What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.