#696: Be Useful — Arnold Schwarzenegger on 7 Tools for Life, Thinking Big, Building Resilience, Processing Grief, and More

25:52It made me create a vision, a necessary vision. This is what I want to do. I want to get to America. I have to become a bodybuilding champion. I have to get away from home. I had to find my new father figure. My father was great to be the father, the official father, but there were others. The trainer in the weightlifting club, Kurt Manuel and Mui, there was a guy that Kurt Naro that we also knew. that was in his 40s and 50s that became a father figure, very smart guy that spoke English and was very worldly. And then there was a Jewish fellow there that became our kind of mentor and helped us with the weightlifting club.

26:30So this all became kind of my new father figures in the way. And then eventually Joe Weedow and I came to America. And all of these people I looked up right over as an idol because they would treat me in a better way. And they would educate me and they would really usher me along and nurture me along. But I never really resented my father because of it. I always kind of felt that he served a really extraordinary purpose for me, not for my brother, but for me, which means to get me to America, become a great champion, to have that will, be able to work no matter how many hours it takes, to do no matter what it takes, and do not shy away from misery or from pain or from obstacles or from falling down and having to get up again and crawl on all four from nothing.

27:21That was the power and the strength my father gave me. And so I always kind of appreciated that. And nothing comes in the perfect package because I knew that if he would have given me all the love and if he would have not done none of that, and if I would have had all the money in the world, I would have not grown up as tough. and I would not have been able to accomplish what I did coming to America and becoming this world bodybuilding champion and do all the things that I was doing. It was all because of that upbringing. And so when I look at, for instance, my in-laws, you know, when I see those kids, they're very smart kids in the Kennedy family, but I always felt kind of like they couldn't have grown up like Maria or Maria's brothers or anyone around them, they couldn't have grown up.

28:10Or my children couldn't grow up with the same desire and the same hunger, but they can get other qualities. So that's the key thing to focus on that. But I mean, you could never have that quality of hunger and desire and deep insight, kind of like reach, being able to reach inside no matter what it takes. So let's talk about one of the rules. Never think small. You seem like the walking archetype of not thinking small. You've lived multiple lifetimes compared to most people. How would you suggest people think of never think small or what stories come to mind that from your life exemplify that?

28:50Just the very beginning. I mean, for me to go and say, I want to compete in the junior Mr. Europe competition rather than just in the Mr. Austria competition, I trained just as hard as everyone else in the gym, their goal was just smaller. They said, I want to be Mr. Austria. And I said, I want to be Mr. Europe. So I'm going to start with Mr. Junior, Junior, Mr. Europe, the best built man of Europe. I'm going to go to this competition. And I was thinking bigger and I was training as hard as they were. Everything was the same. But then when I won that competition, because I had a very clear vision, that's what I want to win.

29:23That immediately launched me into getting a job, become a trainer in Munich in a bodybuilding gymnasium. Now imagine how in heaven is that? You're a young bodybuilder, you're 18 years old, you just won your first international competition, you win some local competitions in Austria, you win some powerlifting competitions, some weightlifting competitions, but now you're a junior Mr. Europe and you have this trophy. and now you're getting a job to train in the second biggest gym in Munich. So that was like absolute heaven. So with 19, I started training, become the trainer in the gym. So now I had the opportunity to train day and night.

30:07When I wake up because I was sleeping in the gym, I was waking up and I was training. I was taking a nap in the afternoon. I was training before going to sleep at night after dinner. I was training. I was training day and night. So this is a dream. But it was all because I felt big. They were still stuck working for some bathhouse in Austria or for the government or being a trash collector or being a teacher or something like that. They were still stuck in the same job. I was already moving on to Munich, and I was already a trainer in a bodybuilding gymnasium, making this the launch pad to America, which was my ultimate dream.

30:47So this is what I'm saying. So it didn't take more work to think big. It's just thinking big makes you bigger. And what my point is, it takes just as much effort. And I learned, again, from bodybuilding, from that kind of thing, I learned that don't hold back. So when I went within the age of 19, I was the youngest Mr. Universe competitor. I competed in a Mr. Universe contest. I placed second. I placed runner-up. so that a year later I went back with the age of 20 and won Mr. Universe, the youngest Mr. Universe ever. But this is all because I was thinking big. I wasn't saying, oh, maybe in a few years from now I'll go there or I shouldn't go there right now or something, or it's too early or it is.

