“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important…

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.

There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011

For those who know me, I am a techno-geek and a Macintosh evangelist. Back in the mid-90s, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, and the first colored iMacs hit the market, I was the General Manager for an Apple Retail Store. So yesterday’s news that Jobs had died, really hit me. He was a creative genius that will be remembered in the way Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell are for their achievements. The world has lost a great visionary.

“There is no reason not to follow your heart” is a reminder to us all that when you live life with passion and purpose, great things will manifest. I have had several significant set backs in life, a couple in the last few months, and have been battling with all those external things he talks about. When I saw this quote today, it lifted my spirits in a way nothing has for a long time. Thank you Steve Jobs. You are still influencing, even in your death.

In Native American culture, there is a belief that when one shares all that one has, in order that the People might thrive, honor and abundance is brought to the giver. Jobs brought this to his work, his ideas, and his customers. His life is a great model of this principle. He will be missed.

Here is the commencement address at Stanford University in which he spoke the quote above. It’s 15 minutes, and well worth the time spent viewing it.