The Lantern is a thoughtfully curated weekly email from Mike Vardy designed to help you craft a better relationship with time. Each edition brings you insights, inspiration, and practical tools through a simple yet powerful framework: Look (a thought-provoking video or visual), Listen (a compelling podcast or audio insight), and Learn (a deep dive into a key concept, article, or book). Designed to inform, inspire, and illuminate, The Lantern helps you navigate time with clarity and intention—without the overwhelm.
Rejection is a Skill (and Here’s How to Build It)
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Hello Reader, Here’s something you might not hear often: Rejection is a skill. In this week’s episode of A Productive Conversation, I sit down with Alice Draper—founder of Hustling Writers and host of My Rejection Story—to unpack how building rejection resilience can quietly fuel your productivity, creativity, and clarity. One idea that really stuck with me? “Imposter syndrome is a form of self-rejection. And that’s the most insidious kind.” If you’ve ever talked yourself out of hitting publish, sending a pitch, or asking for an opportunity because you felt like you weren’t “ready,” this conversation is a must-listen. We get tactical, too—Alice shares:
You can listen to the full episode here Even if you don’t hit play, take this with you: The fear doesn’t vanish. But the more you move through it, the less control it has over you. Talk soon, P.S. A curated selection of podcast episodes of A Productive Conversation are available in short-form audio over on Blinkist. You can check it out here. (And just a heads up: not every episode is featured—Blinkist picks select ones to spotlight.) |
The Lantern: A Weekly Guide to Navigating Time with Intention
The Lantern is a thoughtfully curated weekly email from Mike Vardy designed to help you craft a better relationship with time. Each edition brings you insights, inspiration, and practical tools through a simple yet powerful framework: Look (a thought-provoking video or visual), Listen (a compelling podcast or audio insight), and Learn (a deep dive into a key concept, article, or book). Designed to inform, inspire, and illuminate, The Lantern helps you navigate time with clarity and intention—without the overwhelm.
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 1, Issue 18 | June 30, 2025 Hello Reader, Last year, my 50th birthday didn’t quite go as planned. We had renovations happening—dust in the air, timelines shifting, rooms half-done. The idea of a big celebration faded quickly into background noise. And for a while, I felt a little disappointed by that. But as the day came and went, I realized something: maybe it wasn’t the party I missed. Maybe it was the marker—a moment to pause and say: This matters. I’ve made...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 1, Issue 17 | June 21, 2025 Hello Reader, Sometimes the fix isn’t finesse—it’s force. Not reckless. Not violent. Just… assertive. Immediate. Intentional. There’s a term for this in the physical world: percussive maintenance. You’ve likely done it. A smack on the side of an old TV to fix the reception. A gentle nudge to a stuck printer. That calculated tap to get something—anything—working again. It’s not precision engineering. But it works. The most famous...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 1, Issue 16 | June 14, 2025 Hello Reader, There’s been construction happening a few doors up from my house for months now. Not major, city-wide, earthmoving construction—just the slow, relentless transformation of a single home. A retrofit. A rebuild. But a little over a week ago—after a few days of being completely sidelined by a migraine—I finally felt like I could ease back into some focused work. And right as I did, the trucks came back. Engines idling....