Success as an Air Traffic Controller is a Choice- Embody Perseverance
Talent will get you to the door.
Perseverance is what walks you through it.
We're continuing our series on success in air traffic control being a choice — built on John Maxwell's book Success Is a Choice — and this week we're dealing with what may honestly be the single most important topic for anyone headed to Oklahoma City.
Perseverance.
If you're at the Academy right now, you already know exactly what I'm talking about. And having been there as an instructor for five years, I can tell you this with total confidence: the Academy is going to hit you.
It will hit you when you least expect it.
And then it's going to sit back and watch how you react.
That reaction is the whole ballgame.
Perseverance Is About Finishing
Talent is important.
I'm not going to tell you otherwise.
But talent gets beaten up.
Talent has bad days.
Talent shows up to a non-radar problem and gets absolutely dismantled.
As John Maxwell puts it: "Talent provides hope for accomplishment, but perseverance guarantees it."
And the World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker said it about as plainly as it can be said: "Think things through, then follow through."
If you're at the Academy already, I guarantee you've heard some version of that from your instructors.
Probably from every instructor, depending on how far in you are.
"Follow through."
"It's not finished until you are finished."
"Finish the task."
And here's why that matters so much: if you finish the task, it won't come back around and haunt you.
Every scenario you run — non-radar lab, en route radar lab, tower labs, doesn't matter which — is nothing but a series of individual tasks.
That's all it is.
I used to tell my students that if you don't finish a task and you go off to do something else instead, you've just turned that task into a boomerang. And a boomerang whips around, and whips around, and because of the way it's built, it completes the circle. If you don't turn around, it is going to smack you upside the back of the head.
That's what an unfinished task does at the Academy.
It comes back.
And most of the time it comes back as a separation error — one of the worst errors you can take.
So follow through.
Finish each task.
Seven Principles of Perseverance
One: Perseverance means succeeding because you're determined to, not because you're destined to.
Vince Lombardi said the difference between a successful person and others is a lack of determination.
You are going to have to decide that you will persevere through whatever the Academy throws at you.
And here's the key — you have to decide that before you get there.
You have to make the decision that there is nothing that will come up that will deter me from reaching my goal.
I see it in the chats.
I see it on Discord all the time.
A student gets smacked upside the face for the first time, and in the en route program it usually happens in non-radar. It can happen on any of the problems.
The first few are simpler, then it starts to ratchet up — and it has to ratchet up fast, because they only get 27 of them before you sit down with an evaluator.
So a student posts, "I made this many separation errors on this problem." And everybody responds, it happens, you're going to have a bad run.
They're right.
And when it happens, you have to decide right there to keep going.
You have to have already decided that this will not deter you.
One bad run.
Two bad runs.
Three in a row.
Remember something important: those are not graded.
They are practice scenarios.
Practice is where you're supposed to make mistakes so you can learn from them.
I told my students the same thing I told my players when I coached soccer: practice is where we make mistakes.
But I want you to try.
Try something new.
Try something you haven't tried before — try it in practice.
What I don't want is you trying something brand new for the first time in the non-radar evals. That is not the moment.
Try it in practice.
And decide ahead of time that no matter what happens, you're reaching your goal.
With that mindset, you can get through.
Two: Perseverance recognizes that life isn't one long race, but many short ones in succession.
Your non-radar scenarios are 30 minutes.
Radar is 40 to 45.
But it isn't a 45-minute problem.
It isn't a 30-minute problem.
It's a series of short tasks you have to complete — step by step by step, in the order the FAA wants you to do them.
That's a great habit to build, and it's exactly why practicing correctly matters so much.
Life isn't one very long race.
It's a long series of shorter races, one after another.
Each task has its own challenges.
Each day is its own event.
To be successful, you just have to keep plugging away.
And hear me on this: it is not speed that gets you through the Academy.
It's perseverance, and completing each task.
You will develop speed as you practice.
I guarantee it.
I have seen it over and over and over again.
You don't have to have speed at the beginning. Speed arrives as you get better at all the little details.
Three: Perseverance is needed to release most of life's rewards.
Thomas Edison said it's the last step in the race that counts the most. That's where the winner is determined. That's where the rewards come.
So if you're at the Academy — non-radar problem 8, or 10, or 13 is not the one that matters.
The evals matter.
The last day of non-radar is what actually counts.
How you get there doesn't matter, as long as you excel on the day.
But — and this is the part people skip — you can only finish well if you've been doing the small things every single day along the way.
Commit to those, and you will succeed.
Four: Perseverance draws sweetness out of adversity.
Giving up when adversity threatens can make a person bitter.
Persevering through adversity can make you better.
Don't become bitter.
Look at adversity, look at being forced to push through something you weren't prepared for, as an opportunity to get better.
Every scenario, every setback. I don't care which program you're in — N90, TRACON, terminal, en route, CTI, Advanced ATC.
It does not matter.
You are going to face adversity.
I guarantee it.
That's life.
But get the sweetness out of it.
Push through and you come out the other side, and it is sweet over there.
