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Japanese psychology often likens attention to a flashlight. Wherever you shine this flashlight is where your focus and energy go. However, problems can arise when people shine this flashlight inwards for too long. They focus obsessively on their thoughts and emotions, and particularly those related to things outside of their control. Another common tendency that causes problems is shining the flashlight on other peoples behavior, the past, or the future. These are all inherently uncontrollable areas. Worrying about these factors can lead to a mental loop where it seems impossible to find solutions. When you start fixating on past events you cant change, it can lead to feelings of guilt, regret, and depression. Similarly, focusing excessively on the future and constantly trying to predict and prevent every possible negative outcome can lead to anxiety. A powerful example In a 2020 study by Lucas LaFreniere and Michelle Newman, the researchers asked participants with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) to track their worries over time through a journal. When they then looked back on those journal entries, they found that 91.4 per cent of their worries never came true. Whats even more striking is that 30 per cent of the worries that did come true turned out better than expected. The implications of this study are profound. We waste the vast majority of the mental energy we invest in worrying. Thats because the vast majority of the time, the outcomes we feared either dont happen or arent as bad as we anticipate. This research underscores the importancewhenever possibleof redirecting the flashlight of attention. You need to shift from uncontrollable, anxiety-inducing thoughts to more practical, solution-oriented thinking. Attention in the world of high performance I recently co-authored a research paper called Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study. The study focused on identifying the cognitive elements of performance in high-pressure situations, including the military, first responders, upper echelons of business, and competitive sport. The study included 68 experts from the military, elite sport, high-stakes business, and performance neuroscience. Our task was to identify the cognitive drivers under pressure and rate them in order of importance. Across those four high-performance fields, the experts unanimously ranked attentional control as the most critical trainable skill for thriving under pressure. More than processing speed, more than working memory, more than effort, they identified attentional control as the number one driver of performance under pressure. Thats because attention is the brains gatekeeper. It dictates what we notice, how we feel, and, ultimately, how we behave. If there are things hijacking your attention, whether that be notifications, headlines, or other distractions, you lose the ability to act with intention. Practical exercises for shifting the flashlight of attention Here are some quick tips to shift the flashlight of your attention: 1. Zones of control exercise On a piece of paper, draw two circles. In circle 1, write down everything you can control about a problem. In circle 2, list whats outside of your control. Focus your energy solely on circle 1, which is what you can control, and do your best to let go of circle 2. 2. Attentional flashlight practice Imagine your attention as a flashlight. Throughout the day, periodically pause and ask yourself: Where am I shining my flashlight? Is it focused on something productive and within my control, or is it caught in rumination or worry about uncontrollable events? 3. Social media detox Take a break from social media for a day or a week. Use this time to observe how much better you feel when youre not comparing yourself to others. Replace your social media time with activities that enrich your life, whether that be exercise, reading, or spending time with loved ones. 4. The news headlines challenge Set a timer for five minutes. Read todays news headlines on your preferred website (dont click through to articles). List each headline in two columns: zone 1, Can I directly influence this?, and zone 2, Outside my control. Notice how the zone 2 column is likely full while the zone 1 control column is nearly empty. This isnt about avoiding important issuesits about recognizing where you can spend your energy in a productive way. Focus on local actions you can take rather than global problems you have no way of solving. 5. Mindful breathing Spend five to ten minutes each day practising mindful breathing. This exercise helps redirect attention from racing thoughts and worries to the present moment. This grounds you in what you can control, which is your breath and your immediate surroundings. 6. Attentional audit exercise Grab a blank page and write out a list of categories for how you spend your time. Record every purposeful activity, social media, TV or streaming, ruminating or worrying in your own head, exercise/movement, meaningful connections, and hobbies or meaningful activities. Estimate how much time you spent on each category in the last 24 hours. Finally, sketch this as a heat map, using circles of red or orange for activities of high attention, and blue or green circles for low-attention activities. Make sure the size of the circles reflects the time spent. Are you happy with your heat map? If you have a partner and/or kids, this activity is worthwhile doing it together, and then using your heat maps as discussion prompts for what makes a meaningful life. Attentional deployment is about redirecting your focus away from the unhelpful and toward the helpful. Attention is your mental currency, so spend it wisely and dont waste it on worrying about things that are beyond your control. Japanese psychology often likens attention