Did you hear that they found water on Mars? Think about it for a second. They did not announce that they found potassium. Which, by the way, they did too. The point is that they sent Phoenix to Mars with the ability to test for the existence of water and life. The lesson for us - intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs - is threefold.

The first lesson is that if you focus on a goal, for long enough, you will achieve it. NASA has had the intention of going to Mars for decades. In fact, as a kid I remember reading “Tintin goes to Mars”. Mankind has long been fascinated by the red planet. As technology improved, so did our chances of going to Mars. We did not want to go to Mars for going to Mars’s sake; we wanted to find life on Mars. We wanted to find the Man from Mars, and even named him a Martian. We wrote books about how men are from Mars and women are from Venus. So the moment we had the ability to send a probe to Mars, we were sending it there to find life.

We never went to Mars just to get to Mars, we went to find life. The second lesson for us is that we cannot be in business for business’ sake. We cannot have this goal to be an entrepreneur for the sake of making money alone. We need a greater reason to be in business. It needs to fulfill something of a higher order than money. Why are you in business?

When Phoenix was sent to Mars, it took with it a payload of equipment that was able to test for life and water. Lesson three is that when we get into business we need to carry the “EQUIPMENT” that will make our mission successful. If you want to find water, then have equipment on board that can test for water. There is a built-in intention to find water by the mere fact that the Phoenix was carrying the equipment. What is your intention? What is the equipment you are carrying on board? If your deep intention is to fail (fear of success) then you will carry the equipment on board to ensure you can test for this. This equipment would, for example, be in the form of pessimism, looking for people to blame and self pity. Carry these on board and you are sure to find failure. If your intention is to succeed, then you need to carry the appropriate equipment on board. Carry an optimistic outlook on board, bring along some personal accountability, pack in some perseverance for those rough patches, and you are sure to find that success you intended to find.