"I just want to say first of all, to receive this award from Alysa, who, you brought me so much happiness and everyone else so much happiness with your performances. And I was so inspired by how much diligence and work and effort and love you have for what you do, and to be receiving Artist of the Year, which is—I love being an artist. I love writing songs more than anything in the world. And I didn't think I was an artist when I first started doing it. It was a hobby. It was a hobby, and then it was my favorite hobby, and then it was what I would rush home from school to do, just, 'I can't wait to get back to my guitar, in my room, and write a song.' And I just want to say like, when I was 12 years old, I had the luxury of spending thousands of hours working at my craft, practicing, making mistakes through trial and error, and that was all completely unobserved, right? That was just me and my craft. And I'm looking out into this crowd, and I'm seeing so many ambitious, cool, smart, awesome people who have dreams, and we live in this world where there's so much immediate feedback constantly. You get feedback for everything you share with the world now. Everything you post, you get feedback, whether it's good or bad or whatever. I just want to say, if I had one hope for you, I would say I hope that you get to nurture your hobby and your passion just between you and that craft, and you give yourself time. Give yourself time to make mistakes, give yourself time to hone your craft. I'm a firm believer that anything you feed your mind, it will internalize; anything you feed the internet, it will attempt to kill. And I don't want that for your dreams. So just, thank you for allowing me to turn my hobby into a love, into a passion, into a dream, into a career. Thank you for allowing me to have it this long. And I wish you the best with everything you do. Thank you so much for this amazing, amazing night."
