An Outstanding Shackleton Moment

Orde-Lees' Journal - November 21, 1915

"This evening as we were mostly taking it easy & reading we heard Sir Ernest call out, "She's going." We were all out in a second & up on the lookout station & other points of vantage & sure enough there was our poor ship a mile & a half away breathing her last. She went down bows first, her stern raised up in the air. It gave one a sickening sensation to see it, for mastless & useless as she has been she yet formed a welcome landmark and has always seemed to link us with civilization. Without her our destitution seems more acute, our isolation more complete."

Ed. Note: Shackleton later confided in Frank Wild that watching Endurance sink was the saddest moment of his life.

Dr. Macklin recalled in the 1950s, then Shackleton turned around and saw the worried faces of his men. He said to them, "So now we'll go home."

In that one short sentence, Shackleton reframed the situation and gave his team a goal and a vision. He redirected their attention away from the painful scene in front of them toward a positive outcome. Most important of all, he communicated to them his own optimism.