And you come out better.
Five: Perseverance has a compounding effect.
Do the right thing every day, day after day.
Every day you do the right things, you're investing in yourself.
That takes perseverance.
But the payoff isn't addition — it's compounding.
Over time it starts multiplying.
To get that, you have to do the right things.
Have a plan.
Practice.
Practice well.
Be in class listening to the instructors as they drone on through two or three lessons a day.
And understand this: that is your job.
If you're at the Academy, you are getting paid to be a student.
That's the job.
Your job is to be there, to learn, and to do it every single day you're there.
Six: Perseverance means stopping not because you're tired, but because the task is done.
It's only when you're tired that you really need perseverance.
It's only when you face adversity that you need the strength to get through it.
Anybody can get through easy things. Anybody.
If air traffic control were easy, everybody would be doing it — because it's got to be the best job out there.
But it's not easy.
It's difficult.
Sometimes it's crazy difficult.
I've had moments recently where a situation came up and my mind just said, there's no solution here. So my solution was to get everybody in the pattern on the ground and go from there. Was it the best solution? Maybe not. But it was a solution.
You're going to face times like that.
You just persevere through them.
Seven: Perseverance doesn't demand more than we have — but it demands all that we have.
There's a quote in the book from Frank Tyger that I love: "Perseverance means more than trying and more than working hard. Perseverance is an investment. It's a willingness to bind yourself emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually to an idea or a task until it's completed."
That demands a lot.
Here's the good news: everything you give is an investment in yourself.
Everything you do at the Academy, at CTI, at Advanced ATC — all of it is an investment in you.
Each day, keep investing.
The Enemies of Perseverance
Now let's talk about what's coming for you.
A lifestyle of giving up. That one speaks for itself.
A wrong belief that life should be easy. Expectations will keep you from persevering faster than almost anything.
A wrong belief that success is a destination. This one is critical at the Academy.
If you think you've arrived — if you think you've got non-radar figured out, or radar, or tower, or TRACON, or N90 — that is when you're in trouble.
The second you think you no longer need to work to make progress, you start losing ground.
Every Academy program is designed so that you cannot stop progressing.
If you feel like you've conquered this thing before the last day, you'll start going backward.
And once you're going backward while the Academy keeps moving forward, catching up is incredibly difficult.
Success is not a destination. It's a process.
A lack of resiliency. You have to bounce back no matter how you feel. And again, that's a decision you make before you get to Oklahoma City. Decide now that there's nothing this program can throw at you — and it will throw everything it has — that will stop you from reaching your goal.
A lack of vision. No goal in front of you, no dream in front of you, and there's nothing pulling you forward. That's why companies have vision statements: it keeps everybody moving the same direction.
We need the same thing as people.
How to Multiply Your Perseverance
Find a purpose. You have to have a vision. You have to have a goal.
Here's the line I want you to write down: "Persistence is stubbornness with a purpose."
Post it in your room.
Put it on the bathroom mirror where you see it every morning.
When you have a passionate sense of purpose, your energy rises, obstacles become incidental, and perseverance wins out.
Eliminate excuses. That one speaks for itself too.
Develop stamina. Everyone who achieves and maintains success has it. Stamina is the key to perseverance, and perseverance is a key to becoming successful. And all stamina really means is this: being able to work through it when you don't feel like it.
Being able to push when you'd rather not.
That's it.
That's the whole secret.
Finish the Task
Perseverance is one of the main things you're going to need at the Academy to get through it.
Not the only thing — but if I had to pick one, this is close to the top.
Think things through.
Then follow through.
Don't leave boomerangs behind you.
Don't let one bad practice run decide anything.
Don't confuse the middle of the race with the end of it.
Do the small right things every day and let them compound.
You'll finish.
Wherever you are in this journey, you don't have to do it alone. If you've got a question, email me at tom.hanes@sidebysideatc.com, or head to sidebysideatc.com and let's set up a call.
We'll get through it. We'll get through it together, and we'll get through it Side by Side.
FOR HELP:
To set up a FREE call: sidebysideatc.com/scheduler/free-consult
Pre-Academy
If you are heading to the Academy in the next few months, I put together a structured 90-day preparation blueprint that walks you through exactly what to focus on each month before you go. It's designed to help reduce shock and build confidence before day one. You can download it at: sidebysideatc.com/page/blueprint .
I also have a video where I explain the different things that are on the enroute Non-Radar Map. You can get that video at: sidebysideatc.com/page/map-video .
Already at the Academy
If you are already in the enroute radar portion of the Academy and feeling a little behind or lost, I have a 72-Hour Radar Recovery Plan that will help you get past those feelings and start building confidence. You can download that at : sidebysideatc.com/page/72-hourplan .
If you are interested in my Coaching Programs, you can get information at :
or
sidebysideatc.com/page/radar-recovery if you are needing help with the beginning of enroute radar.
Mentorship Program
For information about my mentorship program : https://sidebysideatc.com/page/mentorship
Questions
You can email me questions, or comments, at: tomhanes@sidebysideatc.com .
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