← Founders
Founders
#141 Arnold Schwarzenegger (My Unbelievably True Life Story)
01:03:15
What I learned from reading Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger
Loading summary
Transcript482 lines
- [00:01]
A
I always wanted to be an inspiration for people, but I never set out to be a role model in everything. How could I be when I have so many contradictions in my life? I'm a European who became an American leader. A businessman who makes his living as an action hero. A tremendously disciplined super achiever who hasn't
- [00:22]
B
always been disciplined enough.
- [00:24]
A
A fitness expert who loves cigars, an environmentalist who loves hummers, A fun loving guy with kid like enthusiasm who is most famous for terminating people. How would anybody know what to imitate? I do want to set an example, of course.
- [00:43]
B
I want to inspire you to work out, to keep yourself fit, to create a vision and use your will to
- [00:48]
A
accomplish it in these ways. I'm very happy to take the torch and be a role model for others because I've always had great role models myself. But it's never been my goal to set an example in everything I do. Sometimes I prefer being way out there, shocking people. Rebelliousness is part of what drove me from Austria. I didn't want to be like everyone else. I thought of myself as special and
- [01:14]
B
unique and not average.
- [01:16]
A
No one could put me in a mold. Being different was right up my alley. But life is richer when we embrace the multitudes we all contain, even if we aren't consistent. And what we do doesn't always make sense, even to us. When I talk to graduating classes, I always tell a brief version of the
- [01:35]
B
story of my life and try to
- [01:37]
A
offer lessons everybody can use. Have a vision, trust yourself, break some
- [01:42]
B
rules, ignore the naysayers, don't be afraid to fail.
- [01:48]
A
Woven through the stories in this memoir are some of the principles of success
- [01:53]
B
that have worked for me. That was an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you
- [01:56]
A
about today, which is total my unbelievably true life story.
- [02:00]
B
And it was written by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- [02:02]
A
This is a giant book.
- [02:04]
B
It's over 600 pages and I have an obscene amount of highlights. So let's go ahead and I'm going
- [02:09]
A
to go right to his early life.
- [02:11]
B
And part of what makes Arnold's life story so unique is not only the multitude of accomplishments he has, but where he started out was so his early life was a struggle. And he's going to tell us a little bit about that now. He says, I was born in a year of famine. It was 1947 and Austria was occupied
- [02:30]
A
by the Allied armies that had defeated Hitler's Third Reich. Two months before I was born, there
- [02:36]
B
were hunger riots in Vienna and in
- [02:39]
A
the province where we lived. The food shortages were just as bad. Years later, if my mother wanted to remind me about how much she and my father sacrificed to bring me up, she'd tell me how she'd foraged across the countryside, making her way from farm
- [02:53]
B
to farm to collect a little butter,
- [02:55]
A
some sugar and some grain. She'd be away three days sometimes. Hamstern.
- [03:01]
B
That's the, I think, the German word, hamstern, they called it.
- [03:04]
A
Like a hamster gathering nuts, scrounging for food was so common.
- [03:10]
B
And in this next section, he describes his house, what he lived in. He says, my boyhood home was a very simple stone and brick building. There was no plumbing, no shower, and no flushing toilet, just a kind of chamber pot.
- [03:23]
A
The nearest well was almost a quarter mile away, and even when it was raining hard or snowing, one of us had to go.
- [03:30]
B
So in that case, when I was reading that section, it reminded me of early childhood, of, say, somebody like Chung Joo Young, the founder of Hyundai, who's living, no plumbing, no electricity, eating tree
- [03:42]
A
bark in the winter.
- [03:44]
B
Also Samuel Broffman, the founder of Seagram. Same thing where they're having to all. Essentially, there's just a giant tub in the kitchen. And, you know, the mom gets to bathe first, then the dad, then the older brother, and then Sam. And in this case, Arnold's experiencing the exact same thing. So not only were they poor, lack
- [04:03]
A
of food, but he gives us a
- [04:05]
B
historical context in what was taking place
- [04:07]
A
in Austria right after World War II. And he sees in others, in the
- [04:11]
B
grown men that are influencing him, traits
- [04:15]
A
that he wants to avoid. And he says, we were growing up among men who felt like a bunch of losers. Their generation had started World War II and lost. They were angry. They tried to suppress the rage and humiliation, but disappointment was deep in their bones.
- [04:32]
B
So he talks about a lot of them.
- [04:33]
A
They were getting drunk all the time,
- [04:35]
B
beating their kids, beating their wives, essentially taking out their frustration with the way their lives, the outcome of their lives on everybody else around them. And his father is one of these men. And this is the impact his father had on him.
- [04:51]
A
His answer to life was discipline. We had a strict routine that nothing could change. We'd get up at 6. We had to earn our breakfast by doing sit ups. In the afternoon, we'd finished our homework and chores, and my father would make us practice soccer.
- [05:05]
B
No matter how bad the weather was, if we messed up on a play, we knew we'd get yelled at.
- [05:10]
A
My father believed just as strongly in training our brains. He'd take us on A family outing, visiting another village or maybe seeing a play. Then in the evening, we had to write a report on our activities. They had to be 10 pages at least. He'd hand back our papers with red
- [05:25]
B
ink scribbled all over them, and if
- [05:27]
A
we had spelled a word wrong, we
- [05:29]
B
had to copy it 50 times over.
- [05:32]
A
I love my father and really wanted to be like him, but he had no patience with our problems. I never.
- [05:38]
B
This is such an important paragraph. If you think about how he described himself as a super disciplined super achiever,
- [05:44]
A
or extremely disciplined super achiever. I never felt that I was good enough, strong enough, smart enough. He let me know that there was
- [05:52]
B
always room for improvement.
- [05:54]
A
A lot of sons would have been crippled by his demands, but instead, the discipline rubbed off on me.
- [06:00]
B
It turned into drive. So even from a very young age, Arnold was determined not to be a loser and he was determined to get out of Austria. So he said, somehow the thought took shape in my mind that America was where I belonged. Nothing more concrete than that, just America. It's very interesting how Arnold describes him in the book, describes himself in the book because you might think of him, he's a bodybuilder, he's an actor, he was the governor, et cetera, et cetera. He married into the Kennedy family dynasty. But he considers himself, and he describes himself as an American entrepreneur. A lot of people don't know this, but Arnold was a millionaire before he was 30 years old. And it didn't come from movies. He had several different businesses, which I'll tell you more about in a little bit.
- [06:43]
A
One thing to know about Arnold, and
- [06:45]
B
that it comes across in his writing, the reason I would recommend going out and buying this book, and hopefully I'm able to persuade you into doing so,
- [06:51]
A
is because not only is the story unbelievable, but the way he writes, he's very human.
- [06:56]
B
He writes in normal language. Even though it's over 600 pages, I found myself lost in time. I'd be reading, I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe I just read 150 pages, 200 pages. Where'd the hours go? And then he also does not hide all of the mistakes. We hear his inner monologue, the way
- [07:14]
A
he talks to himself.
- [07:16]
B
Later on in life, he owns up to destroying his family. It's just very. It just feels very authentic. Before I get there, though, Arnold had an unwavering belief in himself, and we see a little bit of that in an early age.
- [07:31]
A
I became absolutely convinced that I was special and meant for bigger things. I knew I would be the best at something, although I didn't know what, and that it would make me famous. America was the most powerful country, so I would go there. The thought of going to America hit me like a revelation, and I really took it seriously. I would talk about it.
- [07:51]
B
So he's talking about in, like, grade school. He just wouldn't shut up about this.
- [07:56]
A
The kids got used to me hearing. Hearing me talk about it and thought I was weird, but that didn't stop
- [08:01]
B
me from sharing my plans with everyone. And when he's describing how much of his early life was full of difficulty and struggle, he's not doing it to complain. He talks about, yeah, I don't want
- [08:11]
A
this for my kids.
