hello welcome to back story with joe i have a guest who has returned and returned from london to be with me again on the t v show his name is brad borken and he has written of wonderfully interesting book that we talked about last time when you life depends on it and he looks at the experiences of the art antarctic explorers and what is it that was learned about leadership and about resilience and we're going to take it a step further today aren't we brad now that you're back to getting from london and what we want to talk about to pay that we didn't necessarily cover last time it was great were great great great to be back and i really appreciate your welcome back to the show and what talk about same time great teamwork and leadership and adaptability to too extreme conditions and there's a lot to learn that's useful for modern living and you know we have things we need we need modern that needs  leadership and needs for the n c s absolutely and you said that to people today are not really being given that kind of you know direction more i think people today need that and one of the one of the interesting things coming from england is that this is what they're trying to teach children in schools what i actually started to to talk to the children say one of the scrape skill sets that you need to develop is a skill set around resiliency but it's easy to say someone be resilient or develop resiliency as a whole the thing to say how how do you do and what is it and what i had to know and i looked at a couple of definitions is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulty is to ability of a substance or object to spring back with shapes and lastly city ability to return to the original form after being changed billeted to recover readily from illness depression adversity buoyancy in that and in fact the american psychiatric association i use that as one of their definitions the resilience is a process adapting well in the face of adversity trauma tragedy threats of significant sources of stress family problems serious serious health problems and bouncing back and that that's a great summary of everything that they was experience and antartica in the early one nine hundred i mean these people are down there they're they're explorers their goal is to get to the south pole or to do other types of exploration around the antarctic continent in the case of what is shown in the photograph they were shackleton's expedition called the insurance expedition or what's also officially called the imperial transcend arctic expedition which is a fancy name for saying they're going to walk from one end of antarctica to the other end of antarctica and cross it via the south pole and the so they're doing these incredibly hazardous things in situations where they have no communication whatsoever and one of things we say is written on the back of the book the only communication is as far as you can shout and in the antarctic wins and they aren't arctic climate you can't shout very far actually and so they really are in a situation where they've got to be adaptable and and able to deal with with all sorts of different types of climate and situations that we're running out of food they could be falling down crib asses they could there as leaders they're faced with all sorts of situations around round having these twenty eight men and they're sailing down to antarctica and their ship gets crushed in the ice and they're stranded and how do  figure out that you need to resell again c and the adaptability and all of that to have the mental toughness to actually survive and figure out how you can get yourself out of that could no one knows you're there no rescue party is going to come for you and you're on your own and you've got three life boats and that's and you've got the supplies left from the boat from that from your big ship and how do you get back home back home being for that mostly in winter ireland and it's it's remarked the remarkable stories of it and it gets it's not just survival it's it's survival in the most extreme conditions right and you know you know i think when we were talking a little early here over coffee that i had the reason i'm so interested is that i had some survival experiences in the mountains they were not that antartica over the mountains of new york state or vermont and i've been cross country ski and backpacker and a hiker many years and one time i went up to stay over at a lodge and i was a member of the appalachian mountain club and we were going to go for a hike in the morning and  said and so and we packed a little sandwich for ourselves i think i made a puny little peanut butter and jelly sandwich and i didn't expect to be gone that long and this man came out of nowhere and he said i'm the leader follow me off he went well he he bushwhacked didn't follow the trail bush walked up the mountain that was very steep and something happened to me that had not ever happened before since i might like muscles contract and i couldn't walk i couldn't move and they left me behind he left me behind and they followed and sometimes that raises a question in my mind how easily people follow someone who declares themselves the leader when in fact they're not meetings because they're not protecting everyone they're not looking after everyone that's not what i would think of his leadership only one man stayed behind with me for a while and then said i'm going to spend most of his time talking about his heartache about his wife divorcing him to which i would set a trap that listener and then finally as my leg stretched out just a little bit he said i'm going i'm going ahead i want to be with them i said don't leave me behind and he said he was gone and i called after him i know why your wife left and right now i'm stuck there telling me to wait there till they come back well they never did come back that way so that would have been a disaster it was winter it was cold i knew i only had a certain number of hours to get out of there before so hypothermia would set in and so i had to make a plan and the plan was not to follow the bad meter and found my own way i found a little sign along the trail probably were done by the c c c camps when they used to put little wooden signs up and it said the name of a village that i recognize that i passed when i drive up that way and said ok i'm going to walk