulness as an elementary school student athlete by his father, a physician, to help him overcome the stage fright that overtook him in the batter’s box.

“I was a good athlete but I had a really hard time with my nerves,” he recalled. “I would go up to the plate and freeze up.”

What Seavers came to call “high-performance mindfulness” became a driving force of his life. It brought him to Boulder County: he attended Naropa University to deepen his ties to the conscious community. “I was thinking about joining a monastery,” he said, “but that didn’t feel quite right.”

After a venture into contemplative training for entrepreneurs, Seavers got back to what he loved most: Digging. It was his favorite thing to do during a stint he did building passive adobe homes in his native New Mexico, and what he would turn to after stressful days at work or school.

Seavers doesn’t force mindfulness on his crew. He mostly reminds them to be conscious of their breath while working, and encourages mindful walks when under duress.

“It’s not like we’re going to be all sensitive and touchy-feely, but what I tell people is to take personal responsibility for their emotional state while on the job site,” he said. “It’s a very physical job: we’re moving giant rocks, dealing with 10,000-lb. machinery. One careless thought or movement and it can have dire consequences.”

In business for nearly a year, High Performance has not lost a laborer — a notable accomplishment in an industry where labor shortages have pushed already high turnover even higher. Local developers report workers being lured away by the promise of higher wages, sometimes abandoning a site mid-day.

Turnover in the construction workforce last year reached its highest point in six years, according to Bureau of Labor Statistic data. Separations, as BLS calls them, for each of the first six months of 2017 were higher than year-ago figures.

High Performance doesn’t advertise its contemplative practices to prospective hires or clients yet, preferring to differentiate on price and performance. Unless you stumble upon hard-hat-bedecked workers doing yoga or quigong at a site it would be easy to miss what sets this crew apart.

One potential giveaway, though: Custom ordered stickers slapped on some equipment and gear with the company’s motto: Breathe deep, dig deep.

Shay Castle: 303-473-1626, castles@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/shayshinecastle