31:28And then it's just sort of thinking right away, I'm going to go for the second Mr. Universe next year. I'm going to go to America. I'm going to go and make Joe Weider aware of me and make sure that I win another competition. So I was driven bigger and bigger and bigger. And even when I got into acting, I didn't look at it as kind of like I'm going to get some character roles. I wasn't interested in character roles. I wanted to be another Steve Reeves or Reg Park. They were the stars of the Hercules movies. Clint Eastwood was the star. We always Clint Eastwood, you know, in A Fistful of Dollars.

32:01Clint Eastwood in A Few Dollars More. Clint Eastwood in this movie. Whatever it was, it was like, that's what I wanted. Charles Bronson, I want to be like Charles Bronson. I want to be like Warren Beatty. I want to be like those guys. They were the top stars. And that's what I saw myself. And they said, well, this ladder is very hard to build or to climb up to. I said, well, then I built my own ladder. I built my own ladder. And then I know exactly how to get up there. That's exactly what I did. I created my own way of getting up there. I took five hours that I learned in bodybuilding. I took five hours every day of working my ass off to train and to train and to train.

32:41and to pose and to pose and to do all the stuff that I needed to do. I said, I'm going to do the same five hours, but I'm going to go and learn English. I'm going to learn acting, speech lessons, voice lessons, accent-removed lessons. Well, I should get my money back for those. But in any case, I took all of those lessons one hour every day, and I was grinding it out. And then I remember eventually it happened. People started hiring me. and the great thing was that i felt that i should not be financially vulnerable so i first got into real estate and i worked my ass off in real estate my first million actually made in real estate before i really got into acting and that helped me because now when they came to me with stupid parts they said do you want to play a bouncer i said fuck no why would i play a bouncer they said well what about a nazi officer you have a great if the german accent they said no i don't want to be a Nazi officer.

33:39I said, I want to be a star. I want to be a leading man. I want to get rich and famous. Just looking at these Charles Bronson. And they said, you're crazy. It would never happen. Well, I applied the other rule, which is don't listen to the naysayers. So I worked my ass off. I did exactly what I did in the bodybuilding. I did in the movies. Eventually it happened. I started doing the Jane Mansfield story. I started doing it with Kirk Douglas and Anne Margaret, the villain. I was doing Streets of San Francisco. I was doing Stay Hungry and Pumping Iron, all in the 70s, and even with Lucille Ball, doing Happy Anniversary and Goodbye.

34:18So I did all of those kind of things. And then that led to the big roar. And now I've arrived starring Roar and Conan the Barbarian. You know, when John Millius saw me, he says, if we wouldn't have Schwarzenegger, we would have had to build one. So all of a sudden, the body that everyone said would never, ever become famous in the movies, because the movies, no one is seeing muscle movies anymore, all of the opposite came true. The accent became very welcome when they did Terminator. They loved the German accent. They were what Jim Cameron called. Schwarzenegger is talking like a machine. That's why it worked, the Terminator.

35:00So things like that. So all of a sudden, the things that they said would never make it in Hollywood, the accent, the name, the body, all of the things became big pluses, and it made it. So that's my own ladder that I built. That's why it's important. You know, don't just worry about climbing a ladder that someone else has built. No, build your own ladder. You know, just don't wait for anyone else. So that's what I did. I want to underscore a few things for folks. number one the building of the ladder was not many ladders was not haphazard it was systematic so you had the real estate as a financial buffer which gave you then the ability to pick your shots and you've been very good at doubling down on betting on yourself in many different areas but could you speak to twins and what that looked like with that particular film to bet on yourself well twins was kind of like a little bit out of nowhere because i had certain goals but comedy was not one of my goals when i got into movies and i felt like that i can be funny in the movies you know in conan there were funny moments and all that stuff but only when i started doing one action movie after the next you know my hunger you know the whole philosophy of staying hungry kind of came out a little bit.

36:25I said, I wonder if you ever could sell the idea of me doing a comedy. Then all of a sudden, I started getting obsessed with the idea. I started talking to everyone. I said, have you ever thought about me doing a comedy? Of course, every studio executive said, are you crazy? I mean, what do you think? I'm making now millions of dollars of you being an action hero. We finally built you up to be this international action hero, not only in America, but all over the world. Why would I go and start spending money on something else that is not sure? I love the action movies. We're going to give you all the scripts for action movies.

36:57And so I said, yeah, but I understand. But what about me doing an action movie for you, and then the next one we do is a comedy? No, why would I do that? You tell me. I mean, would you do it? I said, yeah. I said, but here's the thing what we need to do. So then when we finally formed a partnership, Danny DeVito, Ivan Reitman, and myself, we got together and said, you know, I can sympathize with the studio. Why would they take the risk? For what? Why don't we all take a risk? Why don't we go to them and say, instead of us getting the big salaries, why don't we just say we do the movie for nothing?