to a flashlight. Wherever you shine this flashlight is where your focus and energy go. However, problems can arise when people shine this flashlight inwards for too long. They focus obsessively on their thoughts and emotions, and particularly those related to things outside of their control. Another common tendency that causes problems is shiing the flashlight on other peoples behavior, the past, or the future. These are all inherently uncontrollable areas. Worrying about these factors can lead to a mental loop where it seems impossible to find solutions. When you start fixating on past events you cant change, it can lead to feelings of guilt, regret, and depression. Similarly, focusing excessively on the future and constantly trying to predict and prevent every possible negative outcome can lead to anxiety. A powerful example In a 2020 study by Lucas LaFreniere and Michelle Newman, the researchers asked participants with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) to track their worries over time through a journal. When they then looked back on those journal entries, they found that 91.4 per cent of their worries never came true. Whats even more striking is that 30 per cent of the worries that did come true turned out better than expected. The implications of this study are profound. We waste the vast majority of the mental energy we invest in worrying. Thats because the vast majority of the time, the outcomes we feared either dont happen or arent as bad as we anticipate. This research underscores the importancewhenever possibleof redirecting the flashlight of attention. You need to shift from uncontrollable, anxiety-inducing thoughts to more practical, solution-oriented thinking. Attention in the world of high performance I recently co-authored a research paper called Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study. The study focused on identifying the cognitive elements of performance in high-pressure situations, including the military, first responders, upper echelons of business, and competitive sport. The study included 68 experts from the military, elite sport, high-stakes business, and performance neuroscience. Our task was to identify the cognitive drivers under pressure and rate them in order of importance. Across those four high-performance fields, the experts unanimously ranked attentional control as the most critical trainable skill for thriving under pressure. More than processing speed, more than working memory, more than effort, they identified attentional control as the number one driver of performance under pressure. Thats because attention is the brains gatekeeper. It dictates what we notice, how we feel, and, ultimately, how we behave. If there are things hijacking your attention, whether that be notifications, headlines, or other distractions, you lose the ability to act with intention. Practical exercises for shifting the flashlight of attention Here are some quick tips to shift the flashlight of your attention: 1. Zones of control exercise On a piece of paper, draw two circles. In circle 1, write down everything you can control about a problem. In circle 2, list whats outside of your control. Focus your energy solely on circle 1, which is what you can control, and do your best to let go of circle 2. 2. Attentional flashlight practice Imagine your attention as a flashlight. Throughout the day, periodically pause and ask yourself: Where am I shining my flashlight? Is it focused on something productive and within my control, or is it caught in rumination or worry about uncontrollable events? 3. Social media detox Take a break from social media for a day or a week. Use this time to observe how much better you feel when youre not comparing yourself to others. Replace your social media time with activities that enrich your life, whether that be exercise, reading, or spending time with loved ones. 4. The news headlines challenge Set a timer for five minutes. Read todays news headlines on your preferred website (dont click through to articles). List each headline in two columns: zone 1, Can I directly influence this?, and zone 2, Outside my control. Notice how the zone 2 column is likely full while the zone 1 control column is nearly empty. This isnt about avoiding important issuesits about recognizing where you can spend your energy in a productive way. Focus on local actions you can take rather than global problems you have no way of solving. 5. Mindful breathing Spend five to ten minutes each day practising mindful breathing. This exercise helps redirect attention from racing thoughts and worries to the present moment. This grounds you in what you can control, which is your breath and your immediate surroundings. 6. Attentional audit exercise Grab a blank page and write out a list of categories for how you spend your time. Record every purposeful activity, social media, TV or streaming, ruminating or worrying in your own head, exercise/movement, meaningful connections, and hobbies or meaningful activities. Estimate how much time you spent on each category in the last 24 hours. Finally, sketch this as a heat map, using circles of red or orange for activities of high attention, and blue or green circles for low-attention activities. Make sure the size of the circles reflects the time spent. Are you happy with your heat map? If you have a partner and/or kids, this activity is worthwhile doing it together, and then using your heat maps as discussion prompts for what makes a meaningful life. Attentional deployment is about redirecting your focus away from the unhelpful and toward the helpful. Attention is your mental currency, so spend it wisely and dont waste it on worrying about things that are beyond your control. Excerpted from The Hardiness Effect: Grow From Stress, Optimise Health, Live Longer. Copyright 2025 by Dr Paul Taylor. Available from Wiley.
