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Shackleton's CREW VS The Odds! Lessons In GRIT
Unbreakable! How Shackleton'S Crew Survived Against All Odds (Lessons In
Grit)
Old-School Grit: Lessons from History on Willpower, Tenacity, and
Resilience (Live a Disciplined Life Book 13) By: Pete Hollins
Hear it Here - https://adbl.co/3NBG3v
How to accomplish your goals, no matter the obstacle. King Leonidas
could repel 100,000 Persians – you can exercise more and eat more
healthy.
There are many ways to live, but the tried-and-true way is to embrace
grit and grind through hardship. History shows that it’s what every
single “great man/woman” and winner has done to reach their goals.
If there is a will, there is a way. Get inspired to be a self-discipline
machine.
OLD-SCHOOL GRIT is a book that shows the path. To be precise, the path
that some of history’s greatest figures have taken. You’ll learn from
them, hear about their struggles, and see the massive amounts of
self-discipline, willpower, and general tenacity they used to become
worthy of history books.
Transcript
Old-School Grit:
Speaker:Lessons from History on Willpower,
Speaker:Tenacity,
Speaker:and Resilience (Live a Disciplined Life Book 13)
Speaker:Written by
Speaker:Pete Hollins
Speaker:Narrated by Russell Newton.
Speaker:Few stories of resilience are as
Speaker:amazing as that of the British
Speaker:Endurance Expedition,
Speaker:launched in 1914.
Speaker:The mission was to cross the Antarctic
Speaker:on foot,
Speaker:but sadly,
Speaker:this lofty goal was never to be
Speaker:achieved.
Speaker:Instead,
Speaker:the Endurance mission took a completely
Speaker:different shape - the ship,
Speaker:aptly named Endurance,
Speaker:got trapped in thick sheet ice on its
Speaker:journey out.
Speaker:The crew of Endurance was stranded for
Speaker:months in the ice as they battled
Speaker:abject cold,
Speaker:hunger,
Speaker:desperation,
Speaker:and even insanity.
Speaker:The expedition leader,
Speaker:Ernest Shackleton,
Speaker:first led his men to abandon the
Speaker:trapped ship to the safety of nearby
Speaker:Elephant Island,
Speaker:and after that,
Speaker:he bravely left his crew to seek help.
Speaker:Because of his continued courage and
Speaker:discipline,
Speaker:he managed to save that crew,
Speaker:even though everything else was lost.
Speaker:The ship lay at the bottom of the ocean
Speaker:for 107 years before it was
Speaker:rediscovered recently in March 2022.
Speaker:As the ghost of this vessel was brought
Speaker:back to the surface,
Speaker:historians were again reminded of
Speaker:Ernest Shackleton and his crew.
Speaker:But who was Shackleton,
Speaker:and what exactly happened on the
Speaker:expedition?
Speaker:There were actually two ships – one
Speaker:called the Ross Sea Party on the ship
Speaker:Aurora that would drop supplies for the
Speaker:other,
Speaker:the Endurance.
Speaker:On this ship were 69 dogs,
Speaker:a tomcat,
Speaker:27 men,
Speaker:and one ship stowaway,
Speaker:who was later put to work as a steward.
Speaker:The expedition leader was Shackleton,
Speaker:who saw the voyage as a way to make a
Speaker:name for himself by establishing a base
Speaker:on the Weddell sea coast.
Speaker:Setting out in August,
Speaker:the ship was trapped in thick sheet ice
Speaker:in the Wendell Sea by December that
Speaker:year,
Speaker:and there was nothing the crew could do
Speaker:to free her.
Speaker:Though they could move the vessel for a
Speaker:little while,
Speaker:eventually the ice surrounded them so
Speaker:they could not budge either forward or
Speaker:backward.
Speaker:As the ice creaked and shifted,
Speaker:it took the ship with it,
Speaker:slowly drifting the men off course and
Speaker:crushing the hull bit by bit.
