#144 Ernest Shackleton

What I learned from reading Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. ---- [0:58] All the men were struck, almost to the point of horror, by the way the ship behaved like a giant beast in its death agonies. [1:27] His name was Sir Ernest Shackleton, and the twenty-seven men he had watched so ingloriously leaving the stricken ship were the members of his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. [2:02] Few men have borne the responsibility Shackleton did at that moment. Though he certainly was aware that their situation was desperate, he could not possibly have imagined then the physical and emotional demands that ultimately would be placed upon them, the rigors they would have to endure, the sufferings to which they would be subjected. [2:52] Their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity: If they were to get out—they had to get themselves out. [9:21] Shackleton returned to England a hero of the Empire. He was lionized wherever he went, knighted by the king, and decorated by every major country in the world. [10:24] Making his primary argument for such an expedition, he wrote: It is the last great Polar journey that can be made. I feel it is up to the British nation to accomplish this, for we have been beaten at the conquest of the North Pole and beaten at the first conquest of the South Pole. There now remains the largest and most striking of all journeys—the crossing of the Continent. [12:16] He was an explorer in the classic mold—utterly self-reliant, romantic, and swashbuckling. [15:20] But the great leaders of historical record—the Napoleons, the Alexanders—have rarely fitted any conventional mold. Perhaps it’s an injustice to evaluate them in ordinary terms. [17:00] When you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees, and pray for Shackleton. [17:15] The motto of his family: BY ENDURANCE WE CONQUER. [23:10] Shackleton said there once was a mouse who lived in a tavern. One night the mouse found a leaky barrel of beer, and he drank all he could hold. When the mouse had finished, he looked around arrogantly. “Now then,” he said, “where’s that damn cat.” [25:15] From studying the outcome of past expeditions, he believed that those that burdened themselves with equipment to meet every contingency had fared much worse than those that had sacrificed total preparedness for speed. [30:19] Of all their enemies—the cold, the ice, the sea—he feared none more than demoralization. [32:00] Shackleton was not an ordinary individual. He was a man who believed completely in his own invincibility, and to whom defeat was a reflection of personal inadequacy. [43:15] It was pull or perish, and ignoring their sickening thirst, they leaned on their oars with what seemed the last of their strength. [47:05] No matter what the odds, a man does not pin his last hope for survival on something and then expect that it will fail. [48:34] The only thing to do was to hang on and endure. [49:39] They were possessed by an angry determination to see the journey through—no matter what. [54:33] I do not know how they did it, except they had to. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

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• 0:00David Senra?

  She was being crushed, not all at once, but slowly, a little at a time. The pressure of 10 million tons of ice was driving in against her sides. And dying as she was, she cried in agony. Her frames and planking, her immense timbers, many of them almost a foot thick, screamed as the killing pressure mounted. And when her timbers could no longer stand the strain, they broke with a sound like artillery fire. Forward, where the worst of the onslaught was concentrated, the ice was inundating her. It piled higher and higher against her bows as she repelled each new wave, until gradually

• 0:44David Senra?

  it mounted to her bulwarks, then crashed across the deck, overwhelming her with a crushing load that pushed her head down even deeper. More than any other single impression in those final hours, all the men were struck, almost to the point of horror, by the way the ship behaved like a giant beast in its death agonies. Later, to the privacy of his diary, Macklin confided, "I do not think I have ever had such a horrible, sickening sensation of fear as I had whilst in the hold of that breaking ship." The general feeling of relief at being off the ship was not shared by one man.

• 1:29David Senra?

  His name was Sir Ernest Shackleton, and the 27 men he had watched so ingloriously leaving their stricken ship were the members of his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The date was October 27, 1915. The name of the ship was Endurance. The position was in the icy wasteland of the Antarctic's treacherous Wendell Sea, just about midway between the South Pole and the nearest known outpost of humanity, some 1,200 miles away.

• 2:05David Senra?

  Few men have borne the responsibility Shackleton did at that moment. Though he certainly was aware that their situation was desperate, he could not possibly have imagined then the physical and emotional demands that ultimately would be placed upon them, the rigors they would have to endure, the suffering to which they would be subjected. Nobody in the outside world knew they were in trouble, much less where they were. They had no radio transmitter with which to notify any would-be rescuers, and it is doubtful that any rescuers could have reached them even if they had been able to broadcast an SOS. It was 1915. There were no helicopters.

• 2:50David Senra?

  There were no suitable planes. Thus, their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out, they had to get themselves out. That was an excerpt from the book that I hold in my hand and the one I'm going to talk to you about today, which is "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage," and it was written by Alfred Lansing. This book was first published in 1959, and since then, it has popularized Shackleton's name so that his name has essentially become shorthand. If you wanted to describe traits of a great leader, somebody that refuses to give up, you would compare somebody to be like Shackleton. Shackleton's name appears over and over again in a lot of the biographies that I read for

• 3:32David Senra?

  this podcast, and now that I've read the book and understand his story, it completely makes sense why so many people have recommended this book and so many people reference it when they're going through times of immense struggle. I want to compare, before I jump into the book, I want to compare it to another book that has filled, I think this book is going to play the same role as another book I read a few years ago. That book is called "The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East." I have the book, I bought it on Audible. It's like a long podcast. I think it's three hours and 14 minutes long, but I want to read my notes that I have on that book real quick, just to give you the basic plot, and then I want to compare it to what I learned about Shackleton. And I think this will give you a better understanding of why it's so important to

• 4:17David Senra?

  understand Shackleton's story. And why so many other historical figures have referenced him. So this is the basic plot of The Forgotten Highlander. Alastair Urquhart, who's the author and he's telling his story, was conscripted into the British military to fight during World War II. He was 19 years old. He was sent to Singapore. The Japanese invaded and he was taken hostage. He survived 750 days in the jungle, working as a slave on the death railway and the bridge on the River Kwai. Most of the time, he worked completely naked. He contracted dysentery, malaria, and tropical ulcers. A lot. He was transferred to a Japanese hell ship. The ship was torpedoed. Almost everyone on the ship died.

