In residential building, most stories about pressure focus on business owners, supervisors, and site schedules. Far fewer look at the people behind the emails, prestarts, and plan changes the “humans behind the build” who quietly hold huge responsibility every day.
Mindfulness mentor Stacey Combe knows that load first-hand.
Before she was teaching builders how to handle pressure, she was right in the middle of it working in preconstruction for a high volume builder on the Sunshine Coast, juggling dozens of files at once while raising twin babies and trying to keep her own head above water.
Today, she is using that lived experience to help the industry think differently about performance, pressure, and how we show up at work and at home.
From preconstruction workhorse to “human behind the build”
Stacey never planned to end up in mindfulness.
“I have always been really creative and loved houses,” she explained on The Good Builder Podcast. So in her twenties, she did what many driven people in the industry have done. She studied interior design, started emailing builders, and grabbed the first real break she could.
That break came with a Brisbane land development and building company. They controlled both land and house, which meant Stacey saw how projects moved from paddock to plan. She started as a land development assistant, then moved into preconstruction where her career really took shape.
Later, a move to the Sunshine Coast meant starting again. At the time, the Coast felt quiet. There was not much construction visible, “no cars on the road”. Stacey still backed herself. She emailed local builders, landed an interview almost straight away, and was hired by a high volume builder.
She stayed more than six years.
By any measure, it was a high performance role. Clients would sign their contracts, then Stacey would guide them from that first commitment through to just before building approval. She prepared plans for covenant approval and building approval, worked with estimators, processed variations, and fixed issues when something slipped through.
“If there were problems on site that came back to preconstruction, they came back to me,” she said.
On top of the workload came life. During those years she had twins and often had to bring them into the office. Days were long, expectations were high, and like many preconstruction staff, she felt the constant push to “get it out of precon” so the company could start building and get paid.
“It was the best and the hardest six years of my life,” she said. “Fun, full of banter and good people, but a lot to hold.”
When Covid arrived and the wobble began
Like many inside construction, Stacey hit her limit during the Covid boom.
Preconstruction roles took the full force of the demand surge. More clients. More contracts. More changes. More people building homes for the first time in their lives. Stacey was used to carrying 20 active jobs at a time and performing at a high level almost on autopilot.
“I was really good at seeing multiple clients a week,” she said. “But when Covid hit and that crazy busy period started, I just began to wobble.”
The signs were familiar: more mistakes, lost confidence, waves of self-doubt. The inner voice that used to say “you’ve got this” flipped to “I am not good enough at this anymore”.
The pressure was not only external.
There was time pressure, people pressure, and what she calls internal pressure the relentless self-talk that tells you you are falling behind, letting people down, or not up to the job. For a while, she tried to push through it like most people in the industry do.
Instead of easing, the crunch deepened.
Stepping away to learn a new way
At that point, Stacey made a decision that many people dream about but never take.
She stepped back.
Her father, who had worked in the plumbing industry, gave her an opening to do some work from home while she studied mindfulness. Over the next couple of years, she dug into the practice, not as a distant idea but as a tool she needed in her own life.
The turning point came when she looked back at why she had started in mindfulness at all.
“I realised the whole reason I went into this modality was because of the building industry,” she said. “I had left an industry I loved. I had found something that helped me so much. It made sense to bring it back to support the people who were still there.”
That is how Mindfulness for Construction was born.
Rather than walk away from residential building, Stacey re-entered the industry with a new role: helping builders, staff, and trades build self-awareness and self-leadership in the same places where she once felt overwhelmed.
What mindfulness actually is (and what it is not)
One of the first things Stacey tackles is the stereotype.
“When people hear mindfulness, they think of a monk on a mountain,” she joked. “That is not what we are doing.”
For her, mindfulness is simple to explain and powerful to apply.
“Mindfulness is attention training. It is moment to moment awareness.”
Most builders and office staff know the opposite feeling well. You are sending an email to a client while your head is still replaying yesterday’s site drama. You are walking into a meeting with your shoulders up around your ears because of a problem that blew up an hour earlier. You get home and cannot remember half the day because you were on autopilot.
In an industry where safety and quality depend on focus, that scattered attention has a real cost.
Stacey’s approach is to treat mindfulness as a performance tool, not something separate from work. Rather than asking builders to disappear for a long meditation session, she gives them techniques to use in real time on site, in the office, and at home.