- [08:12]
B
But I also benefited because it made me stronger.
- [08:15]
A
He says, when you grow up in that kind of harsh environment, you never forget how to withstand physical punishment, even long after the hard times end.
- [08:25]
B
And right around this time in his life, we see this idea. He's like, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to be rich. And what motivated him was not just to buy a bunch of crazy stuff,
- [08:34]
A
but he really wanted to be rich
- [08:35]
B
so he could buy his independence.
- [08:36]
A
He says, I decided that the best course for independence was to mind my own business and make my own money.
- [08:43]
B
While he's in grade school, they're having to write reports on what they read in the newspaper.
- [08:48]
A
This is where he starts to find the blueprint that he wants to follow
- [08:52]
B
in the lives of others. He does this several times with several different people.
- [08:56]
A
This is the first one. It says on it was a photo of Mr. Austria, this guy named Kurt Marnold setting the record in the bench press. I felt inspired by this guy's achievement, but what really struck me was that he was wearing glasses. I kept staring at the picture. How could someone who looked like a professor from the neck up be bench pressing 190 kilos? I came away fascinated that a man could be both smart and powerful.
- [09:22]
B
And so he starts working out. The number of people working out in this tiny area in Austria is very small, so they all get to know each other. He winds up meeting this guy Kurt,
- [09:31]
A
and then he also becomes friends with Kurt's dad. And Kurt's dad has a huge influence
- [09:36]
B
on how Arnold's going to approach both developing his mind and his body. And I really liked what his dad was teaching all these young guys.
- [09:43]
A
He says the idea of balancing the body and the mind was like a religion for him.
- [09:47]
B
Now, this quote from I don't know how to pronounce his name, so I'm not going to try. But this is Kurt's dad.
- [09:51]
A
You have to build the ultimate physical machine, but also the ultimate mind. He would say, read Plato. The Greeks started the Olympics, but they also gave us the great philosophers. And you've got to take care of both.
- [10:04]
B
So then he starts studying. Well, how did I want everything Kurt has, I want that body that he has. He's getting girls, he's making money, he's being covered in the newspaper. Arnold's like, I want all this.
- [10:14]
A
So he says, as I got to know him, I studied his whole routine. His day job was as the foreman of a road construction crew. He started work early in the morning and was finished by three. Then he would put in three hours at the gym, training hard. He'd let us visit him so we could get the idea. You work, you make the money, and then you can afford this car. You train and then you win championships. There was no shortcut. You had to earn it. And so for the first time in his life, he's around people that are
- [10:44]
B
achieving what they set out to achieve in life. When he would work out at home, his dad would ridicule him. He's like, go do something useful. Go chop wood. What are you doing? And now he's around this group of guys. They're extremely disciplined, they're working really hard,
- [10:57]
A
but they're seeing the results of their work. And again, Arnold at this time, he's around 15 years old and is really,
- [11:03]
B
really important of the effect that this time in his life had on him. And he talks about that finding this new love, this new passion. Bodybuilding made him feel alive.
- [11:15]
A
And I really liked his description of
- [11:16]
B
that, so I'm going to read it to you.
- [11:18]
A
That summer had a miraculous effect on me. Instead of existing, I started to live. I was catapulted out of the dull
- [11:26]
B
routine, meaning the dull routine of his house.
- [11:29]
A
Now, all of a sudden, there was joy, there was struggle, there was pain, there was happiness, there were pleasures, there were women, there was drama. Everything made it feel like now we are really living. This is really terrific. All of the sudden, I had a
- [11:46]
B
whole new life, and it was mine.
- [11:48]
A
Soon, life at the gym totally consumed me. Training was all I could think about. I couldn't articulate what drove me. But training seemed something I was born
- [11:57]
B
for, and I sensed that it would become my ticket out, meaning out of Austria.
- [12:02]
A
This thought made the hours of lifting tons of steel and iron actually a joy.
- [12:07]
B
This is a really important. He's got a bunch of lessons that he repeats in different ways throughout the book. But this idea that later in his life, when they're filming the documentary Pumping Iron, they notice that everybody else is lifting weights, but they have a frown on their face. They're struggling, and you're sitting over there
- [12:24]
A
with a big smile.
- [12:26]
B
And he's going to. Later in the documentary echoes what he says here when he's just a young boy.
- [12:30]
A
He says, every painful set, every extra rep was a step closer toward my
- [12:35]
B
goal of winning Mr. Austria. And I think that's a fantastic way to flip the mindset. Yes, it's really difficult struggling, but I should be happy about that because I'm getting closer to where I want to go. He picks up a magazine, and then we see he finds that this is his second blueprint. Essentially, he patterns his entire life after this guy that's on the COVID of the magazine. It says on the COVID was Mr. Universe, Reg Park.
- [12:59]
A
It gave Reg his whole life story, from growing up poor in England to becoming Mr. Universe, getting invited to America as a champion bodybuilder, getting sent to Rome to star in the movie Hercules, and marrying a beautiful woman from South Africa.
- [13:14]
B
This is what he took away from it.
- [13:16]
A
The story crystallized a new vision for me. I could become another Reg Park. All my dreams suddenly came together and made sense. I refined this vision until it was very specific. I was going to go for the Mr. Universe title. I was going to break records in powerlifting. I was going to Hollywood. I was going to be like Reg Park. The vision became so clear in my mind that I felt that it had to happen. There was no alternative.
- [13:47]
B
It was this or nothing. So it was this discovery of Reg Park. He's like, wait a minute. Mr. Austria is not my goal now. I was motivated by Mr. Austria, but
- [13:58]
A
I'm going to skip over that. And he comes up with this idea,
- [14:01]
B
and he uses this in every different domain. So the idea. Let me not run over the punchline here. Seek out the toughest competition. So he's going to seek out the toughest competition. He's like, Mr. Austria is not good enough.
- [14:11]
A
I'm going to go for Mr. Universe.
- [14:13]
B
But he also does this thing, and it's really crazy that he even wanted to do this.
- [14:16]
A
But he also does the same thing
- [14:18]
B
when he switches from bodybuilding to being an actor. He's like, he would turn down, even though they would offer him a bunch of roles, which I'll talk to you more about in a little bit. He's like, no, no, that's not a leading man role. I was born to be a leading man. I'm going to be one of the highest paid actors in America, and that's the only thing I'll accept.
- [14:35]
A
So he's got this really great idea
- [14:37]
B
about seeking out the toughest competition. And this will explain why that's so important. I was training flat out because in
- [14:41]
A
less than two months, I knew I'd
- [14:43]
B
be going up against some of the best bodybuilders alive. So it keeps them motivated. Right.
- [14:47]
A
I signed up for Europe's biggest bodybuilding event, Mr. Universe. This was a.
- [14:51]
B
It was held at London, in London.
- [14:53]
A
This was a brash thing to do. Ordinarily, a relative novice like me wouldn't have dreamed of taking on London. I would have competed for Mr. Austria first, and then if I won, I'd aim for Mr. Europe.
- [15:05]
B
And then you go up the ladder like that. He skips the ladder in every domain. But at that rate, being ready for
- [15:11]
A
London would have taken years. I was too impatient for that. I wanted the toughest competition I could get. And this was the most aggressive career
- [15:20]
B
move I could make. And a main theme throughout Arnold's life is the value and the necessity to have discipline, to impose self discipline. And we fast forward in the timeline a little bit. He's discovering the nightlight. He's living in Munich right now at this point in the story, trying to help Jim build up his membership. He's going out at night. He's being interested in women, obviously.
- [15:48]
A
But he says something that was really
- [15:49]
B
interesting because he's a very wild, crazy person. I mean, the stuff he says in this book is unbelievable. I mean, graphic detail in areas of people's lives that you would not normally share. Arnold shares.