• 5:03David Senra?

  He did not. He spent five days adrift at sea until he was picked up by a Japanese whaling ship. He was then sent to Nagasaki and forced to work in a mine. Two months later, he was struck by the blast from the atomic bomb. He was freed by the US Navy shortly thereafter. He returns home to Scotland and finds out his best friend died in the war and the girl he loved got married and moved to Canada. At 90 years old, he writes this book to inspire others to persevere when they are faced with hardship in their life. So that last line right there, where he says, 90 years old, he wrote the book to inspire others to persevere when they are faced with hardships in their life. I think that's the same way people use Shackleton. I use The Forgotten Highlander. I'm now moving forward.

• 5:47David Senra?

  I'm definitely going to reference this book and Shackleton's story. Anytime you're going through struggles, and that's inevitable, we all do. It could be a death of a loved one. You could have troubles at work, whatever it is. I think it's extremely helpful to step outside of yourself and be like, yeah, things are not going well right now, but I'm not naked in the jungle and I don't have malaria. And then I just want to relate the two stories together with this quote from Steve Jobs. Like, why am I bringing this up? Why is this so important? Because I came across this quote from Steve Jobs a long time ago, and I've never forgot about it. And he says, "I'm convinced about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful ones is pure perseverance." And so I don't think that just applies to entrepreneurship.

• 6:30David Senra?

  I think it applies to doing anything that's really, really hard. And what Steve is telling us there is, most people quit. They give up half of what made him successful. Half of what he views makes other people successful is the fact they just refuse to. Okay, so I want to go back to right where I left off in the book. Their ship has been crushed and they're forced to evacuate on these giant flows, which are just giant pieces of ice floating in the ocean. This is an insane coincidence. What I'm going to read you and then I'm going to give you some background on the trip and more on Shackleton. Okay. "The nearest known place where they might find at least food and shelter was tiny Paulette Island, which is 346 miles away.

• 7:10David Senra?

  There, in 1903, 12 years before, the crew of a Swedish ship had spent the winter there after their vessel was crushed by the ice." So, exact same thing that happened in Shackleton. "The ship which finally rescued that party deposited its supplies on Paulette Island for the use of any later castaways." Now, here's a crazy coincidence. "Ironically, it was Shackleton himself who had been commissioned at the time to purchase those supplies, and now, a dozen years later, it was he who needed them." Okay, so here's some background into what they were doing before. The goal of the expedition before their ship got crushed by ice.

• 7:51David Senra?

  It says, "The goal of the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition was to cross the Antarctic continent over land from west to east. Evidence of the scope of such an undertaking is the fact that after Shackleton's failure, the crossing of the continent remained untried for fully 43 years until 1957, 1958." So, just to write around the time that this book was actually published.

• 8:17David Senra?

  Now, I need to give you some background to Shackleton. This was not his first rodeo. He was a very experienced explorer. This is the time in history. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. Before I read the book, I had not. It's called "The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration", and that runs anywhere from like the end of the 1800s to right after the conclusion of World War I. And that's just a time when there's explorers from all over the world trying to conquer Antarctica for the very first time. And to do so with none of the technology or the supplies that we have in present day, which makes there... It talks about during the heroic age, the Antarctic region became the focus of international efforts that resulted in intensive scientific and geographical exploration.

• 9:03David Senra?

  The common factor in these expeditions was the limited nature of the resources available to them. And each of them, the expeditions, became a feat of endurance that tested and sometimes exceeded its, the people's physical and mental limits, where you know, you have a lot of people obviously dying in such harsh conditions as you could imagine. So, let me give you some background, what was taking place right before they went on this expedition. It says Shackleton returned to England a hero of the empire. He was lionized wherever he went, knighted by his king, and decorated by every major country in the world. Remember, this is before the events that take place in this book. So he talks about, you know, he started making a little bit of money, went on a lecture tour, wrote a book, that kind of thing.

• 9:47David Senra?

  But then, he has this sudden nagging in his mind. His thoughts had returned to the Antarctic. He had been within 97 miles of the pole, and he knew better than anyone that it was only a matter of time until some expedition attained the goal that had been denied him. And now, this is Shackleton talking about, he's making his primary argument for why, like, why would you even attempt such a thing? He almost died. I think he's been to the Antarctic at that time, two or three previous times, and yet, even after all the struggles he went through, almost dying, he decides to go back. So he said, he wrote, this is his reasoning for taking this trip. "From the sentimental point of view, it is the last great polar journey that can be

• 10:32David Senra?

  made. It will be a greater journey than the journey to the pole and back, and I feel it is up to the British nation to accomplish this. For we have been beaten at the conquest of the North Pole, and beaten at the first conquest of the South Pole. There now remains the largest and most striking of all journeys, the crossing of the continent." So that's exactly what he wanted to do on this expedition. Now, when I read that, my mind immediately went back to this quote that I keep on my phone and I try to reference all the time. And it's one of my favorite quotes a politician has ever uttered.

• 11:05David Senra?

  And it's JFK in his speech about why we choose to go to the moon. Because I think it's what JFK is describing to us. His reason why is very similar to what Shackleton's saying here, and I think could be applied to anything that we're doing that's really, really hard. And JFK said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

• 11:43David Senra?

  And those two quotes are separated about 50 years, but they mean the same thing. We're doing this because it's hard. That's the reason we're doing this. So I want to give you some personality and some background to him as he's planning the trip. "Such was the plan on paper, and it was typical of Shackleton: purposeful, bold, and neat. He had not the slightest doubt that the expedition would achieve its goal. The whole undertaking was criticized in some circles as being too audacious, and perhaps it was. But if it hadn't been audacious, it wouldn't have been to Shackleton's liking. He was, above all, an explorer in the classic mold, utterly self-reliant, romantic, and just a little swashbuckling."