Speaker:They had been within only a day’s
Speaker:reach of their destination,
Speaker:but with every day spent trapped,
Speaker:they drifted further away.
Speaker:For ten long months,
Speaker:the crew sat on the trapped ship,
Speaker:waiting out the winter.
Speaker:One of the ship’s doctors,
Speaker:Alexander Macklin,
Speaker:later wrote that Shackleton,
Speaker:“did not rage at all,
Speaker:or show outwardly the slightest sign of
Speaker:disappointment;
Speaker:he told us simply and calmly that we
Speaker:must winter in the Pack;
Speaker:explained its dangers and
Speaker:possibilities;
Speaker:never lost his optimism and prepared
Speaker:for winter."
Speaker:For months,
Speaker:Shackleton tried to lead his men
Speaker:through the perilous Antarctic ice
Speaker:packs on dwindling provisions and scant
Speaker:morale.
Speaker:But he could not ignore the writing on
Speaker:the wall – they were going nowhere
Speaker:and running out of provisions.
Speaker:As seasoned sailors know,
Speaker:“What the ice gets,
Speaker:the ice keeps."
Speaker:Waiting patiently was a recipe for
Speaker:certain death.
Speaker:Shackleton eventually ordered the crew
Speaker:to abandon ship,
Speaker:and in good time too,
Speaker:since it sank shortly afterwards –
Speaker:around 28 days later.
Speaker:The team escaped with their lives on
Speaker:just 3 lifeboats.
Speaker:They made difficult decisions about
Speaker:which of the barest essentials to take,
Speaker:discarding everything else.
Speaker:Most of the smaller dogs and the cat
Speaker:were shot,
Speaker:and the rest of their possessions were
Speaker:left behind to go down with the ship.
Speaker:It was gut-wrenching,
Speaker:but the ordeal was just getting started.
Speaker:Try to imagine it - these 6 men braved
Speaker:the frozen wilderness in a small boat
Speaker:roughly 7m or 22 feet long and pressed
Speaker:on in this way for 800 miles,
Speaker:heading for the whaling stations they
Speaker:knew they’d find in South Georgia.
Speaker:It’s hard for people to understand
Speaker:the suffering they would have endured -
Speaker:battered by gale force winds and near
Speaker:constant freezing rain,
Speaker:the men huddled in groups,
Speaker:riddled with seasickness,
Speaker:wondering which giant ice cap would
Speaker:capsize the boat in an instant and kill
Speaker:them all... Shackleton even wrote later
Speaker:in his memoirs that they once
Speaker:encountered a tidal wave so enormous
Speaker:that he originally mistook it for the
Speaker:sky.
Speaker:Later,
Speaker:in his book South!,
Speaker:Shackleton recounts,
Speaker:“Huge blocks of ice,
Speaker:weighing many tons,
Speaker:were lifted into the air and tossed
Speaker:aside as other masses rose beneath them.
Speaker:We were helpless intruders in a strange
Speaker:world,
Speaker:our lives dependent upon the play of
Speaker:grim elementary forces that made a mock
Speaker:of our puny efforts."
Speaker:It's hard to imagine that these were
Speaker:men who had already gone through one
Speaker:unthinkable trial and had started this
Speaker:second journey cold,
Speaker:miserable,
Speaker:hungry,
Speaker:and ill.
Speaker:The crew had already lived for months
Speaker:trapped on board the Endurance in the
Speaker:ice floes.
Speaker:And now they were pitted against the
Speaker:merciless elements,
Speaker:each of them likely resigned to the
Speaker:fact that they would die.
Speaker:It was later reported that half the men
Speaker:on the boats were already mad,
Speaker:and some were viciously ill with
Speaker:dysentery.
Speaker:Some were chronically sleep-deprived,
Speaker:not having rested for 80 hours or so.