- [16:02]
A
But he says, I was wild only when I was wild. When it was time to train, I never missed a session, so I'm fast forwarding a little bit. He winds up winning his first Mr. Universe at the age of 21. It gets the attention of this guy named Joe Weider. Weider.
- [16:19]
B
I don't know how to pronounce his last name. And he's probably the most important fitness entrepreneur in the United States at the time. And he invites Arnold to come compete at one of his competitions in Miami.
- [16:34]
A
And when he competes in Miami, he
- [16:36]
B
doesn't do as well because he didn't work as hard. He kind of like rested on his laurels and thought the momentum from winning Mr. Universe means, oh, I'm going to win my next competition easily.
- [16:45]
A
And so really the reason I'm reading this section is because I really feel biographies are the antidote to social media, because you see the ugly, depressing side of people's lives.
- [16:57]
B
Think about last week.
- [16:58]
A
Bill Gates was.
- [16:59]
B
Think about Bill Gates, right?
- [17:01]
A
One of the most successful financially successful
- [17:03]
B
people that's ever lived.
- [17:04]
A
But when you read his biography, you realize there was times in his life where he's lying in bed, depressed, not sure what to do with his life.
- [17:12]
B
And I think a lot of people feel that way at some point in their lives, and they think, oh, look, this person has it all figured out. And not realizing they didn't always have it figured out.
- [17:20]
A
And so we see this with Arnold. He loses the competition.
- [17:24]
B
And listen to this. That night, despair came crashing in.
- [17:29]
A
My cheerfulness almost never deserts me, but it did then. I was in a foreign country, away from my family, away from my friends, surrounded by strange people in a place where I didn't speak the language. How had I even made it this far? I was way out of my depth. All my belongings were in one little gym bag. My job was probably gone. I had no money.
- [17:51]
B
I don't know how I'd get home.
- [17:53]
A
Worst of all, I had lost. The great Joe Weider had brought me across the Atlantic to give me this opportunity. But instead of rising to the occasion, I'd embarrassed myself and failed to perform.
- [18:07]
B
I ended up crying quietly in the dark for hours. And so he gives us this insight into this inner monologue. Like, I just went through this experience. I'm so close to. I made it to America.
- [18:21]
A
I was so close to reaching a goal, being the youngest person to ever do this, and I failed. So he says now that I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I came to harsher conclusions than those
- [18:30]
B
I reached the night before.
- [18:31]
A
So it says it was the fact that I have failed. Not my body, but my vision and my drive. Losing London in 1966, talking about when
- [18:40]
B
he jumped to try to go to Mr. Universe the first time hadn't felt
- [18:43]
A
bad because I'd done everything I could to prepare. But something different had happened here.
- [18:48]
B
I could have dieted the week before and not eaten so much fish and chips.
- [18:52]
A
I could have found a way to train more.
- [18:54]
B
Even without access to equipment, I hadn't
- [18:56]
A
done everything in my power to prepare. Instead, I thought my momentum from winning in London would carry me. I told myself I just won Mr. Universe, that I could let go.
- [19:09]
B
That was nonsense.
- [19:11]
A
Thinking this made me furious. You're still a fucking amateur.
- [19:15]
B
I told myself.
- [19:16]
A
What happened here never should have happened. It only happens to an amateur. You're an amateur, Arnold. Staying in America, I decided had to mean that I wouldn't be an amateur ever again.
- [19:28]
B
I had to start being a professional from now on.
- [19:31]
A
If I lost, I would be able to walk away with a big smile
- [19:34]
B
because I knew I had done everything I could to prepare. So when he references Joe Weider at the time, he invited Arnold to come compete.
- [19:44]
A
And the day after he lost, he says, hey, why don't you come back
- [19:47]
B
to LA with me and I'll give you a year? He pays Arnold, like, $65 a week. And you enter competitions, you can help. He owns a mail order business, owns a bunch of magazines, owns a gym. That kind of stuff sells fitness equipment, and you can help with that. And what I took away from this
- [20:04]
A
section is that deadlines really have a
- [20:06]
B
way of focusing you, because he's got a year, and if he performs well in the year, he could stay in America forever. That was his goal. But if he doesn't, this contract with Joe is going to expire, and then he's got to figure out a different path.
- [20:19]
A
So he says, my mission in America was clear. I was on a path. I needed to train like hell, diet like hell, eat well, and win more major titles the following fall. Weider had promised me a year, and I knew if I did those things, I'd be on a roll and something smart.
- [20:40]
B
Something that Arnold does at Smarts during this time is he starts studying with Joe every time. Joe. Joe has a bunch of other bodybuilders. He calls them lazy bastards because he'd offer them opportunities. Hey, come to Japan with me. Hey, come to this meeting with me. And nobody but Arnold, they all, you know, everybody was doing the same. They're building their bodies, they're training, they're trying to perfect their craft, but they. They would stop there. For Arnold, he's like, this is just a means to an end. Yes, I want to be the world's best bodybuilder, but I also want to be just like Reg Park. I want to make money at this. And to make money at this, I need to study the business. So he winds up going to Japan with Joe, going to New York, sitting in on meetings, basically taking anything that he could learn from Joe to apply to his own business, which he does.
- [21:24]
A
But during this time, I really feel
- [21:26]
B
that Arnold's mindset, and you could say this in many different situations in Arnold's
- [21:33]
A
life, he just has a really great mindset.
- [21:35]
B
And one of them is, is that
- [21:36]
A
he's full of gratitude.
- [21:39]
B
And this is Arnold at 21 years old. He winds up getting Joe to Sponsor, his best friend, Franco Colombo, that he knew back in Germany to come over.
- [21:49]
A
And he says, but in Munich, I lived in a closet in the gym. So this was pure luxury to me.
- [21:54]
B
So what they're talking about is that they didn't have a lot of money at the time.
- [21:57]
A
So they're living. Two of them are living in a one bedroom apartment.
- [22:01]
B
And some people are like, oh, this is.
- [22:02]
A
This sucks.
- [22:03]
B
Arnold's like, no, no, this is.
- [22:04]
A
I was living in a gym in a closet. This is way better. So he said, this was pure luxury to me. Franco felt that way too. We had a living room and he emphasized, and a bedroom, and there were curtains. Our bathroom had a sink and a toilet and a bathtub with a shower. Far better than what we had in Europe. No matter how small the place was,
- [22:25]
B
we felt like we'd really arrived. So he's competing, he's winning a bunch of, bunch of different titles in America.
- [22:34]
A
And this is where he uses the
- [22:36]
B
fame, the small amount of fame that he has to transition into becoming an American entrepreneur.
- [22:40]
A
He says, I also launched a mail
- [22:41]
B
order business out of my apartment.
- [22:43]
A
It grew out of the fan mail I was getting. People wanted to know how I trained my arms, my chest, and they asked how they could get fit themselves. That gave me the idea of selling
- [22:52]
B
a series of booklets. So he's selling essentially a workout routine. Imagine if Arnold had Instagram, what he
- [22:57]
A
could have done with that in America, unlike Europe, there weren't a million obstacles to starting a business. All I had to do was go down to city hall and pay $3.75 for a permit and then rent a post office box to receive the orders.
- [23:09]
B
And we see his early resourcefulness.
- [23:11]
A
He goes to Joe and he's like,
- [23:12]
B
hey, you're taking pictures of me. You're putting me in these magazines, but
- [23:15]
A
I'm not getting paid for any of this stuff. So he says, I talked him into giving me free advertising space in his magazines. He says, you can always start paying me for using me in your ads. I said, but I'd like it if you just give me an opportunity. I figured Joe would go for this because he always hated to part with cash.
- [23:29]
B
So he starts putting these ads in Joe's magazines and the money starts rolling in.
- [23:34]
A
Arnold says, I loved being an American entrepreneur with mail order. I was doing what Charles Atlas had done.
- [23:40]
B
So that's another blueprint. Somebody else, a bodybuilder that came.