• 12:26David Senra?

  So remember that self-reliance when we get to the end, because what he does on the very, after 522 days, I think, before he finally successfully gets help, that self-reliant. I'm going to talk about what he accomplished after that and the tiny bit amount of resources that he had. It's just going to be mind-blowing. Just wait till we get there. More about his personality, his biography, and a little bit of background here. "He had one pervading characteristic: he was purposeful. Cynics might justifiably contend that Shackleton's fundamental purpose in undertaking the expedition was simply the greater glory of Ernest Shackleton, and the financial rewards that would accrue to the leader of a successful expedition of this scope.

• 13:11David Senra?

  Beyond all doubt, these motives loomed large in Shackleton's mind. He was keenly aware of social position and the important part that money played in it. In fact, the abiding and unrealistic dream of his life, at least superficially, was to achieve a status of economic well-being that would last a lifetime."

• 13:32David Senra?

  Let me give you some background into why he wanted to achieve that. Shackleton came from a middle-class background, the son of a moderately successful physician. He joined the British Merchant Navy at the age of 16, and though he rose steadily through the ranks, this sort of step-by-step advancement grew progressively less appealing to his flamboyant personality. Between expeditions, he also pursued this financial masterstroke. He was perennially entranced with new schemes, each of which, in turn, he was sure would win his fortune. Now, this is gonna be interesting, because this is almost, now that I'm rereading the section after completing the book, this is kind of like Bizarro Shackleton. I'll tell you what I mean by that after I read this.

• 14:14David Senra?

  It would be impossible to list them all, meaning the schemes that he was trying to do to make his wealth, but they included an idea to manufacture cigarettes, a fleet of taxicabs, mining in Bulgaria, a whaling factory, even digging for buried treasure. So, none of them were successful. The reason I just had this realization that this is kind of Bizarro Shackleton is because the whole theme of this book is that he's persevered, which is exactly what Steve Jobs was telling us, right? The difference between, half the difference between somebody successful at what they're doing and somebody that's not successful is pure perseverance. This book that I'm holding in my hand is pure perseverance, right? And yet, when he's trying to accumulate wealth, what is he doing?

• 14:57David Senra?

  He's jumping around to every single idea that catches his fancy, and then he wonders, "Why am I not successful at this?" Shackleton, this is a little bit about why Shackleton is a misfit, of course. Shackleton's unwillingness to succumb to the demands of everyday life and his insatiable excitement with unrealistic ventures left him open to the accusation of being basically immature and irresponsible. But the great leaders of historical record, the Napoleons and the Alexanders, have rarely fitted any conventional mold, and it is perhaps an injustice to evaluate them in ordinary terms. There can be little doubt that Shackleton, in his way, was an extraordinary leader of men.

• 15:42David Senra?

  Now, before I read this next section to you, go back to that JFK quote that I just read, and you're going to see the exact same theme that JFK was talking about that is in the motivations for Shackleton to do, to even attempt to do something as crazy as he did. In a very real sense, he needed, he needed it. Something so enormous, so demanding, that it provided a touchstone for his monstrous ego and implacable drive. In ordinary situations, Shackleton's tremendous capacity for boldness and daring found almost nothing worthy of its pulling power. In the Antarctic, here was a burden which challenged every atom of his strength.

• 16:26David Senra?

  Okay, so this next quote I'm going to read to you. In the research I was doing for this podcast, I've come across variations of this quote. It's probably half a dozen different variations of the quote. Don't worry about the names. They're just all reference. They're referencing different heroes of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. But it's really going to talk about, it's a really good summary of what the value is in reading this book and understanding Shackleton's story. So it says, "For scientific leadership, give me Scott. For swift and efficient travel, add Musten." I'm not pronouncing that correctly. "But when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."

• 17:08David Senra?

  So to get ready for this expedition, he buys a ship, he renames it, and he renames it Endurance after his family motto, which is fantastic. The motto of the family. "By endurance we conquer." That could also be a four-word summary of this book. Something to know about Shackleton that appears multiple times in this book is that he trusted his instinct. In this case, he's doing interviews for the people that he's going to lead on the expedition, and this was, you know, it's going to be really surprising. But it gives you an insight, and so he just made his decisions from his gut. "These decisions were made with lightning speed. There is no record of any interview that Shackleton conducted with a prospective expedition member

• 17:52David Senra?

  that lasted much more than five minutes." It's also interesting to note that the start of World War I almost ended this trip before it actually began. Begins right as they're about to leave. Shackleton's uncertain about, you know, I need to, he felt fierce loyalty to his country. Should I stay? So he winds up asking them. But let me read this part to you first. Shackleton's position could hardly have been worse. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. He was just about to leave on the expedition he had dreamed about and worked towards for almost four years. Four years of prep went into it before they were even able to get on the boat. Vast sums of money, much of it involving future commitments, had been spent, and countless hours had gone into planning and preparation. At the same time, he felt very strongly about doing his part in the war.

• 18:37David Senra?

  So he asked, he asked the government, what they think it should do. The reply was a one-word telegram. Proceed. Two hours later, we're gonna, Churchill has to pop up in the story, of course he does. Two hours later, there was a longer wire from Winston Churchill, who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty, stating that the government desired the expedition to go on. So after four years of a lot of uncertainty, they finally embark on their journey. And I love this part, and really the summary of this part is that focus simplifies things around you. All the ambiguity of the planning is gone, right? And now they're just, they have one goal and one goal only.

• 19:17David Senra?

  Life had been reduced from a highly complex existence with a thousand petty problems to one of the barest simplicity in which only one real task remained. The achievement of the goal. So Shackleton picked 27 men to go with him. They find out that there's a stowaway, there's a 28th person that was not invited, and this is what Shackleton said to him. If we run out of food and anyone has to be eaten, you will be first. Do you understand? So they wound up leaving South Georgia Island on December 5th, 1914. Things go bad very rapidly. By January 18th, so what is that, a month and two weeks later? The Endurance is stuck in the ice.

