The film The Martian is based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, a bestseller that, according to the source, the Wall Street Journal hailed as the best science fiction book written in years.
Whether the scientific “adventures” in the book and the film are more or less accurate is something we’ll leave to people who know more about science (it isn’t our field). But it is a film from which we can draw some important life lessons that are always worth remembering, because they apply both to business and to our personal development.
Here’s a quick summary of the plot for anyone who hasn’t seen it. If you already know it, skip this paragraph:
An astronaut (Matt Damon) is left for dead on Mars by his crew. That makes him one of the first men to set foot on Mars, and he is certain he will also be the first to die there. Even if he managed to contact Earth, he would die before any rescue could arrive.
Lesson 1. In adversity, however hard it is, make a plan.
The first step in high-risk situations is to stay alive as long as possible. In this astronaut’s case, knowing he was going to die, he could have used up all his supplies in a few days.
In moments of tension and stress we may not see a way out, but if you stay alive long enough, an idea will probably come along that solves a problem that previously seemed to have no solution.
Lesson 2. Never lose your sense of humor.
Whatever else he lacked, this astronaut never ran short of good humor, and he’s extremely likeable. I know many will say it’s just a movie, but while I was watching it I remembered a real case of a mountaineer who was trapped with very little chance of survival. The climber said he made it out because he treated the situation as a game, and he had to fall back on his sense of humor to stay alive.
Lesson 3: Some secondary knowledge can save your skin at some point in life.
That’s why knowledge is never a burden. In our astronaut’s case, for all the millions NASA invests in training, he didn’t survive thanks to his great technical expertise but thanks to another kind of knowledge, in this case botany.
Lesson 4: When plan A goes to hell.
You can plan everything properly, but on a planet like Mars, where conditions are completely unstable, everything can fall apart in the blink of an eye (very much like the business world). When that happens, face the new situation and find something else to do to stay alive.
Everything you’ve worked for and everything you’ve built can be lost in an instant. That can’t be allowed to knock you down or make you lose your good humor (at least not permanently), because you have to get back to work.
Lesson 5: Don’t complain, and use the resources within your reach.
I suppose that if our “Martian” had started saying “if only I had a ship to get out of here” or “if only there were a burger joint nearby”, he’d probably have been lost.
Sometimes that’s exactly what we do in life: we complain about what we don’t have, when in reality we should use what we do have to get what we want. Once our Martian understood that, he found value even in excrement.
Lesson 6: The final message.
When he’s asked whether he thought he was going to die on Mars, his answer is fascinating. In essence, he says he was sure he was going to die up there, but once you know that, you have two options: either you accept it, or you get to work to prevent it.
Featured image: NASA/JPL/Texas A&M/Cornell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
