Last time, I talked about the first step toward success as an air traffic controller — believing in yourself. 

Today I want to build on that with the next piece: firing up your passion for this quest you're on.

Here's why this matters so much. 

As a student, you're going to have moments — and I mean this literally — where you feel like you've hit rock bottom. 

Where you feel like there's no possible way you could be doing worse. 

I've been there myself. I've told this story before, but it's worth repeating: 

When I was at the Academy, my A-lead had confidence in me and told me so, and it completely changed the direction I was headed. Later, when I was an instructor myself, I tried to give that same kind of encouragement to students when I could tell they were hitting that rock-bottom moment.

For a lot of you, that moment is going to come during your first non-radar eval. 

It might be the first time in your entire life you've gotten a score below 90. 

Below 80. 

Below 70. 

Maybe even worse. 

And if you're passionate about your quest to become an air traffic controller, you can get past that. 

If you believe in that quest, you can get past it. 

But I won't pretend it's going to be easy.

I've told this story on my podcast a lot of times, and I'll tell it again because it matters. 

I had a student going through non-radar — scenarios that are intentionally tough — who had a genuinely rough night. 

He and I sat together between runs, while everyone else was on break, and we just talked.

Apparently it made a difference. 

He went from being deeply discouraged, wondering if this job was even for him, to performing well in non-radar. 

He wasn't number one in the class heading into radar evals, but he came out of radar evals as the top student in the class. 

He went on to a Center, took about two years to certify, and he's now a fully certified CPC enjoying life as a controller.

That's exactly why I keep harping on preparation before you ever get to the Academy. 

You have to be ready, because once you're there, there isn't a lot of help available to you. 

I'd like to change that someday, but right now, the support is limited. 

Every once in a while you'll get a moment with an instructor who can talk you through it, but that's not always going to happen. 

So you want to walk in with this belief in yourself and this passion for your quest already built — in place before you ever set foot in Oklahoma City. 

That way, when you get punched in the gut and feel like you can't breathe, like there's no way forward, that belief and that passion are what carry you through.

I know it sounds strange to talk about passion in the same breath as air traffic control. 

But I believe passion is the first step to real achievement, and it's nearly impossible to achieve something you don't actually desire. 

Passion is what keeps the fire burning inside you. 

It keeps you moving forward even when everything around you — even temporarily — is telling you to stop, that you might as well give up. 

That inner fire is what keeps you going, and that's exactly why it matters so much in this conversation about making the right choices for success.

First, it produces energy. 

You're going to have stretches where you have nothing left in the tank — I've seen it plenty of times. 

You're going to get tired. 

You're going to be running on something close to no sleep some nights. 

But when eval time comes, I always told every class I worked with as an A-lead or lead that the single most important thing they could do in the final couple of nights beforehand was sleep. 

I had a student once tell me he hadn't slept in a week. I told him honestly, there wasn't much I could do about that at that point. 

But if you're in that spot, running on fumes with evals bearing down on you, genuine passion for making it through the Academy and doing well will give you energy when you don't think you have any left.

Second, passion is the foundation for excellence. 

Look through history at anyone — in any field — who's excellent, who's at the top of their particular area. 

Without exception, they're passionate about what they do and passionate about reaching the top. 

That's not a coincidence.

I want to be clear about something. 

Passing is the minimum goal. 

My actual goal for you is that you excel — not just at the Academy, but far beyond it. 

I want you to become the kind of controller who can sit down at the busiest sector in the country — which, by definition, means the busiest in the world — working the heaviest, most complex traffic, with weather making it even worse, and have everyone in that building know without question that you're the best person they have for that situation.

That's what I want for you at the Academy too. 

I want your evaluators watching you and wondering, almost in awe, how you got that good. 

That's the bar I want every one of you reaching for. 

And if you go back to believing in yourself, believing in your potential, believing in your quest, and then add real passion for that quest on top of it, you can become that person. 

If you're reading this before heading to Oklahoma City, get your belief in yourself and your passion for this quest locked in before you go. 

If you're already at the Academy, carve out some time — even just one evening — and work on it. 

Write it down, journal it, record yourself talking it through on your phone so you can listen back to it later. 

However you do it, spend the time building up your belief in yourself, your belief in your potential, and your reasons for being passionate about this quest. 

Be honest with yourself about why you're doing this and why it's worth the fight.

It doesn't matter if it's the night before your radar evals — you can still do this work, and it can genuinely help. 

It might be the difference between passing and not passing. 

Again, I want more than just passing for you. 

That doesn't mean you'll be perfect. 

You won't be. 

You think the Academy is hard? 

Wait until training starts. 

But I believe you can excel anyway, and if you believe it too, you're already well on your way to making it happen.

Keep working on this. 

Keep building it. 

We'll continue building on these ideas as we move further into this series, because believing in yourself and firing up your passion aren't one-time decisions — they're choices you keep making, over and over, all the way through this career.