Tool #1: Learning How to Learn
I want to open with a quote from Aristotle that sets up everything we're going to cover today: "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."
That single sentence captures something fundamental about air traffic control that a lot of people don't fully grasp until they're already sitting in the lab wondering why everything they studied isn't translating into performance.
Learning in ATC isn't like learning anywhere else.
And if you don't understand that going in, it's going to catch you off guard at exactly the wrong moment.
This is tool number one in the ATC tool belt series — the learning tool. And I'd argue it's the most important one, because without it, you're going to have a very hard time picking up any of the others.
Why Your Previous Learning Experience Doesn't Fully Prepare You
Here's something worth being honest about.
The vast majority of students who come through the Academy are good students. They did well in high school. They did well in college. Some of them excelled in graduate programs or military training. They know how to study. They know how to take a test. And almost all of them discover, at some point during their time in Oklahoma City, that those skills — as valuable as they are — aren't enough on their own.
Here's why.
Most of the learning you've done in your life up to this point has been about knowledge. Read it, understand it well enough to explain it back, pass the test. And in college especially, even when you get into more applied coursework, the core skill you're developing is the ability to absorb, retain, and recall information.
That's a real and important skill.
But it is not the primary skill that ATC demands.
And here's the part that catches people off guard: the Academy actually lulls you into a false sense of security about this. Basics is a lot like college. You're sitting in a classroom, taking notes, learning facts, taking tests to move forward. If you're in the en route program, you're learning and memorizing the map.
It feels familiar.
It feels manageable.
And then you get into the non-radar problems, or the tabletop scenarios for tower, or the radar problems for terminal, and everything shifts.
Suddenly you're not being asked to recall information.
You're being asked to use it — in real time, under pressure, while things are changing around you.
And those are fundamentally different skills.
Memorization gets you to the starting line.
Understanding and application are what get you through the race.
I was talking to a group of junior high and high school students who came through the tower on a tour recently, and I told them the same thing: you cannot memorize your way through air traffic control.
A lot of what this job actually is, is trying things, seeing if they work, and if they don't, trying something else.
You can never give up.
That's what the FAA is looking for at the Academy — not perfection, but persistence.
Not someone who knows all the right answers, but someone who keeps going when the answers don't come easily.
Five Techniques for Learning How to Learn in ATC
So how do you actually develop this tool?
Here are five techniques that apply across every level of your career, starting before you ever get to Oklahoma City.
Ask better questions.
This one starts now, wherever you are.
Not "what do I need to memorize?" but "why does this work the way it does?" and "how does this apply in a real scenario?"
The quality of the questions you ask directly determines the quality of what you understand.
At the Academy, ask questions constantly — of your instructors, of your classmates, of anyone willing to engage.
At your first facility, find the people who are patient enough to let you ask a lot of questions and lean on them hard.
And after you certify, don't stop.
The best controllers I've been around never stopped asking questions, because they understood that there's always something else to learn.
Build the picture one pixel at a time.
I've talked about this in the six drivers series, and it's worth revisiting here because it's directly connected to how you learn in ATC.
A lot of students try to hold a big overarching picture of everything that's happening in their head at once. It almost never works. The picture evaporates under pressure.
What you actually need — and what actually works — is focusing on one airplane versus one airplane.
One relationship at a time.
One task at a time.
You build separation, you work the clearance, you move to the next thing.
And by doing that consistently, one piece at a time, you end up with a complete picture — not by trying to hold the whole thing at once, but by building it one pixel at a time.
That's not just a technique for working traffic.
It's a technique for learning.
Take one concept, understand it deeply, apply it, then move to the next.
Use active recall.
This is one of the reasons I keep pushing people to memorize the map before they get to Oklahoma City.
Not just to have the map memorized, but to practice the act of active recall — pulling information out of your memory rather than just reading it off a page.
Flashcards work.
Teaching it to someone else works even better.
Seriously — if you feel like you've got the map down, explain it to a family member or a friend. Walk them through what everything means.
If you can teach it clearly, you actually understand it. If you find yourself stumbling, you've just identified exactly what you need to work on.
The best way to find the gaps in your understanding is to try to explain it to someone who doesn't know it yet.
Reflect on your day.
This doesn't have to be a long, involved process.
At the end of each day at the Academy — or at your first facility in training — take a few minutes and ask yourself three questions: what did I do well today? What do I need to do better? What confused me?
Then take that list of things that confused you or went wrong, and pick one or two. Not the whole list — just one or two. Focus on those for the next day. Understand what happened. Understand what needs to change. Then go do it better.
The Academy is about consistency and incremental improvement, not about fixing everything wrong in one day.
A little better every day, consistently applied, adds up to something significant by the end of the program.