37:31Just give us a back end. You don't have to pay us any salary whatsoever. If the production costs$16.5 million, that's all you use. Not one penny more for us. Fuck us. Don't worry about us at all. We have plenty of money. And if the movie goes in the toilet, we all go in the toilet. Everyone takes the risks. Not just you, the studio. Wouldn't be fair, would it? They said, hey, this is my thinking. So what do you want in return? They said, all we want is just, you give us three, 37.5 % of ownership of the movie, and then we all go to the bank together. If the movie goes to the roof, we all make money.

38:14If the movie goes to the toilet, none of us make money. They said, we are in. That's exactly what we did. And it happened to be with Ivan Reitman's genius directing and with Danny DeVito, kind of great, great acting, and everyone else around us, Kelly Preston and everyone else, and me being involved, we made the movie a huge hit. As a matter of fact, that movie made more money than any action movie made up until that point for me. So my action movies went always to like$70,$80 million, and that movie made$128 million domestically. and worldwide$250 million. So now imagine the budget being$16.5 million and your box office is$250 million.

39:01So now we own 37.5, almost 40 % of that chunk. So we all cleaned house. It was so fucking funny to go around. As a matter of fact, Tom Pollard, who was a fantastic studio leader, a great producer and lawyer, he after the deal he just basically said he went around the desk in his office and he bent over and pulled out his pockets and says you guys fucked me and robbed me blind and so it was like we all were laughing because we all were very good friends and he was right i mean like it really because they were so worried about the risk taking that we said we take the risk and sure enough we did and the risk paid off and so we just really cleaned the house so i made like i think 70 million dollars on twins or something like that on the end and danny made a forge that he bought two houses and built two houses so we all got kind of a lot of money and ivan reitman and so those were deals that we did then in the future with kindergarten cop we did it with junior we did it so it became a model that no one is going to do today anymore the studios got smarter than but anyways it was like historic kind of deals but i had the confidence that i could pull it off and ivan had the confidence and danny had the confidence and so together we all did it and universal studio then had the confidence and they promoted it really well we hired any libowitz to do the photo shoot and she took us on top of a bus against the blue sky and just photographed Dan and me leaning against each other, and that became the poster.

40:40And it was like really genius. So everyone kind of worked together to make this a brilliant movie and a successful movie.

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41:46There are already nearly half a million people using Wealthfront to save more, earn more, and build long-term wealth. So why wait? Visit Wealthfront.com slash Tim to get started. That's Wealthfront.com slash Tim. This was a paid endorsement by Wealthfront. why have an entire chapter slash rule dedicated to sell sell sell because for a lot of people they think of selling as a dirty thing i don't happen to think of it that way but why is this so critical that sell sell sell would be one of the primary sections in the book you can imagine the reason why i called it sell sell sell is because it does raise eyebrows but it does make people say wait a minute selling normally is a no-no i mean if you think about it most of the actors in the 70s and 80s refuse to sell the movies they say this is not my job i'm an artist i don't sell i'm not a salesman out there and all this stuff and i this was my strength because i started selling you know when i was in career education i started to be a salesman And so I realized then the importance of selling that no matter what you have, if you have a podcast, if you have a movie, if you have a painting, if you have a car, a technology, a medicine, whatever it is, if people don't know about it, you have nothing.

43:12The more people that know about your product or about your talent, the more you can go and be successful. So therefore, this idea of selling, publicizing, marketing, communicating, convincing, all of those kind of things is an art. and there's odd agencies that make millions and millions of dollars to just figure out what the language should be in order to really sell to the right people and have the right customers and sell a product the right way. So it's an art to do that. And I've learned it way back when I was 15 years old and I learned how to sell. I remember when my boss said to me, now look at, watch me carefully when I sell.

43:55There's this couple coming in. So this couple comes in. I work in a store that had wood brada and it was like a lumber yard, did kind of hardware store. It was kind of like a hardware store type of a thing. So this couple comes in, they wanted to have tiles. And so immediately the guy started talking, my boss started talking to the guy and said, what kind of tiles do you want? Do you want the black tiles or pink tiles or white tiles? And the guy said, this is, well, I don't know. So the woman said, we want white tiles. And for the bathroom, we want to have pink tiles. And so the guy looked at her and he says, I said, okay, fine, let me take you over there.