- [23:43]
A
He was born probably 60 years before
- [23:45]
B
Arnold, and he got relatively world famous. And he would sell workout equipment Fitness programs through the mail. And he was very financially successful. So Arnold's like, I'm doing this now, but he's doing it at a way younger age.
- [23:56]
A
Soon I started another business. This time.
- [23:58]
B
This is just hilarious and really, really smart.
- [24:01]
A
You're going to see Arnold.
- [24:03]
B
He's just a really intelligent person.
- [24:05]
A
Soon I started another. What I mean is, like, very common
- [24:08]
B
sense, understands people intelligence, and he was a very good salesperson.
- [24:13]
A
Another surprising thing in the book is
- [24:15]
B
that that's what he considered himself first. He's like, I sell everything. I sell bodybuilding. I sell my movies, I sell my products. I sell my real estate. I'm in sales. And he preaches the reader to do the same thing.
- [24:27]
A
So he says, soon I started another business, this time with Franco. His idea is that we should work in construction. We put an ad in the newspaper that said, european bricklayers, experts in marble and stone. We got our first job right away. Franco and I had noticed that Americans love foreign names.
- [24:44]
B
Swedish massage, Italian design, Chinese herbs, German ingenuity.
- [24:48]
A
We decided that we should highlight being European. I also noticed that Americans like to bargain a little bit and feel like
- [24:55]
B
they're getting a deal. Another part in the book that you'll love if you read it, and I have to admit from the podcast, is all the different. He points out how different it was like America was at this time than growing up in Europe. And he's got all these great little stories in here.
- [25:11]
A
He says they feel like they're getting a deal. So Franco and I had a whole routine. I would come up with an estimate, and then I'd show it to Franco, and we would start arguing in German in front of the client. Then the guy would ask, what's going on? Well, I don't have to tell you
- [25:24]
B
about Italians, I'd say, rolling my eyes.
- [25:27]
A
I don't get it why he thinks this patio will cost $8,000. He wants to order X number of bricks, which is way more than we're going to need. I mean, between me and you, I think we could build it for 7,000.
- [25:38]
B
So on the next page, Arnold talks about this, builds up trust between him and the client.
- [25:43]
A
The guy would start to trust me right away. That's really nice that you're trying to give me the best price.
- [25:49]
B
Franco and I hadn't also an element of being in the right place at the right time. We've talked about it over and over again.
- [25:55]
A
Franco and I hadn't even been in business a year when a big earthquake hit the San Fernando Valley in 1971, Franco and I ran our advertisement in the Los Angeles Times right away, and we were busy around the clock. For extra hands, we recruited bodybuilders off the beach. At one point, we had 15 of them mixing cement and carrying bricks. It was a very funny sight. But we couldn't depend on the bodybuilders. They couldn't handle working every day. Some of those guys were lazy bastards. But I wanted to be rich very quickly.
- [26:28]
B
And so we already see something that Arnold preaches his whole life.
- [26:30]
A
He's like, you got 24 hours in the day.
- [26:33]
B
You just need to organize your time better.
- [26:35]
A
And this is something he repeats in
- [26:36]
B
different scenarios that I'll talk about later on as well.
- [26:39]
A
But in this case, think about that. He's running a construction business.
- [26:42]
B
He's running his mail order business.
- [26:44]
A
He's training five hours a day.
- [26:45]
B
He's going to college to learn English and to learn business. He's doing business trips with Joe.
- [26:52]
A
He just didn't waste any time. So in this section, he's talking about
- [26:56]
B
one of his ideas that everything is reps. You're not born good at something. You have to practice, practice, practice.
- [27:02]
A
And in this section, really, he's talking
- [27:04]
B
about, you know, I have to figure out, I have to do. In these bodybuilding competitions, you have to transition from pose to pose. And they compare it to, like, ballet. You can't have, like an awkward pose. And so you have to figure out how to do your transitions and make them really smooth and effortless.
- [27:17]
A
But really what I took away from this is that Arnold has relentless optimism combined with Terminator like focus on improving his weaknesses. And again, sometimes you see his inner monologue. He's not the nicest to himself because he's really focused on improving his weak spots. So he says, you practice every pose and every transition because that extra step is the very thing that can make you lose in front of the judges.
- [27:41]
B
They'll think, and he's talking about, if
- [27:43]
A
he doesn't do this, they'll think, that's unprofessional. You're not ready for the big time. You are a fucking idiot. Get off the stage. You can't even stand still in the pose. You haven't even practiced the simplest things.
- [27:57]
B
I just mentioned this theme where he says, listen, there's a lot of time in the day. You just have to organize your day better. We get an insight into what his schedule is like at this time.
- [28:06]
A
He says, I threw myself into my Los Angeles life, going to school, training five hours a day at the gym. Working in construction and working in the construction and mail order businesses, making appearances and going to exhibitions.
- [28:17]
B
I forgot. Another business he had was giving seminars.
- [28:20]
A
All of it was happening at the same time. Some days stretch from six in the morning until midnight.
- [28:26]
B
Arnold is really big into writing down your goals to visualize where you want to be in your life. He talks about it over and over again. This is something we see even at this time in Los Angeles, early 20s, and he's doing this.
- [28:36]
A
He says, I always wrote down my goals. I had to make it very specific so that all those fine intentions were
- [28:43]
B
not just floating around.
- [28:44]
A
So this is a list of goals
- [28:45]
B
he had at this time in his life.
- [28:47]
A
Get 12 more credits in college. Earn enough money to save $5,000. Work out five hours a day. Gain seven pounds of muscle. Find an apartment building to buy and move into. It might seem like I was handcuffing myself by setting such specific goals. This is really smart too, but it was actually just the opposite. I found it liberating. Knowing exactly where I wanted to end up freed me totally to improvise how to get there.
- [29:17]
B
Something I think people would find surprising is how frugal Arnold was.
- [29:22]
A
His girlfriend at the time they were living together. He said that she was really supportive
- [29:25]
B
because he wanted to save every penny.
- [29:27]
A
He wanted to save as much of his income as possible.
- [29:30]
B
1 It was a small amount of
- [29:31]
A
income, but not only that. He realized that every dollar that he could save and reinvest in the business
- [29:36]
B
is going to produce two, three, or
- [29:37]
A
four dollars in the future. Something I also admired about his life story is the fact that people would keep trying to distract him with offers,
- [29:49]
B
other offers, and sometimes very lucrative offers.
- [29:51]
A
But they were outside of what his goals were, which he had written down, and he would have none of it. Remember, he's making.
- [29:58]
B
Well, Joe's paying him $65 a week. He's probably making a couple thousand dollars a year in each of his businesses,
- [30:03]
A
but nothing close to what they're about to offer him. And they want him to manage a string of gyms, he says, but that was not my goal. The same with the offer I received in the early 70s to manage a leading gym chain for $200,000 a year.
- [30:21]
B
It's a lot of money back then,
- [30:22]
A
still good living today. It was a lot of money, but it turned it down because it would not take me to where I wanted to go. Managing a chain would not make me a bodybuilding champion or get me into movies. Nothing was going to distract me from my goal.
- [30:37]
B
No offer, no Relationship, nothing. And so around this time he's like, okay, a lot of people, they work and then they go spend some of their money on rent and they live in an apartment. He's like, well, I don't want to do that. I want to own the building so I can live for free by renting out the other units. And so he winds up doing that.
- [30:57]
A
And in this story, it's fantastic. The main sentence I want you to
- [31:01]
B
remember from this is he's describing a good friend of his who is extremely risk averse.
- [31:05]
A
And he says problems were all he could see.
- [31:10]
B
His name is Artie Zeller. And Arnold put the financing together, saved some money and is buying a 215,000. He's spending $215,000 on this apartment building.
