'I am committed to exemplifying what it is to be a true leader. Spectacular performances are preceded by unspectacular preparation. I get up anywhere between 5am and 7am and I spend two to three hours reading. It might be philosophy - I like Nietzsche - or motivational material such as Anthony Robbins or Dale Carnegie. I like reading the greatest thinkers of our time. Then I go to the gym and spend an hour on the elliptical machine listening to my Naked Cowboy dialogue [a series of recorded self-improvement maxims]. Sometimes I may go back to the gym in the afternoon and listen to another motivational CD. I expect to be physically and mentally better than anyone else. I am the success principle gone wild. In the wintertime, I'll go into Manhattan for two to three hours. I park for free. I change in the SUV and run into Times Square. If it's 20 degrees [minus seven degrees Celsius] outside, I'll only be in the square for between 20 and 30 minutes because otherwise I start showing signs of hypothermia. Then I'll go home, have two hot baths, do some more reading, maybe go to the gym, then go back out in the afternoon. I'm on a circulating system of read, workout and go show the muscles, which is the result of the accumulated work. In the summer I might be out in Times Square for a total of four to six hours. I have a list of about 100 hit classics that I play on my guitar. Songs like Whip Out Your Balls of Steel and I'm the Naked Cowboy. None of the people in Times Square can refuse me. I can earn between US$300 and US$350 per hour. But that's not really where I make money. People send me e-mails saying they'll pay me US$1,000 to use my image on a billboard. I just signed a deal with a company that makes underwear that will be sold in Wal-Mart. I charge US$1,000 just to do an appearance. I've got a gig in Germany coming up and they're going to pay me US$5,000. I charge whatever I want and they give it to me. I'm the only one. For a Pepsi commercial, I was being paid US$3,000 every month for what seemed forever. I'm a registered trademark, both my name and my image. No one can call themselves the Nude Cowboy. But I'm not interested in the money; I'm interested in the capacity to go person to person. How did I become the Naked Cowboy? In 1997, I went to the Venice Beach boardwalk in California because I wanted to practise playing guitar and performing in front of people. I played guitar fully clothed, in my jeans, boots and cowboy hat. I was ignored the entire day. Nobody so much as looked at me. Anyway, I was in California staying with a photographer who had once photographed me for Playgirl magazine. He suggested that the next day I should play guitar in my underwear. I was a big attraction and made more than US$100. Girls were taking pictures of me all day long. Even the news came out and filmed me. After that, I went home to Cincinnati, Ohio, and played guitar in my underwear in Fountain Square. I was arrested, but I made it onto the news again and also onto a morning talk show. I told the presenter, 'I've been doing this all over the world.' The next day I got in my car with 36 pairs of underwear and my guitar. I was on the news wherever I went. In Lafayette, Louisiana, I came out in my underwear and the whole town fell apart. The police threw me out. When I went to Washington, the Monica Lewinsky trial was on and the world's press were waiting for her to come out of the Mayflower Hotel. So I played outside the Mayflower. I realised I should just go where the media was. After two-and-a-half years on the road, I went to New York City and ended up in Times Square. I'm in New York 300 days of the year. Otherwise I'm sitting in the back of my SUV with my laptop and phone, my underwear in the back, and I'm planning trips. I go to a deli for lunch. I eat chicken, veggies, coffee and water. They allow me in the deli with my underwear on. I go anywhere in my underwear, but anywhere I go in my underwear it becomes an event. I haven't flown in my underwear yet. That might inconvenience me because people could start flipping out. Sometimes people ask me what's the strangest thing that's ever happened to me. Being mauled is universal. Anyway, what kind of position am I in to call anything strange? I always wear two pairs of underwear. One time I was arrested in Indianapolis and they said if they could see the imprint from my genitalia they would consider it indecent exposure. Anyway, I don't need to intimidate them any more than I already am. Guys will come up to me and say, 'Why did you put a sock in?' I work eight days a week; everyday is a holiday. Any day is the day to get out in your underwear. I am inspired by creating a sense of struggle. Anyone could go out there on a sunny day in their underwear, but when its 10 degrees [minus 12 degrees] and I'm freezing my nuts off, that's when I consider myself to be doing what I'm doing. I lived in a hotel for seven years, but now I'm living in Secaucus, New Jersey, with my soulmate, Cindy, and her three kids. I met her when she was on an elliptical machine next to me. In the evenings, I read. I find someone else with as much genius as me and I escape in their thoughts for a while. Nietzsche is my favourite man. I can't predict if the Naked Cowboy will be in Times Square when he's 70, but I can't see why I wouldn't be. No one else in the history of the world would do this job. But this is the commercial age; today everything is linked to symbols, and the symbol that will be most frequently understood, known and recognised is the symbol of the man in his underwear who took full responsibility for his life. Everything will bear my name, image and likeness. My image supports and sustains the entire human race.'