Sometimes you have to say no to things that people don't want you to say no to in the interest of self-preservation. I definitely went through some times that I did more than I could handle, and I was trying to make decisions for the best of my career; the irony was that those decisions were a direct cause of my inability to produce, perform, create anything. If you are not emotionally and personally stable and intact and healthy, then the entire foundation of what you do this for - the things that you make - is gone.

I really like to plan and think ahead and put things in their place. I'm a bit of a control freak. In many ways, I have done myself a great service over the years in trying to loosen that a bit, and trying to learn how to be present and be comfortable with where I am in any particular moment, literally and figuratively. To try and find the joy and peace in any situation, even if I feel like I don't have a handle on where it is or where it's going.

I love what I do and I'm super confident in it, but I also think of myself as humble in it. It's not better than what anyone else is doing, but I'm doing the best job of being exactly who I am, and doing what I want to do today. It feels so good to me that it doesn't really matter what it means to other people because that's more about them than me. I'm in a really great place with it.

I don't think of music as being a competition - what I make is exactly what I want it to be for me, and it's not better or worse than anything else. I'm just trying to be the best at what I am, or that I possibly can be. And when I've done that, I feel incredibly confident and there's nothing anyone can see to dampen that, but I don't think that because it means something to me, it has to necessarily mean something to other people.

I will say this: it's important to work hard, but you have to know your limits. There's always another show, but if there's no "you"; if you have nothing left to give, nothing else happens. It all disappears.

There were a lot of times that I'd rather be hanging out with friends, or out at a show, but instead I stay home and work on music. It's important to me that I make a lot of work and have a lot of variety and change for myself, because of the kind of personality I have. I have to bring my best self and my best work to the table.

A lot of mantras that I use in my daily life to get through - to move through the world in peace and harmony with myself - find their way into the music that I make. Many of the lines that people seem to be drawn to in my music really come from these mantras that I repeat to myself to try and move through the world in more thoughtful, comfortable way.