44:31He said, how much tile do you need? Again, the man didn't answer and the woman answered. And she says, oh, I need something to make. I've written down the measurements here. I need two meters by a meter 80 tall and blah, blah, blah. And so the guy then all of a sudden realized that she's the customer. So he started really paying attention to her and asking all the questions and thinking around, but included him also. And then in the end, when they were satisfied and we wrote up the order and we then, And I told him that it will be all delivered on Thursday. He came to me after they left. They said, so what did you learn?

45:05I said, well, I said, did you really sold the tiles well and the colors and the difference between real tiles and fake tiles and all this? He says, no, no, but there was one other thing. I switched who I thought was the customer. He says she was the customer, not him. He paid for it, but she was the customer. So I had to talk and address her because that was the important thing. she needed to be convinced. So I had to sell to her. And so I realized then that selling is an art, that you have to improvise and adjust all the time. That if you go in front of a children audience, for instance, you have to speak a totally different language when I talk in a class, in a school, in after-school programs than I talk in Washington when I talk to legislators.

45:50I have to talk differently when I talk to a crowd of fans at the movie theater than to talk to a bunch of lobbyists. So it's always different. So you have to learn the art of selling. And this is why selling is so important. And I remember that when Andy Warhol, when I was being painted in his warehouse down in Soho, and Jamie Wiles was there, and Andy Warhol was there, and he always talked about that the most important thing is that you don't just sell the art, but you sell yourself. You have to sell yourself. You have to become an interesting person with what parties you go to, who you hang out with, the photos that you take, the recordings that you make, the magazine that you publish.

46:34And all of this together, he says, makes me a character and makes people fascinated to write about me. And therefore, they write about my art. And sure enough, it worked. Because in no time, Andy Warhol's art became worth millions and millions of dollars. I used to buy it for$50 ,000,$30 ,000. I have the big Indian that is hanging in my office that is now$10,$15 million. I bought for$30 ,000. So imagine the value that Andy Warhol gained by being just a character, a different character, and being just strange that people with a wig on it and with glasses and all of these different things. He ran around with a little tape recorder.

47:17And he, by the way, was a great promoter of mine. What is the significance of shifting gears? I mean, people can think of it, of course, in an automotive capacity, but shift gears, what does that mean to you? And are there any particular stories that stand out? I talked about it earlier. You wake up from a surgery that you think is two hours, they replace your heart valve, and then someone tells you, we poke through your heart wall, and you now have been out for 16 hours, and now you have to stay here seven days. You're not out of the woods yet. you know we have to do everything we can to keep you alive and uh you know you almost died on the operating table and it could still happen next night if you don't really get going with the walking and if you get pneumonia so that you have to shift gears very quickly i usually call it the art of improvisation you know that you have to be very good in improvising because there's a lot of things that come up to you in life but you have to be really good in improvising and this happened to me all the time when I was governor I had to quickly shift gears it happened also in show business where you have to shift gears the unexpected is happening and you have to be kind of like ready for that and confront that I mean that's the most important thing it's just so many people get stuck on certain things on the track and they then cannot get off that track I just always felt like I was very good in shifting gears like going from body building to show business.

48:46I mean, you really had to shift gears because all of a sudden certain other things became important. I mean, think about it. You go and you do bodybuilding. Every athlete always tells you that you got to go and keep the motions out of the way because it's the emotions that kind of kill you. You cannot go train and compete and train for a competition for a world championship or the Olympic games or whatever it is and be emotionally involved in whatever it is because he can derail you. So you do that. And I've become a master in that. I became like quarter stone. But then all of a sudden, you go and you start taking acting classes.

49:25And you start hearing from the acting teacher, Arnold, you talk like a fucking cold fish. I mean, there's no emotions there. I got to go and find your emotions. So think about that for a second. All your life long you hear now that this is like bad. And now all of a sudden you hear you have to be more emotional. You have to be in touch with your emotions. Have you thought about lately the smell of a rose? I said, the smell of what? A rose. He says, a rose smells a certain way. It's a beautiful smell. He says, what does this have to do with acting? He says, ah. He says, if you sit there in the scene and you start thinking about that, smell of a rose you have a totally different facial expression you close your eyes let's assume that you want to compliment the woman the perfume she wears you can't go and say I like your perfume stupid but if you go and say what are you wearing oh it smells wonderful I mean you have good taste he says that's a totally different tone he says it would change your voice If you smell the rose, it will change your voice.

