#11 Ernest Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer (Part 1)

Imagine leading a team into one of the harshest environments on Earth. Your plan goes completely sideways and you're trapped with no way out. Every decision you make determines whether your people live or die. This isn't just a survival story. It's a masterclass in leadership, resilience, and an unbreakable will. This is the story of Ernest Shackleton and the greatest survival feat in history. Let's get into this episode. So Shackleton's motto, his family motto, the family that he came from, was actually by Endurance, we conquer. And that's what he named his ship, the. Which is called the Endurance. And he made it to where the Endurance was going to be, the ship that they would take overseas. And so the reason why Shackleton really matters for this podcast is that this isn't really, this isn't just about adventure. It's actually about leadership under pressure. And really it's about resilience and decision making. When everything falls apart, when your guys are, you know, in the Antarctic and they're, you know, like, one wrong decision could kill everyone or kill some people. That is really something that takes resilience and takes excellence. Right? And also, like, how does Shackleton's mindset, like, how can it be applied to this resilience or decision making? And how can it help people with businesses, startups and high achievers? This is really something that you should be thinking about when we go through Shackleton in the next this week and upcoming weeks where it is really interesting what he's done, like just the person he is and what this book really highlights. And so what's really interesting about this is that Shackleton, he tries to get his boat ready for four years and he talks to the king of the country or the queen of the country, and they get approval and so they start building the ship. And it's by this really high tech engineer. And this engineer designs the tents for the ship, the ship itself, everything. And so it's actually designed for the ice and the Antarctic. And, and so they had saved up, they had gotten all this stuff ready for four years and before this ever happened, he actually had previously gone to the. Nor, to the South Pole and in the Antarctic. In Antarctica. And he actually had previous failures. And so some of them was that he attempted to actually reach the South Pole before, but he lost to this guy named roald amundston in 1911 and this guy beat him there. So the first expedition that he went, he went and got like 97 miles away from the, the actual Antarctic continent, or it was like 357 miles. The second expedition was like 97 miles away, but it wasn't, you know, it still wasn't there. They had to turn back because of starvation and chances of, you know, things going wrong. And so this next, this expedition, the Endurance, which is the one most commonly known by a lot of people, it wasn't really just about adventure. It was actually about redemption and legacy. And unlike many other leaders of his time, he actually valued more morale and mental resilience just as much as skill. And so the grand vision for what he was calling the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition was, was that the, the vision was that Shackleton actually planned to cross Antarctica coast to coast. So the goal before was to get to the, the middle of Antarctica and like plant your flag there and say, hey, this is, this is what we're doing. And so that was kind of the whole goal there. But really he wanted to go coast to coast. And this had never been done before. This is 1914. And so that it is really interesting because in 1914 you're really looking at, you know, it hasn't been done before. There's boats, there's no, I don't think there's such things as airplanes that they can use right now. There's not a lot of things that, you know, they can use to get over into the Antarctic. And he was also obsessed with the Antarctic or just Antarctica. He was obsessed with Antarctica. He was just, he couldn't stop thinking about it. From each expedition he would come back, he would think about it even more. It's kind of like a business or an idea, a business idea that you have. You just keep obsessing over it. He was the same way with going back to the, like going back, which is really crazy. And what I would relate this to nowadays, like it was an insane, high stakes mission. Almost like, like related to Elon Musk's Mars vision or ambition, where he wants to fly people to Mars. It's not as grand or on that scale, but it is still related. That's kind of how I would relate those two. That was in 1914. Now we're in 2025 and we're still seeing that they're both neck and neck because the technology back then was not as great. And now we have great technology, but we're still, you know, know we're still not in space. And that's kind of the level of relevance I could give to you right now in our culture today. That's kind of how high this was. And so in order for Shackleton to make it Back to Antarctica. He needed a team. And what's really genius about the way he thinks is that his genius wasn't just in planning the trip. It was actually in picking the right people. And he selected men based on their personalities. And also he, he actually wanted to select them based on their personalities and just as much as skill. So they had really good skill and they had a bad attitude. He wouldn't hire them. But