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I Keep This Clock in My Office Frozen on the Moment My Life Restarted It taught me an invaluable lesson about uncertainty, in life and business.

By Chuck James Edited by Frances Dodds

This story appears in the September 2024 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

It's 2:04 p.m. on a summer day in August 2010. I'm at the Mayo Clinic. I have a tracheal tube down my throat, so I can't talk. There are wires all over me, and I'm in immense pain. It is incredibly uncomfortable. The day before, I had open heart surgery.

At 2:05 p.m., a doctor walks into the room. "I know you're feeling like death right now," he says. Since I can't talk, it's not much of a conversation, but I nod in agreement. "I promise you in 15 minutes," he continues, "you're going to feel like a new person. We're taking all the tubes out."

To be honest, I didn't believe him — but he was right. When the chest and tracheal tubes came out of me, life flowed back in. I was a new person. I went from death's door to reborn in 15 minutes.

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