- [31:24]
A
He says, how can you stand the pressure? You have the responsibility of renting out the other five units. You have to collect the rent. What if something goes wrong? Problems were all you could see. It could be terrible. Tenants would make noise. What if somebody came home drunk? What if somebody slipped and you got sued? You know how America is with all the lawsuits.
- [31:43]
B
And this is Arnold's response, blah, blah, blah.
- [31:47]
A
I caught myself listening. Artie, you almost scared me just now. I laughed. Don't tell me any more of this information. I like to always wander in like a puppy. I want to walk into a problem and then figure out what the problem really is. Don't tell me ahead of time. Often it's easier to make a decision when you don't know as much because then you can't overthink. If you know too much, it can freeze you. I noticed the same thing at school. Our economics professor was a two time PhD but he pulled up in a Volkswagen Beetle. I had better cars for years by that time. I said to myself, knowing it all is not really the answer because this guy is not making the money to have a bigger car. He should be driving a Mercedes.
- [32:32]
B
So I got to the part I've already told you about, but I think it's important to repeat it. Other than I left myself on this page is what a great way to think about hard things. So one of the producers of the documentary Pumping Iron is talking to a group of other people about what he noticed about Arnold.
- [32:44]
A
He says, here's another fascinating thing. Arnold never ever had an angry look while he was training. He was lifting huge amounts of weights. And he's always smiling. I mean, just think about that. What must be going on inside his head? What must he know about his future, that he's always Smiling. All I would say is that I found joy in the gym because every rep and every set is getting me one step closer to my goal. Again, that's just a great way to
- [33:13]
B
think about the hard things that you have to do in life. So he's getting a lot of publicity, excuse me, for promoting the Pumping Iron documentary.
- [33:21]
A
And he goes on the Merv Griffin
- [33:23]
B
show, and he gets one of his first acting gigs on a TV show from Lucille Ball, who.
- [33:31]
A
I'm actually looking for a documentary on her because Arnold goes into detail about
- [33:34]
B
what's made her so special. She's one of the first females to break away from the Hollywood system. She starts her own production company so she can actually own the shows, and it winds up making her fabulously wealthy. She made a ton of shows. I Love Lucy, it's probably the most popular one.
- [33:49]
A
But she gave him a piece of advice.
- [33:51]
B
First of all, it made me laugh, and it's great advice. And I've also heard Arnold, in other interviews and speeches talk about this advice. I didn't know it came from Lucille Ball, though, but this part made me chuckle at the end. I wasn't expecting it.
- [34:04]
A
So it says, lucy gave me advice about Hollywood. Just remember, when they say no, you hear yes, and act accordingly. Someone says to you, we can't do this movie, and you hug him and say, thank you for believing in me.
- [34:20]
B
At this point, he's won, I think, like Mr. Olympia, I don't know, five different times. He's won almost everything you could win. He's by far the most famous bodybuilder in the world.
- [34:29]
A
And he starts to realize, hey, do you want to do movies or do you want to continue to be a bodybuilding champion?
- [34:35]
B
And so he's trying to figure that out.
- [34:36]
A
And he says, I couldn't have it both ways. So I was forced to make the decision I'd been leaning toward anyway, to retire from competition. I had been bodybuilding for 12 years already, and I liked the idea of staying hungry in life and never staying in one place. When I was 10, I wanted to be good enough at something to be recognized in the world. Now I wanted to be good enough at something else to be recognized again and even bigger than before.
- [35:03]
B
So this is when he starts pursuing his movie career. But he's also still got his real estate business.
- [35:08]
A
He's still got the mail order business.
- [35:10]
B
He's still doing seminars and doing all these things.
- [35:13]
A
And he lets us into the fact
- [35:16]
B
that physically, he could withstand the challenges. But he realized, hey, I'm not taking Care of my mind.
- [35:21]
A
And I didn't know this, but he got one thing.
- [35:23]
B
He's like, listen, you can do therapy, you could do meditation, do whatever you're doing.
- [35:26]
A
He got into transcendental mind meditation. And really the takeaway from this section is like, I was over optimizing my
- [35:35]
B
body and forgetting the mind, and you can't do that. And he also talks about the reverse issue. You can't just take care of your mind, not your body.
- [35:42]
A
So he says hearing them talk about the need to disconnect and refresh the mind was like a revelation.
- [35:48]
B
And this goes back to.
- [35:49]
A
Here's more of his inner monologue, which is very surprising. Arnold, you're an idiot. I told myself, you spend all your time on your body, but you never think about your mind, how to make it sharper and relieve the stress. When you have muscle cramps, you have to do more stretching, go to the jacuzzi, put on ice packs, take more minerals. So why aren't you thinking? The mind can also have a problem. It's overstressed or it's tired or it's bored or it's fatigued. It's about to blow up. Learn the tools for that also.
- [36:23]
B
And so during this time, he's pushing
- [36:24]
A
himself to the limit.
- [36:25]
B
He's using every hour of the day and it causes the disintegration of a, of a multiple, multiple year relationship. And it had to be that way because Arnold had no desire to be normal. He doesn't feel normal. And so he talks a little bit about that as well.
- [36:46]
A
But she was a normal person who wanted normal things. And there was nothing normal about me. My drive was not normal. My vision of where I wanted to go in my life was not normal. The whole idea of a conventional existence was like kryptonite to me.
- [37:04]
B
So Arnold's around 28 years old at the time.
- [37:05]
A
He's trying to break into movies and
- [37:08]
B
he talks about this over and over again. The naysayers. And this is what he hears a lot of.
- [37:12]
A
They both said the same thing. There were too many obstacles. You have an accent that scares people. You have a body that's too big for movies. You have a name that won't even fit on a movie poster. Everything about you is too strange. Why don't you stay in the gym business or we can help you. Lining up some seminars and speaking engagements or with a book or something like that.
- [37:34]
B
And the reason I bring up this part is because what he takes away from this is fantastic.
- [37:38]
A
Why should I give up my goal? Because a Couple of Hollywood agents turned me down. So eventually they start offering him parts.
- [37:44]
B
But then he's like, no, this is not my goal. So something else I learned from the life story of Arnold Schwarzenegger is he
- [37:51]
A
never took his eyes off this goal. Somebody asked me to play a bouncer. They wanted me to play a Nazi officer, a wrestler, a football player, a prisoner. I never took jobs like that because I would say to myself, this isn't going to convince anybody that you're here to be a star.
- [38:06]
B
And it was really important why he could.
- [38:09]
A
Again, another smart thing he did, he
- [38:11]
B
had the financial independence because he already had a little bit of money before movies to not have to take these roles.
- [38:17]
A
I was very glad I could afford to say no. With the income from my businesses, I didn't need money from acting. I never wanted to be in a financially vulnerable position. I felt that I was born to be a leading man. I had to be on the posters. I had to be the one carrying the movie. I realized that this sounded crazy to everybody but me. But I believe that the only way you become a leading man is by treating yourself like a leading man and working your ass off. If you don't believe in yourself, then how will anyone else believe in you? And so eventually this belief and this persistence pays off. There was a sci fi hero called Conan,
- [39:00]
B
and they recruit Arnold. They're like, you're perfect for it.
- [39:04]
A
And he says, we agreed on a deal.
- [39:06]
B
This is his first big break in Hollywood. This is what I'm telling you.
- [39:08]
A
We agreed on a deal for me to star in Conan.
- [39:10]
B
They had a bunch of Conan and four sequels. Actually.
- [39:13]
A
The money was laid out. I'd make $250,000 for the first movie, 1 million for the next, and 2 million for the next, and so on, plus 5% of the profits. All five movies would be worth $10 million over 10 years.
- [39:31]
B
Now what's interesting is they just say, hey, we're gonna give you 5% of the profits. The producer wind up not liking Arnold. And Arnold, he didn't understand the language and he tried to crack a joke. And this guy, I guess, was really, really short. And Arnold goes into his office one day. He's like, why does a little guy like you need a big desk? And this is a guy that's used to be being treated with respect. He's very powerful. He's produced, I think, over 100 movies.
