Arnold Schwarzenegger On Finding Ways To Be Useful

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1:54Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

2:44Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you listen to the Sunday episode from recently, I told you this crazy week that I had where I was in LA and Ojai and then LA again and then Seattle doing a bunch of stuff. But the cornerstone of all that where we managed to squeeze in is the interview that I'm going to bring you today where I got to interview the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger who has a great new book called Be Useful, Seven Tools for Life. I actually knew about this book for quite some time. I actually saw it in the proposal stage and I thought it was a really cool project and I was very excited about it.

3:30And I've known some folks on Arnold's team for a long time, as you'll hear in today's episode. And Arnold did me a solid about a decade ago when I was visiting Graz, Austria, where he is from. Obviously, as a native Californian, Arnold was the governor for a good chunk of my childhood. So that was a unique experience. Obviously, I grew up seeing his movies. Just a fascinating guy, an embodiment of the American dream in so many ways, an embodiment of both discipline and excess in some ways, right? Excess in terms of ambition and power. But also, you know, just a really inspiring story of what human determination and resilience and creativity and confidence, what a person can do.

4:23If you haven't heard that amazing Bill Burr joke that sort of encapsulates Arnold's life. I mean, it's funny, but it's also just almost unbelievable. And when you lay it all out, it's a, you know, it's one of those things. It doesn't happen very often, and when it does happen, America's kind of the only place that it does happen. If you're not familiar with Arnold, if you've been living under a rock somewhere, he's a bodybuilder, an actor, a businessman, a philanthropist, best-selling author, politician. He was the 38th governor of California, one of the most influential people in the world, according to Time Magazine, more than once.

5:00And you might be surprised to hear that Arnold's also a big fan of the Stoics. There is a lot of Stoicism in this book. Even the final thank you ends with this sentence. When I read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, I was struck by the fact that the first book in what is basically a 2 ,000-year-old journey was nothing more than a list of people in Marcus's life who helped him or taught him something valuable. Talk about a powerful way to remind yourself that you aren't self-made. So I was really excited to interview Arnold. I interviewed him at his office in Santa Monica. As it happened, Rich Roll was doing the interview right after me.

5:35I'm excited to listen to that interview. Also, I really enjoyed the book. I love his email. You can check that out at arnoldspumpclub.com. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter at Schwarzenegger. On YouTube at Governor Schwarzenegger. He's put out some really great, very timely, very, I think, brave and important messages about some political and world events over the last couple of years. Also, I am heading to New York very soon to actually interview Arnold on stage at the 92nd Street Y also. So I'll try to bring you that interview. But in the meantime, here's Arnold Schwarzenegger and I talking about how to be useful.

6:15And I think we're really going to like this one.

6:27I don't think you remember this, but we have a little Graz connection, which is like maybe 10 years ago, I was going there and I told him and you connected me with Warner and he took my wife and I out. He actually drove us to Slovenia. He found out my grandfather was from Slovenia. who drove us across the border to Slovenia for dinner. It was one of the more memorable nights that I have had. It was quite an experience. The bed is not with us anymore. I know. I heard that. That's too bad. And I found out while I was there actually my grandfather on my mother's side was there during the war in a refugee camp.

7:09Which I didn't know about. You mean after the Second World War yeah second world war no after the second world war he so he was he lived in what was then yugoslavia he's slovenian so he got sent as a refugee displaced person camp right he was there and then i was reading about it talking about being useful they would they repatriated people after the war and something like they sent like i don't know 18 000 men back and almost all the men who were sent back were executed, but he got sent west instead. So somebody said, hey, you go this way instead of this way. And if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here.

7:50So the little decisions we made. Yeah. Probably was the same relocation camp that our friend went to, that is the head of the Auschwitz Jewish Center. the year because he was also sent after he was born he was sent to a relocation camp that was after the hungarian revolution yeah there was 1956 so there was different yeah there was no picnic after it didn't just end it never does right now it always keeps going on and on and on but i mean yeah so i i mean uh russia the so former soviet union kind of invaded poland and no uh hungary 1956 then a lot of the refugees came over to austria and so my father was a police officer so he they made him in charge of the relocation camp there and so he had us kids go there and serve soup and so we were kind of like all there long for days at this relocation camp serving soup and vegetables some cheap food some sausages and stuff like that but it was all kind of simple simple food and and very hard work I remember for hours and hours like you know 10 12 hours a day serving soup and food when i when i was there i drove over to see where the camp was and of course now it's like an apartment complex or something we we gloss over these things really quickly but the sort of the the dark terrible things that human beings can do to each other are sort of always there beneath the surface oh yeah and uh i thought that your your trip to auschwitz and uh some of the things you've been talking about in that regard are very interesting There's sort of the undercurrent, it's like a virus that exists that sort of can affect human beings and has for thousands of years.

10:05Anti-Semitism, hatred, bigotry, and people get swept up in it. Yeah, that's why I think it's important always to educate people and to talk about this issue. and to have like the Simon Wiesenthal Center where they have a museum of tolerance. Yes. So that young people can go and visit this museum and see the atrocities that went on in the history. You know, if it is to blacks, if it's to Asians, if it is to Jews, if it is, you know, to just so many people that have suffered because of it. And, you know, kids go through that museum and they see those images.

11:01And hopefully those images stick with them. Yes. And they walk away and say, well, we should never go in that direction. Yeah. So the more we do that, the better it is. Because it has not much to do just with education. It has to do with kind of like how do we control our instincts. Yes. You know, because human beings are like animals. Animals have tremendous prejudice, and so do we. Otherwise, there will be many more species of us left. Yes. You know, we wiped them all out. And so, you know, everyone has those prejudices kind of come out in them. And the question is, how can you control it? Don't you think that's like what really makes America so great?

12:06I mean, there's my favorite line from George Washington. He was speaking at a synagogue after he was president. And he said, basically, the promise of America is that every man should be able to sit next to his vine or under his fig tree and no one should make him afraid. You know, that you could say what you want, believe what you want, live how you want. that that's that sort of it's more than tolerance because I think what he's saying is that it's incumbent on other people to make sure that other people aren't intimidated or scared or or persecuted or preyed upon that that sort of the institutions and the basic fundamental premises of the Bill of Rights and in the Constitution is about checking some of those parts of the human spirit.

12:52I think that this country has always had this as an ideal. It didn't always follow it. Sure. Because of what I said, the prejudice comes out, and how do you control it? You know, I mean, I think when we look back of what we did to the Native Americans, it's embarrassing. Yes. It's especially embarrassing if you're trying to preach to other countries today to be tolerant when in fact we were not. Or even what we did to the buffalo. Exactly, yeah. But I mean, it's like what we did to the blacks. And I just watched for the second time the documentary of Little Richard. He was one of the greatest rock and roll musicians.

13:45and when you see his upbringing and how he was hailed to sing and to perform and to play the piano in a lot of those southern clubs but he was not allowed to eat there and he was not allowed to go to the bathroom there so he says what the fuck was that all about yeah so it's like how can people do that to other people yeah you know how can you because someone has a different skin color but is a very hard working person like blacks were and and how can you then treat that person obviously like an animal like i don't want you to sit with me. I don't want you to eat with me. I don't want you to go to the same bathroom.

