My songs have sold more than 50 million copies and have been recorded by diverse artists including Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Gipsy Kings, Collin Raye and many more. My song "Change My Mind" (recorded by John Berry) received a BMI "Million-Air" award for garnering more than 1 million radio plays. My songs have been on hit TV shows and in movies, including "Scrubs," "Friday Night Lights," "Kim Possible," "The Miss America Pageant," "PBS Frontline," the animated "Barbie of Swan Lake," Disney's "First Kid" and many more, earning me an Emmy Award and an additional nomination.

I have presented songwriting master classes in more than 10 countries and have taught at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA, co-founded by Sir Paul McCartney) and for Berklee College Music. I developed and continue to teach the BMI Songwriting workshops.

My books, "6 Steps to Songwriting Success" and "This Business of Songwriting" (both published by Billboard Books) are used in universities and songwriting programs throughout the world. I have published more than 135 articles about songwriting and have been interviewed as an expert on CNN, NPR, and by the New York Times.

When I am not writing songs or teaching others to do so I am passionate about cat and kitten rescue. I have photographed more than 6,000 cats for the Kauai Humane Society and have fostered 46 cats and kittens. My work led to my writing "Happy Tails: Life Lessons from Rescued Cats and Kittens (published by Blue Mountain Arts/SPS Publishing), which includes my photography. A portion of all proceeds benefit the Kauai Humane Society.