- [39:55]
A
And so he tried to seek out revenge.
- [39:57]
B
They weren't going to cast anybody else
- [40:00]
A
in the lead role, but he says, you know what?
- [40:02]
B
I'm going to take those points back.
- [40:04]
A
And again, Arnold does something smart.
- [40:06]
B
I feel like I'm repeating that over and over again because he just does something. He just understands people. And that producer, his name is Dino,
- [40:12]
A
says the lawyer announced, Dino doesn't want to give you five points like it
- [40:15]
B
says in the contract.
- [40:16]
A
He wants to give you no points. I said, take the points. I'm in no position to negotiate. He gasped. All five. It astounded him to hear me simply say that because he'd expected a fight. All the points I repeated, take it. I was thinking, you can take it and shove it, because that's not what I'm doing the movie for. I understood the reality. The situation was lopsided. Dino had the money and I needed the career. So it made no sense to argue it was just supply and demand. But ASO thought the day would come when the tables will turn.
- [40:51]
B
So he realized, I need the role of Conan more than the points, because
- [40:56]
A
the role of Conan will establish me
- [40:57]
B
as a movie star, and then I'll get other movie roles and there'll be
- [41:02]
A
more movies in the future and I'll
- [41:03]
B
make up the money in the back end.
- [41:04]
A
But if I fight this guy here and I lose the role of Conan, I may have lost my one opportunity.
- [41:09]
B
So Conan is a very physical movie,
- [41:14]
A
and I want to read this section to you, but it's.
- [41:17]
B
Let me.
- [41:18]
A
Actually, let me read it to you
- [41:19]
B
first, and then I'll tell you my interpretation of it.
- [41:21]
A
He started sending experts to train with me, masters in martial arts, stunt people
- [41:25]
B
who are horse riding specialists.
- [41:27]
A
For three months, I was tutored in. In sword combat, two hours a day. The training was as intense and. And time. The training was intense and time consuming, and I took to it completely. I felt like my movie career had suddenly come into sharp focus. So everything with Arnold is like this. Reps, reps, reps, reps.
- [41:49]
B
He talks about it over and over again. There's no magic formula. You just have to put in the time. Later on, anytime he's given an opportunity, if he's got to learn how to ride a horse, he'll ride a horse every day for hours and hours. He gets invited to how he meets his wife. The Kennedys put on like this tennis tournament or something for charity, and initially
- [42:06]
A
he turns it down.
- [42:06]
B
He's like, I don't know how to play tennis. And they're like, no, this is a good opportunity to go. So what does he do? He plays tennis for two hours every
- [42:13]
A
day for three weeks until the charity. He does this over and over again. He talks about it constantly. He's like, I'm not good at anything.
- [42:21]
B
I wasn't good at lifting weights. I just did more. I did hundreds of thousands of reps. I wasn't good at speaking English. He winds up, there's a line because he had such a thick accent. And he talks about there's certain sounds in Germany that don't exist. Like they don't call wine. There's no W. It's like vine or something like that. So he says like the wine grows on the vine. He wind up having to say that sentence in these classes he's doing to try to learn English and to get rid of his accent a little bit. 10,000 times.
- [42:53]
A
Just everything he does over and over again.
- [42:55]
B
He's just like, it's just time consuming and it's just me putting in the effort on a daily basis. He has to learn how to dance the tango for the movie. True Lies does that for hours and hours and hours.
- [43:06]
A
Another one of his main themes is
- [43:09]
B
sell that you need to work like hell and then advertise. I actually been saying that was a quote from Arnold this whole time because I've heard him say it so much. And in the book he learned it from Ted Turner.
- [43:21]
A
But in any case, this is an example of that. Very few actors like to sell. I'd seen the same thing with authors
- [43:27]
B
in the book business. He wrote two best selling books on his career, bodybuilding as well that sold very well.
- [43:34]
A
The typical attitude seemed to be, I don't want to be a whore, I create, I don't want to shill. It was a real change when I showed up saying, let's go everywhere. Because this is such a. I love his mindset here, if you think about it like this. So he says, this is the mindset he has. Let's go everywhere. Because this is good not only for me financially, meaning he's going to benefit
- [43:57]
B
the more he sells. Right.
- [43:59]
A
But also good for the public. They get to see a good movie.
- [44:02]
B
So assuming the author wrote a great book or the actor performed well in the movie, why wouldn't.
- [44:09]
A
What's the point if no one knows about it? And I love that mindset.
- [44:12]
B
It's like, listen, yes, this is gonna be good for me. So I'm put in effort, but it's gonna be good for the studio. It's gonna be good for all the people that work on the movie, but
- [44:19]
A
it's gonna be good for the end user. If you wrote a great book, that book could change somebody's life. So why wouldn't you go out there and try to make as many people aware of it as possible? Because then that's more lives that you can improve. You can entertain them for a few hours.
- [44:34]
B
Maybe they learn something they take with
- [44:35]
A
them for the rest of their life. Whatever it is, I think it's a great idea. He says, I saw myself as a businessman first. Too many actors, writers and artists think that marketing is beneath them. But no matter what you do in life, selling is a part of it. You can't make movies without money. Even if I had no publicity obligation in my contract, it was still in my interest to promote the movie and make sure it made as much money as possible. I wanted to be involved in the meetings. I wanted everyone to see that I was working very hard to create a return on the studio's investments. I felt it was my responsibility to
- [45:10]
B
pump up the grosses. So he's always comparing and contrasting himself to other his peers, right? He did some bodybuilding when they wouldn't take Joe up on the offers to learn business.
- [45:21]
A
He does this in the movies.
- [45:22]
B
He's like a lot of actors. They're like, okay, that's the end, the movie's over, they're gonna edit it and
- [45:28]
A
then it's gonna release. They thought their job is done. And Arnold's like, no, no, half my
- [45:31]
B
job is done now.
- [45:33]
A
The other half, arguably the more important half, is making people aware of what the hell I just did, work like hell and advertise.
- [45:40]
B
So that's gonna lead me right into
- [45:41]
A
my next point, which is this is Arnold's mindset on work. To me, the work didn't feel intense at all, just normal. You do a movie or a book and you promote the hell out of it. And in the meantime, you work out and you take care of business and explore even more. It was all a joyride. This is again, his positive mindset that I think is so important, which is why I never thought, oh my God, look how much work there is. It's just too much pressure. When I had to work a night, it might mean going to a meeting to talk about movies. How bad was that? I was talking about movies. So for me, work just meant discovery and fun. If I heard somebody complaining, oh, I work so hard, I put in 10 and 12 hour days, I would crucify him. What the fuck are you talking about? When the day is 24 hours, what else did you do? I loved the variety in my life. One day I'd be in a meeting about developing an office building Or a shopping center. The next day I'd be talking to the publisher of my latest book. Next I'd be working with Joe on a cover story. Then I'd be in meetings about a movie. Everything I did could have been my hobby. It was my hobby. I was passionate about all of it. My definition of living is to have excitement, always. That's the difference between living and existing.
- [47:02]
B
And before I get to his next
- [47:04]
A
point, we're fast forwarding in the story. This blew my mind.
- [47:08]
B
This is kind of a weird alternate history, if you think of that. He gets invited. James Cameron is going to do the Terminator. So they have lunch and they're trying to convince him to come on board. And originally they did not cast him in the role of Terminator the machine. He was supposed to be the hero, Right? I'm going to read the sentence to you. And this is what they said to him.
- [47:32]
A
We pretty much got O.J. simpson signed up to be the Terminator, which is like a killing machine.
- [47:39]
B
Moving on.