14:41Or even when I was already in America, we visited this guy Arthur Jones in Deland, Florida, who started the Nautilus machines, very famous exercise equipment, a whole new revolutionary kind of a wheel that gives you progressive resistance as you lift up the weight further and further the more resistance there was because that's when the muscle gets the strongest so he was a genius guy yeah and uh he asked franco and me franco is my little training partner who also eventually became mr olympia and mr universe and was one of the world's strongest man in his weight category weighed around 180 pounds and deadlift 730 pounds and stuff like that.

15:32He had us come down to test the machines because they were not yet on the market. And we went down there and test the machine and stayed there with him for several days. And he took us out to, I remember, there was this malt place where we got these delicious malt drinks. I think he wanted to just fatten us up a little bit and to say it was the machines that made us gain weight and all that stuff. But what was interesting was not the malt. What was interesting was we went in there and there was on the lower floor, as we walked into that restaurant, it was to the right on the lower floor where you had to walk down four or five steps were the blacks sitting.

16:21Just blacks. Yeah. And up on top, where we walked in, all whites. So I asked him, I said, why is everyone so separated? Did they not get along? Not knowing that much. I just came to this country, I think a year ago or two years ago. And he said, no, no, no. He says, it's just the way it is here. He says, we don't like to sit with blacks. It's just a tradition. And he wrote it off as such. Sure. I didn't pay much attention to it. I have to say that that's America. What do I know? I've met the first black person when I was 19. When I went to London to the Mr. Universe contest, and there I was competing with black bodybuilders.

17:09And so I didn't really know much about that history and all that. But then when I went home, I was telling people, when I came back to L.A., I was telling people the story, and they said, are you kidding me? They still have that? Because it was the South. Sure. And California was always more advanced, right? And they almost didn't believe me. But I saw that firsthand still. Not that long ago. In 1970, 1971. Let's just think about that. This is not that long ago. No, I mean, Ruby Bridges, right? She's like in her 60s. Yeah. You know?

17:47I think it is interesting and we're getting too far afield. But there is this kind of fragility today where like not only do people not know that, they don't want to know that and they don't want their kids to know about those things. Right. There's this kind of movement, I think, against like, why do we have to talk about these things? Why can't we talk about what's great or what's amazing? There's kind of a snowflakeism there where we don't want to we don't want to look at the past because the path there's some inherent indictment in what happened in the past. But that's the only way you can grow and change and not repeat those mistakes.

18:22Yeah, but I feel like I can talk about something great without talking about that. Because I can talk about something great like equality today. Yeah. Let's forget it. Let's assume that you have a difficult time looking back. Yeah. I don't because I learned from that. Yeah. But some people do. But then let's go and celebrate the day equality. Sure. Let's celebrate tolerance. Let's celebrate understanding each other and not being prejudiced and being inclusive and not treating anyone different because of their race or their sexuality or, you know, female, male, whatever it is. it's just as long as we kind of celebrate the idea, every human being has the same value.

19:18I think this is something great to talk about. To me, it's very upbeat to talk about that. And I remember my governorship was about that. I said to myself, all of the things that we usually talk about now have the power to do something about it. So that was great. I said to my team, I said, guys, maybe you think I have a little bit of hang-up about all this stuff I said, maybe I do. I said, but let's look at this. I said, you know, Republican, I'm a Republican. I said, but Republicans, as we get this list of judges that are supposed to be appointed now, I said, the natural thing is that you guys are going to look for a Republican judge.

20:02I said, but I'm not going to look for that. I said, here's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for to put in more women as judges in California than any other governor. And maybe that's not only just the tolerant side of me, the inclusive side, but also the competitive side. Right away, maybe the competition. Sure. I say, I want to have more judges, more women judges appointed. And I want to have more black judges, minority judges appointed. And I don't want you ever to look at what it is, what party that person comes from. I say it becomes irrelevant because California is a mixture of people. I'm representing Democrats and Republicans and declined to state and independents and everybody.

20:49And so therefore, that's what the way the judges should be picked. I say we should pick the most qualified person. and so they just looked at me kind of like wow whoa whoa where does that come from right and i said i said you don't understand i don't hate democrats i don't hate black people i don't hate jews i don't hate anybody i said to me they're all the same they're equal yes we have different ways of looking at life yes we have a different approach the way we go and go for being successful in all of those things. But we got to go and embrace them because only together we are going to be the most powerful and stay the most powerful state.

21:29And I think nationally, we should do this ideally. I'm not in charge of the whole nation, but that's what we should shoot for, is that everyone is on the same team because then we have a strong team. You know, rather than always splitting it in half. I mean, the Democrats are in charge. They only pick Democrats. I mean, the Republicans are in charge. is only the only big Republicans. It's only half of the intellectual power and the will and everything, the potential of the country. So I was always against that. So to me, that was the right way to go. And I think we made some really great headway this way.

22:04And there was, of course, a lot in my party that disagreed with me. Sure. And so you can imagine that I have people coming to my office that shit on me, the Democrats, because I said, no, we're not going to sign this bill because it's more spending and we're not going to spend money that we don't have. So we're not going to go and live in the deficit and in debt and all of that stuff. We're not going to do it. So they were mad at me. And because of other philosophic differences. And then you were fighting with the Republicans because they said, how could you do that? How could you have a chief of staff that's a woman?

22:40And a Democrat. And a lesbian. What the hell is going on here with you, Governor? You know, I mean, you're really naive. Sure. I say, well, let's assume for a second I'm naive. You know, I'm the first one to tell you I'm a little bit naive. Yeah. I say, I'm not a trained politician. I say, but that woman, that chief of staff, she's the best and the brightest that I've interviewed. I tell you that. So it becomes irrelevant what party she's from. She knows what I'm trying to accomplish in California. and she's 100 % behind me and she's going to execute what my dream and my vision is of California.

23:20It doesn't matter if she's a lesbian or if she was a brawl-burning lesbian and all the stuff that you guys are claiming that she is. I say, it makes no difference to me. I say, she is the best. And so they were fighting, how can he pick judges that are black like this? How can he pick judges that are Democrats? And they were up in arms. So I was fighting many times, both parties. And then many times we've worked together really well, you know, building the infrastructure and doing the environmental stuff that we did and all of the stuff. Doing the redistricting reform was one of the things that both of the parties didn't like and fought me.

23:57And that's why we lost twice. But the third time we won and we got it through and we became kind of like the first place that really started picking an independent commission to draw the district lines. And I felt very proud of that. I think it was right after Arizona. We were the first two states. And I said to myself, wow, I did something that was a tradition in America for 200 some years. They have gerrymandering. And I said, we threw it out. Yes, it was a battle like hell. So it's all about how do we create this equality. And that's what I was always shooting for. And I have to say that I just happened to be very fortunate because I grew up after the Second World War, where still people were doing Nazi salutes in Austria and stuff like that.

24:52Even in a military camp where I was in the military, I saw that. But at the same time, I had a friend who became a mentor, Freddy Gerstle, who was Jewish. but he never talked much about that he just was a kind man he was a political leader in Graz in my hometown that was interested in sports for the youth because he had a son and so he was interested in that so he would give us money for the weightlifting club and he would bring us together and he would raise money to get trophies for our competitions, for our weightlifting competitions and he was always very kind and he then in a very subtle way always snuck in this thing about equality and about brain power.