if they had great skill, great personality, he loved them. He also was very spontaneous and instant in hiring people. So he would hire people. He, he, I'm not joking. This guy came into his office and said, hey, I, I saw you're going to be taking a trip back to the, you know, Antarctic or Antarctica. Can I go with you guys? And Shackleton loved it, loved his attitude so much, he hired him on the spot. He was like, yeah, you can go. Just come to us when we're ready or when we send it out and that we're leaving and we'll take you on. And that, that was literally how fast it was. It was just a five minute. It was less than five minutes. And so this kind of reminds me of Elon, Elon Musk in terms of his hiring skills. Elon's approach to hiring focuses heavily on attitude and motivation rather than just skills or experience. And Elon really emphasizes the importance of hiring individuals with the right attitude, suggesting that quite quote, skills can be taught. And it is true, if you get someone that has a terrible attitude but has all the skills in the world, they're still going to be a jerk. A talented jerk. A really talented jerk. This is something Brad Jacobs actually brings up in his book how to Make a Few Billion Dollars that we actually covered in this podcast episode or podcast. And it was really interesting because he said, you don't want to have a talented jerk on your team because it's going to affect other people. And that's something that reminds me of Shackleton and Elon Musk. Elon was very much like that. And he actually said that, you know, Elon said that changing an attitude often requires a more profound transformation, almost like akin to a brand brain transplant transplant. And Musk also believed in the power of a smaller number of highly motivated individuals over a large group of moderately motivated people. And so the equivalence I could bring out for that is like, if you have Elon Musk Company, they're super small, especially space ads, it's really small. But they're highly motivated people that are willing to work 24 hours in a day to get what Elon wants. And that is going to be far more effective than a company that just has a ton of people doing okay work or just a ton of people that are, you know, moderately motivated. And so you want motivated people in your company. And this is something that Shackleton actually did. He had people that wanted to go in a different book. So this is called the Endurance by Alfred Lansing. This is the book I'm pulling from to make this podcast episode and what I've been reading. But there's another one called By Endurance we conquer. By, I believe his name's Michael, I'm forgetting his last name. But this guy also did another book, but he really hones in on what Shackleton put out for an advertisement. And his advertisement was, hey, it was basically like, we want people that are willing to die, people that, you know, want to be lonely, or I'm forgetting all the advertisement. But it was really profound, really genius, actually. It was like, hey, like, we want true, like true adventurers, people that are willing to die, low probability of returning. And it was really revolutionary because I think 3, 000 people signed up or applied. And out of those 3, 000 people, he picked 27. And so it was really interesting because this is something that you see with a lot of these people that have the, a lot of these people that have the same mindset. So whether that's Shackleton, a great leader, Elon Musk, a great leader, you know, you go to Brad Jacobs, another great leader. And honestly, I believe that if Charlton lived in the 2000s, he would probably be a billionaire. That that's just, you know, a given. He was a great leader. He'd probably be an explorer. Well, there's not really much to explore now, now that we have a ton explored, except like the ocean. But I mean, he would be exploring, he would be doing so much now and he would be like a modern day Elon Musk. And so something that he also works on besides his team is actually a ship. And the ship was called the Endurance, based off of his family motto, which, by the way, by Endurance, we conquer as a family motto is a sick motto. I actually wrote down in my notes that I should make a motto for my family in the future with, you know, when I, when I have a family where it's like, create a family motto. Like, because that is so sick to have that become your motto as a family. Like, by endurance, we conquer. Yeah, that's our, that's our family motto. Like that was his motto. Like that. That's one of the greatest quotes of all time, much less like that was a family thing. That's crazy. I mean, it truly is remarkable what you see with Shackleton and kind of how he, you know, how he dealt with all this pain and adversity in this. And so he named the ship Endurance based off of his family motto. And the ship was called Endurance. It, they actually had letters on the ship. They actually recently found it, I think two or three years ago. And they found it at the bottom of the ocean, like 3,000ft deep. It has the, as most of the paint still on it with the gold lettering Endurance on it. It's truly remarkable. You should go look it up. It's, you know, awesome. And it, for that time in 1914, it was actually a marvel, like a technological marvel of its time. It was actually designed to withstand crushing ice. But the thing was there's a, there was a different type of boat that they could have