50:44But you only can do that if you really smell it and be in touch with that. So that's what I'm talking about, shifting gears very quickly. So from one year to the next, I had to kind of all of a sudden have all the emotions kick in and make everything work that didn't really work in the past. I'm curious to ask you about how that reaccessing of emotion maybe has informed how you experience grief yourself. Since we last spoke, you lost Franco, Franco Colombo. And I'm just wondering what that grief was like for you to experience. I have to say I react a little bit differently to those kind of things than everyone else, because to me it's not so much the shock as it is the ongoing missing a person.

51:34Because there are certain friends that have become part of you. And so if they pass away and they die, something dies in you. And so when I imagine every day when I walk into my living room and I see this chess board where Frank and I played chess in the last 10 years, two, three times a week, and drank wine, smoked a stogie, and just talked. And they talked like 65 and 70-year-olds talk rather than the way 20-year-olds talk, you know, like in the old days. And because Frank, I've known since I was 18 years old. so then our conversations were differently than they were as of the last 10 years where we talk about kids where we talk about family where we talk about that we grew up and about the past anymore kind of like deeper conversations and more emotional conversations and now we're sitting every day when you walk into your living room you see this chess table down the corner but Franco is not sitting there anymore and that to me you know is heartbreaking and when I go to the gym and I drive down with the bicycle and Franco came on the bicycle he was not good in bicycle riding he was all over the place that was funny and I had people sometimes videotape him you know just to show how goofy he looks on a bicycle I think the bike seat was maybe too high up or we couldn't know whatever the problem was it was just hilarious because he was in a 5-3 according to him.

53:08I think it was 5-1 or 5-2 the most. But anyway, he always said 5-3. And then working out with him, the fun of working out with him. Then I had him in so many movies. I remember when I directed the movie, The Switch, for Tales of the Crypt. I had him in there. In Conan the Barbarian, I had him in there. In Terminator, I had him in there. I had him in all those movies in there. So he was just, he became, you know, kind of part of me. So to me, it's not just the initial shock when someone tells you, oh, Franco just passed away on a beach in Sardinia. It is also then a daily thing, a weekly thing.

53:48Every time I go to the Arnold Classic and we hand out, I have a trophy that is the Franco Colombo posing trophy, or most muscular man trophy. And we hand those out. And there will be Franco's body on it that I got made by a really great Italian sculptor, the double bicep pose and the double bicep pose intentionally because Franco was really never known for his biceps because he was known, he had such overpowering back his lats his chest, his deltoids it was so overpowering that people sometimes didn't even see the arms so I on purpose wanted to do a double bicep pose so in the future People also remember him for his biceps.

54:36But it's just a great, great sculpture. So to me, Franco will live on forever. So is Joe Weider, you know, and Ben Weider, and Dave Craper, and Sergio Oliver, and Bill Pearl, and Reg Park. To me, I see them all sitting in front of me when there's the Arnold Classic. And I see them all sitting there laughing and having a great time and watching the Arnold Classic and watching how bodybuilding is progressing, how the cash prices are going up, how we have bigger and bigger sponsors, how we have a bigger and bigger convention and expo and all of this, how they enjoy all that. So that's what I see out there now.

55:13But it's kind of like, you know, it's in between kind of like, should I have tears in my eyes when I'm out there and looking at all those faces of those bodybuilding champions and promoters of bodybuilding or should I smile? It's this combination. I would love to get your thoughts on aging and relating to aging because a lot of people struggle with relating or thinking about aging. I, for the first time in the last nine months, have had chronic pain for the first time due to a spinal issue, which is the first time in my life I've ever experienced that. And I'm wondering if you could share anything about what you've learned or decided with respect to aging, just getting older, as we all do.

55:56You know, the first time at all I experienced something similar to that is when I had my open heart surgery. I was not even 50 years old. I was, it was in April and in July I'm 50. So it was just a few months before I was 50. And it was the first time where I woke up after two heart surgeries. The first one didn't work, so they did the second one within 48 hours. And after that, I felt like I was damaged goods. I didn't feel any more like invincible. I didn't feel like I can handle anything. All of a sudden, there were limits put on me where the doctor said, don't train as heavy. Every time you force your reps, you put pressure on your valve unnecessarily.