to the village and then when i get there maybe they'll be a pay phone because there were no cell phones than me pay phone i'll call up the lodge i just accidently took the flyer to the lodge in my pocket and there was the phone number i'll ask them to come and pick me up and then i had a backup plan what if that doesn't work and what effect doesn't work what will i do what if there is no a little village store in this in this town or maybe it's blocked and closed i'll go to one of the houses and ask for help so i had a whole plan and a backup plan and i kept going and i kept going and i kept walking i only found out later from the real meter hike had been hijacked by just man he wasn't a legitimate leader the real leader said i'd walked over to mountains to get there and i had so i knew i had only so much time and so finally i did get down to the village and as my plan there was a general store inside there was a payphone i had just enough change in my pocket to use the pay phone and call them up and i i knew the couple who ran it because i was like on their board for this and i and i said come and get me i'm in over here and he said what do you doing there i said i'll tell you when you get here and so i finally had so many minutes on the phone and then the man had an apple pie and i was dying for a piece of apple but i said no if i spend what the money is i might need to make another phone call i can't have the place but i did have the terrible with peanut butter and jelly sandwich well i got back and took a nice warm bath and went to sleep for a while  came down for dinner and only then did those other people return they were all having a terrible time and falling down and he left other people behind and instead of being glad to see that i was ok what should they do to protect people who are supposedly looking to them without and what happens if the leader isn't good what do you do then and i know you've got examples of that you know that i'm in this case i'm shackleton was it was a fairly amazing plans like you're saying a plan a plan b able and and the first plan was they stay on they kept next to the boat and they had so they took out all the equipment i could possibly salvage from the boat is definitely not a permanent home for them and to stop and so in doing that and being a leader who's got twenty seven other men and he's got to figure out how do we keep the morale up and do it do we move to we stay put do we wait for the thing to break up and then get into the boats do it and he's rescued all these different choices but in doing so i mean certain skill sets that he sort of developed and so the men were in tents and what he someone is weak you can make yourself in your situation or they've left you behind they he would not single out a weak person and say this person we need to take care of them he'd be ok everyone seems cole let's go up you know now we'll have some make some tea serve everybody and so wasn't singling out of this person's we this person and kept them together as a team and kept the morale up and there was the one interesting piece of of of story line of is there was but i am leader of the expedition as one of the expedition i'm still the leader and basically threatened guy's life and that you know i would hesitate to shoot you if i had to for the morale of the men and very quickly i mean within it was in within ten or fifteen minutes they totally put down this this mutinous behavior and then he brought all the men together and explained that the of the only way we're going to home is work together as a team and just and there's just so many examples of his belief that they could do this and it's still in that belief and others it's just it's just remarkable men and leadership and but also followership i think people understood that you know you're not going to get there if you rebel you know don't get there if you become disorganized and it's it's quite remarkable i mean the photograph and that's shown there is the there as the boat was being stuck in the i say we are costly trying to figure out how to get the boat out of the ice is quite critical and he was very intelligent he didn't want people against each other that he didn't want minorities he didn't have people who would say oh they're not strong enough they're holding us back you see people could turn on each other yes and he didn't make sure that didn't happen but there's a very interesting scene in i mean you can see there in the picture where the boats meaning the boats leaning at about fifty grit re angle there at that point you might think well if it if the if the ice breaks up maybe the boat would raise itself officers and some were it was called you had the officers and the men and that's the way to describe their own men you know they're all male human beings but they were the you have the officer rank and the and the officers are always treated better they would have better food they would have better health right but when they're on the ice now so they're camping on the ice next to this ship that's slowly going cry and they have first sleeping bags for the people who are going to be on this expedition to for his expect expedition was going to be we're going to walk across antarctica a small group people are going to do this walk they have first always be on the ship so shackleton gets the men together and said ok we've got twenty eight sleeping bags or twenty eight men and only some of them are for so we're going to draw lots to see who gets them and the the lower ranking men and it was this act of generosity and this act of it's of saying we're going to break the you know we're all in this together and being all in this together means the officers don't have privileges any more of that that sort and it was that and the men were just just absolutely flabbergasted that you know he would he would have that sense of that act of generosity in there so many times when he did those sorts of things that that instilled a belief that that you know where we may have been societies where the rich and the poor are considered totally divided into some more words the of attention from leaders and some less but more worthy of attention for me just what you have is people turning against each other instead of trying to help each other trying to care for each other so this guy was quite a genius yes you know it's remarkable