The Story I Recall on The Hard Days

I had a rough day yesterday.

One of those days when everything feels hard.

When I’m up against it like that, I think about my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Ruwitch. It usually makes me feel better. Stronger. Ready to face whatever’s in front of me.

Here’s his story.

Joseph was born in 1852, in a place we’d call Ukraine today. Back then it belonged to Russia, a stretch of land known as the Pale of Settlement.

The Pale was enormous. Catherine the Great carved it out and set it aside for one purpose: to hold the Jews. A place to keep them separate. A place to keep them powerless.

Through the 1800s, the authorities forced Jews out of the Russian heartland and into the Pale. Out of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and the other big cities. Some were rounded up and marched there in chains. Pulled out of good lives. Dumped in the hinterlands to scrape by in poverty.

If you’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof, you know the place.

And you might know what the Cossacks did to the Jewish villages. Historians call those raids pogroms. Joseph called them a reason to leave.

He wanted out. He wanted America.

The vision was simple. Get to the land of milk and honey. Earn enough to support his family. Send for them.

So he left behind a wife and three kids, holding onto that hope.

He scraped together just enough to pay a Christian farmer to smuggle him out. Buried under the hay in a wagon. From there he made his way to Germany, boarded a ship in Hamburg, and steamed across the Atlantic.

He sailed into New York Harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty going up, still under construction.

He came ashore not knowing a single word of English. Nearly broke.

But he had people in Wisconsin, relatives and friends from the Old Country. So he climbed onto a train, rode from New York to Milwaukee, and stepped off with no idea what came next.

A man there offered him work. Door-to-door salesman.

He handed Joseph a backpack stuffed with household goods. Flatware. Needles and thread. Fabric. Pots and pans.

The instructions were four words:

“Walk north and sell.”

So that’s what Joseph did.

He walked north on dirt roads and footpaths, working his way town to town, farmhouse to farmhouse. No car. No horse. Just his two feet and the pack on his back.

Every so often he’d meet a supplier, trade a cut of his earnings for fresh goods, refill the pack. And keep heading north. Keep selling.

He barely knew where he was going. But with his wife and kids in mind, he knew where he wanted to end up.

Two, maybe three years later, he’d crossed the whole of Wisconsin and landed in a town called Norway, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Norway was booming. Iron and timber. Miners and lumberjacks. Plenty of people with money to spend on what Joseph was carrying.

So he stopped walking. He set up shop.

The little home-goods store took off. By 1889 he’d saved enough to send for his family. His wife Minna and their children crossed the ocean to join him in Norway. Julius, Bessie, and my great-grandfather Simon.

And the store kept growing.

By the end of the century it was a full department store. Locals just called it “The Ruwitch Store.” Joseph Ruwitch & Sons, Inc. eventually took up an entire block of Norway’s Main Street.

When Joseph first dreamed of escaping the Pale, he couldn’t have pictured any of this. Couldn’t have guessed where he’d land.

He must have hit a hundred walls. The plan must have changed a hundred times.

He could have quit. He could have failed.

He didn’t.

He adjusted to whatever life handed him. He literally walked. Back and forth, mile after mile. Until he arrived somewhere he never could have imagined.

He couldn’t see the place. But he never lost the vision: safety, comfort, and peace for his family.

And he got there.

So why am I telling you this?

Because Joseph’s odyssey is your odyssey too. In business and in life.

It’s never a straight line from vision conceived to vision achieved. It’s a zig-zag. Shifting goals. Controlling what you can control. Adjusting your way toward something new.

And here’s what I see when business owners realize their path is a zig-zag, not a straight shot:

Some freeze. Some retreat. Some sink into misery.

Some decide it just wasn’t meant to be.

Some cook up reasons they can’t market, can’t sell, can’t win.

Some look around, think “this isn’t how it was supposed to go,” turn around, and head home.

Others do the harder thing. They control what they can. They adjust. They zig and zag. They keep heading north, even when the vision is hazy and still shifting.

My advice? Head north and sell.

P.S. Joseph’s instructions were four words: “Walk north and sell.” My question for you: do you have a clear enough vision to keep moving when the path zigs? If you’re not sure, let’s find out together. Book a Plan-to-Prosper Session with me and we’ll look at where you’re headed, what’s slowing you down, and what your next step can be.