From “I’ll Be Back” To Giving Back: Arnold Schwarzenegger Is The Influencer We Need

31:39And I said, guys, you're tearing down all the sculptures. He says, yeah, yeah, yeah, we must, this is a different, until we have to go in a different direction. Yeah, I said, but I mean, what are you going to do with the sculptures? Well, we're going to go there and throw them in a dump somewhere, you know, and just melt them. I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, don't melt them. I said, you know, save one for me. You want one? Yeah. So I said, I think this would be, I said, an unbelievable history to have a sculpture that you guys tore down for me to keep that. it's unbelievable I think it will be fantastic I would like to have it okay let me look into it so a half year later is the Arnold's Classic Bodybuilding Championships in Columbus, Ohio the Russians come every year with the weightlifting team and the bodybuilders and so on and the next thing I know is that we are having now to celebrate the after party at the after competition party, big celebration with thousands of people in the hall.

32:51And they roll out this table that was on wheels with a covered sculpture. I didn't even know what was in it. They didn't even know it was a sculpture. It's covered. Could have been a cake from somewhere. You'd forgotten about the sculpture thing. I didn't connect the dots at all at that point. So the next thing I know is they pulled it, the guy goes up, they gives a speech. and pulls this off. And there's Lennon. And I was like so shocked. It's pretty unbelievable. What was the statue? Where was it? It was in St. Petersburg at the Department of Agriculture, I think I was told. Wow. And so anyway, so we then shipped it home to Los Angeles and there I was out by my swimming pool was now the sculpture of Lennon.

33:48And my wife says, why are we having Lennon here? I said, I love it. I think it's funny. I think they have Lennon here. And so I had it there for a while. And then the following year, the same guy now rolls out the same table again. And now he pulls off this cover and it was Stalin. So now it's a little small. It was not exactly the same size, but a little smaller. But now I have Stalin. Not in here though. No, no, the story goes on. The following year after that, it was Khrushchev. And then it was on drop off. And then it was a Brezhnev and then it was Khrushchev. And it went on and on and on like that.

34:31Until Putin. I have a sculpture of Putin. That's part of my Russian collection. Where do you keep all of these? Every single leader that was leading the Soviet Union, I have in my collection. So I had them all over the swimming pool and every one of my kind of like natural things where the fence was, there was a column. So I put them on top of the column. So then eventually my wife went nuts. Where do you keep these now? It was a little bit over there, but now I have it in storage. But in any case, so then I decided, I'm gonna bring this one in here because it's really great to have him in the office and to remember.

35:19Then I found this great painting that's in the background of Lenin. There was a thing in Vienna or somewhere like that. So anyway, I thought it was good to have. That's a great story. But in addition, so you talked about using your social media platform to talk about January 6th and Ukraine, et cetera. But you also use it to speak to ordinary people and to empower them and talk about the things that you talk about in this book. And what's interesting about this role that you have as sort of a motivational, you know, self-help guru for lack of a, I hate that word, but on some level, like a source of inspiration for people is that on paper, you're very unrelatable.

36:07Like you've achieved things that are very difficult for the average person to understand or connect with emotionally. And yet what you're sharing and the way that you're sharing it is so authentic, it really resonates and has connected with people all over the world. Like it's really powerful what you're doing. So I guess that gets to what we were talking about earlier about the fact that you really are some, You ride your bike around this neighborhood, you go to Gold's, you're happy to talk to everyone. You could easily retreat to your home and live a quiet private life or insulate yourself with the fancy people that you know and the resources that you have, et cetera.

36:54But you've made a very different choice to how to use your energy, your experience, your wisdom in a way where you're sharing it freely with people. people are responding to it. And there's something really beautiful about that. You know, there's a lot of things that we can take responsibility for. And there's a lot of things we can't. I mean, I don't make that choice. It just, it makes me happy to be with people. I'm a people person. So I don't say, you know, I should go to the public gym. I think it's cooler than staying at home. And yet during COVID, I stayed at home and I trained in my gym at home.

37:40But I was in pain. I was in agony. I need people. I need to be out with the people. I like to train with the people. I'm a company queen. Yeah. You know, that's what I call myself because I just love being with company. I don't like to go to football games by myself. I don't like to go for dinner by myself. I don't like to work by myself I don't like to go to the gym and work out by myself I just love people doing it with people and having a good time so that's just me so what you see is me it's totally organic nothing is programmed or anything like that I just I just I'm really happy that I can live the life that I really want to live you know that I go to the gym and I want to go to the gym I ride my bike when I want to ride it I ride it to the beach through all of the thousands and thousands of people on the port walk in Venice with all the tourists there.

38:39I drive my bike through it down to Venice Beach where the weightlifting platform is and all that stuff. So I just go to regular restaurants. I eat with all the people at the restaurant where I always eat every morning. And, you know, I just love that. I hate when someone makes a reservation for me and they go, let's say, to the Palm restaurant. They walk in and they say, we have a table in the corner. We have a table for you reserved in the corner. I say, I don't want to be in the corner. I say, I was sent in the corner when I was in school. You go in the corner and you kneel in the corner. I say, for punishment.