- [47:40]
A
Do hard things. There's less competition. People were always talking about how few performers there are at the top of the ladder, but I was always convinced that there was room for one more. I felt that because there was so little room, people got intimidated and felt more comfortable staying on the bottom of the ladder. But in fact, the more people that think like that, the more crowded the bottom of the ladder becomes. Don't go to where it's crowded. Go to where it's empty. Even though it's harder to get there, that's where you belong, and that's where there's less competition.
- [48:11]
B
This is him repeating, don't see only problems.
- [48:14]
A
You can overthink anything. There's always negatives. The more you know, the less you tend to do something. If I had known everything about real estate, movies and bodybuilding, I. I wouldn't have gone into them.
- [48:26]
B
This is many pages later and you see the same. He's echoing the same thing that you have to sell, sell, sell.
- [48:32]
A
Whenever I finished a movie, I felt my job was only half done. Every film had to be nurtured in the marketplace. You can have the greatest movie in the world, but if you don't get it out there, if people don't know about it, you have nothing. It's the same with poetry, with painting, with writing, with inventions. It always blew my mind that some of the greatest artists, from Michelangelo to Van Gogh, never sold much because they didn't know how. That wasn't going to happen to my movies. Same with bodybuilding. Same with Politics. No matter what I did in life, I was aware that you had to sell it. As Ted Turner said, early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise. So at this point in the story, we.
- [49:16]
B
Arnold's already a massive success as an action hero. Something really surprising.
- [49:22]
A
The original Terminator, which I feel is
- [49:24]
B
one of the most iconic, well known movies, right?
- [49:26]
A
Cost only $4 million to make, made hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
- [49:32]
B
Remarkable. But anyways, that's not the point of this section.
- [49:36]
A
He wants to branch out.
- [49:37]
B
He doesn't want to be typecast into just, hey, I'm this big strong person.
- [49:39]
A
He wants to start doing comedies. There's this movie, I don't know if you've seen it.
- [49:44]
B
He does it with Danny DeVito. It's called Twins. And this is the negotiation process, which
- [49:48]
A
I thought was really, really smart. He's willing to take a risk financially,
- [49:53]
B
so he's not typecast.
- [49:55]
A
So he winds up having a meeting. He's like, I don't want you to
- [49:57]
B
pay me for this upfront.
- [49:58]
A
He says, we don't want cash. We said, let's all share the risk here. The deal we ended up with guaranteed that the three of us, it's him,
- [50:05]
B
Danny DeVito, and this one of the producers.
- [50:08]
A
So it says the deal that we ended up with guaranteed the three of us 37.5% of all the income from the movie. And that 37.5% was real, not subject to all the watering down and bullshit
- [50:20]
B
tricks that movie accounting is famous for. They call it Hollywood accounting.
- [50:23]
A
We derived.
- [50:24]
B
Excuse me.
- [50:25]
A
We divided up the 37.5% among ourselves proportionally based on what each of us had earned on the previous movie. Because I'd been paid a lot for the Running Man, I ended up with the biggest slice, almost 20%. It made the math simple. If Twins was a decent sized success and made, say, $50 million, it would put almost $10 million in my pocket.
- [50:46]
B
So he says, okay, listen, there's no risk here. Because they're like, well, you're in action here. What if people don't see you? You know, can you do comedy so
- [50:52]
A
you don't have to pay me up front?
- [50:54]
B
I'll align my interest with you and
- [50:56]
A
willing to make money if the movie's successful. This winds up. He winds up. He doesn't make $10 million. This is so successful. He's still getting paid.
- [51:03]
B
As when he. I think he publishes a book in2011, something like that.
- [51:08]
A
He was still getting paid for that movie. He winds up making over $35 million
- [51:15]
B
and counting for this one decision.
- [51:18]
A
I loved his response too.
- [51:20]
B
This is fast forwarding Wayne's story. He winds up doing a movie.
- [51:25]
A
It's called the Last Action Hero.
- [51:27]
B
It was supposed to be like the blockbuster of the summer, but had the
- [51:29]
A
unfortunate luck of opening right after Jurassic park.
- [51:33]
B
And Jurassic park just came through and destroyed everything. And so they're writing up, they're like, oh, is his career done?
- [51:39]
A
It wound up making a profit, but
- [51:40]
B
it just didn't do as well as it should have. And so they're writing. All people are calling him and his wife. They're like, oh, we feel so bad for you. Are you okay? Can we help you?
- [51:48]
A
And really what he comes away with is like, yeah, it was temporary embarrassing. But the main takeaway that no, I left myself is people are not thinking
- [51:57]
B
about you, they are thinking about themselves. I've talked about this blog over and over again. It's writer named Tim Urban. I've taken a lot of ideas from him. In fact, if you go back and listen to. I did a three part series on his, Elon Musk. He wrote like essentially like a small book. I think it's like 60,000 words, something like that. But anyways, I think it's like somewhere in the 15s. Founders15 or something like that. But he has this great post I always think about he wrote years ago and I reread it every so often and it's called Taming the Mammoth. I'll link to it in show notes if you have not read it. But it's this misinterpretation that is very common in human beings that we think, oh, when something goes wrong in our life, when we make a mistake, everybody's looking at us, they're pointing at us and laughing. It's like, no, they're looking at themselves. They're not even paying attention to you. Arnold comes across with the same conclusion
- [52:45]
A
here in a different manner. He says, and when you feel embarrassed like I did, you tend to assume that the whole world is focused on your failure. I'd go into a restaurant and someone would say, oh, hey, how are you doing? I see the new movies out, that's great. And I'd feel like, that's great, you motherfucker. Didn't you read the LA Times? But in fact, not everybody reads the LA Times or Variety or goes to see every movie. The poor guy probably knows nothing about
- [53:13]
B
it and just wants to say something nice. And again, I think, I really do think, I hope you don't think this sounds ridiculous. But I do think a blog post can change your life. And that Tim Urban post is really life changing. When you realize everybody is self interested, they're thinking about themselves and so take the risk if you're not. If you're worried about taking a risk and failing. Because what other people think that reading that post will get you out of that mindset. And I think that's extremely helpful. That's what I mean by life changing.
- [53:43]
A
So one thing, this note I left
- [53:46]
B
on my this page is, wait, what?
- [53:49]
A
You were going to hide your heart surgery? So he's got a. He has a genetic defect.
- [53:53]
B
And he knew for 20 years, since he was in his 30s, that he'd eventually have to have like a valve and his heart replaced. Right. And he was a very private person. Wouldn't even tell his wife and his
- [54:02]
A
kids that he needed this to happen. And he says, I'm a person who
- [54:05]
B
does not like to talk about things over and over.
- [54:06]
A
I make decisions very quickly and I
- [54:08]
B
don't ask many people for opinions.
- [54:10]
A
I don't want to think too many
- [54:11]
B
times about the same thing and I want to move on. So he's saying, like, I can't tell my wife about this because if I tell her she's the opposite. She's going to talk about this and then I'm going to be worried I'm going to die.
- [54:21]
A
He says, as the surgery approached, I let the doctor in on my plan. I will tell my family that I'm going to Mexico. I said, I'll say I need a little vacation for a week and then we do the heart surgery. You said, I'll be out of the hospital after five days. So after five days, I'll go to a hotel, I will lie in the sun and get tanned and I will look healthy and then I'll go home and no one will ever know I had heart surgery. How about that?
- [54:46]
B
And the doctor's like, no, Arnold, you're not doing that. That's freaking insane.
- [54:50]
A
And it definitely is. Okay, so towards the end of the book, the last chapter actually has just,
- [54:56]
B
he writes down like his rules for life. And I think the entire book I've said over and over again, sorry, it's
- [55:03]
A
worth the money and it's worth the time invested.
- [55:06]
B
But even if you just read the last chapter, it's worth the price of the purchase of the book.
- [55:10]
A
But I'm just gonna pull out a
- [55:11]
B
couple things here because I love his mindset here.