Learn through failure.
This one is hard for people who have been successful students their whole lives, and I understand that.
Nobody likes standing up in front of a class and fumbling through a clearance. I hated it when I was going through it.
But here's the reality: we learn far more from getting something wrong than from getting it right.
When you get it right, you confirm what you already know.
When you get it wrong and you pay attention to why, you actually understand something new.
Those grade sheets you get at the Academy are not just a record of your performance — they are invaluable information.
Treat them that way.
Every mistake is data.
Every correction from an instructor is data.
The controllers who become exceptional are the ones who collect that information, learn from it, and don't repeat the same mistakes.
What This Looks Like at Each Level
At level one — pre-Academy, before you get anywhere near Oklahoma City — develop good learning habits now. If you can get the map, work on learning it. But more than that, start paying attention to how you learn best. What study methods stick for you? How does your brain process new information most effectively? The more you understand about your own learning process before you get to Oklahoma City, the more efficiently you'll be able to use your time once you're there.
At level two — the Academy itself — use these habits every single day. Pick one or two things to improve on each day and actually go after them. Don't try to fix everything at once.
Consistency matters more than perfection.
Show up.
Get a little better.
Keep going.
I never had a problem with trainees making mistakes when I was an instructor at Fort Worth Center or at the towers I've worked. The only issue was when someone kept making the same mistakes without improving.
In five years at the Academy, that was genuinely rare.
The students who struggled most were almost always the ones who tried to fix too much at once instead of chipping away consistently.
At level three — your first facility — the same principles apply, but the stakes are higher because it's live traffic.
Be there as consistently as you can.
Avoid taking leave during training if possible.
Get a little better every day.
Find the people at your facility who are willing to answer your questions and take full advantage of them. Not everyone will be patient with a long list of questions — but some will, and those people are worth their weight in gold during training.
And at level four — after you certify — don't stop.
This is the mistake I see too often.
Controllers get their CPC and mentally check the "learning" box as complete. It's not complete. The best controllers I've been around in 37 years of this career never stopped learning. They kept asking questions. They kept watching other controllers and picking up techniques. They kept refining their tool belt.
Strive to be the best trainee your facility has ever seen.
Then strive to be the best controller on your crew.
Then in your specialty.
Then in the building.
Set the bar high and keep reaching for it.
The Success Cycle
All of this ties into what I call the success cycle, and it's simple enough to remember but important enough to take seriously.
You try something new.
You probably fail at it — that's expected.
You learn from what went wrong.
You adjust your approach.
You try again.
You might fail again.
You adjust again.
And you keep going through this cycle, refining and improving, until that technique or that concept actually becomes something you can do consistently under pressure.
That's when it becomes a real tool.
ATC is not something you read about and then do.
You can't study your way to being a controller.
You have to go through the cycle — try, fail, learn, adjust, try again — over and over and over, with every skill and concept and technique you're trying to develop.
The learning tool is what makes every other cycle possible.
B.B. King said it well: "The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you."
That's true.
Every piece of understanding you build, every technique you develop through the success cycle — it's yours.
And in this career, you're going to build a lot of it.
Start building now.
One tool at a time, one day at a time, one pixel at a time.
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 .
Value Preparation: The Foundation That Separates Those Who Pass from Those Who Don't
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.
Being Unprepared Puts You Out of Position
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.
Preparation positions you correctly.
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.
Preparation.
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.
Six Principles of Preparation Worth Building Your Academy Around
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.
Preparation for tomorrow begins with the right use of today.
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.
The One Shot You Have
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.
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 .
A brief note before I start this Blog.
You may have noticed that it's been awhile since my last blog. The day my last blog posted, I herniated a disk in my back. It has taken some weeks to get back to the point of being able to do the blog. I hope you haven't forgotten me, or thought that I forgot you, I haven't.
Thanks.
The ATC Tool Belt: Every Great Controller Started with an Empty One
I want to start this one with a quote that I keep coming back to, because it sets up everything we're going to talk about today. It comes from Aristotle, and it goes like this: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act. It's a habit."
That idea is at the heart of what I want to discuss in this new series — the air traffic controller tool belt.
It's a phrase I've heard throughout my career in various contexts, usually in reference to learning something new and being able to apply it. And the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized it's one of the most accurate ways to describe what this career actually is — a continuous process of building, refining, and adding to a collection of tools that you carry with you from the very beginning all the way through to the end.
So let's talk about what that means, where it starts, and why it matters more than most people realize.
Every Great Controller Started with an Empty Tool Belt
Here's something I want you to hold onto, especially if you're early in this journey: every single controller working live traffic today started with an empty tool belt.
Every one of them.