25:44Don't just train your muscles, just train your brain. He says, you know, when I grew up, you know, my father always said, you know, that we Jews, and that's when I realized he was a Jew, he says, we were always taken everything from. He says, but the only thing that we learned was that they can't take from us is our brain power, our intelligence. He says that's why we try to always educate ourselves and our kids, and that's what you should do too. Just remember, you should just run around with a book, with a book of Play-Doh under your arm and read every day, even if it's just a page. But just remember, the brain is just like the muscle.

26:23You know, you've got to train it every day. It needs training, stimulation, and you have to push it all the time. You have to be mentally in pain also. Just like physically you go for the pain period, to break through this pain period, to grow and to get stronger. You get only stronger if you break through the pain barrier also mentally. You have to sometimes suffer. You have to sometimes struggle. You have to sometimes fall. Then you get up again. You may cry. So he was teaching me all this stuff. And to me, I think that had such a profound impact. you know so my father's upbringing had a tremendous impact when he talked about be useful yeah what do you do Arnold for people around you you're just training you're just pumping up your biceps and looking in the mirror looking at yourself are you kidding me you should get these biceps from chopping wood and carrying wood in there for the older people there are a lot of older people that need help and so he will always push me to be more useful and stuff so those things that have a real profound impact impact and that's why i think it's so important that we make our kids grow up with those lessons you know and and those messages and that's why i feel like not every kid will have that where they preached at at home and so therefore i said myself you know i have a big voice out there i mean hell you know i have been a a star in one way or the other since the time I was 18 years old and then won my first Mr.

27:58Europe Junior competition and there were people screaming out there in the hall when I won and then I went to London to the Mr. Universe contest and there was standing ovation with the age of 19 and with the age of 20 I won Mr. Universe so and there were hundreds of people asking me outside for autographs I didn't even know what an autograph was. It's just stupid it was. I had no idea. Why did they want me to write down on a piece of paper my name? I couldn't figure out. It was not a common thing in Austria. So I didn't even know. But I feel like that from that point on, I gained an audience in bodybuilding, then in show business, then in the polo-logue arena, and then policy arena, and on and on and on.

28:42And so I have to use that voice, that power, that platform in order to talk about those issues. And that's why I do videos every so often. Not frequently, but every so often. Something about the January 6th insurrection situation that we went through, this very dark moment in our history. And all about the prejudice that I have detected that is kind of, you know, gaining momentum in America and worldwide. So I talked about that. or about the Russian unprovoked attack under Ukraine. I spoke out about that. And so I speak out about those things and try to teach our adults and our young kids that I think have a pretty good gauge of what is right and what is wrong.

29:36And if you at all admire me, then listen to me because I was set in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. There's a Latin expression, mensano, incorpore sano, which basically means a strong mind and a strong body. That's exactly what Freddie Gerstle said. Really? Exactly that, yes. Absolutely. And I was looking at the Theodore Roosevelt bust out in your office. You know the story, he's this young sort of genius kid, he's frail, and his father comes to him and he says, you've got a strong mind, but you haven't got a strong body. And he says, okay, dad, I'm going to make my body. and his dad builds him this gym on his back porch, which you can still see the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt there.

30:16And I think that's on 21st or 20th Street in Manhattan. And he embraces what he calls the strenuous life. And you need to have both, right? Because it's not just good ideas and this sense of equality and fairness and principle that we're talking about. But then you've got to have the literal physical power to do it and the energy and the willpower or to bring those ideas into effect, right? It's like you want to be useful, but do you have the things that make you useful? That's ultimately where the rubber meets the road. Right. I mean, and of course, what you said is absolutely correct because, I mean, how many presidents have boxing champions come into the White House and box with them?

31:01I mean, it's like crazy. Sure. He was working out like three hours a day. Yeah, he did that. And I think it's always you see that when the mind and the body kind of, you know, when you find that kind of sweet spot where they both kind of work together, you know, then you really have a big advantage. Yeah. Because the mind is just like Freddy Gerstle was saying when I was a kid, it needs the same kind of torture. It needs the same pain. It needs the same kind of push and resistance. And the more adversity that you go through, the stronger you get as a character, the stronger your character becomes and the stronger your will becomes and all of that stuff.

31:51So it's very clear. I believe in that very strongly. And I've always practiced that. One of the Stoics said, we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind. And I think it's the idea that we're sort of cultivating this when we feel that resistance, when we feel that doubt, when our body says, no, you can't run two more miles or you can't do two more reps, and you push through that, that's what you need when you're trying to pass redistricting and you fail the first time and you fail the second. You need that part of yourself that has trained the muscle that pushes past no or the first failure or that it's hard.

32:29You have to cultivate that sort of meta muscle that pushes through hard stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I sometimes try to make it simpler. And what I'm talking about is that the rulers don't think. And so because I feel like a lot of people, when they get up, their mind starts wandering. It's a natural thing. We all do that. Overthinking. But if you make it a rule where you say, okay, there's certain things that I would do before I start thinking, and that is I'm going to work out for an hour. Yeah. So now if the mind tells you, man, you know, today's okay. I mean, what the hell is Sunday? Yeah. No one will know.

33:11I mean, let's just go and have some pancakes instead. And it's just to kind of reorganize you a little bit. You say, wait a minute. What did I just do? I thought and I promised myself I'm not going to thank so it's the thanking that makes me want to go and change my mind if I stop that thinking and throw that out and do exactly what I set out to do which is to do first one hour workout so that's my idea let's just go let's get on that bicycle let's bicycle down to the gym because as soon as you bicycle everything starts feeling good it's almost kind of like you start out the first mile with a black and white picture and then all of a sudden this picture turns more and more colorful by the time you get to the gym and you do the first sit the first set it's colorful, the gym is colorful the characters around you are colorful everyone is there working out and you get sucked into it and you start training harder and harder and all that stuff and then by the time you're basically home and you have breakfast I mean, you feel really good.

34:21So this is always the same thing. So don't let your thinking get in the way. That's what we tell people. People get thrown off and you say, don't think. They say, what do you mean don't think? I thought that they should think. Yeah, I said, at the right moment. Yes. You have to think, of course, in the right moment. But in the morning when you get up and you have time, do the workout before you start thinking. Yes. You know, just step out of bed, just go on your life cycle. If you have a stationary bike at home, If you don't, go out and ride the bicycle. If you don't have a bicycle and you're in a snow country, then you just walk in the deep snow and you get some exercise.

34:57We don't need much money in order to really make your body kind of go through some kind of pain and to just really push it a little bit, burn the calories, get the steps in there, work the heart and everything like this, and you will feel good. And that's the key thing people should always know. So if you feel good physically and you can do wonderful things physically, then you feel mentally much better about yourself. Yeah, in the morning you don't want to get sucked into the phone. You don't want to get sucked into turning on the TV, seeing what's happening on the news. Get moving, get active.

35:33And I love that feeling right before the sweat starts. You know, like where you're breaking through some barrier from non-activity to activity. And then you know you've already won the day. Right. You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck. That's the sound of no crowds. No alerts. No distractions. And no telling what you'll find next. You know, like a detour. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota trucks. You probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities.

36:29But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. Stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in. GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities. Over 150 ,000 donors have already trusted GiveWell to give more than$2.5 billion over the last several years, and research suggests that these donations will save over 300 ,000 lives.

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37:40That's givewell.org. Code The Daily Stoic to donate or find out more.