- [55:14]
A
And again, it's just really teaching the
- [55:16]
B
same less lessons in different ways.
- [55:18]
A
This is the idea that, hey, there's
- [55:19]
B
plenty of time in your day that you need to organize your day better.
- [55:21]
A
So the heading says the day has 24 hours. I once gave a talk at the University of California, and afterward a student raised his hand and complained. Governor, since the budget crisis hit us, my tuition has gone up twice. Now it's too high and I need more financial aid. I understand it's difficult. I said, but what do you mean too high? I mean now I have to work part time. Well, what's wrong with that? I have to study. So I said, let's figure this out. How many hours do you go to class? I got two hours one day and three hours another day. And how much studying do you have to do? Well, each day three hours. Okay, so far I see six hours one day and seven hours the other day. What do you do with the rest of the time? What do you mean? Well, the day is 24 hours. Have you ever thought about working more, maybe taking more classes rather than wasting your life away? The class was shocked. I'm not wasting my life away, said the student. Yes, you are. You're talking about six hours a day. The day is 24 hours. So you have 18 hours left. Maybe you need six hours for sleeping. So if your part time job takes four hours, you still have time for dating and dancing and drinking and going out.
- [56:38]
B
Why are you complaining?
- [56:41]
A
I explained how as a student, I trained five hours a day, gone to acting class four hours a day, worked in construction several hours a day and
- [56:49]
B
gone to college and done my homework. So it was interesting. As I'm reading the book, as I normally do, I try to find latest interviews to see how he's thinking, if the person's still alive, how they're thinking now. And he gave this great interview sometime this year, I think. And he's always very positive. And what's interesting is all the interviews, like I use YouTube mainly for this.
- [57:13]
A
Arnold Schwarzenegger interviews are some of the only place where the YouTube comments are all positive. This guy has a massive fan base that all love him.
- [57:21]
B
That's very rare like that. But he.
- [57:23]
A
So he's always very charismatic. The closest he gets to showing a
- [57:28]
B
flash of anger is when people, when he's asked the question, okay, what do you say to the people that say they don't have time to work out or they don't have time to work on their business, or they don't have time to do whatever they're doing?
- [57:39]
A
And it's almost in a brief second
- [57:41]
B
you can see him like, smashing the table.
- [57:42]
A
He doesn't do this, but he essentially.
- [57:45]
B
He does not accept that argument at all. And he repeats very similar to what he told the student, that you have plenty of time. You're just not using the time correctly. And he's just not big on excuses, which, again, I think that, like, tough love is very beneficial to young people that think, oh, my God, I have
- [58:00]
A
to work part time. Why go to school?
- [58:02]
B
You know, he's not ridiculing this guy, this kid, but he's just like, come on, man. Come on.
- [58:09]
A
You're talking about six, seven hours a day. You got plenty of other. Organize your day better.
- [58:12]
B
And I think that's just very helpful.
- [58:15]
A
It's very helpful to say, hey, what do I want to do in life?
- [58:18]
B
And then write down how you're spending your time. And you realize that a lot of times we just delude ourselves. We come up with these fantasies on our mind of what we really want to do. Actions express priority. So write down here, you're spending your time. This is something I do. Write down how you're spending your time. And then seeing, are my actions lining
- [58:33]
A
up with what I tell myself, or
- [58:35]
B
am I lying to myself? And in many times we find that we're lying to ourselves. That kid was lying to himself. All right, this is another one. Reps, reps, reps. He talks about when he was a young man starting to lift weights back in Austria.
- [58:46]
A
I'm going to skip over the part other than he does something smart about. He had a piece of plywood, and they'd write out in chalk, like, what
- [58:52]
B
they have to do, right? So it says, okay, you cannot leave till you do five.
- [58:56]
A
I'm going to skip over the reps
- [58:57]
B
and stuff, but, you know, five sets of 10 reps, all this other stuff. But he says, I'm going to get to the punchline.
- [59:01]
A
Then as soon as you were done with the first set, as you. You went to the wall and crossed off the first line so it became an X. All five lines would have to be turned into an X before the exercise was done. This practice had a huge impact on my motivation. I always had the visual feedback of, wow, an accomplishment. I did what I said I would do. Writing my goals became second nature, and so did the conviction that there are no shortcuts. It took hundreds and even thousands of repetitions for me.
- [59:30]
B
He talks about building his body, but
- [59:33]
A
he says, there are no shortcuts. Everything is reps, reps, reps. No matter what you do in life, it's either reps or mileage. If you want to get good at skiing, he you have to get on the slopes all the time. If you want to play chess, you have to play tens of thousands of games on the movie set. The only way you have your act together is to do the reps. If you've done the reps, you don't have to worry. And then, this is a unique piece
- [59:55]
B
of advice, and it says, don't blame your parents. And I just want to read some parts to you from here.
- [60:01]
A
They've done their best job for you, and if they've left you with problems, those problems are now yours to solve. Maybe your parents were too supportive and protective, and now that you feel needy
- [60:10]
B
and vulnerable in the world, don't blame them for that.
- [60:13]
A
Or maybe they were too harsh.
- [60:15]
B
Talks about his parents his father was
- [60:16]
A
extremely harsh, so he says he was exacting, which was his nature. He was also brutal at times, but I don't think that was his fault.
- [60:24]
B
It was the war.
- [60:26]
A
If he had lived in a more normal time, maybe he'd been different. But I've often wondered, what if he'd been warmer and nicer? Would I have left Austria? Probably not. And that is my great fear. I became Arnold because of what he did to me. I recognized that I could channel my upbringing in a positive way rather than complain. So that's just another example of his mindset. He reverses it very similar to, I
- [60:53]
B
just got done rereading 21,000 words or something like that of my notes when I read Warren Buffett shareholder letters.
- [61:02]
A
And I noticed in those highlights that
- [61:04]
B
Warren does that a lot.
- [61:05]
A
He reverses things. He reverses the way normal people think. And when you reverse, you arrive at
- [61:10]
B
vastly different conclusions and usually beneficial conclusions. I feel that that is what Arnold's doing here.
- [61:14]
A
So he says he was brutal at times, but I don't think it was his fault.
- [61:17]
B
I've often wondered, okay, I just read that part, and that was my great fear.
- [61:20]
A
I became Arnold because of what he did to me. I recognized that I could channel my upbringing in a positive way rather than complain.
- [61:26]
B
See, complaining would be what normal people do, right?
- [61:28]
A
I could use it to have a vision, to set goals, and to find joy. His harshness drove me from home. It made me come to America and work for success. And I'm happy it did.
- [61:42]
B
I don't have to lick my wounds.
- [61:45]
A
It's not always obvious what you should celebrate. Sometimes you have to appreciate the very people and circumstances that traumatized you. Today, I hail the strictness of my father. And my whole upbringing and the fact that he didn't have anything that I wanted in Austria, because those were the very factors that made me hungry.
- [62:04]
B
Every time he hit me, every time
- [62:07]
A
he said my weight training was garbage, that I should do something useful and go out and chop wood. Every time he disapproved of me or embarrassed me, it put fuel on the fire in my belly. It drove me and motivated me. And finally, stay hungry. Be hungry for success. Hungry to make your mark.
- [62:28]
B
Hungry to be seen and to be
- [62:29]
A
heard and to have an effect. My father always told me, be useful. Do something. He was right. If you have a talent or a skill that makes you happy, use it to improve your neighborhood. And if you feel a desire to do more, then go all out. You have plenty of time to rest when you're in the grave. Live a risky life and a spicy life. And like Eleanor Roosevelt said, every day, do something that scares you.
- [62:59]
B
We should all stay hungry.
- [63:02]
A
For the full story, buy the book.
- [63:04]
B
If you buy the book using the
- [63:05]
A
link that's in the show notes, you'll
- [63:07]
B
be supporting the podcast at the same time. That's 141 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.