John Rich

No, you're not imagining it.

A few years ago, I started to contemplate the difference between success and significance.

And they are different.

Sometimes they intersect where something significant or something successful, they interact.

But I spent three decades of my adult life in self-service.

competing in the music industry to be successful.

And so to me, success in the music industry, I had really high bars.

I had set like, I want to be songwriter of the year, for instance, in Nashville.

That's something I, that's like the coveted award because there's thousands of songwriters in Nashville.

And I was songwriter of the year for three years in a row.

Wanted to sell millions of records.

Well, all told, you know, we sold close to 15 million records.

wanted to write hit songs for other people too.

And I've had, I don't know how many, I don't even know the number of how many top 10 songs I've written.

It's a lot.

At the time, yeah.

Because, you know, that's my American dream.

That's what I wanted to do.

You know, I didn't go to college.

I had a four-year ride to a school called Belmont University in Nashville on a vocal scholarship.