Speaker:Finally,
Speaker:exhausted and barely holding things
Speaker:together,
Speaker:they reached the uninhabited Elephant
Speaker:Island.
Speaker:When they set foot on that dry land,
Speaker:it had been a staggering 497 days since
Speaker:the Endurance first set sail.
Speaker:Shackleton’s second-in-command,
Speaker:Frank Wild,
Speaker:led the team to create a makeshift
Speaker:shelter out of two upturned lifeboats.
Speaker:The third boat was their last hope.
Speaker:Giving himself ten days to recover and
Speaker:prepare,
Speaker:Shackleton then left to seek help.
Speaker:He took with him five other men and set
Speaker:sail on the third lifeboat named
Speaker:“James Caird."
Speaker:This time,
Speaker:they knew what to expect.
Speaker:They’d wake every morning to beat the
Speaker:ice out of the sails and bail freezing
Speaker:water from the boat before pushing on.
Speaker:The punishing winds howled and tossed
Speaker:the fragile boat on the open seas,
Speaker:and the men,
Speaker:with their last splinters of hope
Speaker:barely intact,
Speaker:somehow found it in them to keep rowing
Speaker:until they reached their destination.
Speaker:After 17 further days of fighting to
Speaker:survive,
Speaker:they landed on the shores of South
Speaker:Georgia.
Speaker:The men rested briefly before the
Speaker:marathon hike of 36 hours across the
Speaker:island,
Speaker:finally finding Stromness Whaling
Speaker:station.
Speaker:It took beating out a path that no
Speaker:human had walked before,
Speaker:over mountain peaks and through icy
Speaker:terrain and frozen cliffs,
Speaker:but they did it – to the astonishment
Speaker:of those at the whaling station.
Speaker:Can you imagine the sight of these
Speaker:three men turning up in the middle of
Speaker:nowhere?
Speaker:After nearly two years of suffering and
Speaker:desperation,
Speaker:they had long,
Speaker:stringy beards,
Speaker:ruined clothing,
Speaker:and gaunt faces.
Speaker:Thoralf Sørlle,
Speaker:the station manager,
Speaker:was so shocked at the sight of them
Speaker:that he turned and wept when Shackleton
Speaker:explained what had happened.
Speaker:From there,
Speaker:Shackleton could arrange for a rescue
Speaker:ship to fetch the 22 sailors that still
Speaker:remained on Elephant Island.
Speaker:Again,
Speaker:this was a story of one disaster after
Speaker:another.
Speaker:The first ship that Shackleton launched
Speaker:ran out of fuel and was forced to turn
Speaker:back.
Speaker:A vessel offered by Uruguay made it to
Speaker:within 100 miles of Elephant Island
Speaker:before ice packs forced it to give up
Speaker:and return.
Speaker:It took several more attempts,
Speaker:but eventually the Chilean government
Speaker:agreed to lend him a small tugboat,
Speaker:called Yelcho.
Speaker:Heading back,
Speaker:Shackleton must have secretly feared
Speaker:the worst,
Speaker:wondering about the men he’d left
Speaker:behind.
Speaker:He had taken a full 128 days to return
Speaker:to them with help.
Speaker:As he approached,
Speaker:he noticed a smoke signal emerging from
Speaker:the makeshift shelter,
Speaker:and soon the men emerged,
Speaker:calling to him – all of them had made
Speaker:it.
Speaker:In the meantime,
Speaker:Frank Wild had been tasked with keeping
Speaker:spirits up on the desolate Island
Speaker:wasteland.
Speaker:Every single morning,
Speaker:he would instruct the crew to prepare
Speaker:their belongings and get ready,
Speaker:since Shackleton might return any day
Speaker:now.
Speaker:Despite how despondent and despairing
Speaker:the crew felt,
Speaker:Wild kept it up.
Speaker:Many of the men had utterly given up
Speaker:and had resigned themselves to their
Speaker:fate,
Speaker:rather than keep clinging to hope.