“It is about being as present as you can be with what is in front of you,” she said. “So you can respond better, not just react.”
Self leadership for the “human behind the build”
Stacey talks often about the human behind the build.
There is the person at work, dealing with schedules, clients, trades, and supervisors. There is the person at home, dealing with family, finances, and the rest of life. The two are not separate. Pressure leaks between them.
“Everything bleeds into everything,” she said. “You cannot pretend the person at home and the person at work are different.”
Her goal is to help people build self leadership. That does not mean leading a team. It means knowing when you need to shift your own state before you send the email, make the call, or walk into the next meeting.
In the podcast, Az shared how a simple pause before a recent meeting completely changed the tone. Instead of charging in on autopilot, he stopped, checked in with how he was feeling, reminded himself what The Good Builder is trying to achieve, and walked in more present and energised.
“What you did there is mindful self leadership,” Stacey told him. “You changed the direction of that meeting because you changed yourself first.”
The STOP technique: A simple framework for busy days
One practical tool Stacey teaches is the STOP technique.
It is designed for the kind of situations builders face every day: wrong tiles delivered to site, a client email that triggers frustration, a supplier issue that could easily turn into a blow up.
STOP stands for:
- Stop
Call a time out in your own head. Do not respond straight away. - Take a moment
Take a breath, grab some water, step outside for 30 seconds. Give your nervous system a chance to settle. - Observe
Notice what actually happened, how you are feeling, and what part of the story you might be missing. Did someone misread a number? Was there a change that never got passed on? - Proceed
Respond with intention, not anger. Make the call, send the email, or solve the problem from a clearer head.
Stacey is the first to say that this does not make anyone perfect.
“We can be as mindful as we want and still react,” she said. “We are human. But this gives you a better chance of choosing a response you are happier with.”
It also protects relationships.
In a sector where long term trust between builders, trades, suppliers, and clients is everything, moving from snap reactions to thoughtful responses can be the difference between a small hiccup and a broken partnership.
Bringing builders together to talk pressure, not just profit
Stacey’s work is not only one-on-one.
On the Sunshine Coast, she recently hosted an in person event focused on mindfulness for construction and building, bringing together builders, project managers, designers, supervisors, and other industry professionals for an afternoon of tools, conversation, and connection.
“I love online, but being in the room matters,” she said. “People can see you, hear your story, and see they are not the only ones feeling pressure.”
The session was built around three key ideas:
- Naming the real pressures in the industry time, people, and internal thoughts
- Normalising them instead of pretending everything is fine
- Showing that mindfulness is not “fluffy”, but a set of on the job tools for a sustainable career
There was networking, food, and open discussion about what people are carrying and how they are coping.
“It is not about changing who you are,” she told the group. “It is about making it easier on yourself so you can keep doing great work without burning out.”
Why this matters for the industry
The story Stacey tells is not unique.
Across The Good Builder community, we hear the same themes: post Covid fatigue, “PTSD” from the boom period, ongoing cost and regulatory pressure, and the quiet, personal strain that does not always show up in profit and loss statements.
Builders are still hitting deadlines, still delivering homes, still training apprentices. But many are doing it on an empty tank.
Mindfulness on its own will not fix structural issues like land supply, labour shortages, or planning delays. What it can do is give the people inside the system a better way to move through their day, lead themselves, and keep relationships intact.
For Stacey, that is what makes the work worth doing.
“Without you, we do not have these beautiful homes,” she said. “You are the most important part of the build.”
Where to from here
Stacey continues to work directly with builders, teams, and individuals across the industry, helping them integrate mindfulness into daily operations rather than bolt it on as an after hours extra.
Her message is simple:
- You do not have to choose between high performance and wellbeing.
- You do not have to leave the industry you love in order to feel better.
- Small moments of awareness can shift entire days and projects.
For an industry built on concrete, steel, and schedules, that kind of internal work can feel unfamiliar. Yet as more builders talk openly about pressure, and more practitioners like Stacey step in with practical tools, mindfulness is starting to look less like a buzzword and more like part of the toolkit.
The homes Australia needs over the next decade will demand a lot from the people who design, sell, estimate, and build them. The more those people can lead themselves with clarity and presence, the stronger the whole sector will be.
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