taken. It wouldn't have got through the ice as easily and it would have taken forever to get to Antarctica. But basically the premise or what happens in the book is that there, these ice floes, which are just basically huge, like 20 meter ice blocks or, you know, floating chunks of blocks of ice on the water, two ice floes go up against the ship and they crush it and the ship sinks. Well, there was another type of boat that was mentioned in the book that they didn't take, but the idea of it was that when it would be crushed, it would actually pop up because that was the design of the boat. It would pop up over that ice. So no matter how hard it was being crushed, it would go up. And, and so the Endurance was actually more, it was designed to withstand the crushing ice, but eventually it, it got, the weight was too much. It was like 2 tons or a ton of ice just crushing it. And they couldn't prepare for that, especially with the technology that they had at that time. But, you know, it was still a marvel of its time. And so in 1914, Endurance set sail. And by January 1915, it became trapped in the we, the Weddell Sea or Wheedle Sea. And so what happens is they're going, they stop at South Georgia island or something like that, South Georgia island, they kind of rest up waiting for, you know, opening in the ice. Because from what I understand, the Wheedle Sea or the Weddell Sea is basically before you get to Antarctica, there's just a bunch of floating ice chunks, like icebergs, ice chunks everywhere. And, and what they had to do was they had to go through these packs of ice in order to get to Antarctica. And so they keep going through. And it was actually crazy. This, the. The photographer that they had on their boat trip, he recalled in his journal, the author mentions this in the book, but he's looking down, so he sees this iceberg. And their ship passes by. And he looks down and he sees the iceberg go on for a thousand feet deep before. It's just black, like. Just black like blue water. It's just a thousand feet deep, and then it's just black. And like, that's what they were seeing. They would have to go through. And so what ended up happening was they were going through these ice packs to get to Antarctica. They go down one of these, think of it like rivers. And the ice packs are like land, but moving land. So they went down this ice pack and they went through, like, this river that was open with all ice around them. And what ended up. What ended up happening was the ice pack closed in around them and they were stuck. And it. It just became trapped in the. In the ocean, like in the sea. And so this was in winter. And so the temperatures were dropping, the ice was building up. And the crew is basically stranded thousands of miles from civilization. And the closest, literally the closest outpost or the closest, you know, people of civilization were out South Georgia. And that's just a really small island. And the crazy thing is that Shackleton did not panic, unlike most leaders, but he actually adapted. And something that stood out it was he kind of shifted the mission from, hey, we're gonna actually get to Antarctica, we're going. He shifted from that view to an, Like a survival, like, we're just going to stay here. Hopefully it opens up so we can get there. But it was an instant pivot that allowed them to do that. And he also maintained the morale of the company and just the morale of his men. And so he. He kept the men entertained. He led by example and tried to prevent hopelessness. There was actually some people that would be more depressing than others, but then there would actually be people that were, you know, awesome, really optimistic, which is interesting, really optimistic. And so he wanted to make sure. He was. He wanted to make sure that this person that was really negative didn't affect all these positive people. So then it's just depressing the whole time, which is really interesting because you see that with Brad Jacobs and his business book, which is. In the book we read, which is how to Make a Few Billion Dollars. And he mentions that you don't want to have depressing people around positive people because negativity spreads faster. And so you really want to create a, a culture of people that are all positive or even the ones that are negative. You kind of separate them out. And this is what Shackleton does. And once Shackleton notices that the Endurance is doomed and, you know, he realizes this and they start. It actually takes a while, so they'll sleep in the boat and they notice these two ice floes coming in on either side of the boat, slowly moving in, eventually to the point where they're about to crush the boat. And they get to a point where the ice is actually crushing it. And so he orders the crew to abandon the ship and set up camp on the ice. So they make dog, they call them dog loos, which is just an igloo for dogs. They set up tents for themselves, try not to get wet because there was a ton of snow, really cold. Like you're in negative degree weather, negative 35, negative 20s. They describe in the book that a warm day was like 10 degrees or 20 degree. Like it mentioned that they were so deprived of like the sun. Because when you're in the South Pole, depending on what time of the year you were at, there's either going to be sun for most of the day and then gone for a couple hours, or it's going to be night for like most of the day and then sun for a couple of