37:51I think that we feel better if you feel good physically, then you feel good mentally and psychologically. and if you feel good mentally and you feel good about yourself because you've not done something, you look at the world quite differently. You know, you don't drive around in traffic angry. It spills over. All of a sudden, you know, I feel like so good that even if someone is in the wrong and I drive home with my bicycle and someone runs in front of me and almost wipes me out, yeah you know they say oh i'm so sorry i said no no no no no you go ahead go across this no no it's green for you no no no you go ahead i say you know and i said jesus i'm i don't think i would have been like that when i started the bike ride exactly it's like it's really interesting how we approach everything and how friendly we are how happy we are how good we feel about ourselves and how this rubs off on other people then and so on so that's why i always because I'm addicted to exercising, you know.

39:00People always say, you have so much discipline, Arnold. I tell them, I said, you know, to be very honest with you, I don't have much discipline. I really don't. I think I'm just addicted. You know, I just got sucked into this world and I just can't do it without it. And it's that simple. So there's certain things that you know that feels good. You just want to do it over and over again and without ever asking about it, should I or shouldn't I. It doesn't take much discipline for me. In some respects, it almost takes more discipline when you're like that. So let's say you're injured, you're not feeling well, you're working to go, today's a rest day.

39:36Right. Or I have to be careful with my knee. It almost takes more discipline. You have to be disciplined about your discipline. Oh, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I mean, I go through this right now. I had surgery last week on my elbow because I had a nerve that always didn't create numbness on my little finger on my hand and it was because of bone spurs and there was a muscle that was kind of pressing against the nerve in order so they had to relocate the nerve but of course what did they say don't exercise don't go to the gym until you come back and you get the stitches taken out so this morning they took the stitches out so now i feel really good and happy that i can go back to the gym and do something yes because it was really i needed discipline to stay away from the gym yes yeah yes well the idea of temperance right the middle ground some if you're if you're so extra about something you actually need the discipline to rein it in where you burn out you hurt yourself you you know you you're not responsible uh that can be harder.

40:41Yes. So you talked in the book, I thought it was interesting. You're saying you see people in the gym and they're like, I just want to get in shape. And you say, but sort of for what or how, right? You're sort of putting, you're forcing them to be specific. This idea of being useful, I think, how, how, how would you push people in that direction too, right? So maybe generally there's, there's very few people that don't want to be useful. We all think inherently want to be useful but how do we channel that or how does a person find their reason or their canvas to be useful well i think the first of all the most important thing is what you just said you know to have a clear vision and a clear goal yeah because when you ask someone in the gym okay you want to be in shape what is the reason why you want to be in shape because being in shape, it's just very broad.

41:36What does it mean? And how do you get motivated if you don't have a specific goal? Yeah. So I then get into this conversation where people didn't have to really start thinking about. And some people say, well, the doctor told me that I'm now 55 years old, my cholesterol is high, and my blood pressure is high, and they thought that instead of just going on drugs and prescribing me medication, I should try. vigorous exercising every day for a little bit not too long but just every day something and so they do that but I always tell them I said look if there's a specific gore that you have where you say okay by Christmas I want to have 20 pounds less now you're shooting for specific gore and now you weigh yourself every day now you watch what you eat because you always know that you're stepping on this scale and you want to weigh less and less and less every day.

42:32And by Christmas, you want to have 20 pounds less. So you can afford a little bit pigging out, right, at Christmas time or whatever, because maybe you feel overweight or whatever. So when we set specific goals like that, or I sometimes talk about it when I was a kid, 15 years old, I wanted to go the next year to the lake where I grew up. And I wanted to be more muscular and impress the girls. and people say you you were actually saying that i said no i was not saying that to anybody i said but it was my goal and i dealt with it sure i said i dealt with it and it motivated me to go into train every day and all this i said and it's of course a stupid motivation but it works yeah i said so i'm telling people i said no matter how stupid your motivation is it doesn't matter how silly it is it doesn't matter but pick a goal and then go after that goal have a specific reason for it because for everything it gives us more motivation when we have a reason it's no different than a kid that is coming out of high school and he now goes to college and he wants to be a doctor well that's a goal yeah well that's a big goal and now all his classes that he would take will be specific classes that will get them to that goal to make that goal a reality there's so many that go to university just because they hear always this oh this is the american way and i got to have a university you have to have a degree and all this stuff but they don't know for what right so they go in there and what do they do they go and they join the university they go and stay in some uh flat house and they get drunk they eat junk food they gain weight and and they're drunk more than they're really studying and all this stuff.

44:18So because they are aimlessly kind of like going through university for years and then they're finished and they don't earn more money because they haven't really shot it. They study American history or something that they will not use later on except if you become an educator of some sort then you can use those things or psychology to study or English to study. Yeah, we can use this But it has to be used for something specifically. So I think it's always good if you say, I want to be a businessman. I want to start a real estate business. And so therefore, all of this that you study is like you study the microeconomics and macroeconomics.

44:59You study accounting. You get really good in math and algebra and geometry, all of those kind of things. And you really get good in writing business letters and in communicating and in marketing and in publicizing products and all of this stuff. So all of the stuff that is important to be a good businessman, because no matter what business you're in, you have to be able to sell, to market, to communicate the product, whatever you're dealing with. So then you can take classes for that. So this is why it's more fun when we have a goal. And this is why I stress this in my book about have a vision, have a clear goal like I had when I was 15 years old.

45:36I wanted to be the world champion in bodybuilding. I wanted to be another Rich Park. and five years later after that dream and that vision that I had five years later I was standing on that very same stage in London where Reg Park won his Mr. Universe contest in 1951 in 1958 and in 1965 he won three Mr. Universe titles and at the very same stage I stood there in 1966 and then in 1967 I won the Mr. the universe title on that stage. So I saw firsthand how that vision drove me to the gym hours a day where the normal amateur bodybuilder didn't train three, four hours a day. They trained an hour and a half.

46:25But I did the weightlifting. I did the powerlifting. I did the bodybuilding. I did the reps and the heavyweights and everything like this. And then by the time after hours and hours of training and torturing myself and going through this, I started winning competitions. and junior Mr. Europe, then Mr. Europe, best built man of Europe, and then second Mr. Universe, then Mr. Universe, with the age of 20. So it was amazing. So now I knew, ah, this is what I have to do for the rest of my life. I have to have a very clear vision. And so then, of course, the vision expands. You say, I want to be not just Mr.

47:01Universe, I got the goal and become the greatest bodybuilder of all times. So that becomes your new goal that I have to win that many Mr. Universe titles as Reg Park win. I have to win as many Mr. Olympia titles as Sergio Oliver and Larry Scott won. And so I have to just go after those titles. And so eventually I became the greatest bodybuilder of all times in 1975 after winning the sixth in 1980, the seventh Mr. Olympia competition and the 13th world bodybuilding title. And so it was like, so that same idea went into acting. Again, I had a very clear vision to become another Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson or something like this.

47:39So every one of my goals, I approach that way. Well, it's when you have the goal, you have the motivation, which is key. But then something that's really interesting about your career, you also know what to say no to that might be exciting or lucrative or interesting or standard, but it takes you further away from where you're going, right? So I think someone who has a strong idea of what they're trying to accomplish, a clear vision, as you call it, strong sense of who they're trying to help or what they want to accomplish, then they also know how to pass on things that are coming their way. They know how to pass on distractions.

