With my childhood and growing up in a very free place where my parents were artists and always encouraging me to explore, you wouldn't think I was locked up in my own mind, but I was.

So much of myself is consumed with earning my way, doing it myself, and never feeling like things are being handed to you. Growing up that way was humbling.

I always think it's a little bit of a challenge when people sort of associate female artists as their own genre.

It's funny: when I was a kid, my mom would reorganize the record collection all the time. She'd have classical, she'd have Celtic, she'd have rock and roll, and then she'd have female singers. And I don't like it that female singers are their own genre.

I have always said, '40 is the new 20,' and I truly believe that, but it for sure takes a lot of hard work, education, and discipline to keep it all together as we make our way to 50 and beyond.

I think there are too many bosses in Washington telling Nashville Diesel College and Harvard University how to run - how to run their campuses, and I'd like to reduce the number of Washington regulations on higher education and keep this marketplace of wonderful institutions among which students can choose; that's oriented toward job growth.

I have to have three or four books going simultaneously. If I'm not impressed in the first 20 pages, I don't bother reading the rest, especially with novels. I'm not a book-club style reader. I'm not looking for life lessons or wanting people to think I'm smart because I'm reading a certain book.

Being transgender is more than just medical books and everything, procedures. It's something spiritual in which you're finding yourself and really discovering who you are and learning to love yourself.