hours. And they will, they experience mostly winter, like just night or just not a lot of sun. And so I would think it's easy to get depressed, but they actually don't. And then flip side, in summer it's more, it's sunny and so they, they're abandoned on this ice, really cold. They actually think a warm day is like 10, 20 degrees and they can take their shirts off, which is funny. And they, you know, they have 70 or 69 husky dogs. They have all these provisions and all this stuff that they have to get off the ship before it gets crushed. And so they're literally stranded on this like block of ice or block of, you know. Yeah, this block of ice, this flow or whatever you call it, this big block of ice. Eventually their ship gets crushed. So they have no ship, there's no land, and it's just ice. And they're just waiting because they have these emergency boats. They have like three boats that they can use to get away and they have to stay on this block of ice for at least a month. A month. So it's honestly really weird and kind of funny. Not, well, not funny, but it's just really Weird how optimistic they were. But it really goes back to Shackleton because Shackleton's leadership focused on, like, it kept. It kept everyone focused, calmed, and disciplined. And his mindset was really like, if one of these guys dies, it's on me. It's my responsibility. And so his whole thing was that we will not give up until all of us reach safety. And a big lesson of this is that leadership is about controlling the narrative, because if Shackleton had shown fear that then panic would have spread. But great leaders, actually, they instill belief in. Even in impossible situations. And what was really weird was that the group was very optimistic. They had regular meal times. They went on a lot of hunting trips for food. So they actually would hunt penguins and seals. And they had. They had brought whale carcasses or whale. Not carcasses, but just whale meat to feed their dogs. And there's actually a hard time in the story when they. They were moving out of this ice block or moving to a different part of it because of just, you know, they needed to get moving and they had to. They tried to carry as little weight as possible, and so they had to actually kill some of their. Some of the dogs and leave them behind. I haven't gotten to the part of the story where I've heard they've had to kill all the huskies in order for there to be. When they go on the boats to try to get to safety. I don't know if that happens. I'm assuming it does, but it was a really sad part. And it was kind of this survivalistic, you know, survival of the fittest, whoever can carry their weight type of thinking. And it's really sad. It is a sad story. But they're also really optimistic. So they hunt seals. They hunt like, I'm not joking. They'll get, like, a piece of wood and they'll sneak up on this seal and they'll just, like, you know, kill it. They'll. They'll kill it with their. With this piece of wood or a hatchet or something. Same thing with penguins. They'll kill their penguins because they had limited ammunition with their guns. And so they were trying to preserve that. And they, they also. This is really weird. They played soccer. I don't. I don't think they had a soccer ball, but they, like, you know, made these, like, fake posts and they, like, would play soccer. They also had talent shows and storytelling at night. So there was one tent, I think it was like, tent number five, but they would read. They all had a book that they had brought and they all would read a little bit, and they would all. So one guy would read and while the other guys were all, like, together listening. And then one guy would go up and the other guy would go down and that guy would read. It was really interesting how they. They showed like. Like, unity within their group. They also had talent shows. There's pictures you can look up online or just in the book that they. They dressed up one time while they still had their ship. They. They dressed up for, like, a talent show. And it was. It's really funny and really weird. They also had one where they played cards. Like just a random thing. They just, like, played cards. They played this game called bridge. They played poker. It. It's really funny, like, what they did. And it's weird how optimistic this group was. I don't think that's normal. I personally would be depressed on a block of ice with, you know, whale, penguin and seal to eat. But they did the impossible. And I think that's all due to Shackleton. I think Shackleton really steered that, like. Like, remarkably well. There's. I've never heard of anything like this. And this is what's really crazy and awesome and remarkable about this story. And they lived on this ice for months, hunting seals and penguins. There was another funny story that in the book, they wanted to get used to whale blubber or whale meat because they didn't have a lot because the seals and the penguins would actually migrate to somewhere else when it was warmer or something like that. The seals would migrate, and so they had less food, so they had to eat whale blubber or whale meat. And so they would put it this. They had a cook that would make soup. And so Shackleton told him to put the whale blubber into it. So he. He would get the guys used to eating that type of food. And it was really, really interesting and something I never, you know, heard about before. But it shows you