48:15They know how to pass on temptations. They also know how to pass on, you know, doing the same thing over and over again, because the next part of their vision actually requires them to go over here. You have to have that clarity. You're absolutely correct, because I remember, for instance, and I mentioned that also in my book, that I was in the middle of my bodybuilding career, winning one missed Olympia competition after the next and being known as the bodybuilder with the business brain. Because I was going to Santa Monica City College, taking classes there. I was going to West Los Angeles College to take classes, business classes there.

48:50I was going to UCLA extension courses because I couldn't go to one university because I was applying for the working permit and not for a student visa. So I only was allowed to take two classes at one place. So I jumped around all over. But I was taking classes and I was getting really, and my thing was business, you know. And I studied how to sell. So I said to myself, I have to become a successful businessman in America and know how to do business here. So people came to me with business ideas a lot of times, but it didn't really fall into the category of where I wanted to go, which is into the show business.

49:26So I was offered by the Jack LaLanne Gymnasium Empire here in California to run and to manage the gymnasium chain. And with a lot of money, I think it was like$200 ,000 or so a year, which is, imagine, in the early 70s, in the mid-70s. So there's a lot of money. So I said to myself, okay, I will make this money, but now I will have to be in that business eight hours, ten hours a day, and that would not give me the time to be able to go and take speech classes, accent removal classes, English classes, acting classes, all of the things that I, and work with stunts and with stuntmen and all this, all the stuff that I needed to do to get into the direction where I wanted to go, which is to become a leading man.

50:21So I said, so therefore I would derail myself by saying yes to this great offer. I would derail myself and possibly my dream to make like Clint Eastwood a million dollars a movie because that was my dream so Charles Bronson Clint Eastwood and Marlon Brando they were getting a million dollars a movie so that was like the number then so I said well you know if there's three that ladder isn't that busy and it's not that crowded up there I think there's room for another one so i felt absolutely convinced i saw it very clearly for me to be a action hero yeah i had no idea how i'm gonna get there but i knew this is where i'm gonna go and therefore this particular offer had to be turned down yeah to become a manager of a gymnasium chain and i turned it down they thought that was crazy but only then a few years later when i did uh you know stay Hungry, then I did Pumping Iron, then I did the Jane Mansfield story, then I worked with Kirk Douglas and with Anne Margaret in The Villain, and then all of a sudden I got this big offer to do Conan the Barbarian.

51:36And Conan the Barbarian was$250 ,000 with a sequel obligation to make a million dollars. So now I said to myself, in 1977, I signed the deal for Conan to do a few Conan movies. And so I went back to my friend who offered me that. And he said, you see? And he says, no, you're smart. I mean, I get it. I get it now. We have to say no to some things to say yes to other things. That's right. When we say yes to something, we realize we're also saying no to other things. Yes, absolutely. And you know, look, imagine when you're governor. I mean, how many things you have to say no to? Sure. Right? I mean, you have your family.

52:21you have to work on all the different legislations that are coming to your desk. You have to go out and do fundraising activities. You have to, you campaign literally all the time. So, I mean, there's just so much work that you have to do. I mean, so that you really have to stay focused and disciplined and say, no, do a lot of things. So I had a question for you about this idea of having a strong, Because you talk about not just about having a strong vision, but an ambitious vision, like bigger than anyone else is thinking. So I have this tattoo, ego is the enemy. So what's the tension between dreaming big, pushing for totally unrealistic, impossible things, and also being a delusional narcissist or an egomaniac, right?

53:07What's the tension between ego and let's say confidence? Well, I think that you never know until you get there. So to me, it became very clear that to me, I had a big ego. That ego had to be stroked all the time. And to me, I had big visions, and my visions became a reality. And it's not one of those things, when you talk about the vision, that you just visualize anything and therefore you can accomplish anything. It has to be totally kind of come from you, from your heart and from your head. It cannot just be where you say, oh, I want to be a rock and roll star. That doesn't all, you know, I was many times playing golf out there.

54:04I remember when everyone was getting into golf in the 90s And so they dragged me along and I said to myself, I somehow cannot visualize myself as a great golf player. I could not visualize in a realistic way that I want to become a golf champion. It just didn't happen. It did not come in. I didn't have the motivation, the interest. So I went out there and did my golf. And I was a shitty golf player. and I just played because it was fun going out with a bunch of guys and sometimes we had also women along with us that could handle all this nonsense guys talk and we were playing golf and we had a great time end of story and I was a shitty golf player and then when I became governor I stopped playing golf because I didn't have the time because I had kids so I think that to me when I dreamt for instance to get in the show business and to become another Clean Eastwood, even though everyone in this town was discouraging me and saying to me, he says, Arnold, you are a monster.

55:21You weigh 250 pounds of solid muscles. What movie should we put you into? Are you crazy? I mean, it's Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman and Woody Allen. Those are the sex symbols of the 70s. The 60s have passed. You know, I think if you would have been one 15 years ago, you could have done Hercules movies. But the time is over. It's a totally different person. So there is no way that you ever will become a leading man. Yes, we can get you to get parts like, you know, I can call my friends out that they're shooting Hogan's Heroes right now. You can play Nazi officers. Yeah, if you want to just be in movies, we can make that dream of you become a reality.

56:04I said, no, my dream is not to be in movies. I said, my dream is very clear, a leading man. They say, Schwarzenegger in this and this movie. Just like Clint Eastwood and Charles Brownson. So I see myself as that, or that's impossible. Plus your accent. Remember, when you studied the American history of moviemaking, you would see that no one ever became a star with an accent. It doesn't happen. I mean, they even looked funny when James Bond comes around with a British accent, but they want to hear people talk like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood and those guys, but not like you. I think the German accent works against you because you, it sounds to a lot of people scary.

56:48I mean, do a test one time. We can do a test one time. And they did a test. They did a test, and they said that the majority of people were scared of that accent. So I said to myself, well, we can overcome that. yeah it's about familiarity so what i have to do is just go up and down the country left and right up and down east coast west coast wherever and do radio interviews that people hear me and get familiar with my accent and with my way of talking and so i found a way my mind around that obstacle and then they were talking also about the name is it name I've I cannot imagine any billboard ever say Schwarzenegger doesn't even fit on any billboard he says that's why actors came over here from Europe and they changed their names you have to change your names I said I don't want to change my name but anyway the bottom line was I stuck I said to myself okay I have my dream and I'm not going to listen to the naysayers.

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1:00:20And it was just as if one of those incidents is again, where when I was in Austria and I said, I want to go to America, they said it will never happen. That's a stupid idea. And when I said I want to be a bodybuilding champion, I said, that's a stupid idea. I don't want to be a soccer champion or a skiing champion or something that's more Austrian. so everything was no no it's impossible it's a stupid idea and then when i said you know i want to get into movies was again the same thing so i said so up until now i have not listened to those naysayers so i should not listen to those naysayers in hollywood either yeah i'm here i came over here because of muscle beach and i came over here because of hollywood and i'm here in the capital of entertainment and i'm going to use that capital of entertainment and i'm going to go all out and I'm going to do exactly like in bodybuilding.