The controllers who seem larger than life when you walk into a facility for the first time, the ones who make it look effortless, the ones who are working the busiest sectors with weather and complexity piling up on all sides — none of them walked in with those tools already in place.
Nobody begins an ATC career with perfect phraseology.
Nobody starts with a deep well of confidence or judgment or control.
Those things get built.
They get developed through experience, through repetition, through failing and learning and trying again.
The difference between the controllers who become exceptional and the ones who plateau isn't where they started — it's what they did next.
The great ones didn't get satisfied with an empty tool belt.
They kept filling it.
That's what this series is about.
So What Exactly Is a Tool?
I want to be specific about this, because when most people hear "tool belt" they picture something physical. But the tools we're talking about here are different.
A tool in the ATC context can be a skill. It can be a habit. It can be a checklist you rely on, a mindset you've developed, a process you run through consistently in your daily work. It can be something as simple as a question you ask yourself — how did that work? Did it work the way I intended? How could I have done it better?
A tool is also a way of thinking. And over the course of a career, you're going to develop hundreds of them — maybe thousands. Some will be broad and foundational. Others will be narrow and situation-specific, pulled out rarely but absolutely critical when the moment calls for them. The important thing to understand is that all of them have to be developed.
None of them come pre-loaded.
The Four Levels and How the Tools Evolve
I've talked in previous episodes about the four levels of an ATC career, and it's worth revisiting that framework here because the tool belt looks different at each level — not because the tools themselves change completely, but because they deepen and grow more complex as you do.
Level one is pre-Academy. That's the period before you get to any formal training — before the FAA Academy, before CTI school, before the military program. It starts the moment you decide this is what you want and you begin working toward it. At this level, your tools are foundational and relatively simple. The phonetic alphabet. The maps, if you can get your hands on them. Basic habits of study and discipline. The mindset of someone who's preparing for something demanding.
Level two is the Academy — or whatever training environment you're in. Here the tools get more complex. You're learning the language of ATC at a deeper level. You're learning strip marking and procedures and LOAs and SOPs. You're developing your ability to work under pressure, to build the picture one task at a time, to prioritize and execute. The tools multiply quickly at this level, and the demands on them are real.
Level three is your first facility. Now it's live traffic. The clock doesn't stop. You can't redo a simulation. And the complexity of what's required ratchets up in a way that even the Academy didn't fully prepare you for — because the Academy, as intense as it is, is still a controlled environment. Your first facility is the real thing. The tools you built at the Academy have to hold up under that weight, and new tools have to start forming quickly.
Level four is becoming a certified professional controller — a CPC. And even here, even after you've earned that certification, you don't stop building. You keep watching other controllers in given situations and noticing things you wouldn't have thought to do yourself. You try it. You work on it. You refine it. And it becomes part of your tool belt.
The tools don't stay the same across all four levels.
They stack.
They build on each other.
They get more nuanced and more capable as you grow — because you grow alongside them.
Phraseology at the pre-Academy level is learning the alphabet. Phraseology at a busy center sector after ten years of live traffic is something else entirely.
Same category of tool, completely different level of sophistication.
The Success Cycle: How Tools Actually Get Built
Here's something important to understand about the process of developing a tool.
It's not linear, and it's not clean.
You don't learn something new and immediately apply it successfully.
That's not how it works — not in ATC, not in anything that matters.
What actually happens is a cycle.
You encounter a new concept, a new technique, a new way of thinking.
You try it.
You probably fail at it the first time, or the second, or the fifth. That's expected — it's something new.
But then you learn from what went wrong.
You adjust.
You try again.
You keep going through the cycle, refining and adapting as you go, until one day you realize that this thing — this technique or habit or approach — actually works. And then you start discovering that with a small adaptation, it works in this other situation too. And now you have a tool.
A real one, earned through repetition and refinement, that you actually know how to use.
The reason to start this process as early as possible — ideally before you ever set foot in Oklahoma City — is that the success cycle takes time. And when you're at the Academy and the pressure is building, the last thing you want to be doing is going through the earliest, roughest stages of developing a basic tool.
You want those foundational tools already refined enough to be useful. You want to walk into the pressure with tools that have already been tested, not tools you're just now discovering you need.
The earlier you start, the better off you're going to be.
It's as simple and as true as that.
What Tools Are Coming in This Series
I want to give you a sense of what's ahead in this series, because it's going to be extensive.
There's a long list of tools that every controller needs, and we're going to work through as many as we can.
Learning how to learn is a tool. Discipline is a tool. Communication — how to communicate clearly, precisely, under pressure — is a tool. Building the picture one pixel at a time, which we've talked about before, is a tool. Phraseology in all its depth is a tool. Decision-making is a tool. Situational awareness is a tool.