39:25I said, I don't want to be punished. I feel like I'm being punished. going in the corner. I say, I want to sit right there in the middle where all those people sit. What's wrong with that table right over there? Do you want to sit right there? And I said, yeah. I said, well, there's a lot of people walking in here. I said, it's okay. I can handle it when someone comes over to my table and talks to them. So it just makes me happier. It gives you energy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I own a bunch of spectacles, and I made the grave error the other day of donning a normal non-Roka pair on my indoor trainer when I was riding my bike indoors.

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41:23A lot has been said and has been written about the three acts. You have these three acts of your career. You're now in this fourth act, which is super interesting and I want to talk to you about. But I have a different sort of perspective on it, particularly after reading the book and watching the Netflix series, which is to me, it feels less like three separate acts now in a fourth and more like this evolution, a gradual evolution over time of this person who went from a very kind of through sheer force of will and discipline and hard work and all these things that you all these principles that you elucidate in the book of being very self oriented and sort of self, you know, it's a selfish pursuit, you know, to pursue goals at that level, right?

42:16On some level, it's sort of self reflective. Your mirror was your thing. To then kind of grow into this person who's really all about service, like breaking the mirror, going from like me to we. It's all one, to me, it's all one big arc. And the book is called Be Useful, but really it's a call to service. You're basically saying the best way to improve your life, to feel good about who you are and to find purpose, meaning, and fulfillment is to find ways to give back. So it's not a question. It's more just a reflection that, I don't know, how does that land for you? Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

42:59But one should not forget that when you start out, you don't have much to give back. So you first have to build yourself. And it became clear to me that the more I build myself and the bigger I become, the more I can give back. So when I became Mr. Olympia six times and Special Olympics called me and said, could you come and train our Special Olympians? and no kids that are intellectually challenged. They don't have the best coordination. They have problems doing sports a lot of times. And we like to do a study on what effect weight training would have. Well, I was called to do that because I was Mr.

43:54Olympia. I was somebody. I was the number one authority in bodybuilding. That's why I was called. And so if I wouldn't have had that, I wouldn't have been able to inspire those young kids. There was 10 kids there. And we did this study for three days. And I trained them. And all kinds of great things happened. They got motivated. And that's what launched then with the International Special Olympic Committee, the idea when I then eventually met my mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Schreiber, who created Special Olympics. I told her about that experience that happened before I met her and I told her I said I trained as 10 kids and they were really into this powerlifting and they loved it especially when I gave them the confidence that they can do it.

44:46First there were some of them that were scared and they were screaming and they were kind of really worried about the weight over their head and all this stuff. I said but then eventually we stripped away that fear and we could see the breakthrough and all this. I think it could be very popular. She says why don't you do it in Baltimore? We have a meet coming up. Let's try it in Baltimore. So we did it, and it was a huge success. We did it in Washington, huge success. We did it in Miami, huge success. Then they adopted it in the next meeting internationally. Then it became an international phenomenon.

45:16So I all of a sudden became now, not something that I was bargaining for or shooting for, or that was never my goal, became then the national coach, the world coach for Special Olympic strength training. Well, that, for me to go around now, the country and the world to promote Special Olympics, not just powerlifting, but of course, you know, being a celebrity, eventually, instead of doing movies, notice, I started traveling around to just start talking about equal opportunities. I started talking about issues about, we got to get the Special Olympians also the right to have a job, the right to have healthcare, the right to have a place to stay and to live, and there's equal rights, basic equal rights that they don't have.

46:02People are prejudiced. So I started talking about those issues. Not even wildest dreams did I ever think about that's what I would do in my life. But I was able to do that because I was a star in movies then and in bodybuilding and so on. So I think the more I gained of, you know, building myself, the more I was able to give back in a bigger way. At the time I was, I campaigned for President Bush in 1988, you know, and I talked to him on Air Force Two about training and about the President's Council of Fitness and about we got to get our kids again back in the schools, back to training, exercising every day.

46:44He appointed me to be the chairman of the President's Council of Fitness. So now I'm going around to all 50 states promoting health and fitness in our public schools. So this is like one thing to the next happen. And that's why I mentioned in my book that everything that I've done up until that point, and I heard Sergeant Shriver, my father-in-law, talk at Yale University at a commencement speech. He said to the students, break that mirror that you always look at. break that mirror that makes you always look at yourself and you will be able to look beyond that mirror and to see the millions of people that need your help you heard me right that need your help have you ever thought about going out and helping and I said to myself that's exactly what's happening to me so this was a long answer but you were right when you said it was an evolution so it starts out with me, me, me and then slowly it becomes not just me, me, me, but we, we, we.