• 20:02David Senra?

  They call it beset. And this is a great description of the condition of the ship. "It was frozen like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar. Among the men, the realization that the Endurance was really beset for good came very slowly, like a kind of creeping resignation, a bad dream from which there was no waking." So this next section is really, the note I left myself is euphoria and terror and that sometimes you have to keep it to yourself. That euphoria and terror is a quote from Mark Andreessen, which I always stuck out in my mind the first time I heard it. And he talks about that in startups, you only ever experience two emotions, euphoria and terror.

• 20:45David Senra?

  And he says, "I find a lack of sleep enhances both." And essentially, that's his really succinct way of describing this phenomenon known as like the entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster. And it really doesn't just apply to building businesses, it can apply to doing anything hard in life. And so this is what Shackleton is experiencing himself, but again, he can't, he's the leader. He cannot betray this and show this to the people that are relying on him to stay strong. So he said, "He was tormented by thoughts, both of what had happened and what might happen. He was careful, however, not to betray his disappointment to the men, and he cheerfully supervised the routine of readying the ship for the long winter's night ahead."

• 21:30David Senra?

  So they're taking all the stuff off the ship that they might need before it sinks and transferring it onto this gigantic flow, this gigantic, this gigantic flow, this gigantic piece of ice that is essentially going to be their home for the next, they don't know yet, but for the next several hundred days. So while this is all going on, we see a lot of Shackleton's inner thoughts about, he understand that, he understood, I should say, we all are influenced by the words and the actions of those around us, much more than we even care to admit. And so not only does he gotta worry about survival, but he's gotta worry about managing the mental health of all the people that he's leading. And there's one guy that is very moody and

• 22:09David Senra?

  pessimistic, and this is what Shackleton, this is how Shackleton approaches that. "He was unique among them in the fact that he worried outwardly about the future," meaning he's verbalizing this, he's talking about this, "whereas almost everybody else was confident that everything was gonna be alright. Shackleton's obvious and increasing dislike for him," Shackleton's not gonna, he's not gonna find that behavior appealing. "Shackleton seemed to fear that this attitude would spread to the other men." And so what Shackleton does in situations like this is, he actually takes the burden on himself. So he'll make sure if they're picking roommates for tents, he'll pick the people that are more negative so he can influence their thoughts, and if they are saying negative things, it only

• 22:53David Senra?

  influences him. So there's a, as you can imagine, over this long story, there's all these peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys, that continue to repeat over and over again. And so during a peak where they're elated, he has this great parable about tempering your overconfidence. You don't wanna be overconfident too early. So it says, "Shackleton said, 'There once was a mouse who lived in a tavern. One night, the mouse found a leaky barrel of beer, and he drank all he could. When the mouse had finished, he sat up, twirled his whiskers, and looked around arrogantly. Now then, he said, where's that damn cat?'" So at this point in the story, the boat is finally gone. So they know, okay, this is

• 23:36David Senra?

  not temporary. Now, this is what they're forced to, this is what happens after they're forced to abandon the Endurance. This is the actual plan that they have. "The plan, as they all knew, was to march toward Paulette Island, 346 miles to the northwest. And they would be dragging two of their three boats with them, since it was assumed that they would eventually run into open water." So these are like lifeboats. This is what's gonna make the story even crazier. They're about 20 to 22 foot long. Now, they have to drag them over ice and snow, because eventually they're gonna say, hey, the only way we're out of this, we're gonna have to take these tiny boats through, they don't know this yet. And they eventually have to take it through the Drake Passage, essentially the worst part of the ocean on the planet in a 22-foot boat.

• 24:20David Senra?

  That's what Shackleton does. It's insane. There was even a, now, this was interesting. What I found very interesting about reading the book is you get insight because a lot of the men are carrying, keeping diaries. And we see how their state of mind is influenced and changes constantly. So it says, "There was even a trace of mild exhilaration in their attitude. At least they had a clear-cut task ahead of them. The nine months of indecision, of speculation about what might happen, of aimless drifting were now over." So it just speaks to, you know, no one really likes uncertainty. This is what he told the crew and why. "Speaking with the utmost conviction, Shackleton pointed out that no article was of any value when weighed against their ultimate survival,"

• 25:05David Senra?

  meaning travel light. "And he exhorted them to be ruthless in ridding themselves of every necessary ounce, regardless of its value." From, no, this is really, really, really smart. "From studying the outcome of past expeditions, he believed that those who, that burdened themselves with equipment to meet every contingency had fared much worse than those that had sacrificed total preparedness for speed." The journey would begin the next day. On the eve of setting out, Shackleton wrote, "I pray, God, I can manage to get the whole party safe to civilization."

• 25:48David Senra?

  So I just want to pause for a moment and try to put yourself in his shoes. This is one of the heaviest burdens a human can have. He's almost certain that people will die and he's going to lead them to his death. And that not only that, more people can die or live based on the decisions he makes. Think about how heavy that is. I pray God I can manage to get the whole party safe to civilization. Now, here's the problem. They're on a giant, I'm fast forwarding, obviously. They're in a giant chunk of ice, but that's floating. You don't have control where the ice is going. So it does not get much worse than this when I'm about to read to you. "They were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world, drifting, they

• 26:32David Senra?

  knew not where, without a hope of rescue, subsisting only so long as providence sent them food to eat." What does it mean about providence sending them food? They're going to have to hunt any kind of wildlife. They're going to have to kill by hand. In many cases, seals, penguins, birds, anything that they can possibly get their hands on. So really, the sentence I'm about to read to you is really about the instinctual, intense desire we have to survive. So it talks about, you know, doing this, this bludgeoning things by hand. At the beginning, they were very squeamish. So they were squeamish about this seemingly cold-blooded method of hunting, but not for long. Now, why is that? Because

