Rahm Emanuel, then White House Chief of Staff under President Obama, shared a harrowing story from his youth during his commencement address at George Washington University. At seventeen, while working as a meatcutter, he deeply sliced his finger and went swimming in Lake Michigan on prom night. The wound became catastrophically infected — five blood infections, two bone infections, gangrene, and a 105-degree fever. He spent two months in the hospital, with the first 96 hours a battle between life and death. Five of his roommates in the hospital died during that period. But Emanuel told the graduates he was ultimately grateful for the experience, because it transformed his outlook entirely. Coming back from the edge of death gave him a seriousness of purpose that shaped everything that followed — his career in politics, his work in the Clinton and Obama White Houses, and his approach to public service.