47:48Right. And so this is what happened to me. And then as with everything, I have an addictive personality. I started getting addicted to it to give something back and it made me feel good. And I felt so rich and so good about myself that I was able to have this impact and to help kids to get in schools, is to exercise special Olympians to train and to do powerlifting, to lift 500 pounds, which they never dreamt of lifting and to go around and start after school programs then eventually run for governor. Yeah. The seeds were there all along though because it was your dad who said be useful way back in the beginning.

48:32It was my dad that said be useful. And it was a guy that I grew up with that later on when I was 15 years old, we met that helped us with bodybuilding and with weightlifting. Freddy Gerstle, that I talked about, who became then a very famous politician in Austria. And he happened to love kids. And to him, this was the greatest investment. So even in his political career, he specialized in building, you know, sports facilities for kids and everything for kids, kids, kids. And he paid a lot of attention to us. He had a son also. and he invited me over to his house for training and he always talked about, you know, giving back.

49:16He talked about getting smart. Just remember, Arnold, don't just train your body, but train also your mind. Remember what Plato said, you know, sound mind, sound body. And always talked about that. I want you to run around with books underneath your arms and not just dumbbells and barbells and all of this stuff. And so all of this influence that I had as a young kid was helpful, but especially my father always saying be useful. But that gentleman, I mean, he was an incredible mentor to you. And he was the guy who impressed upon you the importance of developing your mindset, of cultivating curiosity, of asking questions and listening.

50:01which that brings me back to this whole podcasting thing, right? Like for me, I've been doing this 11 years. It is an expression of everything you talk about in the latter part of the book about making the world your classroom, about seeking out and spending time with people who inspire you that you can learn from and learning the practice of not just engaging with them, but listening, learning. So this has been an incredible experience for me to continue that curiosity and that education into my life. And it's really how you approach everything that you do. Like the fact that you actively sought out so many interesting, compelling people that you could learn from and treated the world as your classroom.

50:52And you continue to do that. I mean, we're in your office, you look around, and there's pictures of you with like all these people. We were hearing stories, you know, about what you've learned from this person and you're this sort of Forrest Gump character that always finds himself at the right place at the right time with the most fascinating individual and a great story to boot from that. So maybe talk a little bit about how you really made that a priority and a fundamental part of who you are. I think that one of the things that you learn in sports is that if you just get stuck in your own training routine and not learn from other people, that you will never become a champion.

51:35And so open-mindedness was very important to me. And so I think, like I said in my book, I learned a lot of my lessons from sports. And to me, that kind of like, and having people like Freddy Gerstle that mentored, that talked about open-mindedness and learning from others. and where you start, as you get older, you start thinking about all of those things because you become wiser. First, it doesn't mean anything. When he told me that this is what the Nazis did, Arnold, they took my brother's head and they smashed it in with a stone. They stoned him to death. And I was lucky to be able to escape and blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff.

52:23So you hear that it didn't mean anything, you know. That's really sad. But then those kind of stories, as you grow up and as you get older, they mean something to you. And all of a sudden, you find yourself fighting for inclusion and against prejudice. And you ask yourself, where does that come from, the desire? It comes from stories like that, you know, that you remember from way back when people tell you those kind of things. So to me, it was always kind of like learning new things and being able to, the more you become a celebrity, to be able to use that celebrity power for something positive, for something good.

53:10And so to me, it was, I learned, the more I opened up my mind, the better it was. There was a guy by the name of Vince Gironda. You maybe have heard of him since you're a fitness fanatic yourself. He had a gym over in the valley, Vince's Gym. And I saw him doing an exercise, a triceps exercise. And I looked at him and said, what are you doing there? He said, this is for the outside tricep that splits the one head from the other. And I said, this looks like a kind of a Mickey Mouse exercise. Jesus Christ, it doesn't look like some heavy lift of some sort. And he says, well, just try it. So I said to myself, well, the way you try it, the way I tried it in those days was I would do an exercise, 40 sets of 20 reps.

54:01So I was lying there on the bench on my back, taking this dumbbell and going like this 20 times, then take it over to this side, do the same thing over here, same to this arm, back and forth, back and forth like this. the next day, this muscle here was just jumping all over the place. So I realized he was absolutely correct. I never, ever thought of that. There's actually a specific muscle. We always know about sculpting your body that you add more chest or more serratus muscles or obliques or some biceps, but that you can actually dissect it to a specific part of the three muscles. That's why it's called triceps.

54:42There's three muscles there. and one separates the bicep from the tricep and makes it appear, not that measurement-wise it's bigger, but makes it appear much larger. So I was doing that and that exists from that point on. And it just, it was, I said to myself, if I wouldn't have listened to him, I would have never learned that exercise. But I listened to him. I first said to myself, brushed it off. I said, Mickey Mouse, and I said, no, no, no, no. Let's just try it before we kind of like come to the conclusion. And sure enough, so you learn from those kinds of experiences and you then apply this rule with everything.