1:01:07I'm going to work five hours a day. And so I did all my speech lessons and English lessons and acting lessons and all that stuff. Eventually the stuff started happening. And I ended up, you know, all of a sudden doing leading, playing leading characters with Conan and then with Terminator. I mean, imagine with Conan, of course, John Milius, the director, said if we wouldn't have had Schwarzenegger, we would have had to build one. Yeah. Well, hell, I said to myself, this is unbelievable. Exactly what they said would be my liability became my asset. Yes. And then Jim Cameron, after we did Terminator, people asked him at the press conference, why do you think this movie is a hit?

1:01:50He says, well, I'll tell you one thing. There's maybe many reasons. But one specific reason is, the way I see it, is that Schwarzenegger talked like a machine. He says, I think it has a lot to do with that. He not only looked differently with his body, but he also talked differently than all of us. So he was more like different from all the human beings in the movie. He was a machine. And because of the way he talked like a machine, I don't know if I should have taken this as a compliment or what, but I mean, in this case, maybe it was. But it just said that he said there was a big plus. So now all of this, now the body was a plus, now the accent was a plus.

1:02:26And then in the late 70s and early 80s, they started writing stories about actors now with complicated names keep their names Gina Lola Brigida kept a name Schwarzenegger is keeping his name and they listed all those names that they listed keep their names and don't switch it anymore like in the old days so all of a sudden all of those things imagine what I had to fight against I mean I said that the naysayers were like producers directors, studio executives, managers, agents, everyone just said they were the experts. And, you know, I don't blame them, really, to be honest with you, because there was no one that has ever done it.

1:03:12But that goes back to what Nelson Mantella said. Everything is always impossible until someone does it. So I did it. And then since then, a lot of people with accents on movies and a lot of people with big bodies on movies, I broke the mold. Yeah, well, people have this idea, you know, the law of attraction, the secret. They talk about manifesting, which is total bullshit. right? You have the vision and then you have to get to work. You have to make it a reality. Just thinking about having the vision. Yeah. If you don't believe you can do it, you're not going to be able to do it. But just because you believe you can do it, that's not enough.

1:03:49You have to do the fucking work. You have to do a lot of work. A lot of work. You're absolutely correct. There's just, there is no babying here. But I think that, and why I mentioned in the book also, that we are getting great lessons from sports. So sports is not just where you learn about camaraderie. Sports is also where you learn about discipline, where you learn about setting a vision for yourself, where you learn about failures. And not to be afraid of failure. You can't go and not play a game because you're worried about that you may lose the game. I mean, there were so many times that I was in a weightlifting competition and I put on more weight on the bar than I've ever lifted before.

1:04:32And this was now in front of a thousand people. And the risk was that I'm going to fail or then I'm going to make it. If I make it, then I break my own record. Great. If I fail, you know, it's nothing to be embarrassing. And I tell you, that's what happens in weightlifting. You fail, they give you still a great applause. They say this young kid, 17 years old, he tried everything he had And he was like struggling, but somehow he couldn't hold the weight all the way up there for those three, four seconds. And the judges go like this and give the down motion. And so they give you applause because everyone there knows and appreciates that you were willing to fail and you went all out.

1:05:11And that's how you know how far you can go is by being willing to fail. And look, I've always learned more from my failures. And therefore, I was never afraid of failure. I remember when people came to me after I had the successful promotion of Terminator 3, which made almost$500 million worldwide back in 2003. They said to me, Arnold, you're the biggest movie star. If you run for governor now and you lose, you look like a schmuck. What's going on? Why would you do that? Why would you risk all that? And I said, I love challenges. the more risky it is I said it's up my alley I said when they say it's dangerous that's when I get excited over that and so this is exactly what I did I went all out and look the rest is history I became governor it could have failed but so what you just get up again and then I would have just maybe tried it again in 2006 or I would have just gone back in the movies it's not like I had no job it's not like other politicians they have nothing else going for themselves right so they have to run again and they have to win again that's why they're making all the decisions that they do just to win again because they have nothing nowhere else to go you and i were both struck by the fact that mark's really is the most powerful man in the world he's writing this private journal to himself and he opens it with all the things that other people did for him that he learned from them it's this it's almost 10 of the book in meditations is basically gratitude sort of totally dispensing with the notion, which I know you hate, that he's a self-made man, that he's a product of all the influences, the mentors, the teachers, the ideas.

1:06:57And you really hate that idea that we got here from our own sheer will and strength and genius. We're a product of our environment and our influences and our families. So talk to me about that. Well, I think it's important always to mention that we understand what people mean by that. They don't mean badly. They're not misinformed. What they mean is, when they say you're a self-made man, is that you were doing the work in the gym, that you were doing the struggling in Hollywood to go and take acting lessons and stunt lessons and accent removal lessons. And you worked on it and you believed in yourself.

1:07:38And you were the one that took the risk to run for governor. So I understand all that. But at the same time, we have to make sure that the people don't misunderstand what they mean. And misunderstanding means that I know that I have been a creation of hundreds of people, of thousands of people. And let's not forget the governorship. I was not put into power like Caesar. I was voted by 5.8 million people that voted for me. They made me governor. So how can I say himself made when 5.8 million people voted for me to become governor of the great state of California? Sure. So these are things you have to realize that if I wouldn't have had the Kurt Manuel and the beginning Mr.

1:08:37Austria that came to me as a scrawny kid, 15-year-old kid, and said, you can become Mr. Austria. In a few years from now, if you go to the gym with me, I show you how to exercise. And he took me up to the trees at this lake where there was a branch sticking out, a thick branch, where he jumped up in the chin-ups. He says, here, he starts right here. He says, I know he will do it, maybe two or three chin-ups if you're lucky. He says, but you work your way up to 10. And then you keep doing it and keep doing it. And that's how you build your lats. That's how you get a wide back. He says, what we say is, when you do a lat spread, he says, it has to look like the curtains are closing.

1:09:24You know, there's no light coming through between the arms. So he would have all this kind of dialogue. And so I was like, I was like, so charged up. I said, oh my God. He said, I could become Mr. Austrian. And he helped me with the training. and then this Freddy Gerstle who got us the trophies and everything and organized the competitions and then Joe Weider that brought me to America and sent me the airline ticket and helped me with the apartment when I came over here leased a car, Volkswagen, Beetle so I have a car to drive around Joe Gould that had me train in Gould's gym and Vince Gironde that had me train in Vince's gym the best gyms in the world and this is how it went on and on and on the Clean Eastwoods that inspired me, that sat down with me at Dan Tanner's back in the 70s when I was still a bodybuilder and said, yeah, you can do it.

1:10:16And things like that. I mean, it's like unbelievable the amount of people that were there helping me and pushing me. And even, you know, simple things, but I mean, meaningful things like bodybuilders. builders when they came to america that came to my empty apartment there was only a couch in there and some chairs in the bed the mattress and they brought me pillowcases and they brought me sheets and they brought me silverware and uh and and and plates dishes and all of this cups and all this stuff and one brought me a black and white tv with the antenna i remember i had it for years and one woman brought me a radio so that I could set the alarm and wake up.

1:11:01I still have that radio next to me on my end table today, 55 years later. So it's just staggering the hospitality, the love, the inclusion that I felt when I came over here to America and how the gym itself became kind of a large family, a place where I belonged kind of thing. And don't you think that's our, we're talking about being useful, our obligation is to do that for other people, to pay it forward? You know, I mean, it's like you hit the nail on the head because that's exactly why we have to recognize that. The only reason why we have to recognize that we are not self-made and that we are creations by so many people, including our parents, is because then you automatically say to yourself, if you're at all sane, is then, okay, who am I helping?