Category:
E-Commerce
When Hurricane Melissa began moving toward Jamaica earlier this week, Amazons chief meteorologist was watching closelynot just for the companys global shipping operations, but also to see how its disaster relief team might need to act. “As soon as the hurricane formed, we had eyes on it,” says Abe Diaz, principal technical product manager for Amazon’s disaster relief team. “We’ve been tracking this for multiple days.” [Photo: Amazon] Inside an Amazon fulfillment center near Atlanta, pallets are stacked with disaster relief supplies, from medical supplies to solar-powered lights. Its one of 15 massive disaster relief hubs that the company has stationed inside warehouses around the world. In the wake of the record-breaking hurricane that hit Jamaica, with flooding and 185-mile-an-hour winds that destroyed homes and infrastructure, the hub was poised to send shipments to partners like the Red Cross. When the team spoke to Fast Company yesterday, they were planning a potential shipment of power supplies on a cargo plane for today. “Damage assessments are still underway at both of the airports and then they’re going to be prioritizing life-saving, rescue and response teams for access first,” says Jeff Schweitzer, who leads Amazon’s global disaster relief operations. If all went as planned, though, the power systems would also be on a flight, ready to support first responders and “provide augmented power in areas that just simply won’t have power for weeks to come,” he says. Other early shipments will likely include tarps and solar lights that can also charge phones. Each delivery will happen only after nonprofits or agencies on the ground assess the situation and order what they need. “As with everything at Amazon, we work backwards from the customer,” Diaz says. [Photo: Amazon] In the warehouse, some pallets are wrapped in color-coded shrink wrap, to help nonprofits easily tell from a distance what’s inside, such as diapers. One pallet is designed to include everything needed for a nonprofit to set up a mobile office. Amazon first began its disaster relief work in 2017, after conversations with organizations about how difficult it is to get the right supplies quickly after disasters. Since then, it has been closely working with organizations to understand what they need and to track data about what’s used in each event so it can better prepare. [Photo: Amazon] The team works to find the most efficient products to donatefor example, water filters instead of bottled water. “It makes no sense for us to send a whole bunch of water bottles and fly them out to Jamaica when high-efficiency water filters can do 100 times the volume with just a pallet of product,” Diaz says. “These are the kind of items that we’re just trying to be really smart on what is needed and what we’re getting there.” [Photo: Amazon] The hubs, which are each located inside existing Amazon fulfillment centers to make use of the company’s existing infrastructure and workers, are each filled with products most likely to be needed locally. A hub near L.A. is stocked with supplies for wildfires, such as masks. The Atlanta hub has kits for cleaning up homes after a floodfrom gloves and shovels to respiratorsthat have been used in previous hurricanes and events like the floods in Central Texas this summer. [Photo: Amazon] Organizations also make their own preparations; the World Food Programme, for example, prepositioned a shipment of food and other suplies to the area before Hurricane Melissa hit. But Amazon can quickly respond as more is needed, with pallets ready to be sent out as soon as a request comes in. It’s one example of corporate philanthropy that makes use of a company’s core competency, rather than simply giving money to causes. (Amazon also uses its delivery infrastructure to help food banks reach more clients at home.) Toyota did something similar when it donated kaizen training to the Food Bank for New York City, helping cut wait times for dinner from an hour and a half to 18 minutes.