56:44We have to replace those valves again in maybe 10, 15 years from now. So the more you put pressure on it, the faster we will have to. It's like a tire, 30 ,000 miles per tire. You can use it up in one year. You can use it up in 20 years. So it's up to you. You know, it's that kind of a thing. So it was the first time where I started thinking about when I did stunts. I remembered that right after that was a stunt in end of days where the woman that was possessed by the devil takes the piano and runs it against my chest, wanted to kill me. so and normally you can run a piano into my chest doesn't make any fucking difference i don't care right but because of the heart surgery and having been now cut open in the chest i did not know how vulnerable that rib cage is so i told them to measure out the distance with a rope and then the rope comes to an end and it stops an eighth or quarter of an inch before my chest so it looks still like it's smashing for him and I still sell it but it's like you start planning on your vulnerability and this then continues on because all of a sudden you know you used to kind of hop upstairs and hop downstairs in a squatting position to just get out of breath so that when you start a scene you're exhausted you know like you're cutting in in the middle of a fight scene so that you're and you have to big breath so all of a sudden you start jumping up and down and your knees start hurting so now you realize okay between 50 and 60 it's the knee punishment so i have to watch my knees then after you're 70 you said for the first time saying you know i've I noticed myself walking less.

58:42Why am I walking less? I used to love hiking four or five hours up the steep mountain and all of this I love. Why am I walking less? Then I realized that I got back pain. When I walked a long time, I started getting cramps in my back. So I started walking less. So I started doing stretching exercises for the back. And so things like that start creeping up. Then you have to start kind of really be disciplined and say, okay, I still have to walk so many miles a day, too many steps a day, and blah, blah, blah. But now you have to make yourself what came normally natural. So you get kind of like one thing after the next.

59:21Then you have shoulder surgeries on both shoulders. Then like yesterday, I had elbow surgery because my nerve had to be kind of relocated because where the nerve was, it created pressure on my nerve. and therefore my little fingers started getting numb. So now that comes in. That's in the late 70s. It's always that. It's a bit of nerves. And someone talks to you about neuropathy, about your legs and feet. And this is how it just creeps up on you, all this stuff. And the interesting thing is it's like weightlifting. It doesn't matter how old you are or how young you are. It doesn't matter how rich you are.

1:00:04It doesn't matter what color you are. it doesn't matter from where you're from 200 pounds is 200 pounds it's the same fucking thing for everybody and the same is also you get older it makes no fucking difference who you are you can be the biggest fucking celebrity in the world but you still get your back pain you still get your hip pain you still get your shoulder pain you still get your elbow pain you still get numb fingers you still have to watch your heart you still have to watch the diet you still get fat if you don't watch the diet. If you eat three times a day, a full meal, you get fat. You have to cut one meal out.

1:00:42All of this kind of stuff you have to start doing. So it's just that simple. And this is all kind of so that we stay alive longer and that we kind of like, because we all are, the time you're born, your time clock is set. It's set. The only thing that changes it is you, right? So let's assume I'm set for 85. so I can decide do I want to go to 90 yeah I can do that but then I have to live really healthy someone else is set for 90 you can live to 100 but you can stretch it a little bit and you can also fuck it up big time you can be set for 85 and you wipe up with 70 you know my dad wiped out with 66 he was in pension for one year and then he wiped out he died because of too much smoking and alcohol and all of those things.

1:01:35So he cut himself short. He maybe was meant to be 80, but he definitely wiped out with a 66. So my mother, you know, she died with 76. Well, she did it herself because, I mean, she had a congenital heart disease, which is what I have, which is the valve. But she had the choice to get surgery or not. She says, no, if God wants me, he should have me. And so she resisted any surgery. There are some people, when you watch the shows in Sardinia, they live to 100 because they have no problems. They sleep in the afternoon. They take their naps. They eat well. They walk around for miles and miles every day.

1:02:19They still walk and work. The women are still in the kitchen with the age of 90, making food for the whole family and all this stuff. So they push it. They pushed the envelope beyond what they were meant for. So this is the way we can do it. But, I mean, I think there is a reason when you get to a certain age to be concerned about it. I don't know if it's the age that you're in now. You're still a young punk. I can hope. For your whole life, you could be my grandson.

1:02:55So you've been an athlete, as it was laid out in the three chapters in the miniseries, athlete, actor, American, right? You've had this arc. How do you think of yourself now? What is your identity now? And how do you hope to use the time that you have left? Because of course, you have this book, Be Useful, Seven Tools for Life. You have the newsletter, which has done very well you have more than half a million people for pump club you have the pump app how do you think of yourself now and and what do you want to focus on in the next 10 years if you have let's say 10 years left something like that well i don't really think of myself now any different than i thought of myself when i was governor when i thought of myself as an actor there was a bodybuilder.