Speaker:Their daily life was one of misery and
Speaker:privation,
Speaker:and they had little to do but ruminate
Speaker:on their doomed fate and boil up seal
Speaker:bones for nourishment.
Speaker:But that fateful morning on day 128,
Speaker:Shackleton really did return,
Speaker:and the crew was packed and ready,
Speaker:not quite believing that their
Speaker:nightmare was finally coming to an end.
Speaker:The crew all made it back to England,
Speaker:and years later,
Speaker:all were still alive and well.
Speaker:Are you wondering what happened to the
Speaker:other ship,
Speaker:the Aurora?
Speaker:Sadly,
Speaker:this ship and its crew were essentially
Speaker:left to fend for themselves and were
Speaker:stranded.
Speaker:The commander of the ship and two other
Speaker:crew members perished,
Speaker:despite faithfully fulfilling their
Speaker:task of delivering food and supplies
Speaker:needed by the Endurance.
Speaker:The plan was to meet the Endurance in
Speaker:the Ross Sea,
Speaker:south of New Zealand,
Speaker:bringing supplies.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:although Shackleton’s tale of
Speaker:endurance and daring rescue was the
Speaker:most compelling story to emerge from
Speaker:these events,
Speaker:the fact is that none of the original
Speaker:aims of the expedition were met – in
Speaker:fact,
Speaker:the Antarctic was only explored on foot
Speaker:decades later,
Speaker:in the 1950s by Sir Vivian Fuchs.
Speaker:Whatever happened to Shackleton?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:he never did reach the South Pole or
Speaker:cross the Antarctic on foot,
Speaker:but he did attempt another expedition
Speaker:years later,
Speaker:with many of the same crew he had been
Speaker:with on the Endurance.
Speaker:They noted that he was never the same
Speaker:again.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:Shackleton died at just 47 years of age
Speaker:of a heart attack.
Speaker:Granted,
Speaker:the days of high adventure and
Speaker:fantastic explorations to the poles
Speaker:seem like they belong to a bygone era,
Speaker:but the story of the Endurance and her
Speaker:crew still captures hearts and minds
Speaker:today.
Speaker:People continue to be astonished at
Speaker:just how much Shackleton and his men
Speaker:must have endured – how on earth
Speaker:could they have survived all that?
Speaker:Take a look at any of the photographs
Speaker:of the crew throughout their doomed
Speaker:expedition and you cannot help but feel
Speaker:awe at the black and white faces
Speaker:peering back out at you.
Speaker:The ship was a small,
Speaker:wooden one with canvas sails,
Speaker:and the men aboard it were working with
Speaker:what we’d now consider rudimentary
Speaker:instruments.
Speaker:The men had,
Speaker:in total,
Speaker:spent years battling despair,
Speaker:insanity,
Speaker:starvation,
Speaker:exhaustion,
Speaker:and illness – all in a frighteningly
Speaker:hostile landscape where temperatures
Speaker:averaged roughly -66 F (-54 C).
Speaker:Shackleton and his crew were forever
Speaker:considered impressive proof of the
Speaker:extent to which the human spirit can
Speaker:endure and prevail.
Speaker:Shackleton wrote a book about his
Speaker:experiences that gives a peek into his
Speaker:mind and allows us to guess at what it
Speaker:must have been like out there in the
Speaker:Antarctic wilderness - “When I look
Speaker:back at those days I have no doubt that
Speaker:Providence guided us,
Speaker:not only across those snowfields,
Speaker:but across the storm-white sea that
Speaker:separated Elephant Island from our
Speaker:landing-place on South Georgia.
Speaker:I know that during that long and
Speaker:racking march of thirty-six hours over
Speaker:the unnamed mountains and glaciers of
Speaker:South Georgia it seemed to me often
Speaker:that we were four,
Speaker:not three.
