We're continuing our series based on John Maxwell's "Success Is a Choice," and today we're continuing with valuing preparation. This is absolutely foundational to everything you're trying to accomplish at the Academy, at CTI school, at advanced ATC — wherever you are in this journey.

Maxwell makes a point that sounds almost too simple to bother saying, and yet I see people ignore it constantly: being unprepared puts you out of position. 

That's it. 

That's the whole thing. 

And what it means for us specifically is that if you don't know the phraseology, if you haven't learned the strip marking, if you don't understand the procedures — all of that is preparation, and without it, you simply will not be able to perform when it counts.

And at the Academy, it is consistently one of the biggest separators between the students who pass and the students who don't. 

Not intelligence. 

Not raw ability. 

So why don't people do it? 

Why do they resist it?

Maxwell says talent wants to jump into action — but preparation positions that talent to actually be effective. 

I understand that impulse completely. 

When you know you have the ability to do something, you want to go do it. You want to jump in and prove it. But jumping in without being fully prepared means you're leading with talent that has no foundation underneath it.

Preparation is what gives your talent somewhere to go.

There's also a failure to appreciate the value of discipline. 

And here's the definition of discipline that I think fits this best: discipline is doing what you really don't want to do so that you can do what you really want to do later. 

You might not love sitting down and going through strip marking procedures for the hundredth time. You might not love drilling the phonetic alphabet or memorizing distances on the map. But you do it anyway, because what you're really doing is buying yourself the ability to perform on eval day.

And speaking of eval day — here's a reality check about preparation and time. 

At the Academy, you're going to go through roughly 12 weeks of training in the en route program. Three months of showing up every day, working scenarios, building your skills. But when you break down where your score actually comes from, 80 percent of it is determined across five scenarios: two non-radar runs and three radar runs. 

That's just over three hours of actual work that your three months of preparation is building toward.

Preparation takes far more time than the event you're preparing for. 

That's just the truth, and it's the truth in almost everything worthwhile. 

Welcome to it.

Maxwell lays out several principles of preparation in this chapter, and I want to walk you through each one because every single one has direct application to where you are right now.

Preparation allows you to tap into your talent. 

Knowing the phraseology, knowing the strip marking, knowing the procedures, knowing the LOAs and the SOPs — these aren't just hoops you jump through. These are the steps that let the talent inside you actually come out. You can be the most naturally gifted person in the room, but if you can't say it correctly, can't write it on a strip correctly, don't know what the LOA requires of you — you're going to fail. 

The talent is there, but it has nowhere to go. 

Preparation opens the door.

Preparation is a process, not an event. 

At the Academy, it's a 12-week process. At CTI school, it could be a year and a half to two years or more. You can't cram your way through it. Maxwell quotes a principle I think about often in this context: leadership develops daily, not in a day. 

The same is true of your preparation as a controller. 

You have to be doing something every single day — and on the days when you're not running scenarios, that's a great time to read over the LOAs, go through the SOP, find another way to engage with the material. 

I had a student who made voice recordings of the SOP so he could listen to it while he read it — hitting two senses at once. That's creativity in the service of preparation. Find what works for you and do it every day.

And here's something John Wooden said that belongs in every Academy class: "Don't try to be better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best that you can be." 

Don't look at your classmate who seems to be picking things up faster and use that to measure yourself. 

The only comparison that matters is who you were yesterday versus who you are today. 

If you're better than yesterday, you're on the right path. 

Keep going.

Preparation precedes opportunity. 

Here's the opportunity sitting in front of you: a chance to start one of the most incredible careers available to anyone in this country. But if you're not prepared when that opportunity arrives, it doesn't matter. 

That's why I keep hammering on getting ready before you get to Oklahoma City. 

Prepare mentally, emotionally, physically — and prepare the things outside of ATC so that they don't compete for your attention while you're trying to learn. 

When you arrive prepared, your talent has a chance to come through. 

When you don't, the opportunity is there but you can't use it.

This one is so practical and I see students get it wrong constantly. 

I watch people on Discord who haven't even finished basics yet asking detailed questions about radar scenarios that are a month and a half away. 

You're worried about tomorrow when you need to be focused on today. 

Here's how I'd think about it: look ahead one week at a time. 

Know what's coming that week. Prepare for it. Maybe skim over what's going to be covered so you're not walking in completely cold. But within that week, concentrate on each individual day. 

Get what you need to learn from today so that tomorrow you're not still trying to catch up on yesterday. 

That's the rhythm that keeps you current — and staying current is the only way the Academy stays manageable.

Preparation requires maintaining a good perspective. 

The Academy is a mental grind. 

It's designed to be. 

Twelve weeks is a long time to sustain that level of focus and intensity, and there are going to be stretches where you feel the weight of it. 

The best antidote to that grind is having walked in prepared — knowing what's coming, having a plan for yourself that goes beyond just following the FAA's schedule, having the mental and emotional tools already in place. 

Preparation doesn't just get you ready for the content. 

It gets you ready for the experience of the Academy itself.

Good preparation leads to action. 

When you're prepared, when the opportunity presents itself, you can actually do something with it. 

Maxwell says preparation does not mean mastery of all the facts. It does not mean knowing every answer. 

What it means — and this is the part I want you to hold onto — is putting yourself in a better position to succeed.

You don't need to be perfect before you walk into that lab. 

You need to be prepared. 

There's a difference, and it's an important one.

I want to close this section with something that I don't say to discourage you, but because it's true and you deserve to hear it straight: people don't often get a second chance to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

The Academy is that opportunity for you. So is CTI school. So is every step along this path.

When I got to Fort Worth Center for the first time, I walked in and looked around the control room and thought there was no way I was ever going to be able to do what those controllers were doing. They seemed larger than life. And then I started going through training, and something shifted. I started to realize — some of these people aren't as untouchable as I thought. And sometimes, I was already better than some of them in certain things. 

The gap between where you are right now and where those experienced controllers are is not as unbridgeable as it looks from day one. 

But you have to prepare to get there. 

Every one of them started exactly where you're starting. 

They just went through the stages and did the work.

You can too. 

But it starts with valuing preparation — not as a burden, not as a box to check, but as the foundation that everything else is built on.

Don't waste the opportunity. 

Start today.