Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.

I have a problem with my ears. I really have a problem. When I was living in the city, I threatened people because of some noise they were making that was bothering me. It sounds psychotic, I know. Once it was a beep from a fax that I heard in the night, very far away. I went to every floor, to every neighbor, putting my ear to the door, until I discovered where the sound was coming from. Then I would tell them, “You have a fax machine that’s making this sound and it’s driving me crazy.” “You’re four floors away from me—how can you hear that?” they said. “You’re crazy, you’re a hysterical woman.” Whatever, call me whatever you want, but I hear it, and I can’t sleep because of it.

Listening to the sound of rain. Almost every time it rains, I start recording it. Almost each day. What else? Sensing the movements of the wind. Those very subtle things give me so much pleasure.

I come from the generation who were taught never to throw things out. I like the idea of hanging on to things and repairing items rather than discarding them. It’s not a question of money, more to do with guarding resources and not being wasteful. My children laugh at me when I sit darning a pair of socks.

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.

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.

The rest should go to music education, since that’s what made such a difference in my life. I created a charitable trust called the Independent Musicians Charitable

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.

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.”

When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say no.