The Courage You Never See
Three books can change your Thursday. One book can change your world.
Hello,
Two weeks ago, I had never heard the name Captain Mamert Stankiewicz. I had never heard of the MS Piłsudski, either.
That changed when I signed up for Ancestry.com, curious to start mapping out my family history.
What I found wasn’t just a collection of names and dates. It was a story. A thread. A quiet act of courage that, without me ever knowing, shaped the very life I’m living today.
The MS Piłsudski was a mid-sized ocean liner of the Polish Merchant Marine, named after the national hero Józef Piłsudski. The ship entered service in 1935, a gleaming symbol of Polish pride, sailing regular trans-Atlantic routes from Gdynia to New York. Captain Mamert Stankiewicz—a seasoned officer and a symbol of quiet leadership—commanded its maiden voyage and many after.
In 1937, my grandfather, Abram-Moisze Ryz, boarded that ship.
He left behind everything he knew—his town of Dobrzyn, his family, his history—to board a ship bound for an uncertain future. He had never crossed an ocean before, let alone dipped his toe in one. He had never set foot in New York. But with war looming over Europe, he packed what he could carry and walked toward something he couldn’t yet see.
He boarded the MS Piłsudski. He sailed under the quiet watch of Captain Mamert Stankiewicz.
And somewhere on that ocean, a life began again.
When the war came, the Piłsudski was requisitioned by the Polish Navy, reoutfitted as a troop carrier. In 1939, on her first military mission, she was struck by German torpedoes off the coast of England. Captain Stankiewicz, true to the code he lived by, was the last to leave his ship. He personally made sure his crew and soldiers were safely evacuated. He spent over an hour submerged in the icy Atlantic before being pulled aboard a British rescue ship. He died shortly after of exhaustion and hypothermia.
Mamert Stankiewicz didn’t get headlines. He didn’t chase glory. He chose to lead—and in the end, he chose to sacrifice for the people he was responsible for.
And he never knew that one of the passengers he once ferried safely across the Atlantic would be my grandfather.
Who would have a son named Kalman.
Who would have a son named Adam.
Who would have a son named Rhys.
Legacy often unfolds in ways we never see.
There’s something about learning this story that’s been sitting heavy with me in the best way.
Because when we think about courage, we usually imagine big, bold, visible acts. The dramatic moments where the world watches and applause follows. But the truth is—some of the greatest acts of courage happen quietly. Without recognition. Without knowing where the ripple effects will land.
Mamert Stankiewicz didn’t know the future he was safeguarding when he captained that ship in 1937.
My grandfather didn’t know the life he was building when he stepped onto that deck.
They just knew they had to act.
That’s how real courage works.
It’s making the hard decision when no one is clapping.
It’s stepping into the unknown when no one can promise you it will be worth it.
It’s doing the right thing even when you’ll never see how far the impact will reach.
We rarely get to see the full returns on our sacrifices. The downstream lives changed. The generations touched. The futures made possible by an act of bravery we were never around to witness.
But that doesn’t make those choices any less important.
In fact, it makes them sacred.
So when you’re faced with a hard decision—when you’re standing at your own uncertain edge—remember:
The rewards may not come today. The applause may never arrive.
But the impact? It’s there.
It will move through lives you’ll never meet. It will ripple through futures you’ll never see.
And it will matter.
Because courage is never wasted.
Welcome to this week’s Three Book Thursday.
1. History
Tough Jews : Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams
Summary
I first read Tough Jews in college. It was a gift from my girlfriend—who would later become my wife—and looking back, it was one of those books that found me at exactly the right time.
Rich Cohen, who would go on to become one of my favorite writers, doesn’t just tell the story of Jewish gangsters in 1930s Brooklyn. He brings them to life—the Meyer Lanskys, the Bugsy Siegels, the men who refused to live in fear, who carved out space in a country that often pushed them to the margins.