Here's one that might surprise you: leadership. I know that might seem like something for later — something you'll worry about once you've been certified for a few years. But you want to start working on leadership before you ever get to Oklahoma City. The habits of leadership, the mindset of someone who takes ownership and initiative, the ability to influence the people around you — those things take time to develop.
Start now.
Confidence is a tool, and we've talked about how it's built through repetition, not through wishing it into existence. Stress management is a tool — and I'll be direct, stress management is going to be significant for the rest of your career. The job comes with stress. The question is what you do with it. So start putting yourself in uncomfortable situations before you get to the Academy, because I guarantee the Academy is going to be uncomfortable, and your first facility is going to be uncomfortable, and the busiest shift you ever work is going to be uncomfortable. Get familiar with that feeling now so it doesn't own you later.
Receiving feedback is a tool. And this is one that people underestimate. From the moment you get to Oklahoma City until the day you retire, you are going to receive feedback constantly. Feedback from instructors, from evaluators, from trainers, from supervisors, from the controllers around you. The ability to take that feedback, not take it personally, and actually use it — that is a skill. It's a tool. And not everyone has it naturally.
But you're going to need it, so start developing it.
Prioritization is a tool. Not just at the Academy, where figuring out your priority list is built into the process, but working live traffic, where the priorities don't always announce themselves clearly. Get it wrong sometimes — that's how you learn. But keep working at it.
Checklists are a tool.
Adaptability is a tool.
Professionalism is a tool.
The list is genuinely long, and I don't think I could fully cover it all in one blog series — it could honestly take years to do it justice.
But we're going to cover as many as we can, and if there's something you want addressed specifically, reach out and let me know. Tell me what you're struggling with, what you don't know how to develop, what you're not sure you're going to need.
We'll make it part of the series.
Why This Matters — And Why the Academy Isn't the Finish Line
I want to close with this, because it's something I see misunderstood more often than I'd like.
Getting past the Academy is not the finish line.
It's step one.
A significant step — don't minimize it, because it's genuinely hard and genuinely important.
But it's the beginning of the career, not the culmination of it.
The tools you need to be an air traffic controller at a live facility are more refined, more adaptable, and more numerous than the tools required to pass the Academy. And the tools you need five years into your career at a busy sector are even more developed than those.
A surgeon doesn't walk out of medical school and step directly into an operating room.
A new pilot doesn't get a private license and immediately fly jumbo jets.
This career works the same way. It's a progression. Each level builds on the one before it. And at every level, you're adding to the tool belt, sharpening the tools already in it, and figuring out how to apply the whole collection to situations that keep getting more complex.
Jim Rohn said it well: "Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals."
That's it.
That's the whole thing.
Success as an air traffic controller is about consistently applying your tools — the fundamental ones you built early, the more sophisticated ones you've developed over time.
Consistent application.
Over and over.
Getting a little better each time.
Start building your tool belt today. One tool at a time, at whatever level you're at right now.
Because this is a team sport, and you don't have to figure it out alone.
As always, you can find resources and reach out at sidebysideatc.com.
And remember — you don't have to navigate your ATC journey alone. Let's do 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 .
Focus Your Energy: Don't Chase Squirrels
We're continuing my series based on John Maxwell's "Success Is a Choice," and this week's chapter might be one of the most practically useful ones we've covered so far — at least when it comes to what actually happens inside the lab at the Academy.
We've talked about believing in yourself, firing up your passion, and initiating action.
Today we're talking about focus.
Specifically, what it means to focus your energy — and what happens when you don't.
Maxwell opens this chapter with a line that stopped me cold the first time I read it: "Having talent without focus is like an octopus on roller skates."
I had to put the book down and laugh at the mental image.
But the more I thought about it, the more it hit home — because I have seen exactly that in the lab.
Talented people, genuinely gifted people, who couldn't harness what they had because their energy was scattered in eight different directions at once.
Talent matters in this career.
I've watched talented people not make it through the Academy.
I've watched them struggle at facilities.
When I try to identify what the common thread was, it almost always comes back to the same thing: they had the ability, but they couldn't focus it. And Maxwell's follow-up to that octopus image says it perfectly — talent with focus directs you and has the potential to take you far.
That's what we're after.
Focus Doesn't Come Naturally — But It's Everything
Here's the first thing Maxwell says about focus, and it's important to hear: focus does not come naturally to most people.
It's not a trait you either have or don't have.
It's something you develop.
And you have to work at it consistently, intentionally, over time.
For controllers, this isn't optional.
The moment you plug into a position — in a tower, at a sector, in a TRACON — you have to be completely present.
Not 80 percent there while the other 20 percent is worrying about something that happened this morning or something you need to handle tonight.