55:20And so that's why I was always rather more hungry for more information, more hungry for listening rather than talking. Setting aside bias and judgment and replacing it with curiosity and basically trying it yourself, right? Like being an experimenter, being open. Yeah, exactly. And so imagine I talk at great lengths also in a book about how the capital, Sacramento, even though it was a place that I thought... And the people that worked there had no quality because they ran the state into the ground by 2003. and we were bankrupt and there was a huge deficit, a$30,$40 billion deficit and all of that stuff and everything had blackouts and everyone was unhappy.

56:19But when I got there, I realized that there's a lot of things that I can learn because there's so many issues, policy issues I'm not aware of. And so it actually became kind of the greatest university for me. every day I was learning. Imagine you're sitting there and all of a sudden the nurses come in, the nurses' union, and they talk about the patient-nurses ratio. I've never even heard of that. I said, what are they talking about? So they were explaining that it's right now six to one. But, you know, one nurse cannot take care of six patients, especially if you have to lift a patient because they just had surgery.

57:03And you have to lift them and help them up to get to the bathroom. One nurse alone cannot do that. Except if you have a powerlifting champion is a nurse or something like that. That's not the case in every hospital. So they were explaining that. And all of a sudden, someone said, oh, my God, this is like I never thought about that. That is really interesting and fascinating thing. So if we have the budget, we should actually do something about that. The next meeting, an hour later, the prison guards come in. And they talk about the overtime, that they're tired because they don't have enough people working in those prisons.

57:42And that the system is meant for 100 ,000 prisons, but at that point we had 170 ,000 prisoners. So we are overcrowded, overloaded. I had no idea about that. So I learned. And then after the meeting, I got my briefings of what are the options that we can do about it. And then the teachers came. And then law enforcement came. And so all day long, every day was a learning experience. So to me, the things that I learned in Sacramento was just staggering. And so I just felt like not only was I happy that I was able to serve 40 million people and be a public servant, be the governor. But also I became aware of how complicated issues are and how complicated they can be and how much thinking it takes and how much listening that it takes to bring all of the different ideas together to come up with a good conclusion to those kinds of issues and problems.

58:44Yeah, I mean, I think that was surprising for a lot of people. There was a sensibility that you're great in front of the camera, you know how to get out in front and shake hands and smile and do all of that kind of upfront stuff to win the governorship, but governing is a different job altogether. What happens when Arnold's sitting in the chair behind the desk and actually has to do the work and get wonky with the policy stuff? How does that, you know, how's that gonna work with this action star who's an adrenaline junkie, et cetera? And the fact that you actually embrace that and were enthusiastic about what you were learning every single day about how things actually work and then trying to identify solutions was unexpected for a lot of people.

59:30And I think kind of reflecting on that, thinking about like, what is it that makes Arnold different, special? There's lots of answers to that question. But I think one kind of frame that makes sense to me is this interesting combination of two different Arnolds. On the one hand, you are, and you say this in the book, like very much like Julius and twins. You have this wide-eyed, almost childlike sense of awe and wonder where the world is just overflowing with possibility and people are good and anything is possible. But you pair that, I think the talent is where you pair that with this doer who understands having a vision, understands setting goals, work ethic, discipline, reps, like all the practical aspects of translating the dream into reality.

1:00:27And most people fall, it's on a spectrum, but most people kind of fall, you know, far on one side of either of those two things. And somehow you found a way to like marry those. And I think that's what is so potent and unique. Well, interestingly enough, even my wife and she knew me really well she said after i won she says now i'm starting to get concerned yeah because you would come home and say i can't believe what i learned yeah but i mean it's like i said what are you concerned about we won she says well it says that that seems to me is more up your alley. You found an enemy, you go after him with vengeance, like you're doing bodybuilding and then acting and all this kind of stuff.

1:01:17I said, and you go after them and it's like a competition. So I get that. So you were really good at that and you could shift gears and into politics and you could paint this perfect picture of California when you run it and all that stuff. So I said, but now you have to do policy. politics is now being put aside and you have to do policy so i don't know how many hours you can actually sit there and listen to this most boring stuff that is really subtle stuff that you maybe it's not your personality and so she was questioning it and so as time went on she said to me she said i can't believe that you actually like this stuff because i don't even like it she said to me i don't even like it she says but there you sit for hours and hours and then you have follow-up questions then you meet people at night after hours still to learn more about it she says i don't understand i said i somehow you know i i just love the idea of solving those problems and trying to figure out why is it that in austria everyone is insured and in California, the richest state in the union, not everyone is insured.

1:02:38What's going on here? I mean, can we not create a system that is similar to the one in Austria, but with the private sector involved and not government running the whole thing? There must be a way. So we started going on and started tackling this very complicated issue out of nowhere. No one asked me to do that. just trying to figure out how do we create health care in California for everyone and be the first state kind of like along with Massachusetts that has health care reform and where everyone is insured. And so it's just my curiosity was just there. And I asked myself questions about education.