1:03:43You know, I'm very rarely in the moment of where I just appreciate what I'm doing right now because I always think about the future. You know, I don't like the past. I appreciate the presence, but I really live for the future. I always just live about where I want to go. There's a lot of things I want to accomplish environmentally. There's a lot of things that I want to accomplish when it comes to public policy. There's a lot of things I want to accomplish in show business. There's a lot of things that I want to accomplish and the promotion of health and fitness and bodybuilding. So all of those different worlds, I hopefully can manage to combine them and create a certain synergy so that one can help from the other, so the bodybuilding can help from the show business, my success in show business, that the show business can get help with the success of the fitness movement.

1:04:32Then my newsletter that I have, which is going through the roof right now, the pump club all that is kind of like playing into this whole thing i'm very happy that all of a sudden now it's kind of like an unexpected new era for me which is the era of motivational speeches the era of motivational books the era of motivational newsletters i mean not in my wildest dreams to ever think about they don't want to create a positive corner in a an internet and And it was only because there was just so much negativity out there, I started thinking about, well, maybe I should say some nice things and some positive things.

1:05:10And it became a huge hit beyond my expectation. And so I now, I do speeches every so often. If it's the Ukrainian war, the Russian war in Ukraine, or if it's the insurrection, or if it is prejudice, or whatever the issues are, I tackle those. So as I said to you earlier, I'm the guy that climbs out Mount Everest and sees another a bunch of peaks and therefore I say oh my god I didn't even know they were there and I climbed them and so that's what I do this is a continuous climb nothing changes I've climbed with 20 I'm climbing now what do you hope the impact of be useful will be what would you hope people to gain from it or use it for everyone will use it for something else I think that the whole thing is about helping people live a better life and be able to fulfill their dreams, whatever those dreams are.

1:06:07You know, it's just simple things like don't listen to the naysayers or create a vision. And I know that because I asked my kids when they were like 18, 19 years old, what do you want to do? Why do you want to go to college? They couldn't answer me. Well, I could answer the question when I was 18, 19, you know? And so I'm concerned about that because I said to myself, they're looking too much in the computer, too much on the iPhone and on the iPad, and they get ideas from someone else, but this is their ideas, but not their ideas, but my kids' ideas. They need to be by themselves and sit in the jacuzzi or sit somewhere on a mountain or out there by themselves.

1:06:41It's that thinking. Let the dreams come into your mind. Let your deep inside come out and give yourself time. Don't always look at the machine. and so I'm trying to tell people there's a simple rules that I talk about in the book where you kind of learn you know that here's how I create a goal because without a goal without a vision you have nothing where are you going to go you know it's like you have an airplane pilot that doesn't know where to fly and here's the best airplane you can fly around around around and eventually crash that's what happens to you in your life you crash you're not going to go anywhere So you need to have a direction.

1:07:22You need to have a goal. Why you get up in the morning? What do you struggle towards? What it is? Why are you happy to go to bed at night? Did you need some rest to get up in the next morning and have that energy again? All of this has to have purpose. There has to be purpose. So this is what I try to do is kindle a little bit of this light in my book and say to people in a casual way, you know, have a goal. Here's how you can do it. This is how I did it, you know, and then big goals. Don't be afraid of big gorses. You know, big gorses are just as easy as little gorses. And by the way, I know that every human being is afraid of failure.

1:07:58But you can overcome that, you know, by accepting failure. You know, we in bodybuilding, we go and do a failure with our reps. So every single day when we train, we experience failure. We're not afraid of it. because like Muhammad Ali said they say hey how many reps do you do in sit ups he says I don't start counting until it starts hurting I start failing that's when I start counting so I mean in lifting you can only know how much you lift if you're willing to fail so Michael Jordan when he talked about his 5 ,000 shots that he missed in basketball and how many 280 some games he missed in basketball and all of this stuff that's what made me great Well, wow, that's an eye-opener.

1:08:44You know, when you hear that, that's really powerful. The greatest basketball player talks about failure that made him great. So people should look at that. They should start thinking about that. Don't start approaching everything with, oh, I'm afraid. What is if I fail? What is if he doesn't like it? What if I make a fool of myself? You know, it's people afraid of speaking, public speaking. is the biggest fear that people have because they're worried that they may fail or sound stupid and stuff like that. Forget all that. Better get rid of all of this worry about failure and you will be then free.

1:09:20And I'm not saying you will be able to get rid of it completely. You can never change 100%, but you can change somewhat so that you're not as afraid anymore of failure and that you're actually looking forward to that and that you're saying, okay, I'm going to go all out and do a fail. You know, that you approach it differently the way you look at failure. And look, I've always pushed myself, what do you think when you run for governor? I mean, it would be the highest embarrassment if you would have lost, right? But I took the chance. I was not afraid of failure. I could see my vision very clearly.