Completely there.
That's one of the reasons I keep hammering on preparation before the Academy.
When your life outside the lab is a mess — finances, relationships, logistics, whatever it might be — part of your brain is always running in the background trying to solve those problems. And that background processing has a direct cost when you sit down in front of a scope or a strip board.
Something wonderful happens when you get the rest of your life as buttoned up as possible before you get to Oklahoma City, because then when you walk into that lab, you can actually be there.
Fully there.
Not managing two things at once.
Because managing two things at once, as a controller, is exactly what gets you in trouble.
Set the Target High — Then Narrow Your Focus
Maxwell makes the point that focus increases your energy, but first you have to know what your target actually is.
At the Academy, I want to be clear about this: your target is not 70.
Seventy is the minimum passing score.
If you aim for 70 and miss by five points, you've just failed.
If you aim for 90 or 95 and miss by five points, you've still passed — comfortably.
Set the target high.
Aim for 90, 95.
Aim for a hundred.
Give yourself room.
Once you have that target, focus narrows everything else.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the entire 10 or 12 weeks stretching out in front of you, you narrow down to what you're doing this week.
Then this day.
Then this scenario.
Then this task.
That's where your energy goes — not on day 29, not on the radar evals that are weeks away, not on everything that could go wrong between now and the end.
Just on today.
When you focus on today, something genuinely wonderful happens.
I've watched it occur in student after student.
The days start adding up, and before long you look up and realize how far you've come.
The Academy is absolutely doable if you stay current with it.
What makes it hard isn't the material itself — it's when students fall behind trying to chase things they shouldn't be worrying about yet.
Don't worry about day 58 when you're on day 7.
Stay where you are.
Five Facts About Focus
Maxwell lays out several key truths about focus, and I want to walk through them because every single one has a direct application to what you're going to face at the Academy and beyond.
Focus increases your energy.
When your attention is spread thin, you're constantly switching contexts — bouncing from one thing to the next without ever fully engaging with any of them.
That's exhausting in a way that doesn't produce results.
But when you lock in on one thing and stay there, the energy follows. You become more efficient, more sharp, more capable. As a student at the Academy, that locked-in state is exactly what you're trying to sustain.
Focus lifts you.
Here's something I observed over and over in Oklahoma City, and it still moves me when I think about it.
The students who committed fully to the process — who brought their best energy to every day, even the hard ones — grew. Not just as controllers, but as people.
I saw students who walked in not knowing what separation even meant walk out as air traffic controllers. I even watched students who didn't pass go through something incredibly difficult, give everything they had, and come out on the other side more capable and more resilient than when they arrived.
Focus — truly committing to each day and each task — will do that to you. And keep that going when you leave the Academy, because it doesn't stop working just because you're done with the program.
What you focus on expands.
Maxwell quotes Mike Kendrick here: "narrowing your view widens your perspective."
That sounds contradictory, but sit with it for a second.
As controllers, we have to keep expanding what we're capable of — working more traffic, more complex situations, higher-intensity environments. And the way you expand that capacity is not by trying to tackle everything at once.
It's by focusing deeply on the thing in front of you, doing it well, and building from there.
Narrow down to do one thing completely, and your overall capability grows.
Focus must be intentionally sustained.
You can't focus well for a day and then coast.
It takes consistent effort.
The good news is that the payoff is real and significant — focus compounds.
The more you practice it, the more natural it becomes.
But you have to keep doing it.
You can't check it off the list.
Success is not an event — it's a process.
This might be the most important thing Maxwell says in this chapter, and it applies to every level of an ATC career.
Passing the Academy is not the finish line.
Getting your CPC rating is not the finish line.
There's no single moment when you've made it.
It's a lifetime process, and the controllers who thrive are the ones who accept that and stay engaged in the process every single day.
Eight Ways to Increase Your Focus
Maxwell gives eight practical ways to sharpen your focus, and I want to run through them with you in an ATC context.
One: Be intentional — make every action count.
For controllers, this is non-negotiable.
Every transmission, every strip mark, every vector — it matters.
Even when you make a wrong move, that mistake is only useful if you're intentional about learning from it.
Part of becoming a skilled controller is learning how to get yourself out of the mess you just created.
I've created plenty of messes in my career.
The difference is that over time, I got better at recognizing them early and resolving them.
That comes from being intentional about every action.
Two: Challenge your excuses.
Here's one that should hit home for students specifically.
At the Academy, there is no room for "I know it's a rule, but I decided I didn't have to follow it." An evaluator is going to look you straight in the eye and ask who told you that was acceptable.
The rules are the rules.
Know them, apply them, every time.
CPCs take shortcuts — that's a reality of working live traffic for years.