1:03:18Why is it that our education is slipping? Why are our kids not testing as well? Why is their reading ability less than it was 10 years ago? So you get interested in it because only when you understand it and only when you hear the various different opinions, something from the way right to the way left, you need to hear all this. That's why I never looked at anyone as the enemy when I was governor. I looked at the Democrats just as like partners as I did with the Republicans that they agree with sometimes, they disagree with other times and stuff like that. But I always felt kind of you have to all work together because together we can figure out a sweet spot.

1:03:57And he says this, he says this, let's figure out a sweet spot where we can have something of both of those sides come together here. And so that's the way I try to solve the problems. And I got fascinated by all these details. Your governorship was really defined by your ability to reach across the aisle and consensus build with both parties. this sort of allergy to being a party hack and instead hiring a chief of staff who was a Democrat and appointing a diversity of judges and doing all the things that you did leads me to wonder, I mean, it's really a question around leadership and problem solving.

1:04:42Because right now in 2023, feels pretty divided. people are more interested in bickering with each other than solving problems. Reaching across the aisle is seen as a weakness. And as a result, problems don't get solved. So when you look out upon the world, California, the nation, what are you seeing right now in terms of the leadership that we have, the leadership that we deserve that perhaps we're lacking? First of all, let me tell you that I did not experience any of that whenever I went to Washington. I mean, they all talk about it, but every president after Clinton, Clinton put$1.3 billion into the 21st century money, which is for after-school programs.

1:05:44And after that, every president wanted to take it out of the budget. So since I was like the kind of the big deal in the after school program movement, they asked me, the National After School Program Association asked me to go and help them lobby in Washington. So we went back there to lobby the Bush administration. and everyone's talking about that. You're not going to bring them together. They fight over that. You know, the Republicans want to take it out and the Democrats want to keep it in and blah, blah, blah. And I asked them, I said, I found friends and Californians and I said, can you help me bring three senators together from the Democrats and three from the Republicans?

1:06:34And to talk about afterschool programs, I want to just talk to them, have a meeting. And they did. and the same was in the House. They got from, you know, Congress people, men and women, they got together, a whole bunch of them, Democrats and Republicans, and I met with them. I presented my case, told them how important it is to keep these after-school programs, why it was wise, showed them the statistics and the studies that they said for every dollar we spend on an after-school program, we save three to six dollars down the line, and blah, blah, blah. They all shook hands that when the bill comes up and when the debate comes up, that they will fight and they will tell their colleagues to also fight to keep it in the budget.

1:07:29I walked away and I said, for a place that is supposed to be so split and they're fighting all the time, I didn't see that fight. Not in the Senate, not in the House. We then went back in the Obama administration. He wanted to take out the money. We went back again, got again a team together, totally different people now. Again, Democrats and Republicans worked together, and we kept it in. So every single time a president took it out, every time I went back there, I did not see that the Democrats and the Republicans didn't want to work together. I begged them to work together for the sake of the kids I said I'm a Republican I said but this has nothing to do with Republican Democratic kids and Republican kids I said yes the Republicans say that this is like the government is babysitting and all this stuff I understand that I totally agree with you but when it comes to being out on the streets and And being in reality, it doesn't work that way because 80 % of the kids come from homes where both parents are working.

1:08:43So therefore, there couldn't be anyone at home. I said, so let's do it. And they both, with wide eyes, the first time they really heard about someone talking passionately about it. And they voted for it and they kept it in the budget. And even still today, it's in a budget. So all is well in Washington. So no. I'm just saying it needs an approach where you don't villainize. I didn't go in there to villainize the Democrats as a Republican. I says, we Republicans here that are sitting, we have the answer to that, but you guys are always voting no on this shit. So, no, it was not that approach. So it's the approach that you have to take.

1:09:22And I'm talking about, and you ask about leadership, it needs the kind of leadership that has the energy to not worry so much about a specific policy but to first bring the team together. This is what someone has to do in Washington. Do those members. Rally them together. Yes, there will be different ways of thinking and all this stuff, but you've got to rally them together and say, here's why, and make the case of where America needs to go and what we need to accomplish, from immigration reform to health care reform to getting rid of the debt, getting rid of the debt deficit that we have and to solve and to build infrastructure in order to talk about this and to have a strong military that can stand up to the Chinese and to the Russians and to the whole world.

1:10:14And that, that you only can do with Democrats and Republicans together. We cannot do it alone. Republicans cannot do it alone. Then you have a total fuck up where there's just some executive order like they've done. And then Biden runs off with his executive orders, which the next president wipes out again. It's bogus. The only thing that sticks is if Democrats and Republicans come together and they meet in the middle and that they answer to the people rather than to the special interests. And so you need someone that rallies them up, and that's what I'm talking about. That's what it needs because I was back there with my friend Kevin McCarthy.

