Own Your Passion. Riveting talks by remarkable people, in London on March 12, 2011
DenisShackel
Five Seconds at a Time
by Denis Shackel
Denis Shackel shares his raw, powerful and life-altering experience with the TEDxUWO audience -- an experience that took the life of his beloved brother-in-law and nearly his own as well. Stranded alone after a tragic climbing accident with temperatures plunging to -30 degrees Celsius, Shackel first broke the night into five thousand five-second intervals. He decided to deal with only one interval at a time. Then, stepping back to see the bigger picture, he relied on vision, intuition, and faith to keep him alive. Shackel emerged from this harrowing experience having cemented his belief that the principles fundamental to leadership - breaking a problem into smaller parts - are also key to tackling any challenge.

Denis Shackel has been called a Renaissance man on more than one occasion, and for good reason–the award-winning Richard Ivey School of Business professor has made a point of filling each day with an opportunity to learn and live fully following a near death experience on a mountain-climbing expedition in New Zealand, in which he lost his brother-in-law.

A Kiwi by birth, Mr. Shackel attributes his childhood in New Zealand as the source for the breadth of his interests. Denis taught elementary grades in New Zealand while earning a B.A., and M.A., in Education, with first class honours. He completed his Ph.D., in School Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, where he taught Educational Psychology from 1971 to 2000. He was honoured as the Professor of the Year (2000) when he retired from O.I.S.E. He was similarly honoured when he received the highest teaching award at The University of Western Ontario following his first year teaching at Ivey (2004), and the same award again in 2010.

In 2007, his outstanding teaching record led to his being selected as “Leader In Faculty Teaching” by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Denis is a music teacher, marathon runner, a fine woodworker and is happily married with five children. In 2010, he published Five Seconds at a Time, a book that provides effective tools and strategies to excel. With its compelling mix of survival stories, leadership principles and inspiring case studies, Five Seconds at a Time inspires readers to achieve the seemingly impossible.