• 27:16David Senra?

  they're literally, they're going to starve to death, but not for long. "The will to survive soon dispelled any hesitancy to obtain food by any means." So when I got to this section of the book, it reminded me of another story that I heard that was retold by this person's son. So this person was trying to escape Cuba. Him, there were four, there were two 14-year-olds and one, like, uncle. So, you know, two 14-year-olds and maybe like a 30-year-old uncle kind of thing. And they take a giant truck tire, like a track, like, think of like a bulldozer's tire, and that's what they use. So they get in, three of them have no experience. They're trying to get from Cuba to the southern tip

• 27:55David Senra?

  of the United States. This is probably, let's say, 35, 40 years ago. And they brought enough

• 28:04David Senra?

  water to drink, and then after a few days, it becomes tainted and they can't drink it anymore. And so one of the stories that he's telling his son later on, after he survives this, you know, being a 14-year-old boy going through this, is they had these oars and they were trying to row this gigantic truck tire, right? Every so often, birds would land on the oars when they weren't using them. And eventually, they had to grab the bird by hand. Remember, you can't drink saltwater, you would die. And they had to crush the bird with their hand and drink the blood of the bird. And so, his son's asking, he's like, Dad, how could you possibly do this? He's like, you don't understand when you haven't drank anything for three days and you're about to die. You have this instinctual desire to survive.

• 28:48David Senra?

  It's exactly what Shackleton's experiencing, you know, half a century earlier. This is more about the heavy burden of responsibility of the leader that Shackleton's having to endure. Not only, you know, the physical demands of being in such a treacherous place, but the mental demands, knowing that everybody's physical safety and well-being rests on your shoulders. It was inescapable. He was the boss. There was always a barrier, an aloofness that kept him apart. It was not a calculated thing. He was simply emotionally incapable of forgetting, even for an instant, his position and the responsibility it entailed. The others might rest or find escape by the device of living for the moment.

• 29:32David Senra?

  But for Shackleton, there was little rest and no escape. The responsibility was entirely his. And a testament to how great a leader that his men thought he was, something that blew my mind, is even after, you read this book and you find out, it doesn't say it in the book, I found out researching otherwise, after everything that happens in the book, Shackleton goes back. And a lot of the people that went with him on the first trip, join him again. It's unbelievable. But this is another reminder, so the point in the story we're in, there's a very lack of progress. And of course, it's going to be demoralizing, right? And this is where he talks about that it's so important to manage your own psyche and then the psyche of the people that you're leading,

• 30:16David Senra?

  that we can make heaven or hell out of the same situation, depending on our mindset. I think this is extremely important. Shackleton was concerned. Of all the enemies, the cold, the ice, and the sea, he feared none more than demoralization. That is a crazy sentence. Let's read that again. Shackleton was concerned of all the enemies, the cold, the ice, the sea, he feared none more than demoralization. He understands the power our mind has. And he understands you have to manage that power. It's extremely important. So I want to bring to your attention, there's several times in the story that they go down one path that looks promising, and then eventually they get to a dead end and they have to retreat. And that, of course, is going to be extremely demoralizing, extremely heartbreaking. So this is an example of that. "Shackleton reluctantly announced that they

• 31:01David Senra?

  could not go any farther. Most of the men received the news with dismay. To hear Shackleton himself say that they had been beaten sounded almost unnatural and a little frightening. None of them, however, could possibly have felt their defeat so intensely as Shackleton, to whom the thought of quitting was abhorrent." Go back to that Steve Jobs quote. "Half of what makes you successful is pure perseverance," meaning you are not going to quit. This is Shackleton's version of that. "The thought of quitting was abhorrent." He wrote in his diary that night. "I turned in but could not sleep. Thought the whole matter over and decided to retreat to more secure ice. It is the only safe thing to do. I am anxious.

• 31:42David Senra?

  I do not like retreating, but prudence demands this course." And so we see in the story of Shackleton, something we've seen over and over again, that sometimes your strength, your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness. And we get that, an insight into how this befell Shackleton as well. Shackleton was not an ordinary individual. He was a man who believed completely in his own invincibility. So that's a huge strength, right? But it could also be a weakness in certain circumstances. It's very hard. It's not black and white. "And to whom defeat was a reflection of personal inadequacy. What might have been an act of reasonable caution to the average person was, to Shackleton, a detestable admission that failure was a possibility."

• 32:24David Senra?

  Alfred Lansing can write his ass off. There's going to be some sentences in the book. Just the writing in this book is insane. It's one of the best books I've ever read. I could not put it down. I can't tell you how good it is. To the point where like I fell asleep reading it, I could not wait to wake up the next morning and find out what happens in the story. It's fantastic. And there's going to be some sections I share with you that I have nothing to add, other than this is just a great sentence. And that's, especially the description, you really feel, when Shackleton finally makes it, "I had tears of joy in my eye." I'm not like, that's not hyperbole. Like, you feel like you know who this person is, the way he describes him. And then I really like the fact that there's a lot of quotes from all the men's different diaries in here.

• 33:07David Senra?

  You get an insight, you follow them along through several hundred pages, you know, several hundred pages in our life, but almost two years in their life of just intense struggle. And you really are, towards the end, rooting for them to survive, which they do, which is insane. Okay, um, "This indomitable self-confidence of Shackleton took the form of optimism. But at the same time, the basic egotism that gave rise to his enormous self-reliance," remember, that's a positive trait, it's about to be turned into a negative, "occasionally blinded him to realities. He tacitly, I think how you pronounce that word? Expected those around him to reflect his own extreme optimism. And he could be almost petulant if they failed to do so, and that's the problem.

• 33:50David Senra?

