I suppose not. His expeditions to the Antarctic failed their objectives. His business ventures were never successful. And he died in debt.

BUT. He successfully sailed one of the greatest and most perilous ocean journeys ever in recorded history, and rescued every member of his 28-man crew from certain death.

Funny in a cruel way. The world basically forgot about the voyage of the James Caird shortly after he returned home, since WWI had broken out during his time in Antarctica. He wasn't adequately recognized in his lifetime. I think he was one of humanity's finest.

> He successfully sailed one of the greatest and most perilous ocean journeys ever in recorded history, and rescued every member of his 28-man crew from certain death

It’s incredible feat of human survival. For all 28 men to survive the ordeal, is nothing short of fantastic. For months they were camped on floating sea ice, and then to tack on a 800 mile journey through open, stormy sea in a battered whaling boat, and finally a trek through the interior of a mountainous island to reach a whaling port and rescue, is incredible to say the least. I’d highly encourage people to read his own memoir of it.

> For months they were camped on floating sea ice, and then to tack on a 800 mile journey through open, stormy sea in a battered whaling boat,

Minor but important correction: it was a life boat, much smaller than a whaling boat.

"I suppose not"

I guess the same can be said about Fridtjof Nansen, arguably the greatest polar explorer of all. And a great man in most other respects.

But alas, he never crossed the north east passage and never reached the north pole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen

I am bringing it up as an example because it is such a strange thing to say. He succeeded in so many other ways.

I'll also add a quote from Schackleton in a letter to his wife regarding turning back from furthest south with the pole 100 miles away.

“Better a live donkey than a dead lion.”

He repeatedly refused to monetise his name or experiences - he did lecture tours across Europe and the US and refused to charge money.

Much to his wife's dismay.

Kind sad sad how we have the tendency to equal success with wealth. There are way more ways to be successful than money, or fame (and hey Shackleton is one of the big four arctic / antarctic explorers, so fame-wise he did good).

And he achieved imoressive things in his life.

I would agree with you today but at that time his wife and family would have been reliant on his income in a way that isn't true now. If you consider her and his responsibility to her then this attitude becomes quite selfish. Keep in mind he accepted this responsibility when taking on the marriage.

Doesn't make him a failure so, does it?

And considering how little social.places like the US have, wel... Are you sure things a different today?

I wouldn't outright call him a failure, no, and I wasn't doing that. But I do believe it's healthy for us today to examine ways that women were disadvantaged in the past if we want to fight against such things in the future.

If his wife was dismayed by his unwillingness to fulfil his promises then we could in fact say he was a failure in that way. Whether you choose to look at it that way or not is of course up to you. At the end of the day he took on the responsibility of supporting other people in a material sense and then chose to prioritise his own good feelings over that support. The issue is of course systemic at the core, in that she was limited in her choices, but he understood this when agreeing to marry.

I agree with you that things in the US are not as good today as they could be in ensuring that people can live independently, but the freedom of women to support themselves is certainly much improved in the last 100 years. I also have to say that the US is not the whole world and Shakleton and his family were in fact normally based in British territories where the modern welfare system is significantly more developed.

I founded 6 businesses that were more / less failures and lucky number 7 paid off. But if I had founded 20 failures and retired I wouldn’t have cared in terms of whether my life was a failure or not. Some people just live to try, win or lose. If you aren’t trying then it’s an auto-fail.

I saw a recent quote that sort of fits this view - "The opposite of success isn't failure, it's mediocrity"

You should read his biography by Fiennes.

He held the Farthest South record, that is, got the closest to the South Pole, until Amundsen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farthest_South

Robert Falcon Scott loathed him for it.

Scott's last expedition used the route up the Beardmore Glacier through the Transantarctic Mountains that Shackleton pioneered.

He succeeded even if he didn't reach the Pole.

Apart from the Endurance mission which i think can be put in the same category as Apollo 13.

He also reached farthest south at 88,23 a few years before Amundsen/Scott, and many of the paths he took served as an inspiration for Amundsen.

Compared to others who led their team to death, yes. Looking at you, Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

He tried to keep his crew alive ... so there is that.

And was remarkably successful at it — the entire crew of the Endurance came back alive.

Yup. As opposed to the voyage of the karluk where the leader simply abandoned his crew to die and the captain of the ship heroically saved half of them. It's a tragic story. I read it a little after I read Endurance and was struck by the contrast.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_voyage_of_the_Karluk

Martin Gutmann's recent talk ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Z9IpTVfUg ) supports your point. While Shackleton is celebrated for overcoming disaster, Admunsen reached the south pole by avoiding disaster in the first place. Yet despite Admunsen being more effective, he is not celebrated to the same degree (at least in the US) as Shackleton.

"he is not celebrated to the same degree (at least in the US) as Shackleton."

As a Scandinavian I am pretty surprised by this, and I did not know. But I guess drama sells in the US :)

Oh yes, he was. Read about the Nimrod, furthest south, and Mount Erabus expeditions.

Shackleton is a god father of Polar travel.

According to this ted talk[1] he wasn’t. He led dangerously unprepared missions and ignored locals advice. Roald Admudsen was more successful and did it without the drama.

[1]: https://youtu.be/b0Z9IpTVfUg

This business professor, selling his books on leadership in a Ted x (!) talk lost me when he called Amundson "forgotten". Like hell, no, Amundson is not at all forgotten. And Shackleton is famous for saving everyone on his doomed Endurance expedition under extreme circumstances.

Only measuring leadership, as im the Ted x(!) talk, with achievement of a stated, and up to then impossible, goals and ignoring a leader who saves everyone from death is at best short sighted, at worst ignorant. Did I mention the guy in the talk is a business professor with a book on leadership?

Pretty much everyone during this period was an amateur compared to Amundsen.

Including the previously mentioned Nansen. Nansen was a generation earlier though, and among other things built the ship Amundsen used.

Amundsen made something difficult look easy. Everyone else made the difficult look - difficult. And survived.

Except for Scott who died.

There is an analogy there with software projects by the way, except for maybe the dying part replaced with general failure.