Category:
E-Commerce
A first-of-its-kind refinery has been in the works for a decade and half. Set to be completed this year, the facility is design to produce climate-friendly jet fuel, a material in increasing demand in response to climate commitments and regulations around the world. The refinerycalled the Freedom Pines Fuelswas designed to showcase new methods of producing the fuel, and was receiving government support to help clean up air travel. Now, a year behind schedule due to a hurricane and equipment glitches, the project hit another roadblock this summer, when a major shift in U.S. energy policy under the new administration threw a wrench into the business model. It’s now a story of a company quickly adapting under pressure, and an illustration of the challengesand continued opportunityof clean energy in a more hostile political environment. The goal of the company behind the project, Illinois-based LanzaJet, is to produce a close facsimile of the kerosene-based fuel that powers jets and many helicopters and propeller planes todaywithout using petroleum. Instead, the Freedom Pines Fuels plant in the forest hamlet of Soperton, Georgia, will use ethanol to make whats known as sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. LanzaJet was ready to start with ethanol made from Brazilian sugarcane, until a new U.S. law forced a quick shift to midwestern corn. The fuels that make modern travel possiblekerosene, gasoline, and dieselare typically refined from crude oil, rich in hydrocarbon molecules that release copious energy when burned. But burning them also inundates the atmosphere with heat-trapping carbon dioxide. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] SAF is essentially lab-grown jet fuel, made from carbon already in the environment, rather than pumped up from oil wells. It’s a tweaked formulationfor instance, with less sulfurdesigned to burn cleaner. Sugarcane and corn are two of many possible carbon sources, along with cornstalks, twigs, vegetable oil, factory exhaust, and even garbage. The CO2 released by making and burning SAF should, in theory, be offset by the carbon captured to make more SAF, forming a closed loop. The Freedom Pines Fuels plant is a mini version of a typical refinery, slated to produce nine million gallons of SAF and a million of green diesel fuel in its first year. (A standard crude-oil refinery could churn a billion or more gallons of fuels.) But the Georgia plant is meant to be big enough to show the technology can work at scale. “Most process technology companies . . . almost never build plants of this magnitude,” says Jimmy Samartzis, a climate-focused airline industry veteran who became CEO when LanzaJet was founded in 2020. “It’s expensive, it’s big. But we thought and feltaccurately, looking back on it todayit was the right move to make.” Before the 2024 election, the federal government was also promising generous financial support for Freedom Pines. A Potential Market Boom LanzaJet is backed by companies that are counting on, or stand to benefit from, the shift to carbon-neutral jet fuel, including All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Southwest Airlines, and plane maker Airbus. The UNs International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has committed the industry to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In addition, laws and regulations, such as in Singapore, the U.K., and the European Union, have started requiring airlines or suppliers to blend SAF into the jet fuel supply, beginning at around 12%, then ramping up in later years. More such requirements are in the works in India, Indonesia, and Japan. The European Union is by far the most ambitious. From a mere 2% SAF blend required today, quotas rise steeply about every five years, hitting 70% in 2050. Theres further demand from companies, such as LanzaJet backer Microsoft, striving to meet aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals. In addition to reducing its own footprint, Microsoft has announced plans to buy SAF Certificates,” which subsidize the cost of the fuel to boost its usage. SAF has a long way to go in making a dent. It will account for just 0.7% of all jet fuel in 2025, according to the International Air Transport Association. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] Obviously, if you look at the size of the overall aviation fuel space, in theory the [SAF] market is potentially huge for those that can offer a product at a competitive price, says John MacDonagh, senior research analyst at capital markets research firm PitchBook. LanzaJet has raised “approximately” $400 million, according to Samartzis, from these companies and other backers, including energy producers Shell and Suncor, the U.S. Department of Energy, airport operator Groupe ADP, and Bill Gatess Breakthrough Energy fund. Another backer is LanzaTech. Founded in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2005, it relocated its headquarters to Skokie, Illinois, in 2014. The company has engineered microbes to convert waste such as carbon monoxide and dioxide from factories into ethanol, as another route to carbon-neutral fuel and other chemicals. In 2010, LanzaTech and the U.S. Department of Energy started collaborating on technology to transform ethanol into jet fuel. In 2020, LanzaTech spun out LanzaJet as a new company to continue the work. LanzaJet is dipping a toe into the SAF market with Freedom Pines, with plans to build more plants, such as a collaboration with British Airways to open a facility in the U.K. by 2028. LanzaJet has also announced partnerships in India, Japan, and Kazakhstan to build additional facilities. But as it continues to announce expansion overseas, things have gotten messy back at home. SAF Meets MAGA
Category:
E-Commerce
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