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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Since that day in 2010, I stopped winding the clock in my office. I leave it at 2:05 p.m. That moment — and the entire experience — changed everything for me, and informs my approach not only to my personal life, but to my professional career as founder and chief operating officer at SpareBox Storage.
This surgery was the culmination of 30 years of unexplained health issues — the root of which doctors couldn't identify. After decades of symptoms, I was resigned to living my life without a diagnosis or a cure. Then, miraculously, they figured it out!
Though the clock on my desk doesn't tell time, it tells me something far more important: Even in the worst situations, relief is just around the corner; we just can't see it. It's often in our moments of deepest uncertainty that resolution comes to us.
The clock's message is as true in business as it is in life. Starting a business is full of uncertainty. Successful entrepreneurs face challenges with the optimism and knowledge that everything can change for the better, even when it looks grim. Believe that progress is possible and work for it, always believing the best is yet to come.
In 15 minutes, everything changed for me. The clock — forever set to 2:05 — is my daily reminder, an inspiration to keep going. When everything is going wrong, just remember: It's 2:05 somewhere.
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