But you're not a CPC yet.
Get through the Academy first.
Three: Don't let yesterday hijack your attention.
I can't say this enough, and I've told this story before.
I had a student who came out of her first radar eval in the 60s — not a great score, but not a fatal one either.
She was devastated. I sat down with her and told her: you didn't hurt your chances. You still have everything you need to pass. Now go learn from it and do better.
She did.
She passed.
But if she had carried that first eval into the second one, it could have gone a very different direction.
Learn from the past and then let it go. Maxwell uses the image of driving a car while looking in the rearview mirror. If you're going forward, that's a guaranteed way to crash.
The past can inform you, but it cannot drive you.
Don't let it.
Four: Focus on the present.
The only area where you have any control is today.
Not yesterday — that's done.
Not tomorrow — that's not guaranteed.
Today.
Focus your mental, physical, and emotional energy on what you can actually affect right now. If you do that consistently, you end up with a better tomorrow as a natural consequence.
Goals are useful to have, but you don't reach your five-year goals by staring at them.
You reach them by taking the steps available to you today.
Five: Stay focused on results.
Your score matters.
Your performance matters.
When you stay anchored to results, you're less likely to get knocked off balance — whether that's by an instructor who's being hard on you, or by early success that makes you think you've arrived.
Stay grounded in the numbers.
What did I score?
What do I need to improve?
Staying focused on results keeps you honest.
Six: Develop and follow your priorities.
Maxwell has a quote I love for this one: "If you chase two rabbits, both will escape."
If you've ever actually tried to chase a rabbit, you know you can barely catch one, let alone two.
You can only do one thing at a time — we've talked about this before in the picture driver series.
The best controllers aren't the ones who do multiple things simultaneously. They're the ones who identify the highest priority and execute it completely before moving to the next one.
Develop your priorities and follow them.
One thing.
Done.
Next.
Seven: Focus on your strengths.
Maxwell tells a story about a man who had both gold coins and copper coins and spent all his time trying to polish the copper ones. The problem is no matter how much you shine a copper coin, it's never going to be worth what a gold coin is worth.
Know what your strengths are and lean into them.
I'm not saying ignore your weaknesses — as a controller you absolutely need to address them.
But don't spend all your energy on your copper at the expense of your gold.
Eight: Delay the reward until the job is done.
At the Academy, the job is done when you pass.
That's the reward.
That said — celebrate the milestones.
When your entire class makes it through non-radar together, that's worth recognizing. It's a real achievement.
When you complete the radar portion and you've passed, that's worth celebrating. J
ust don't mistake a checkpoint for the finish line.
Keep the focus until the job is truly done.
Don't Chase the Squirrel
I want to close with something we used to do at the Academy.
One of the leads kept a little stuffed squirrel in the lab.
Whenever he caught a student letting their focus get pulled away — trying to do two things at once, getting distracted by something on the other side of the room, losing the thread of what they were working on — he'd toss them the squirrel. "You just went after the squirrel."
I have a dog. And I can tell you from experience: the moment he spots a squirrel, it doesn't matter what else was happening. He's gone. Everything else ceases to exist. And if I don't have a good hold on the leash, he's gone.
Don't be the dog.
Don't chase the squirrel.
In the radar lab especially, this matters enormously. You'll be mid-task — coordinating something, working a conflict, giving a clearance — and the other side will call with something new.
The temptation is to split your attention.
Don't.
Finish what you're doing.
Note what you need to come back to.
Complete the task in front of you, then address the next one.
One thing at a time, every time.
Talent plus focus equals the controller you can become.
Maxwell says that about people in general — I'm saying it specifically about you as a controller.
You have the talent.
Every one of you who's made it to this point has demonstrated that.
Now pair it with focus — real, intentional, sustained focus — and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.
Don't settle for 70.
Don't settle for average.
Set your target high, narrow your focus to today, do each task completely, and keep going.
That's the choice in front of you.
Make it.
If you want help working through any of this, reach out at sidebysideatc.com.
Set up a free consultation call and let's talk about where you are and what needs to happen next.
You don't have to navigate this journey alone — let's do 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 .
Level Two: Where Preparation Meets Performance
Last week we talked about level one — the pre-Academy stage where you build the foundation for everything that's coming.
We covered why that time before Oklahoma City is so much more valuable than most people realize, and why the students who use it well show up with a genuine advantage over the ones who waited.
This week we move into level two.
And level two is the Academy.
I want to be clear about something right up front: for those of you going through CTI school, advanced ATC, or the military pathway, a lot of what I'm going to cover here still applies to you.
But this week I'm focusing specifically on the FAA Academy, because the Academy is where everything changes.
It's where preparation stops being theoretical and starts being tested in real time, under real pressure, with real consequences.
