KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, New Mexico -- Lt. Col. Jannell MacAulay is many things: a pilot, a leader, a wife, a mother, an academic and a speaker at the upcoming TEDx ABQ event Sept. 9 at the Albuquerque Convention Center.
But when this Airman with a set of wings and a doctorate takes the stage for her TED Talk, she will do so as a pioneer.
As the director of human performance and leadership for the 58th Special Operations Wing, MacAulay has been working to optimize human performance through mindfulness, the practice of focusing attention on the present moment. This journey will be the focus of her TED Talk.
She employed mindfulness, achieved through simple meditation, as a squadron commander at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, and now at the 58th.
Requests for her to share her knowledge on the subject around the Air Force are growing.
Although MacAulay admits that use of mindfulness is uncommon in her service, she asserts that this won’t be the case for long.
“It’s not uncommon today to see a military formation running, because we understand the link between physical exercise and physical health,” MacAulay said. “Now people are beginning to understand the link between mental exercise and psychological health. We may be the only wing in the Air Force meditating right now, but the science and evidence is mounting.”
After she developed the practice of mindfulness as the commander of the 305th Operations Support Squadron at JBMDL, the unit won Air Mobility Command’s Operations Support Squadron of the Year and Air Force Airfield of the Year in 2016. Moreover, MacAulay watched mindfulness improve the lives of her Airmen.
“I have people who contact me all the time, even years down the road, and tell me this practice has made a difference,” she said. “I’ve had people tell me they have shared it with their spouses and applied it in their lives (outside the Air Force) as well.”
Activities geared toward focusing attention and attending to the present moment are ongoing at the 58th. The regimen aims to help Airmen handle stress in their busy lives, both professional and personal, MacAulay explained.
The challenge of being a technical expert, leader and manager, as well as a spouse and parent, led MacAulay to seek solutions in her own life and find the academic and personal pursuit of mindfulness.
“At the beginning of your career, you focus on your technical expertise, and when you become good at that, we expect you to become leaders, and add a whole host of extra expectations: to manage things, to fix processes and to develop the people under you. And on top of that, we have life stresses, houses, spouses, kids, parents — there’s a lot of things that draw your attention away from your ability to do your job,” she said.
These stresses caused her to recognize an inability to focus on the present. Time at Air Command and Staff College and in an Air University doctorate program allowed her to search for and discover solutions, which were centered on mindfulness.
“We want to help you become the best version of yourselves,” she said, addressing a group of 58th Airmen recently. “That means reigning in a wandering mind, which can inhibit the ability to respond well under pressure. Life is stressful, especially in the military. Instead of letting that stress get you down and inhibit your performance, you can, through the practice of mindfulness, focus on the present moment and perform at your best.”
For more information on 58th SOW programs for making the transition to being present and increasing effectiveness, contact MacAulay at the 58th SOW Human Performance and Leadership Center at 846-7084.
For tickets to TEDx ABQ, visit tedxabq.com. Airmen will get a 20 percent discount using the code USAF.