  He is not, he's a formidable individual, he's a misfit. He's an, uh, a, and he's unusual among unusual people. So this idea that, you know, that other people are gonna be able to do the same thing that you are, just, you're setting yourself up for failure. And Shackleton, you're seeing the same thing happen to Shackleton here. Almost everything he had undertaken, the expedition, saving the Endurance, and two attempted marches to safety, had failed miserably, right? So, I'm still in the same section where the strength is gonna turn to weakness. You have to be crazy, you have to be full of self-confidence and utterly self-reliant to even attempt an expedition like this. But then to attempt it and then to fail over and over and over again, what do you think's gonna happen?

• 34:33David Senra?

  You're gonna have these little seeds of doubt in the back of mind, "I'm not good enough, we're gonna die, I can't do this." And what happens? You give into that, you're gonna, you're, you are definitely going to die. You have to fight that back. So it says, "Everything he had done had failed miserably. Uh, the lives of 27 other men were now in his hands. 'I'm rather tired,' he wrote. 'I suppose it is the strain.' I long for some rest, free from thought." So now, he's having to manage his own mental health, and he's being tormented by the idea that's like, "Maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was." I thought I could do this and yet everything I've done since everything went downhill has been an utter and complete failure. And I'm going to lead myself and all of the people that I'm responsible for to their deaths.

• 35:18David Senra?

  Imagine the burden. Now imagine carrying that burden in your mind while at the same time you're camping on a giant piece of ice. It's negative 10 degrees. Everybody's, everything's wet. You have almost no food. You're cold, you're miserable, you're, you're sleeping terribly. Everything compounds. I just could not imagine, there's probably very few people in history that have ever had heavier burdens than Ernest Shackleton. This description of the ceaseless hunger, at the time in the story, it's 10 below zero and everything is wet. I kind of just ran over my own point here. "Men felt the shortage of food almost as physical pain. The compulsive craving of their bodies for more fuel to burn to ward off the cold caused a gnawing ceaseless hunger."

• 36:03David Senra?

  So not only do they have a limited amount of food, right? And it's also, it's going to be influenced by the amount of wildlife they can hunt around them, but they're exerting themselves physically because they're constantly marching and they're having to move and then pull their supplies, pull their boats. So they're at a calorie deficit and they're requiring a lot more energy from the body simultaneously. So during this time, they're almost out of food. There's, there's here, now they're in a valley, right? Now they're going to, over, almost immediately, in a few moments, they go to the top of a peak. And this is just a reminder that things in your life can improve rapidly. "Through the mist, a strange shape appeared. Wild," that's, that's the last name of Shackleton's right-hand man, "ran to get his rifle from the tent and then he dropped to one knee and shot.

• 36:45David Senra?

  The animal bucked and slowly sank down onto the ice. It was a sea leopard, nearly 11 feet long." And if you don't know what a sea leopard is, I, you should Google image search it. It looks like a dinosaur. It is a gigantic, it's the apex predator in the Antarctic. It has killed, it just killed a scientist in 2003. If you don't have a weapon, it's definitely going to kill a human. It was actually chasing this, one of the guys when, right before the part of the story. And the only thing that that actually can eat a sea leopard, if I'm not mistaken, is actually an orca. It's just a gigantic, huge apex predator in the Antarctic. So,

• 37:27David Senra?

  but this is why, this is why I said that things can improve rapidly. With one bullet, wild had changed the whole complexion of their lives. They were starving at this point. There at their feet lay nearly 1,000 pounds of meat. Now, things can go, remember, I started talking about it's very helpful to step outside yourself when things are going bad and be like, okay, yeah, things are going bad, but I'm not, you know, I'm not spending 750 days in the jungle in the Philippines naked, right, getting malaria. So I can get through this. Other people have survived. I can do this as well. Right? Next time things are going bad, it might be going bad. But have you ever, listen, listen to the sentence, "They found in its stomach nearly 50 undigested fish," which

• 38:11David Senra?

  they had, which they carefully set aside to be eaten next day. So things are going bad, but are you so hungry that you have to kill a giant, a giant sea leopard and then eat the the undigested fish that you find in its belly? Probably not, right? So this entire time, obviously leaving out huge chunks of the book, they're on a giant flow, right? And this is in this section of the story, "Shackleton must make a life and death decision under extreme amounts of uncertainty." So these flows, they're not solid, they break. They're constantly, the tides push on them, the waves push on them. Sometimes you just start breaking in two, and this is what's happening here. After the flow was split in two, the time, this time exactly through the spot where

• 38:52David Senra?

  Shackleton's tent had stood some minutes before. So we can, now we can split. Sometimes it could split. So you, the people, if you're on the crack, you fall to, you're going to fall to your death because you're going to be submerged in water. Right? So they had just moved. A few minutes later, if they had not moved, the whole tent where Shackleton was would have went in a crevice. Then they waited, torn between the overpowering desire to launch the boats regardless of the risk and the certain knowledge that once they did, there would be no turning back. The men looked at Shackleton. For a moment, the pack was open, meaning the ice pack. So maybe they could launch the boats and maybe they could to try to navigate and not have to stay on the flow. Right? The, the pack was open, but how long would it remain open? Because what could happen is the same thing

• 39:35David Senra?

  that happened to small boats is what happened to the large boat. The pack's open, but in a few minutes, few hours, few days, it could close and then you can't get the boat out. You're stuck. And there's no backup boats. They would die. And yet, how long could they stay where they were? The immense flow that had once been Patience Camp, that's what they named the giant piece of ice that they're on, was now an irregular rectangle, hardly 50 yards across. Now, why that sentence is so insane is because the flow, when they got on it, was a mile wide. It was a mile wide, and now it's down to 50 yards. How long would it be before it was broken and ground to bits beneath their feet?

• 40:17David Senra?