Speaker:I said nothing to my companions on the
Speaker:point,
Speaker:but afterwards Worsley said to me,
Speaker:‘Boss,
Speaker:I had a curious feeling on the march
Speaker:that there was another person with
Speaker:us.’ Crean confessed to the same idea.
Speaker:One feels ‘the dearth of human words,
Speaker:the roughness of mortal speech’ in
Speaker:trying to describe things intangible,
Speaker:but a record of our journeys would be
Speaker:incomplete without a reference to a
Speaker:subject very near to our hearts."
Speaker:Who was the fourth person on the
Speaker:journey with them?
Speaker:Shackleton knows that he can never
Speaker:fully express what he experienced out
Speaker:there,
Speaker:but we can conjecture.
Speaker:Perhaps he felt a divine spirit guiding
Speaker:and protecting him.
Speaker:Perhaps it was his own sense of hope
Speaker:and the fearsome refusal to give up and
Speaker:let go of his life.
Speaker:Perhaps it was simply raw human
Speaker:survival instinct,
Speaker:wordless and unconscious.
Speaker:Many of the men did give up.
Speaker:Shackleton was a flawed man,
Speaker:who had certainly been criticized for
Speaker:his leadership skills over the course
Speaker:of his career,
Speaker:but one thing that people could agree
Speaker:on was that he took his duty to inspire
Speaker:hope and courage in his crew very
Speaker:seriously.
Speaker:Even though he was doubtless tormented
Speaker:internally,
Speaker:he never permitted himself to despair
Speaker:openly to the others.
Speaker:Besides his clear faith in something
Speaker:greater than himself (“We had seen
Speaker:God in His splendors,
Speaker:heard the text that Nature renders.
Speaker:We had reached the naked soul of man”
Speaker:– Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage),
Speaker:he also was a practical man.
Speaker:He speaks about the importance of
Speaker:grounding one’s daily life in
Speaker:routine,
Speaker:about humility,
Speaker:and about simply getting on with what
Speaker:must be done,
Speaker:one way or another.
Speaker:He remarked once,
Speaker:after his team had already endured
Speaker:countless months of sickness and
Speaker:starvation,
Speaker:the power of the little,
Speaker:everyday things - “I heard one man
Speaker:say,
Speaker:"Cook,
Speaker:I like my tea strong."
Speaker:Another joined in,
Speaker:"Cook,
Speaker:I like mine weak."
Speaker:It was pleasant to know that their
Speaker:minds were untroubled,
Speaker:but I thought the time opportune to
Speaker:mention that the tea would be the same
Speaker:for all hands and that we would be
Speaker:fortunate if two months later we had
Speaker:any tea at all.
Speaker:It occurred to me at the time that the
Speaker:incident had psychological interest.
Speaker:Here were men,
Speaker:their home crushed,
Speaker:the camp pitched on the unstable floes,
Speaker:and their chance of reaching safety
Speaker:apparently remote,
Speaker:calmly attending to the details of
Speaker:existence and giving their attention to
Speaker:such trifles as the strength of a brew
Speaker:of tea."
Speaker:Brave hope and the will to survive are
Speaker:very grand endeavors – but they often
Speaker:play out in mundane ways.
Speaker:If we can focus on what is in front of
Speaker:us,
Speaker:no matter how small,
Speaker:we can find a kind of dignity in them.
Speaker:No matter how dire the situation is,
Speaker:we can take solace in ritual,
Speaker:in doing what little we can,
Speaker:and in sticking with routines – even
Speaker:if we don’t quite have faith in them
Speaker:anymore.
Speaker:Finally,
Speaker:perhaps the most noteworthy of
Speaker:Shackleton’s attitudes was his
Speaker:seeming unwillingness to think about
Speaker:defeat even as a possibility.
Speaker:Like many deeply devoted and ambitious
Speaker:people,
Speaker:Shackleton simply did not allow himself
Speaker:to give up.
Speaker:“Difficulties,” he claimed,
Speaker:“are just things to overcome."