1:10:54He asked me to talk to his environmentalists. Now, of course, you will laugh because they're Republicans. You say, where are the environmentalists? Well, they are. They maybe don't buy into this climate change. So you don't talk about climate change to these guys. You talk to them about pollution. Because no one can deny pollution. Every Republican I've talked to said, you love pollution? They said, no, are you kidding me? I said, you want to fight pollution? Of course. You want to get rid of pollution? I said, but then we have to get rid of oil and all of this stuff and just build more nuclear plants and more renewable energy.

1:11:32Yeah, I'm on board with that. So it's the way you approach it. You have to find a way in. You have to communicate effectively. You have to understand the needs and desires of the people that you're trying to build consensus with. In the after-school program context, it meant approaching Republicans with an economic argument that this is gonna save money and the Democrats with the idea that it's important, you know, from a democratic sensibility to have government involved in supporting these use. In the environmental context, what you're saying is you can't go with some muddled trope that is not gonna connect with those people.

1:12:13You have to find something that they care about, address that and craft your narrative and your argument around that strategically so that you can build that consensus and that team comes together to actually solve a problem. That's what you're saying. And there's people that's supposed to be the smart people. They don't get it. They keep asking - It goes back to sell, sell, sell. How are you telling this story? That's what it is. It's communicating because we in California, we accomplished all of those environmental laws because we communicated with the people the right way. when we said to the people when it's a hard day don't put the thermostat at 68, put it on 74 and that they were helpful during my administration there was no blackout the blackouts were in the previous administration of the blackouts so we communicated with the people, they were on our side and we said to them, and we have to build renewable we have now 19 % renewable by the time I'm finished I'm going to have 50 % renewable there was no one saying no or anything like this because they realized that's where we need to go.

1:13:22And when the oil companies and the coal companies tried to derail us, we fought them with the help of the American Lung Association to show to the people of California what happens if we keep using oil. That the kids in the Central Valley and all over California are getting asthma at the age of three. And they're very, very sick and they're dying. Is that what we want to do with our kids? And they said, oh, my God, I didn't know that. Instead of talking about climate change 20 years from now or something like that, you and I believe in it. But the majority of people don't understand what it means.

1:14:02So, therefore, let's talk about pollution like Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan established the Air Resources Board in California that actually makes every law that we pass become a reality. So if I say there is a law that is 50 % reduction of fossil fuels, they make it happen. So we said 25 % in 10 years, they made it happen. So this is what Ronald Reagan established under the auspices of, we got to fight pollution. He didn't talk about climate change. So this is why I say that it's just that we have to sell, we have to communicate, we have to include people, we have to bring them in, we have to explain it to them, and not everyone talking in a different direction.

1:14:44And, you know, Biden starts his speech. He says, today I want to talk to you about climate. I said, but what? Wouldn't it be much better today? I want to talk to you about how we can get rid of pollution. Hit the nail on the head. You know, so this is what I'm talking about. I think that's what, when we talk about leadership, that's what we need in Washington now is just to bring people together, communicate the right way, not step on someone's toe, and make them scream, no, just let's figure out things that we can do together. When I went to Sacramento, the first thing we did was we tried to figure out what we can do together.

1:15:21And then we worried about the more difficult stuff that we are in different directions and stuff like that.

1:15:33I want to talk a little bit about your passion for the environment. I imagine that Jim Cameron has been part of that journey for you. And one of the things that is interesting about an aspect of this journey that you're on with this is that you have come out and advocated for people to eat less meat, to have a more plant-based oriented lifestyle. You were involved with the Game Changers movie. So I'm curious around, and I'm sure the bodybuilding community had an interesting reaction to that. I've been plant-based for 16 years at this point and friends with a lot of the people in that movie and very much a part of that movement.

1:16:23So I'm curious around how you got involved in that film and what your diet looks like now. Well, I got involved because of Jim Cameron and the other people that were involved. And they asked me if I wanted to talk about it because they knew that I have mentioned it to Jim Cameron in the past that I have cut back on my meat intake because of in the medical profession, it's very clear that you get away with this shit for so long. and then eventually it starts backfiring. And so they thought that I'm at an age now where I should just cut back because my cholesterol level should come down a little bit and blood pressure and all that.

1:17:13And that's exactly what I did. You know, so I started cutting out. So my diet is pretty much, I would, if I put the percentage on it, I'm pretty good at that. I was around 70%. I cut down my meat intake. and the other 30 % is on it because of my, every so often I, once a month, maybe I make a steak at home. When we watch the UFC fights, it somehow fits together with all the meat up on the screen. Yeah. Even though there is a lot of UFC fighters now that are also vegetable-based. But in any case, it somehow fits together and I like to do it. It's just the process also to actually barbecue. So this is why I said 30 % not and 70 % cut down.

1:18:02Yeah. Yeah. But Jim had a big impact on you. Jim had a big impact on me. In many ways, but yeah. Jim had a big impact on me because he not only confirmed what I told him about health-wise, how much better it is health-wise, but he confirmed that. But he also said that, and don't forget, Arnold, that 25 or 28 % of all the pollution comes from raising livestock. And he says, if we just would cut that out, we would have much less pollution. So from an environmental point of view, it's better. And from a personal point of view, health-wise, so it's healthier for your body and it's healthier for our earth.

