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.
How I’ve started listening differently
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Hello Reader, For most of my adult life, I convinced myself that music had to take a back seat. Podcasts, audiobooks, silence. Those became my companions for focus, for learning, for “productive” listening. But something shifted recently. I found myself craving sound again—not just any sound, but music. Not noise to fill the air, but intentional listening that stirred something deeper. And right around that same time, I started using a tool that didn’t just play audio, but helped me shape it. That return to music made me realize something: I wasn’t just enjoying songs. I was remembering moments. A summer road trip. My childhood living room. The emotions, the atmosphere, the version of me that existed back then. Music wasn’t background anymore—it was a bridge. And I started crossing it more often. Eventually, I began building playlists not just to listen to… but to remember with. Seasonal soundtracks. Milestone moments. Songs that marked transitions in my life. The result? A deeper connection to the past... and a surprising clarity in the present. I wrote more about this journey, the science behind music and memory, and how to create your own memory-based playlists in a recent post. Click on the link below to give it a read. Rediscovering My Musical Memory: A Journey Through Time and Sound There you’ll also find the playlist I’ve been building. It's filled with songs that take me back and help me feel more grounded in who I am. Give it a listen. And maybe start building your own. — Mike |
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.
Hello Reader, I’ve got a quick favour to ask. TEDxVancouver is currently accepting nominations for speakers, and I’m putting my name forward to speak on this year’s theme: Clarity. The talk I want to give is one I feel uniquely equipped to deliver—an idea I’ve been refining for years, and one that I believe is ready for a broader stage. It’s called “You Can’t Own Time—But You Can Know It.” It builds on the TEDx talks I gave over a decade ago and reflects my evolution since—shifting from...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 1, Issue 20 | July 12, 2025 Hello Reader, Every day, your attention moves. It shifts between tasks, screens, conversations, internal noise. Sometimes you guide it. Often, it gets pulled. And rarely—rarely—do you pause to ask: Where is it going? And why? Attention isn’t just focus. It’s not about trying harder to concentrate. It’s a finite resource. A vote. A signal of value. When you give your attention to something, you give it your time, your energy, your...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 1, Issue 19 | July 5, 2025 Hello Reader, We talk a lot about hard work. And smart work. And sometimes even deep work. But there’s another kind of work that often gets overlooked—maybe because it doesn’t look like work at all. It’s the kind of work you do not because you have to, but because you want to. The kind that lights you up instead of wearing you down. It might be writing a line you don’t plan to publish. Or mapping out a new system not because it’s...