Billie Jean King said it best: "Pressure is a privilege."
It may not feel like that when you're in the middle of it — when you're exhausted and stressed and questioning everything — but going through the Academy is genuinely a privilege.
Between 10 and 20 percent of the people who apply ever end up going through it.
There are thousands of people who wanted to be exactly where you are and couldn't get there.
Try to remember that when the pressure is at its worst.
The Academy Is Not What You Think It Is
Here's the first thing you need to understand about level two: the Academy is nothing like basics, and it's nothing like anything you've been through before.
Basics, in person in Oklahoma City, is essentially a college course compressed into four weeks.
You sit in a classroom, take notes, study for tests, and pass those tests to move forward. You can treat basics like college because that's basically what it is.
But the moment you cross that threshold into the actual Academy program, everything shifts.
The pace is different.
The demands are different.
The stakes are different.
The gap between what basics feels like and what the Academy feels like is enormous, and most students don't fully appreciate that until they're already in it.
One of the biggest mistakes I see students make is treating the Academy like any other academic endeavor. They think: if I'm smart enough, if I study enough, I'll be fine.
I understand that thinking, but I have to be direct with you — it doesn't work that way.
The Academy is not primarily an intelligence test.
It's not a test of how well you can study and regurgitate information.
What it is, is a consistency test.
And a pressure management test.
Think about the difference between college and the Academy.
In college, you paid for the privilege of being there.
At the Academy, they are paying you. This is a job now. And your employer — the FAA — is watching to see how willing and how disciplined you are, each and every day, to learn this material to the point where you can actually use it.
Not memorize it.
Not answer questions about it on a test.
Use it, in real time, under pressure.
In en route, the written tests are worth 20 points total.
You could ace every single test and still not pass — because 80 percent of your score is performance-based.
That one number tells you everything you need to know about what the Academy is really measuring.
The Six Drivers at Level Two
We've spent several weeks building up the six drivers of ATC success —
Purpose
Plan
Phraseology
Practice
Picture
Picture
Performance
Those drivers don't go away at level two.
They intensify.
Let me walk you through exactly how each one plays out at the Academy.
Driver One: Purpose.
You have to know your purpose even more deeply at level two than you did in level one.
Not just in your head — in your gut, in your heart.
You need to know why you're putting yourself through this, because the Academy is going to test that reason over and over.
Your performance over those 10 to 12 weeks is going to dip at points. You're not going to be consistently good the entire time you're there — nobody is.
When that happens, your stress goes up and your confidence comes down. And that's exactly when you have to reach back and grab your purpose.
Why are you doing this?
What does this mean to you?
I told you last week to write it down before you get there, to post it where you'll see it every day.
I'm telling you now to keep doing that while you're there.
Revisit your purpose every week.
For some of you, every day.
That's how important it is.
Purpose isn't just a nice idea — it's the thing that gets you off the mat when the Academy knocks you down.
Driver Two: Plan.
You cannot wing your way through the Academy.
I've seen students try.
It does not work.
You have to have a schedule, a real one, and you have to stick to it.
The best class I was ever A-lead for got 10 out of 12 students through.
They had a spreadsheet.
A rotation schedule that cycled classmates through so they could work with everybody, not just their usual group. They built their practice schedule around their class schedule — figuring out who was on days and who was on evenings each week, and planning around that.
That's the level of intentionality that works.
And if you really want to take it further, plan your sleep schedule.
Pay attention to what you're eating and how it affects you in the lab.
I had a student once who was performing well in the morning and struggling in the afternoon, and when I asked him what he was eating for lunch, it became pretty clear pretty fast.
I knew of one student who had the same thing to eat every day of Non-Radar: a meatball sandwich.
If you know, you know.
Be intentional.
Intentional about your time management.
Intentional about your sleep.
Intentional about your practice.
Intentional about every single day.
Don't drift.
Don't wing it.
Don't assume you'll figure it out as you go.
Driver Three: Phraseology.
At the Academy level, phraseology isn't just about memorizing clearances — it's about knowing the language of ATC so fluently that it stops consuming mental energy.
You need to know the rules, the LOAs, the SOPs.
You need to know the strip marking.
You need to know it well enough that you can speak ATC as naturally as you speak English — and not the casual CPC-on-LiveATC version, either.
At the Academy, you say it correctly, every time, because you don't have a choice.
Here's why this matters beyond just getting the words right: the more fluent you are in the language of ATC, the less mental strain you're under in every lab session.
And less mental strain means you can focus on actually working traffic instead of trying to remember what to say while you're trying to remember what to do.
It means you practice better.
You sleep better.
The phraseology work you put in compounds across everything else. I've said it before in this blog — phraseology is king.
