Hey, friends.

I feel like a ton has happened since we last spoke, so I'm going to try not to ramble on too much. Long story short, I've had a career revelation.

I know, I'm supposed to be the guru on this. But sometimes the student is the teacher, yada yada yada, so here's what happened:

I gave a 12-minute talk last week. This is how it came about:

Hey, friend.

Having a very slow Friday. Reading from Austin Kleon's newsletter--which feels like great timing, as I've been feeling a little homesick for America this month.

Luckily, I'm spending all of today pretty focused on just drinking jasmine tea and getting emotionally zenned out before I go into the recording studio tomorrow--which is certainly a recognized form of "home" in my book, no matter where I am.

And because I've been meditating on homesickness and friends, today seems like a good day to tackle a great question I heard recently from an #entrylevelboss reader. The question is this:

Networking and meetups and stuff feel so casual. How can you tell if you're making professional contacts or just making new friends?

Hey, friends.

Another summer day, and I'm feeling relentless.

No, not relentless. I'm feeling "Alexa Shoen singing Jack Johnson in full makeup with three cameras on her" relentless.

That's right, angels. Mars is out of retrograde* and I'm headed back into the studio to start recording tunes once again. As soon as next week, actually. And definitely all fall.

The longtime #entrylevelboss crew will remember back fondly to last year, when I crowdfunded The Human Jukebox Project and let people randomly vote on songs that I then made into an album and toured around Europe and America.

Hey, team.

Dang, I'm keeping busy this week! Playing a little catch up after last week's tech festivities (and super successful #entrylevelboss breakfast event!). Coming back to zen, slowly but surely.

I'm also re-watching The O.C. right now, which is giving me a true inner sense of calm. Blame my California roots, I guess.

Anyway, I've been getting all kinds of emails from readers old and new, so I've decided to turn this week's note into a little Q&A. Here's a question I received on Monday...

Hey, friends.

Great news. It would seem that I'm forming a solid summertime habit of finding an outdoor patio, ordering a glass of wine, and spending happy hour writing this email. Ah, the sweet joy that is life-in-balance.

And speaking of this annual change in weather, we've made it halfway through the year. So I figure, now's a good time to catch you up (in listicle form) about what's going on in my day-to-day universe as of late.