He says, "Dad, I'm not necessarily looking for that. I just want to make enough money in doing this thing I love to do." I mean, what more could I say about that? So I said, "Go for it.

It was only with her help that I did everything. The tragedy was that after 40 years of marriage she died of cancer.

So when I leave the court, I'm going to have more than enough to do, just to carry on, maybe telling something of our journey to people who didn't go through that.

All you have to do is play good enough to get your point across because you're not going to play like - I'm not going to play like I did when you played those earlier records.

I read that at a key fork in the road moment for me where I just sold CD Baby and had a ton of money. I was like, “What to do now?” And I read this book from this filthy rich old man being entirely honest, and I thought I should just learn from his experience. ... So if what I’m doing seems weird, it’s because I took his advice to heart and I’ve quit the game.

And this is my only pair of pants. These three glasses, I don’t even think about it because I just think about having enough.

The proudest achievement of my life at that time was that software. Wonderfully organized, extensible, and efficient: the culmination of everything I’d learned about programming in ten years. After a successful relaunch and Christmas rush, I was looking at my plan for 2008 and beyond. All my plans needed a huge effort for little reward, but were required for future growth. I had broken it into about 20 projects, each taking 2 to 12 weeks. But I wasn’t excited about any of them.

My mentor heard it and said, “Derek, you’re just not a singer. You really need to stop trying. Admit you’re a songwriter, and find a real singer.”

Yeah, anybody asks me about it, my advice was always, do not do it. In fact, it still is. Somebody just asked me last week, I was like, do not do it.

When I decided to sell my company, I already had enough. I live simply. I don’t own a house, a car, or even a TV. The less I own, the happier I am. The lack of stuff gives me the priceless freedom to live anywhere anytime. So I didn’t need or even want the money from the sale of the company. I just wanted to make sure I had enough for a simple comfortable life. The rest should go to music education, since that’s what made such a difference in my life.