1:11:52yeah if i'm a product of a lot of help then who am i helping and now all of a sudden that opens up a whole new can of worms and this is what i think is the most important thing is that we all give something back to our community that we give back to other people there is maybe someone like for instance today when people come over from a foreign country they ask me many times in the gym can you write a letter for my lawyer so that I can file this with immigration lawyers and if I see that they're really hard working and they're really good I will get them that letter in two seconds and so there's certain things that you help them getting a job over here whatever it may be I help people or go out and I say to myself when I saw for instance kids needed after school programs, I said to myself, I had my mother there in the afternoon when I came home from school.

1:12:46She sat there with a ruler in her hand. And she would say, you do your homework before you go out of the house. Or otherwise I'd smack you with that ruler over the head. And there was a little bit of violence in our upbringing, right? My father smacking us around every so often. And my mother, and not that this is what I recommend, but I mean, that's what it was. But there was someone there that made sure that they did my homework and made sure that if I have a question about math or about the language, the German or anything, the grammar, that she would answer that, that she would help me with it.

1:13:19But I had to do all the work and get ready for the next day school. And then all of a sudden you go around the country like I did in the early 90s promoting fitness in the public schools. And for President Bush. You know, he appointed me to be the chairman of the President's Council on Fitness. And so I go around and I travel around through all 50 states. And I see always at 3 o 'clock in the afternoon kids standing around outside the school. And I found out that those kids are kind of have no adult supervision. And they are getting into trouble because of that out there on the streets. And that's why law enforcement, when I did research, said this is the danger zone for kids.

1:14:06Between three and six o 'clock is the danger zone for kids. That's when they get involved with juvenile crime, with drugs, with alcohol, with gangs, teenage pregnancy, and all of those things. And I said, oh, my God, there's no one there. I had someone there. It was so helpful for me. So I started an after-school program movement. I started first in one school, then another school, another. Then I started raising millions of dollars. Then eventually we passed an initiative in California, Proposition 49, to get an extra$500 million for after-school programs in the schools in California and all of this stuff.

1:14:45And now 30-some years later, they are spreading like wildfire. And we are raising tens of millions of dollars every year. So this is the kind of stuff that you do because you say to yourself, I was helped when I came to this country. So now I have to help. And to me, it's kind of not even a question, should I or shouldn't. I want to do it because it makes me feel good that I can give something back to this great country. Yeah, there's an idea in the Bible like you've been blessed, so be a blessing. You know, like you came to America. My family came to America. We're all the recipients of all the sacrifices and courage and all the things that people before us did.

1:15:28So even if you had a rough childhood, a rough life, even if you don't feel privileged, in fact, you are, right? You come, you're this heir to this tradition of sacrifice and selflessness and gifts. Somebody built these roads and these buildings and designed these institutions. And so how do you pay that forward by helping keep them up, by creating new ones? And how do you give people a hand up in the way that you were given a hand up, even if it was only a little bit? Absolutely. I think that this country became the greatest country in the world because people work their ass off. And in order to, it's like the body, right?

1:16:12that you can have this great body, but if you want to keep the greatest body, then you have to work your ass off. And so today, we still have to work our ass off. It didn't stop. So when I come over here as an immigrant, and then 40 years ago, I became an American citizen in 1983, and I raised my hand, and I became an American citizen. It was like one of the greatest times in my life. and it was just fantastic. So I said to myself, well, I have to do everything that I can to keep America number one and to push people and give them confidence and tell them that this is still by far the greatest country because I travel all over the world and there's no one that comes to me and says, please, Arnold, can you help me with a visa to go to Russia?

1:17:05Or please, Arnold, can you help me to get a visa to the Middle East somewhere, to some Middle Eastern country, or to some African country, or to Australia, or anywhere else. It's only to America. Everyone in the, anywhere in the world I go, they ask me, please, can you help me get to America? And this is still the most thought-off country, the most wonderful country with the greatest opportunities in order, but we have to work at it all the time. We have to push people to get rid of prejudice, to stop fighting each other, to work together and we have to also tell our youth that if you look for just comfort that's not what makes you great and that's not what makes this this country great you have to go through pain and you have to go through hard work and you have to go through some failures and all those kind of things don't baby yourself and don't just look for oh i want to feel good today or i want to make him feel good or here i feel good no we got to go through hardship in order to achieve those goals and to really be strong people, inside strong, with a strong will and all this.

1:18:11And I think this is one of the reasons also why I wrote this book, Be Useful, is to kind of inspire people that, hey, I know you don't want to maybe be another me. As you said, I have to add this crazy ego and the crazy big, big visions and all of this stuff, which I am the first one to admit. So I'm not saying that everyone should follow the same path. What I'm saying is that everyone wants to be more successful. Everyone wants to go and achieve certain things and feel good about themselves. And they don't have necessarily the tools to get them there. And how do they approach it? How do they start?

1:18:49And so what this book basically does is, here, let me show you seven tools of mine to become more successful. And they would definitely help you become more successful. When even some of those injustices we were talking about, those travesties or tragedies that human beings inflicted on each other, even in the not so recent past, right, somebody, some group of people said, this isn't okay. And they did something about it, right? There's this sort of procession of torches, this series of marches where we move the ball forward a little bit. But somebody did something about it, right? Somebody said, I think this can change, right?

1:19:26And that's another tradition that we hail from, right? is somebody is always trying to be helpful or to right a wrong, to improve things or to stop doing something we shouldn't be doing. And so sort of what side of that are you on, I think is another important question, right? It's like, are you going to, are you someone who just looks at and goes, I don't like how things are. I hope somebody does something about it. Or are you the kind of person that says, I think I could be the person that does something about it? Well, you know, I myself know that I'm a big motivator to people, and I'm always the first one to be out there and to kind of like speak about those things that are very important.

1:20:06You can't speak about every issue, obviously. But like, for instance, to give you an example about the environment, I found that when I became governor that there are a lot of really great environmentalists that really mean well, but that they're not really communicating that well. So it's one thing to be out there and to make a lot of noise, but we don't want them to waste their time with the noise because they're very passionate. And so what I did was I came in and I started doing some more research on it. And because I come from the background of selling, it's one of the chapters in the book, also sell, sell, sell.

1:20:44It's about communicating well and about selling well, about, you know, really rallying up the troops. and how do you do that? And so when they talk about, for instance, climate change, it does not really ring well with the majority of people because they don't know what it means. So what I did was I started telling them, we got to talk about pollution because I don't want them to waste their time. I want everyone's voice to be heard and not where people say, what the hell was he talking about? He was talking about climate change. What was climate is changing? And for the last 20, 30 years, they've been confused what this really means.

1:21:24And so this is why when you do a poll, and in California, we did polls. And it was interesting when you said, how much of you believe in climate change? And it was like 37 % said yes. And then as soon as you said, how much of you believe that the enemy is pollution? We got to get rid of pollution. It was like over 50%. So it was clear that pollution was the magic word. And so this is how we got our laws passed in California. We had the American Lung Association help us to put out their commercials about how our children in the Central Valley always have asthma. And they're getting really sick of asthma.

