Working out with music
For a long time, I would always workout with music. It kept away the boredom and gave something to jam along to.
The problem I discovered is you're not present with the activity you're doing. Your mind is just floating in this beat-infused bubble.
When I'm running, I want to be running. I don't want to be in the middle of a nightclub. It's about being present, and discovering who you are.
Some of my favorite people have also expressed the same realization.
So I never train with music. There is a reason why I don't do that. The music is not gonna always be there; the TV, the distactions. All these external things. I'm in the gym right now with all this loud music. People wouldn't need it to get fired up. They need it to stay motivated. They need it to stay in the fight. They need it to just go to the gym. To do whatever you need to do.
What do you do when you have no external motivation? It's about the internal. What do you say to yourself? How are you going to fire yourself up? What's that fight inside of you that keeps you going? Let that keep you going, not this.
Peter Attia in discussion with Sam Harris:
(Context: Discussion about meditation - Peter is describing his time at a rehab centre with no electronics/stimulus. Peter recalls being present in the moment and noticing the little things around him.)
They allowed us to exercise, [..]. But you couldn't have music, you didn't have a phone or anything. So it was also the first time in my life I exercised only being able to listen to the sound of my breath. So every morning I would run, in the woods, and you just heard the sound of the wind blowing by you, and you heard your breath. When I was doing pushups, same sort of thing.