Speaker:No matter the size of the difficulty,
Speaker:or how frequent they are,
Speaker:they were never a reason to stop,
Speaker:give up,
Speaker:or turn back.
Speaker:They were simply things that needed to
Speaker:be gone around – speed bumps rather
Speaker:than roadblocks that forever close off
Speaker:the path.
Speaker:If we can replicate make this subtle
Speaker:shift in perspective,
Speaker:we allow ourselves to stay proactive
Speaker:and ask – how can I get around this?
Speaker:If we assume that we will do everything
Speaker:we humanly can do to get around it,
Speaker:it simply becomes a matter of how.
Speaker:“Just when things looked their worst,
Speaker:they changed for the best.
Speaker:I have marveled often at the thin line
Speaker:that divides success from failure and
Speaker:the sudden turn that leads from
Speaker:apparently certain disaster to
Speaker:comparative safety."
Speaker:If you genuinely think this way about
Speaker:life,
Speaker:then no situation is so dire or so
Speaker:hopeless that it cannot one day turn
Speaker:completely and become something new.
Speaker:Hope,
Speaker:then,
Speaker:is like keeping your belongings packed
Speaker:and ready so that,
Speaker:when better things come,
Speaker:you are ready and waiting to seize them.
Speaker:Real life example.
Speaker:Not many of us will ever endure the
Speaker:kind of suffering Shackleton and his
Speaker:men did,
Speaker:but we may well face other challenges,
Speaker:like major illness,
Speaker:poverty,
Speaker:or natural disasters.
Speaker:In more recent history,
Speaker:there are plenty of examples of people
Speaker:rising to extreme challenges,
Speaker:like the brave firefighters who worked
Speaker:tirelessly to retrieve survivors from
Speaker:the rubble of the bombing of the world
Speaker:Trade Center.
Speaker:They did precisely what Shackleton did;
Speaker:they dug deep and allowed the magnitude
Speaker:of their task to sober them and inspire
Speaker:them,
Speaker:then they refused to give up as they
Speaker:did what needed to be done.
Speaker:Shackleton’s men were forced to find
Speaker:out what they were really made of.
Speaker:Senator John Kerry hints at the same
Speaker:phenomenon when he remarked of the 9/11
Speaker:attacks,
Speaker:“It was the worst day we have ever
Speaker:seen,
Speaker:but it brought out the best in all of
Speaker:us."
Speaker:Shackleton’s lessons -
Speaker:•Find purpose.
Speaker:Seek a deeper meaning and significance
Speaker:in your life,
Speaker:and,
Speaker:if it strengthens you,
Speaker:anchor yourself in religion or
Speaker:spirituality.
Speaker:Shackleton never felt alone during his
Speaker:most arduous challenges,
Speaker:and that’s because he was a man of
Speaker:faith.
Speaker:•When times are challenging,
Speaker:keep sane and even-keeled by engrossing
Speaker:yourself in the details of day to day
Speaker:life.
Speaker:Keep a routine,
Speaker:look after the basics of life,
Speaker:and if need be,
Speaker:find relieving distractions when things
Speaker:get especially difficult.
Speaker:•Finally,
Speaker:don’t give up.
Speaker:When you encounter a challenge,
Speaker:reframe the way you look at it - it’s
Speaker:not the end.
Speaker:Difficulties are not a sign that your
Speaker:journey is over,
Speaker:just that the route has changed.
Speaker:Difficulties are just things to
Speaker:overcome.
Speaker:If you have hope,
Speaker:then you’ll be prepared and ready to
Speaker:grasp opportunity when it does finally
Speaker:come your way.
Speaker:This has been
Speaker:Old-School Grit:
Speaker:Lessons from History on Willpower,
Speaker:Tenacity,
Speaker:and Resilience (Live a Disciplined Life Book 13) Written by
Speaker:Pete Hollins
Speaker:Narrated by Russell Newton.