1:22:01And some of them are dying because of asthma. So we played those commercials and people really responded and we had them vote for our environmental progress, for our renewable energy, for our green building initiative, for reducing our greenhouse gases and our pollution by 25 percent. And all of those kind of issues, we became the leaders in the United States and in the world. And so I now then continued on. People say, why are you post-governorship still out there promoting issues? And I said, well, I started the Schwarzenegger Institute at USC because there are certain issues that don't stop.

1:22:44Certain problems don't stop from when I stop with the governorship. No, they continue. And so this is why I have the World Climate Conference and Environmental Conference in Vienna every year where we invite countries from all over the world to come in. And that's why I speak out about redistricting reform still today, about health care reform, about immigration reform, and about all of those issues and after school programs and education and so on, about all of those issues that are very important to me. Well, it's not enough if you're trying to be useful just to be right or to be on the right side of things or to have a good cause.

1:23:20You have to be able to convince and persuade and communicate. You call it sell, sell, sell, right? Marketing is a big part of it. But also just being able to communicate what is happening and why it matters and why anyone should care. That is a huge part about being useful. I was reading about coming out of World War II. There wasn't a word for what happened. A guy invented the word genocide to describe the indiscriminate killing of whole races of people. And then because this guy Lemkin comes up with the word, then he petitions for a UN treaty against genocide. That it starts really small. It starts with communication.

1:24:00But once you can communicate and get people on board with an idea, then you can come up with policies and practices to do something about it. It's not enough to just go, this thing is bad. I don't like it. You have to be able to communicate and motivate. This is the most important thing. Look, I mean, every company in America spends millions and millions of dollars and giving this money to ad agencies to develop some kind of an ad, some kind of a promotion for their product or be able to articulate to find the right words for it. So it is a very, very it's an art and to communicate No silence, exactly.

1:24:42And so this is why it is very important that we study that and then go out and not waste our time, but communicate the right way and really be effective. Yeah. All right, so as we wrap up, I was struck by something in the book. You talk about you sort of reach this moment where you realize you're the same age your father was when he died. And I imagine as you get older, you know, I just talked to two of my friends last week that both have terminal cancer, and you get struck by the fact that we're not here forever. I wear this ring that just says memento mori. It's sort of a reminder of our mortality.

1:25:18Talk to me about that awareness. And to me, thinking about that, thinking that time is short, that we don't have forever, that's part of what motivates me to be useful because you go, I don't have forever. I don't know if I can get to this later. I want to do what I can while I have the time. How do you think about that? Well, I mean, I've expressed it many times, you know, that I'm pissed off about the idea of dying. And I think because of that, I think it's very important that we don't stop the work when I'm finished with the governorship. I don't want to stop the work when I'm finished with my life.

1:25:59It has to continue on. And so a lot of the thinking then goes, OK, what mechanism do you have in place? in order to continue on the promotion of the Arnold Classic Sports and Fitness Festival all over the world, so that you continue promoting health and fitness and body, the sport of bodybuilding. That gave me so much. How do we continue on? I know that the movies will stay alive because they're going to sell those and play those. You know, now with all the other streaming services that are out there and networks and all of this stuff. So there's many ways. So we don't have to, I don't have to be concerned about that.

1:26:35But also, how do we continue on with the environmental message so that the climate conference, the environmental conference in Vienna continues on and all of those kind of things that that the USC Schwarzenegger Institute stands for and that that institute continues on promoting the various different policies and so on. So the work continues on and we have to make sure that we continue on with that message. That is, I think, the most important thing to me. But have you had to wrestle with the fact that, you know, you don't have forever to do it? no i mean i i'm just like i said i'm very upset about it but uh i don't dwell on it every day or think about it every day it's just a fact and i think that the more you have to lose um it's just mine has been such a unbelievable dream life yeah it's like unlike anything else i mean i've never thought that that's the way it's going to end up because you have certain dreams when you grow up, but that then that your dreams will grow.

1:27:40I did not know. You know, I thought that, you know, after I do the bodybuilding and the show business, man, I'm home free. But that all of a sudden I'm getting hungry for public service. And to become a public servant to 40 million people in California, this was a new idea, you know, when the recall election was announced in California. and I felt like, well, you know, those yo-yos up there in Sacramento, I mean, there's a warehouse of experiences, but they've screwed up, you know, the state, so I can do better than that with less experience. So that was the idea. So you jump into that. Then all of a sudden that leads to you getting involved and becoming passionate about the environment and about the education issues and about the redistricting issues and fighting gerrymandering.

1:28:27So one thing leads to the next. And because of all of that, you start meeting interesting people all over the world because of the multidimensional kind of situation. So all of a sudden you're campaigning for Special Olympics, for instance. I was the national coach, strength coach for Special Olympics. So there I ended up being in Robben Island in South Africa with Nelson Mandela lighting the torch in his cell where he was captive for more than 20 years. And then bringing it out into the courtyard of the prison and lighting the torch for the Special Olympians, the torch of hope. because we felt that the prejudice towards people that they intellectually challenged was really no different than the prejudice towards blacks.

1:29:22That's how Nelson Mandela felt very strongly and why he was involved in that movement down there in South Africa. And so you meet people like that. I sit there with President Gorbachev and talk to him about policy, about politics, international politics, history. and all of those kind of things. And an unbelievable, engaging man. And he invited me to MarsCon. I visited his institute there and spent hours with him there in order. So you meet all these people, you know, Muhammad Ali. I was friends with him, and he kind of inspired me to make myself the spokesperson for bodybuilding, like he was in boxing.

1:30:07And he says, sports need personalities. And so I actually copied a lot of his ideas to promote the bodybuilding sport. And so on and so forth. So, I mean, this is a life. I met so many interesting people, two popes and all the presidents since I came to America, since 1968. So it's an extraordinary life. You're always bumping up into new opportunities to be useful. Like you never get used up because there's always something new that you didn't even know they needed help with or that there was a way to contribute. There's always more that a person can do. Yeah, absolutely. Remember, you've got to stay hungry.

1:30:50That's what it's all about, stay hungry. Well, Marcus Aurelius' line was, it's a shame for the mind to give up when the body's still going. So as long as you're here, find a way to be useful. Yeah. I like all your writing about Marcus Aurelius. I have one of your books, by the way. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's incredible for me. Daniel gave it to me for Christmas. It was a year ago? Yeah. Yeah, fantastic. I think he counts as an honorary Austrian. He died in Vienna. Yes, but I mean, it's to me extraordinary to think about 2 ,000 years later. Yeah. We're still talking about him. Yes. let me think about that yeah because he wrote it down and um and what he wrote down was very smart and the whole idea of giving credit to so many hundreds of people that he did in his writing uh is also brilliant and i have to say that i copied that idea from him because i always thank people that helped me but to wrap it up like he did to just dedicate this you know to all these people that helped him and to mention the names uh you know i wanted to do the same thing in my book that's what i did when his life was about paying it forward i mean he talks in meditation more than 80 times he mentions the idea of serving the common good yeah so he's this guy who's a product of all this benefit he's the head of this enormous empire and he's going like I didn't make this.

1:32:23I didn't invent this. My job is to make it work for people. That's the journey we're all trying to be on. So you're on to something really good for a long time already. Well, that's very cool for me to hear. Thank you. Absolutely.

1:32:45Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.

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