how desperate they were. But even through that, they were still really, really optimistic. And this really shows that Shakoten kept routines strict. And he also knew that discipline is survival or discipline is survival, whether that's with food, whether that's, you know, mental endurance with, you know, having fun, whether that's just endurance, like the physical endurance. It's really interesting. And so lessons so far that I've picked up is that leadership is about pivoting when the. When. When the plans fail. So he didn't actually make it to Antarctica because it was so bad in just, you know, where they were at. They were stuck on a block of ice or just this big ice chunk in the middle of the ocean. Also, morale and team selection are everything really when you're selecting people, whether that's in a business, whether that's, you want to go on a random boat trip to the, like to the Antarctic, whether, wherever that is, whenever that is really, team selection is everything. And you want to know that the people that you're selecting are people that you could go and work with for a long time in Shackleton's ca. In Shackleton's case, it was a long time. And what I really love about this book so far, I'm about a hundred, a little over 100 pages in. It's about a 370 page book so far. Amazing. I feel like I'm just getting into it, but Shackleton is really resilient and uncommon in just his era. And something that is really interesting about Shackleton is that he, he takes responsibility for things that, or even for people, that he has this sense of responsibility for his people. And I really appreciate about that, appreciate that about him. He knows that if these guys die, they're on my watch, that that was on me. And I'm gonna have to go to their family or go to whoever, you know, their spouse is or whoever they're married or just whoever their family is and say that's my fault. And that's a heavy burden. And so he, it mentions in the book that he carried this dread around him that if, if his guys didn't make it out alive, he would have to deal with that burden forever or just, you know, during the rest of his life. And so he, that, that is why, spoiler alert. I think he, he made it out alive with everyone else. I think that is why he became one of the greatest leaders and had one of the most incredible voyages the world's ever seen. This is literally a history story that is so brilliant and incredible that it, it shapes culture. This isn't just, this isn't just, hey, this guy went on a voyage and saved a bunch of guys. What he did was incredible. I don't think anyone could survive that nowadays. I think, you know, personally, this guy was one of the toughest guys I've ever read about. He's incredible at what he, he's done. He knows what he's doing, he has leadership. That is just incredible. And something that I would actually be interested in is learning more about him. Just Shackleton himself and the story so far is amazing. I love to learn about the voyage and everything, but what he's done and just who he's become. I really want to focus on that, and that that's something that would really benefit everyone on this podcast. And another thing is that when I'm evaluating these people, I want to make sure I'm looking for four things. Those four things is, one, are they a great leader externally, or are they a good person externally? Like, did they do something great? Two, so it's like spiritual, mental, and physical. And then, you know, physical could have two aspects to it. Where were they successful in life? And two, were they know, do they prioritize their health? And something that I'm looking at is Shackleton was a great leader, did a lot of good things right in terms of, you know, his mental fortitude. It is so unparallel to anyone I've seen in. In today's society that it's almost. It's amazing. People should be learning more about this guy. His mental fortitude and just his mental endurance was literally as important as, you know, what you see of him. His crew had the same thing, but he's done a really good job with training his mental endurance and his physical endurance. And what he's been able to accomplish is far better than many other explorers that we've ever read or learned about. And something that shows up to me is he had extreme ownership. This is what Jocko Willing talks about in his book, Extreme Ownership. And it's really that Shackleton, he did take responsibility for everything. And the next time we will cover Shackleton's daring escape out of this ice, kind of saving his guys, and it would end up being the greatest rescue mission in history. It's truly a revolutionary book. I really recommend you guys buying this and just reading it to further your understanding and just to become better and really challenge the way you think. Because the way that Shackleton thought is something that you would see in a person like Elon Musk, but in a different way. And that's what I really appreciate about Shackleton. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface with him. I feel like I could be learning more from him and really taking his lessons in. But something that he's really shown to me is that extreme ownership is important and you should take responsibility for everything. And so we'll cover this in part two, the Greatest Rescue Mission in History, or steps leading up to that. And I hope you guys enjoy this podcast episode and I'll talk to you guys again soon.