Cohen’s writing is electric. The stories are gritty, vivid, raw—but never glamorized. He shows the humanity behind the legends—the survival instinct, the hunger, the complicated choices made by a generation trying to move from hunted to protector. These men weren’t saints. They weren’t role models. But they were something else: a generation’s refusal to be small.
What makes this book so compelling isn’t just the history—it’s the emotion beneath it. Tough Jews is about toughness, yes, but not just in the physical sense. It’s about identity. About dignity. About standing your ground in a world that doesn’t always welcome you.
Reading it at that stage in my life—young, hungry, trying to figure out where I fit in the world—it struck something deeper. It made toughness feel like something bigger than bravado. It made it feel like responsibility. Like memory. Like pride.
That’s what makes Tough Jews more than just a book about gangsters. It’s a book about survival—and the line between fighting for survival and fighting for something larger than yourself.
And that’s why this story still sticks with me.
Because toughness isn’t about how loud you are.
It’s about what you’re willing to protect.
It’s about knowing where you come from—and refusing to let anyone write your story for you.
Rich Cohen reminds us that resilience doesn’t always come dressed in perfection. Sometimes it comes in grit, in contradiction, in the complicated fight to build a life you can call your own.
Tough Jews captures that fight. And it’s why the book—like the people it honors—still stands strong all these years later.
Favorite Quote, Insight, & Principle
Quote: “Even the most reckless Jew ends up in medical school.”
Insight: The real victories aren’t in the headlines—they’re in the stories no one knows.
Principle: You didn’t ask for the fight, but once it found you, you didn’t back down.
Author: Rich Cohen
Themes: History
2. Investing
Safe Haven: Investing for Financial Storms
Summary
Most people build for the sunny days. Mark Spitznagel builds for the storms.
Safe Haven isn’t your typical investment book. It doesn’t chase trends or promise shortcuts. It’s a philosophy book disguised as a financial one—a meditation on risk, resilience, and how true wealth is measured not by how high you can climb, but by how well you can withstand the fall.
Years ago, I used to live near Mark. I still remember a conversation we had while he was deep in the process of writing this book. We talked about risk, about resilience, about how most people misunderstand what it truly means to protect what matters. That conversation stuck with me—and reading Safe Haven felt like a natural extension of it. Thoughtful, grounded, quietly profound.
Spitznagel’s core belief is simple but countercultural: the real game isn’t maximizing your gains—it’s surviving the inevitable losses. It’s about building a system, a life, a portfolio that’s strong enough to withstand the storms. Because storms will come. They always do.
And when you read this, it’s impossible not to see the parallels beyond investing.
It’s about business. About relationships. About health. About life itself.
We spend so much energy chasing the upside. Growth. Expansion. Accumulation. And when things are good, it’s easy to believe they’ll always stay that way. But resilience—the ability to endure, adapt, and come out stronger—that’s what separates those who thrive from those who vanish when the cycle turns.
Spitznagel doesn’t sugarcoat it. Building resilience means making trade-offs. It means sacrificing a little upside today for protection tomorrow. It means living with a mindset that prizes durability over dazzle. And it means accepting that sometimes the best move you make is the one no one else sees.
What I appreciate most about Safe Haven is that it isn’t just a book about investing—it’s a book about thinking. About protecting the foundation you’ve built. About prioritizing what endures over what excites.
Because success isn’t about how high you fly during the calm. It’s about whether you can still stand when the winds shift.
And if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the winds always shift.
Safe Haven is a call to resilience. To humility. To building something strong enough to weather whatever comes.
Not just in the markets.
In life.
Favorite Quote, Insight, & Principle
Quote: “It is better to sleep well than to eat well.”
Insight: Risk is not what you think you see; it’s what you don’t see coming.
Principle: The beauty of a safe haven is that it allows you to play the long game—when everyone else is playing for today.
Author: Mark Spitznagel
Themes: Investing, Wealth management. Personal finance
3. Health and wellness
My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging
Summary
Some books don’t teach you something new. They remind you of something you already know—something you may have forgotten along the way.
My Grandfather’s Blessings is one of those books.