1:18:53And so that was his message. And so Jim has never, that I'm aware of, ever said anything to me about anything that wasn't true. When I was governor and I went on, as we usually go, on our motorcycle rides, and we were sitting over there at the rock store, and he said, he says, she wanted to bring out the reverse metering. He says, pay attention to that. I found out when I went to Sacramento, yes, sure enough, that if someone puts solar on their building, let's say for a huge warehouse, and you produce so much electricity because of all this solar that you cover the whole top of the warehouse, that you have spare electricity that you want to send it back to the grid so other people can use it and you get paid for it or get credit for it from the power companies.

1:19:57The power companies just doesn't want that. They don't like that. No. They want to produce their own, which means more fossil fuels and more damage to our earth. So I then started fighting and started really working in that direction so that they do accept reverse metering. So it's things like that that no one would even know what Jim Cameron is talking about. And I immediately picked up on it, but it just shows to you also how smart he is. I mean, especially with technological things and technology and with little details. And he reads a lot and all that stuff. Just so experienced. And so, you know, he was always a great guy to talk to, and I always learned from him a lot.

1:20:46I mean, the other day he came to me, or the other day, the other month, he came to me and he said, you know, I had this stomach problem, and the doctor says, just don't eat for a few days. And I said, okay. So he said, didn't eat for a few days. So the normal wisdom would tell us we run out of energy. He says, would you believe that they had more energy on the set? He says, and as soon as I ate my first meal, he says, my energy dropped. He says, of course, eventually we have to eat. We can't live without food. He says, but the bottom line is that eating lunch when you're on a set does not make you become more energetic.

1:21:39It robs you of energy because the blood all rushes in there. All the blood goes to your digestion. You get tired. And he says, so that's why we have French hours on a set, which means you can eat throughout the day, but there is no more lunch break. because it's a waste of two hours of people's performance. And he's right. He's absolutely right. When I don't eat in the morning, I go to the gym, I work out, and I don't have breakfast and anything like this, comes 12 o 'clock or 1 o 'clock when I do something, I'm so energetic. But as soon as you eat at 9 o 'clock after my workout and after my bike ride, I go home and I sit down and I start reading something like this, I kind of like doze off, right?

1:22:23It's amazing. So he, again, he was right. So I just think that so many things that he has taught me and told me, Jim was always right. Well, to say he's a detail-oriented person is to understate it dramatically. You know, he's somebody who meets you in that place where nothing is going to get in the way of basically achieving your goal at the level that you aspire to achieve it, right? Right. But most people are not wired that way. No. You know, you're walking the earth with a certain like sort of default operating system that other people lack, which maybe makes it easier for you to accomplish your goals, but also perhaps might be frustrating because it's hard not to like want people to kind of be operating on your level.

1:23:16And now you have this book where you're sharing like, here's how I did it. Here's what you can learn from my experience. Here are the principles that kind of created the playing field for me to do all of these things. What is the process from your perspective of trying to get people to grab onto these things and take responsibility? Because you can't engender willingness in another person, right? They either like wanna achieve a goal or they don't and you can give them all the tools and say, do this. but what you can't do is actually instigate them into action. Or maybe you can. How do you think about that?

1:23:54No, no, you can. I know what you're saying, but it is interesting how sometimes people listen to you in an interview or they talk to you in person, and there's something you say, maybe not even intentionally, where they say, that's what did it. that's what triggered something in me that I want to go now and set the goal for myself and do X, Y, and Z. So it can be the artist thing. I myself get motivated a lot of times when I watch something by coincidence or watch a documentary or I hear something. It triggers something and then it motivates you to go in a certain direction. So I think to disregard that it would be a mistake.

1:24:44I think that we have to do everything that we can. And since I, by accident, fell into this thing here, becoming a motivational speaker, because 10 years ago— So it is an accident. Totally an accident. Yeah. Ten years ago when I was doing, or more than that, 15 years ago, when I was doing a commencement speech at USC and they talked about just to motivate the kids when they graduate. Here's my six inner points, my six rules to success. from that point on people kept asking me why don't you do a book why don't you do a book why don't you do a book and I just said I'm not this not the business I'm in but then all of a sudden people that I got in the speaker speaker circuit yeah you know the presidents usually on or ex-presidents I should say and and all of a sudden I'm traveling around and I'm doing speech with Clinton, some in Africa and there and there, and with various different leaders.

1:25:58And everyone is asking me to do a motivational speech, not to talk about policy, not about the environment, not about my governorship or anything, or about bodybuilding. No, a motivational speech. They want to have the six rules or the seven rules or the 10 rules, whatever it takes. They want to know that. And they all say, look, we're having 5 ,000 people from real estate there. Pump them up. We got to get more sales and blah, blah, blah. And so that's all of a sudden I fell into this groove of kind of where people say, you know, this is so motivational what you're saying. This is so great. This is exactly what we needed.