what mark amounts of insight into you know into human personality and home he doesn't say we might go home he's very insistent ok ok man the expedition that part of the expedition is over now we've got another goal with a higher purpose get all twenty eight m is is is is quite interesting because they were on the ice floe and they they always had these interesting names that first this camp they call their camp ocean camp and they call their camp patients camp as like there's no wait as this ice flow is moving and and eventually the ice was breaking up and they said ok we now we got to the three boats what do you take in the three boats where you got twenty eight men you got three boats the longest of the three boats is twenty three feet so not a lot longer than the studio the and and there whaling they are nobody's come vesey them and then he takes one of the life boats with five other men and sails that eight hundred miles across the rough the seas and world to an island called south georgia which is inhabited and and from there they get rescued and all twenty  small boat open boat journey in the world ever taken and and the and they hit so many challenges along the way in the boat journey they went on elephant island i mean on south right and then in the end they end up walking across the mountains and much like your experience is like like here in the mountains they don't have the right equipment they don't have food they've got a little bit of food and and it's a do or die oh i forgot to mention the hunting season and there were hunters out i saw them along the trail with their rifles pointing and i was only one walking and i would call out don't shoot i'm not a deer week and i didn't ask them for he because i had been legend has it that they go to these hunting lodges and they drink a lot and then they go out with their guns and i have no no i don't think i can turn to them for hope that would not be a good idea so that was yet another element you know that was there are ok well you know you to i asked you i guess what you were talking before what's happened with your book in england are people reading it and watching it and you told me you haven't endorsed that that you didn't have it the last time he's probably around seventy five years old he's done exploration polar exploration in the arctic antarctic and in desert areas his route has led a remarkable remarkable life and he kind of endors arctic walking across wherever there's land walking and wherever there see sailing but for the most part going over land all the way up to the north pole walking across the arctic down to cross down through africa down to the have his indoor spend he says thanks to this remarkable book you won't need to face the extremes of antarctica whether to learn effective decision making techniques that will help you in modern life and i think that's really the key point here isn't it i mean most people are not going to go out in the freezing cold and i don't blame them if you know that i fact i wouldn't suggest it but we do need help don't we had techniques that will help you in modern life leadership what is leadership what is good meat or should who should we follow other people we shouldn't follow because they're tearing this society apart why do you why does the five oh didn't you also say something about we were talking about that everybody talks about and your resilience and insurance but they don't quite know what it is and you said that in england now they're teaching trying to teach children resilience right and you know yet you want to find out what they're doing in the schools you have very interested in very interesting if we can weave these stories into into that program because because it really comes down to the higher purpose right into being adaptable into that having the right mindset and also teamwork and i think that's a very one of the real things that that kids need to learn that adults need to learn is that we're all part of teams and it's very clear  that in the antarctic these guys are you know you had to the men you were with and that was your team but in modern life we have many teams are part of whether family units work units social groups and so on that it's it's being it's seeing how being parts of teams and having purpose gives you gives you an ability to write out whatever is happening and it doesn't matter whether it's political things are happening whether in england we've got empty breck's it and it isn't that's all immaterial if you've got your purpose you've got your team you've got your hand you're what you're trying to achieve all the other things it's it's it's just background noise much like they had wizards and they had food outages and they had whether we have furry birds or not yeah i agree and we're at a time where we want to look at leadership and say what is this leader telling us and i was in a country a few years ago visiting a country where there had been a dictator for like forty years and there was nobody but him as far as he was concerned and he had a palace that was something like five blocks long and those forty years what happened to the people if he didn't care about them it was all about him and that's what you have when you have to centralised the type of power there needs to be more openness and more caring about other people as well you know there are many remarkable is this is with shackleton where he had this very generous spirit and very focused spirit on how do it how to protect them and how do we survive in this and on a different one of his different expeditions here with frank wilde and there was a photograph earlier that we showed with with shackleton and frank wilde and they were on an expedition coming back they had tried to get to the south pole but didn't quite reach it and they're on their way back and they were they were all running out of food and shackleton had they always had like one biscuit for breakfast like but it it was one of the remarkable and you get surviving those experiences make for binding friendships lifelong friendship mr you never forget them well brad borken you're a good light it's wonderful that you came back from england to and to come on my t v show and then to talk about this really really interesting book when your life depends on it and it's really not so much about ike then sure and so it is about survival