That's still true at level two.
Driver Four: Practice.
There is no substitute.
None.
You cannot become fluent in phraseology without practicing it.
You cannot do strip marking without errors without practicing it.
Confidence at the Academy comes from one thing: preparation, and preparation means doing the reps.
But here's the part that matters most about practice at the Academy: you cannot simulate pressure by yourself.
You just can't.
I'll say it plainly — if you have a way to put yourself under real pressure in isolation, text me, because I genuinely want to know.
But I don't think that way exists.
Pressure comes from other people.
From being watched.
From having to perform in front of your classmates.
That's the job, and you have to practice the job the way it actually works.
Rotate with your classmates. Work with each other.
If you're in en route, practice those non-radar scenarios out loud, not just in your head.
When you get to radar, give each other situations — traffic, emergencies, interruptions — and make each other deal with them in real time.
Simulate the lab as closely as you can.
If you're in the tower option, do the same thing.
Pressure practice is the only kind that actually prepares you for evaluation day.
Driver Five: Picture.
The picture at the Academy is exactly what I described in the driver five episode — it's not one big overarching picture you hold in your head.
It's a series of small pictures, one task at a time, that build into something complete.
That's the mental approach you need to bring into every lab session.
And I want to add something here that I've brought up with students before, and a lot of them look at me skeptically at first: use visualization.
Athletes have used it for decades, and it works.
When I was a soccer player in high school, we had three or four weeks where rain canceled everything — no practice, no games, nothing. I spent that time going into the gym and hitting a ball against the wall every day, but more than that, I was visualizing. Hitting shots. Scoring goals. And when we finally got to play again, I had four goals in the first game. I wasn't supposed to be the goal scorer on that team — and then I was, for the rest of the season.
By the time your evals come around, whether it's your non-radar evals, your radar evals, or your final tower evals, you have already done everything they're going to ask you to do.
You've done it in practice.
You've done it correctly at least once — I will guarantee you that.
All you have to do on eval day is put those pieces together.
Visualize doing them correctly.
Visualize having a clean run.
Visualize walking out of there with a hundred.
Seriously — if you're going to visualize it, you might as well go all the way.
See yourself succeeding, over and over, before you ever sit down in that seat.
Driver Six: Performance.
The Academy ultimately measures performance.
Everything — the preparation you did in level one, the planning and practice you've done at the Academy — it all comes together on evaluation days.
You are going to be nervous.
If this matters to you, you're going to be nervous.
Professional athletes at the top of their game get nervous before competition.
You're not at the top yet.
Being nervous is completely normal.
What separates students who perform on eval day from students who don't isn't how smart they are.
It's not their college GPA.
It's how much they've prepared and how well they've built their process.
If you have prepared — really prepared, every day, with intensity and intention — then your job on eval day is simple: trust it.
Trust your preparation.
Trust the work your instructors have put in.
Trust the work you've put in.
You have done this before.
You know how to do this.
But if you've waited, if you've winged it, if you haven't been consistent — then you're going to feel it when the pressure is highest, because there won't be anything solid to fall back on.
What Separates the Students Who Make It
I've watched this play out hundreds of times, and I can tell you with confidence that the students who succeed at the Academy are almost never the smartest ones in the class.
They're the most consistent ones.
The most coachable.
The most disciplined.
The ones who don't rest on prior knowledge or experience they brought in from a CTI program or wherever else, but who understand that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and treat it accordingly.
If you walk into Oklahoma City with the mindset that you are going to do whatever it takes — put in the hours, bring the intensity to every practice session, be intentional about everything you do — then your chances of success are genuinely high.
Not guaranteed, because nothing is.
But high.
Because that's what it takes.
And one more thing I want to say directly: a lot of students think passing the Academy is the pinnacle. That once they do it, the hardest part is behind them. I told students this when I was in Oklahoma City and I'll tell you now — that's not accurate.
The Academy is intense, but that job-or-no-job pressure doesn't disappear when you leave.
It doesn't end until you're a certified professional controller.
After the Academy, you're training on live traffic.
The stakes get higher, not lower.
That's why the process — these six drivers, these levels — needs to keep going.
You don't finish building the foundation when the Academy ends.
You just move on to the next level.
And that's exactly where we're headed next time: level three, your first facility.
Bobby Unser said it well: "Success is where preparation and opportunity meet."
The Academy is your opportunity.
If you've prepared, success can be what's waiting at the end of it.
Don't navigate this alone.
If you need help — whether you're pre-Academy, in the middle of it, or already past it — set up a free consultation call at sidebysideatc.com. We'll talk about where you are, what's coming, and how to get where you want to go. Because you don't have to do this 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 .