Rachel Naomi Remen is a physician, but this isn’t a book about medicine. It’s about healing. About humanity. About the quiet, invisible ways we carry each other through the hardest moments of our lives. It’s about what it really means to belong—to be seen, to be trusted, to be loved without needing to earn it.
Through a series of short stories and reflections, Remen weaves lessons she learned from her grandfather, a rabbi, into the experiences she had with her own patients. The result is something rare: a book that feels both deeply personal and somehow universal. A reminder that we are not alone in the places we feel most isolated.
Reading it, you realize quickly: this isn’t a book you rush through. It’s a book you sit with. A book you underline and come back to. A book that moves at the pace of reflection.
What strikes me most is how Remen approaches the idea of strength. Not as the absence of vulnerability—but as the willingness to stand alongside it. Her grandfather didn’t teach her to be invincible. He taught her to be real. To listen deeply. To show up for others without trying to fix them, but simply by being present.
And if you’re in medicine, leadership, parenting, or any role where people look to you for answers—you know how hard that can be. You know how tempting it is to rush to solutions. To armor up. To hide the parts of you that are still learning, still breaking, still healing.
But this book reminds you that presence is often the greatest gift you can offer. That sometimes, the healing happens not in the curing, but in the connection.
That belonging doesn’t come from perfection.
It comes from being willing to sit beside someone in the dark without trying to turn on the lights too soon.
My Grandfather’s Blessings is a guide—not to doing more, but to being more. More open. More present. More aware of the blessings already moving quietly through your life.
And maybe that’s the deeper truth it leaves you with:
The real power isn’t in what you build or achieve.
It’s in how you hold space for others—and for yourself—along the way.
Favorite Quote, Insight, & Principle
Quote: “Sand is a way of life for an oyster. If you are soft and tender and must live on the sandy floor of the ocean, making pearls becomes a necessity if you are to live well.”
Insight: Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways.
Principle: L'Chiam! meant that no matter what difficulty life brings, no matter how hard or painful or unfair life is, life is holy and worthy of celebration. Even the wine is sweet to remind us that life itself is a blessing.
Author: Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
Themes: Health and wellness, Living a full life, Personal development
Courage rarely looks the way we expect it to.
It’s not always loud. It’s not always seen.
Most of the time, it moves quietly—one decision, one sacrifice at a time.
It’s a captain staying with his ship until every soul is safe, knowing the cost.
It’s a young man stepping onto a boat bound for an unknown land, leaving everything behind.
It’s the countless small choices we make to protect, to endure, to build something better—without ever knowing who might be shaped by them.
That’s the thread running through this week’s books.
My Grandfather’s Blessings reminds us that healing doesn’t always come from fixing—it comes from presence, from being willing to stand alongside others in their pain.
Safe Haven reminds us that true resilience isn’t built in the good times. It’s built quietly, through preparation and discipline, long before the storm arrives.
Tough Jews reminds us that survival—and dignity—often come from a stubborn, relentless refusal to be erased, even when no one is cheering you on.
The truth is, most of the courage that shapes the world isn’t recognized at the time.
Most of it happens without applause. Without certainty. Without guarantees.
Captain Stankiewicz didn’t know he was safeguarding future generations.
My grandfather didn’t know the life he was setting in motion when he boarded that ship.
But they acted anyway.
And that’s the kind of courage that matters most—the kind that moves forward, not for recognition, but because it’s the right thing to do.
We don’t always see the full ripple effects of our decisions.
But someone, somewhere, will be living inside them.
And that is enough.
Always ❤️📚💡
P.S. Here’s a video clip from the maiden voyage of the MS Piłsudski and Captain Mamert Stankiewicz arriving in New York Harbor in 1935.
P.P.S. I’ll be in Seattle and Montreal next month if anyone wants to have a meet up? Get in touch.
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Your writing today is amazing and touches me as a baby boomer. Thanks always for reminding us of the ripple effect by our ancestors and your well researched reading recommendations!👍
Powerful. Thanks