The Story Behind Shackleton's Way

"A first rate business primer." 

Publisher's Weekly

"An important addition to any leader's library."

The Seattle Times

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"Even though the target market is leaders and managers, Shackleton's Way has much broader appeal and application."

The Boston Globe

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In early 1997, I was working at Fidelity Investments in Millburn, New Jersey, when the phone rang. It was Stephanie Capparell from the Wall Street Journal who wanted to talk about my hobby, researching Sir Ernest Shackleton's leadership practices. 

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By 9 a.m. the morning Stephanie's article appeared, my phone was ringing with calls from literary agents and publishers asking if I wanted to do a book on the subject. I asked, "How do you write a book?"

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Shortly before the article appeared, Stephanie headed off to Turkey for months. Listening to her voicemail, I didn't bother to leave a message but that December, after delivering my first-ever speech on Shackleton's leadership for an audience at The Explorers Club in New York, I called Stephanie to say, "Hey, you're not going to believe what's happened because of your article." Stephanie suggested we get together. Over dinner we agreed to partner on a book about Shackleton's leadership skills.

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From there, things moved fast. We met with a literary agent who arranged meetings with publishing firms scattered around Manhattan. Stephanie and I hunkered down and spent two exhausting weekends drafting a 36-page outline that, as Stephanie put it, "served as a road map" for the book. The project went everywhere with me - dentist's offices, oil changes, New Jersey transit. For the next year, Stephanie and I worked through weekends and holidays. I couldn't have asked for a better or more dedicated partner to tell Shackleton's story.​​

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I'm often asked what I found so fascinating about Shackleton's story. From the first book I read in 1984, Frank Worsley's Shackleton's Boat Journey, for me this story has been about how we deal with the challenges that every single one of us face in life. How do we coach ourselves, and others, through life's inevitable ordeals, through change, through career turbulence, through difficult diagnoses? I hope you will find some useful tools in Shackleton's Way.