If you’re going through hell, keep going. There’s a story behind that. This is your daily message from Chad number 658 to upgrade your mental game so you can tell yourself a better story today, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. This message is dedicated to Wanda Conjorio on her birthday. Happy birthday Aunt Wanda!
A line often attributed to Winston Churchill is “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Steve Jobs said, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” One of the most inspiring stories of perseverance is the Antarctic Expedition of Ernest Shackleton.
The expedition faced disaster from the beginning. About a month in, their ship, aptly named Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was eventually crushed, leaving the crew stranded on the ice floes of Antarctica with no way to communicate with the outside world. This was in 1914. There were no phones or satellites for communication.
What followed was an extraordinary saga of survival. After the ship was destroyed, Shackleton led his men across the moving ice floes to reach open water. They then sailed in small lifeboats to Elephant Island, a sliver of land off the coast of Antarctica. From there, Shackleton and the crew made an 800-mile open-boat journey through some of the world’s most dangerous waters to reach South Georgia Island, where they could find help.
Even after reaching South Georgia, they had to cross unmapped mountains to reach a whaling station on the other side of the island. Despite these incredible hardships, Shackleton eventually rescued all of his men—not a single member of the expedition died. The Shackleton story demonstrates success equals refusing to stop. You need to just keep on keeping on. If you don’t quit, you can’t fail. The name Shackleton has become a synonym for endurance. It’s fitting that Shackleton’s family motto was “By Endurance We Conquer”. The final crew members were rescued August 30, 1916. From the time the crew left England August 8, 1914 until then had been 753 days.
If you have a better story of endurance and perseverance, I’d love for you to email me at fromchadsmith@gmail.com. You can find these messages on YouTube by searching @fromchad. You can read the transcript of this message and hundreds of others at fromchad.com.