  At 12:40, Shackleton gave the order in a quiet voice, "Launch the boats." So, a few weeks ago, when I read that book, it's part of the three-part series that Larry Ellison, where it says, I think it's called "The Billionaire and the Mechanic." One of the people that he hires to run his crews tells Larry a story. I think they're down 8 to 1. They wind up coming back and winning whatever boat race they're in. And he talks about how he manages his own,

• 40:45David Senra?

  like, he manages his own perspective, this guy that Larry hired. And he says, "Something he learned from his friends that went through Navy SEAL training is the ones that got through the training never thought too far ahead. They're not like, 'Oh, I have to do three more days of this,' or 'I have to do 12 more hours.' They're like, 'I have to do one more step.'" They only focus, like, the key to surviving is don't think too far ahead, just focus on the next step. Now, that, I think, is a good lesson that we can learn, not only in, you know, physical feats like Navy SEAL training or what Shackleton has to endure right now, and where we are in the story, but what we're doing. It's like, there's no point in looking too far ahead. I just need to, what's the next step? And let me get to that next step, and then I'll do the next step. And then that's it, and I'll just keep doing. And if I do that over a long period of time, I'll get to where I need to go.

• 41:30David Senra?

  So, it says, "They were in the boats, and that was all that mattered." "They thought neither of Patience Camp," meaning the past, "nor an hour in the future. There was only the present, and that meant row, get away, escape." So, it's like, we don't know where we're going. We don't even know where we're at yet, because we haven't been able to take a reading, because we can't see the sun. But you know what? All we're gonna do is, I need to row once, then I need to row again. And then, when I'm done with that row, I'll row more and keep going, and just focus on the next actual movement that I need to do. So, once they launch the boat, there's no turning back. They're about to get out of the pack of ice and they're about to go into open sea. They're trying to navigate towards an island so they could at least not be in boats for... They might be in them for several weeks, I can't remember the exact time.

• 42:14David Senra?

  But this is a description, and this is just insane when you think about what's happening. "They made a pitiable sight, three little boats packed with the odd remnants of what had been once a proud expedition, bearing twenty-eight suffering men in one final, almost ludicrous bid for survival. But this time, there was to be no turning back, and they all knew it." And this is gonna give you a good idea of how desperate things get while they're trying to get... They're eventually gonna land on this thing called Elephant Island, which is... There's no... Nobody lives on it. It's just literally to get out of the boats and try to get on solid land. I'm gonna describe this to you right now.

• 42:56David Senra?

  "They had no sleep for almost eighty hours, and their bodies had been drained by exposure, an effort of almost the last vestige of vitality. But the conviction that they had to land by nightfall gave rise to a strength born of desperation..." More great writing here. "...a strength born of desperation. It was pull or perish, and ignoring their sickening thirst, they leaned on their oars with what seemed to be the last of their strength." So, what is... I forgot to... I left that apart there. Why are they so thirsty? "They bought two packs of water, one of them was tainted." So, they have to drink the blood of seals to avoid dying of thirst.

• 43:37David Senra?

  Very similar to the story I just told you, where they're drinking the blood of the birds so they don't die of thirst. They finally make it on Elephant Island, this is the description. This is just more great writing. "They were on land. It was the merest handhold, one hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep. A meager grip on a savage coast, exposed to the full fury of the sub-Antarctic Ocean. But no matter, they were on land. For the first time in four hundred and ninety-seven days, they were on land. Solid, unsinkable, immovable, blessed land."

• 44:21David Senra?

  Okay, so there's a really helpful map at the beginning of the book that I reference over and over again as I'm reading the book. So right now in this story, all of them are together, they're on Elephant Island. They are 650 miles away from South Georgia Island, which is where they started this expedition from, which is the only place they know for sure. There's a whaling station there. So they know for sure there's people there that can help them. And so what Shackleton has to make the decision now, he's like, okay, I'm taking one of the boats. It's called the James Cunard or James Caird. It's 22 feet long and it's gonna be me and five people. We are going to risk our lives to try to go get help. Because at the whaling station, then you have these gigantic ships that you

• 45:03David Senra?

  can go back and rescue the other, what was that, 22, 21 other men that are gonna be stranded on Elephant Island. And this is a great description of the difficult task that's gonna lay ahead of them. "They would travel perhaps 1,000 miles across the stormiest ocean on the globe. The ultimate goal was an island no more than 25 miles wide at its widest point." Remember, this is 1915, there is no GPS. "To guide an open boat that distance under conditions that were frightening to even contemplate. And then to strike a pinpoint on the chart where tasks that would solely tax even worse, Lee, worse is his navigator

• 45:47David Senra?

  that he's gonna have to take with him, worse is skill as a navigator. So if they go too far south, they miss it. The next land is 3,000 miles east. They cannot miss it. So they have to travel, they think it's about 1,000 miles, I'm not sure. Was it being 650, I think, is the course that they actually chart. And they have to, they have to hit, I mean, think about that, 25 mile wide island in the middle of the sub Antarctic Ocean. So spending a few days on Elephant Island, getting ready for this journey, he's picking the crew, he's doing all this other stuff. I'm gonna give you, read a couple of sentences during this time. He has to write a letter in case he dies, transferring his, like the responsibility to his right-hand person. His whole letter, I'm just gonna read one

• 46:31David Senra?

  sentence to you. He's like, you know, if I die, this is what the last sentence, he writes, "You can convey my love to my people and say I tried my best."

• 46:44David Senra?

  And this is there, this is just another more great writing on the feelings they're having as they are about to leave Elephant Island and go on what many people expect, you know, to never see him again. On this score, their general feeling, at least outwardly, was confident. But how else might they have felt? Any other attitude would have been the equivalent of admitting that they were doomed. And this is a really great sentence. No matter what the odds, a man does not pin his last hope for survival on something and then expect that it will fail.

• 47:17David Senra?

