Charting your career

- These days, the goals all revolve around connecting with people through my songs, whether that's as a songwriter where I'm hoping to connect with the listener or move them with something I've written, or as an instructor or a teacher helping a younger songwriter understand their craft a little bit better, or in the studio as a producer connecting with people and helping them achieve their vision for their songs. So whatever approach I take, it all sort of comes back to the goal of connecting to people through songs. It has changed. When I first got started, success to me meant getting a record deal. That's what I thought I wanted more than anything in the world, was to get signed to a record label and sing my songs myself. Over the years, I've realized that what success really is is getting out of bed every day and getting to make music for a living. And that takes lots of different forms. Some of it is actually performing, but the reality is that for me, what feels like success is…