1:26:35Do a book. And then finally I did the book. What is your relationship with it? but like in terms of how it makes you feel, like compared to being the biggest movie star in the world, compared to being governor, compared to winning all those titles as a bodybuilder, you spoke earlier about how you can become addicted to that feeling that you get when you're helping somebody else, right? And this is a very palpable, powerful way of you reaching out to people directly and having that impact on them. Does it feel different than what it felt like when you were governor or when you were doing the big movies?

1:27:18Is it the same, like the gratification that you get from it all? I think it all feels good. Yeah. But I mean, it's also we change. I'm a different person sitting here today than I was when I was 20 years old and I won my first Mr. Universe contest. I can imagine. So to me, that was the most important thing in my life. This was like unbelievable. But then came a day where I stood on that stage and I won Mr. Olympia, even a bigger title than Mr. Universe. I didn't mean anything. I said to myself, these guys that I just beat, they would be much happier with that title than I am. So I'm out of here.

1:28:04And that was it. I quit. and I went into acting. So then all of a sudden that becomes the most important thing to go in the ring a big box office and to have a successful movie and to go from action to comedy and from comedy to action and this and that and to all those kind of things. That becomes the most important thing. But then in 2003 when I finished my promotion for Terminator 3 and they had the recall election here I said to myself This is what I should do. I should run for governor. What the hell is this? This isn't the same thing. Am I going to go now to terminate a 4 and 16 and 20 and Conan 14 or something?

1:28:50Is that what life is about? There must be more than that. So all of a sudden, he started looking for the, what I call the BPD, the bigger and better deal. and decided I was looking for something more spicy, that's more risky, and that it is bigger for me. And to me, I said, politics, that's something that is a new challenge. That could be really great. And I stepped into that arena. So we change and we change. And so what was one time, to me, the most important thing and the most exciting thing, you know, today is not. And so this is now exciting, to be able to motivate people to be better and to go and to fight for the environment and to, you know, promote democracy and to terminate gerrymandering and all these kind of issues to run the Schwarzenegger Institute and to make students, you know, kind of learn firsthand of what it's about to become a leader and all that stuff at the university.

1:30:00So those are the kind of things today that means something to me. So it's an evolution. As I get older and as I get wiser and as I get better and smarter and all of that stuff, things change. I wanna be conscious of your time. I gotta let you go, but perhaps - Thank God. Yeah, I'm gonna get you out of here. Are you bored? No, no. I wanna give you a little like last opportunity for a little shmay. You know, like, what is it that you want people to get out of this book? What do you think is holding people back the most? How are you messaging these people, lighting a fire under their ass, trying to get them pumped up and on a new, better trajectory?

1:30:45You know, this is simply to make people better and to make them recognize that they don't have to get stuck where they are, but they can change. Because every day is an opportunity of change. And so I want them to look at this book and just say, maybe there's something in there that will motivate me to change and to get better, to improve myself. I don't have to get stuck in this. I can shoot for big gores. I want people to be aware of it, that you don't have to shoot for little gores, but you can shoot for big gores, that it is just as difficult to shoot for a little gore than to shoot for a big gore.

1:31:21and I want them to know that they shouldn't be afraid of failure, that this comes naturally in life. There will be failure and there will be successes. The important thing is that we learn from that, but not to be frozen and to fear that. I want them to know that they have to create a vision of where they want to go. Without a vision, there is just nowhere to go. It's just the way it is in life. You would just wander around without a mission, without the joy of chasing something, how much fun it is to chase something. So I want them to learn those basic lessons that makes you just more successful and better.

1:32:01You're speaking my language. Thank you for that. That was beautifully put. You're an international treasure. It meant a lot to me for you to spend time today. So I thank you for that. Thank you. Appreciate it. Keep up all your athletic activities. I'm trying to. Jesus, I mean, it's like amazing. The lower back. The lower back. The guy that can at any given time, walk from my office over to the beach and swim to Hawaii. No, I wish. How many people can do that? I wish, my friend. That's unbelievable. Anyway, you did a great job. Yeah, thanks, man. Keep up the good work, okay? Appreciate it. Be useful, available everywhere.

1:32:39It's gonna be impossible to avoid you, I think, probably in coming weeks. so it's going to be the book is going to be everywhere it's going to be a big success I loved it and appreciate you thank you it was fun writing it thank you

1:32:59that's it for today thank you for listening I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation to learn more about today's guest including links and resources related to everything discussed today visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube and leave a review and or comment.

1:33:43Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. today's show was produced and engineered by jason camiolo with additional audio engineering by kail curtis the video edition of the podcast was created by blake curtis with assistance by our creative director dan drake portraits by davy greenberg graphic and social media assets courtesy of daniel solis thank you georgia whaley for copywriting and website management and of course our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis.

1:34:36Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.

1:35:03Thank you.