Recently someone asked me, "Who is a present day Shackleton?"
I think there are "present day" Shackletons all around us, in all walks of life. People committed to achieving their goals, building their businesses, and leading family and teams through all sorts of ordeals.
The question specifically brought to mind an incident a friend told me about almost 30 years ago. Her organization had just endured a lengthy strike. The day the workers returned to the job, she had gotten to the office at 5 a.m. to tie yellow ribbons around each person's chair. The message was, I'm glad you're back, all is forgiven and forgotten, and we're moving forward from here.
There was a similar incident on the Endurance expedition. After the crew abandoned ship, Shackleton stood watch. ...
"Around daybreak at 2 a.m., Shackleton called Wild and Hurley to go with him to get some fuel from the ship. After retrieving a couple of cans through great effort, they headed back to camp, leaping across the splitting ice. They transformed two five-gallon water-tight tanks pulled from a lifeboat into a stove and quickly prepared piping hot milk for the men when they awakened." Shackleton's Way