1:09:52This is how I'm going to sell to the California people what I'm going to do for Californians. And that's how I'm going to approach the governorship and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, if they buy in, great. If they don't, then they're lost. Then they move on with something else. but I'm not going to freeze now and say, oh my God, but if I lose, but then I would have never run in the first place if I would be afraid to run, right? So you never know how far it's going to take you. So I think simple rules like that, I wanted to have those people take away those rules and, or for instance, giving back.

1:10:25As soon as you realize that you're not a self-made man and you realize that we all were created by your parents and that you were created by mentors, us, teachers, coaches, and many other people that none of us know, but you yourself know. I mean, those are the people that have created me. I mean, just alone, if I wouldn't have had Joe Weider to bring me over to America, how could I have come to America? So how can I say I was self-made? How could I have become governor if not 8.5, 5.8 million people voted for me? I mean, I'm not a dictator. I was voted in through the democratic process. So did I make myself governor?

1:11:05No. So I'm not a self-made man. So I have to recognize that my training, my money, everything comes from a lot of different people. And therefore, that means when you recognize that, that you now have the responsibility of going out and help others. There are so many people out there that need help. And it's like my father-in-law said, Sergeant Shriver, who created the Peace Corps, Head Start, Job Corps, and all these great programs in the 60s. He said to a bunch of Yale students at a graduation class, he said, tear down this mirror that you always look at yourself. Tear down this mirror and you will be able to look beyond that mirror.

1:11:48And you will see the millions of people that need your help. That's exactly right. as soon as we start for a minute looking at ourselves then you will be able to look beyond yourself and you see that there are people out there that need help, there are poor people out there that need help, there are fire victims right now out there that need your help, there are earthquake victims out there, there are homeless people out there, there are war veterans out there, there are kids that come from poor backgrounds that need to learn how to speak English how to write English, how to do math and all of the stuff that's immigrants that don't even speak English.

1:12:23So there's so many areas where you can be helpful that takes money or takes no money, just effort. So never, ever think it's all just about you. Someone helped you where you are today. So now you go out and help someone else. So this is another one of my lessons is just, you know, break that mirror in front of you. So these are the different lessons that I teach people that really had a profound impact than me and made me successful. And the no bullshit rules and anyone can follow it. That's what it is. So people can find the new book, Be Useful, Seven Tools for Life. Anywhere fine books are sold.

1:13:02They can go to beusefulbook.com. The newsletter can be found at arnoldspumpclub.com. And we'll link to all this in the show notes at tim.blog slash podcast. Arnold, is there anything else that you would like to say? Any closing comments or other requests of the audience suggestions anything at all that you'd like to add before we come to a close no no i just want to say to the people i want to thank them for having been such great supporters of mine you know without them as i said earlier i will be nothing i mean if it wouldn't have been for the bodybuilding fans as i grew up they were cheering there and screaming arnold arnold motivated me i will be nothing if it wouldn't have been for the movie fans that went to run to see conan the paperian made it the number one box office that then gave me all the headlines i would have been nothing all the jim camerons and the ivan reitmans and all of these people and the people that are now following my newsletter the pump club and all of this people that are even interested in a book like be useful and they go to my seminars and listen to my speeches my motivational speeches i just really love that i have had such an extraordinary following and that some of my speeches have reached like 35 and a half, 6 billion people.

1:14:18That's really extraordinary. So I want to say thank you. Without them, I will be nothing. And thank you to America for giving me everything. Thank you, Arnold, for the time yet again. Absolutely. Thank you, Tim. You did a great job. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.

1:14:53It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.

1:15:30If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I view AG1 as comprehensive nutritional insurance and that is nothing new. I actually recommended AG1 in my 2010 bestseller, more than a decade ago, the four-hour body, and I did not get paid to do so. I simply loved the product and felt like it was the ultimate nutritionally dense supplement that you could use conveniently while on the run, which is, for me, a lot of the time.

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1:17:39So each morning, AG1. That's just like brushing my teeth, part of the routine. It's also NSF certified for sports, so professional athletes trust it to be safe. And each pouch of AG1 contains exactly what is on the label, does not contain harmful levels of microbes or heavy metals and is free of 280-band substances. It's the ultimate nutritional supplement in one easy scoop. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim.

1:18:18That's drink AG1, the number one. drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all that ad nauseum. But now I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device is recommended to me by friends called the pod cover by eight sleep the pod cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment providing the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep with the pod covers dual zone temperature control you and your partner can set your sides of the bed to as cool as 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees i think generally in my experience my partners prefer the high side and i like to sleep very very cool.

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