  So Shackleton and five people, they're in this tiny boat, they're in one of the worst places in the entire ocean in the world. And as you could expect, Shackleton is having doubts. So he's talking to Worsley, which is his navigator. He says, "They spoke of many things. It was obvious that the burden of responsibility Shackleton had borne for 16 months had nibbled away somewhat at his enormous self-confidence. He wanted to talk and to be assured that he had acted wisely. He confided to Worsley that the decision to separate the party had been a desperately difficult one, and he had abhorred having to make it. But somebody had to go for help, and this was not the sort of responsibility

• 48:02David Senra?

  which could be delegated to another person. As for the journey itself, he seemed strangely doubtful." During one especially trying night, the boat is being thrown around by 40 to 50-foot waves. There's gale-force winds. Shortly after the part I'm about to read you, they actually get stuck in what's the equivalent of like hurricane-force winds, and they somehow survive. And this is like within a few miles of getting to South Georgia Island. And it's during this tumultuous night that they're describing this, and it's just a great sentence. It's true for Shackleton. I think it's true for anybody doing anything hard, any hard thing. "The only thing to do was to hang on and endure."

• 48:48David Senra?

  Oh, and I forgot to mention on this trip as well, trying to get to South Georgia Island, their water gets contaminated. So they're a few miles from the island. There's this huge storm. There's a very good chance they're going to die. They eventually have to take a detour. They were going to try to get to the whaling station. Now they just have to land on anywhere. So the whaling station is on the east side of the island. They have to land on the west side. But this section I'm going to read to you is just proof that we are all more capable than we think. For 13 days, they had suffered through almost ceaseless gales, then finally a huge rogue sea. They had been the underdog, fit only to endure the punishment inflicted on them. But sufficiently provoked, there is

• 49:31David Senra?

  hardly a creature on God's earth that ultimately won't turn and attempt to fight regardless of the odds. They were possessed by an angry determination to see the journey through no matter what. They felt that they had earned it. For 13 days, they had absorbed everything that the Drake Passage could throw at them. And now, by God, they deserved to make it. In this section, just, this is where I was just so joyous. As quickly as they could, the other men scrambled after him. It was 5 o'clock on May 10, 1916, and they were

• 50:12David Senra?

  standing at last on the island from which they had sailed 522 days before. They heard a trickling sound. Only a few yards away, a little stream of fresh water was running down from the glaciers high above. Remember, they had no drinking water for several days. A moment later, all six were on their knees, drinking. Now, here's the most insane thing. They get stuck in the ice. They have to travel hundreds of miles north. They eventually have to take a little rowboat over crazy water, get to Elephant Island, then, you know, 20 something of the guys stay there. Shackleton and five other people then have to do this insane journey, 650 miles to South Georgia Island.

• 50:58David Senra?

  And you think, okay, wow, they made it. It's fantastic. It's not over. They realize the storm is so bad. There's like a hur- the hurricane or whatever hurricane force winds. On the other side of the island, not too far from the island they're on. The storm that was, that caused them to have to land on the west side instead of the east side island, had sunk a 500 foot boat. They're on a 22 foot boat. So they realize, Shaka doesn't realize this. We have to go over by land. There's six people on the beach, right? He's like, okay, I'm gonna take three of us and we're gonna cross over by land. South Georgia island up until that point, here's the insane part, had never been crossed by land.

• 51:41David Senra?

  People thought it was impossible. Imagine a series of mountains covered with ice. It's 30 something miles that he's gonna have to cover with just him and two people.

• 51:52David Senra?

  So even after 522 days, everything he had to experience, now he's got another monumental task in front of him. One that no other human being had ever done before. Now, he's going to succeed, obviously. And then they're gonna get hope from the whaling station. It takes, I think, three failed attempts and four and a half months. Before he's able to rescue the rest of his crew and every single person in his expedition survives. But this is where I'm gonna end it on this, this, this last of his amazing accomplishments. The fact that he travels over this inhospitable South Georgia island, covered in mountains of ice.

• 52:33David Senra?

  Okay, this is the crazy thing. The crossing of South Georgia, I'm reading from the book now. Had been accomplished only by one other party. And that was almost 40 years later in 1955. It was a British survey team. The party was made up of expert climbers and was well equipped with everything they needed for the journey. So they had planes helping them, helicopters helping them. They had radio transmitters at the time. They were expert climbers. Shackleton was an expert climber. They had all the supplies. They could take as long as they needed. Shackleton did it with three people in 36 hours without sleeping. There's a time where two of his friends fall asleep. They try to take a rest. He's about to fall asleep and then he jumps up immediately. He's like, oh no, because

• 53:18David Senra?

  there's something like the Arctic sleep of death, where you get really cold. So you go, I'm just gonna sleep. You feel tired. Once you go to sleep, you never wake up. And so he immediately, after letting them sleep for five minutes, he wakes up the two people he's traveling with. It's like, hey, you guys slept for a half hour. We gotta get going. So he does all of this with almost no equipment, over 36 hours and no sleep. Okay. These people did it 40 years later with everything. And this is the people in this, this party, in this British survey party describing like their admiration and just the unbelievable, the unbelievability of what Shackleton did. And so he's describing Shackleton's party

• 53:59David Senra?

  here. "Three men of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with 50 feet of rope between them and a carpenter's axe." The same thing that people 40 years later needed helicopters, planes, equipment, expert climbers, gear, way more time. They could plot everything out. "Shackleton and these two people did with 50 feet of rope between them and a carpenter's axe. We are all more capable than we think." And I'll leave this with his description. "I do not know how they did it, except they had to."

• 54:39David Senra?

  And that's where I leave it. I highly, highly, highly recommend reading this book. There's a reason that, what, 60 years after the book was published, people still talk about it. They're still reading this book. It's, it's one that I know I'll reference over and over again. And I'll go back and reread my highlights over and over again. It was absolutely fantastic. If you want to buy the book and support the podcast at the same time, do so by using the links that are in the show notes on your, on your podcast player, or you can go to founderspodcast.com and buy using the links that's on the website. That's 144 books down, 1,000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon.