Speaker 1: Failures make us learn, Failures make you stronger. Pain makes
Speaker 1: you stronger. Everyone in the world knows Arnold Fortnegger.
Speaker 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger has been an A lister and the other.
Speaker 1: One of the most famous ill beings on earth. For
Speaker 1: most from his wife.
Speaker 2: We've entered your mind. That's what it feels like.
Speaker 1: If you don't know where you want to go, who
Speaker 1: you want to be, You eventually just float around. Then
Speaker 1: do eventually crashed. I promise the people that they're number one,
Speaker 1: but I promised my wife that they're going to be
Speaker 1: number one, So this is dilemma.
Speaker 2: Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite
Speaker 2: you to join this community to hear more interviews that
Speaker 2: will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All
Speaker 2: I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
Speaker 2: I love your support. It's incredible to see all your
Speaker 2: comments and we're just getting started. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: go on this journey with you. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for subscribing. It means the world to me.
Speaker 1: The best selling author and the most the number one
Speaker 1: Healthy Well Inness.
Speaker 2: Podcast Purpose with Jay Shetty. Hey, everyone, welcome back to
Speaker 2: On Purpose, the Number one health podcast in the world.
Speaker 2: Thanks to each and every one of you that come
Speaker 2: back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now, today's guest,
Speaker 2: I mean, embodies health in so many ways, and I
Speaker 2: can't wait to dive into his mindset, his attitude, his routine,
Speaker 2: his history, and the journeys took to be here. It's
Speaker 2: someone who needs no introduction. Please welcome to on Purpose,
Speaker 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is great to be here with you.
Speaker 2: I am so thankful that you've invited us into your space.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating to look around and be here with you,
Speaker 2: and thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Arnold. Absolutely, it's nice to have you here. I've been
Speaker 1: here in this office for the last thirty three years.
Speaker 1: Some of the fact that built the building in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four and then this property was there was a
Speaker 1: railroad going through here, and then first we leased it
Speaker 1: the property, and then the railroad company was willing to
Speaker 1: sell it, so we them bought it and build this building.
Speaker 1: And first it was kind of a commercial office building
Speaker 1: with insurance companies and banks and stuff like this in here.
Speaker 1: And then I decided that I want to move in here.
Speaker 1: In ninety ninety five years later and make it the
Speaker 1: entertainment building. Then Oliver Stone moved next door to me
Speaker 1: and the left when he come out of the elevator,
Speaker 1: because he's one left wing than I am, so he
Speaker 1: had to go to the left. I was my right wing,
Speaker 1: so I was going to the right, which is this office.
Speaker 1: And then Rainy Hallam came in here, and Geena Davis
Speaker 1: and Johnny Castle came in here, so everybody it was
Speaker 1: like totally like the hip entertainment kind of a building.
Speaker 1: And so we have enjoyed this building ever since, and
Speaker 1: it's just a great space. And I have kind of
Speaker 1: like moved a lot of men movie memorabilias here. You
Speaker 1: see an alligator here that is for me Eraser. You
Speaker 1: see bat from Batman and Robin me as mister Freeze,
Speaker 1: and this terminator from Terminator one and Terminator two, and
Speaker 1: you see the Predator and this, you know, all kinds
Speaker 1: of and then kind of interesting political leaders from both sides,
Speaker 1: from the left and the right, you know, just because
Speaker 1: I don't really care that much about those things. So
Speaker 1: it's a John F. Kennedy at the Ronald Reagan, have
Speaker 1: President Lincoln with Teddy Roosevelt that we're here, so you
Speaker 1: have different leaders, and then we also have those that
Speaker 1: have been losers, which is Stalin got This is a
Speaker 1: gift from a Russian weightlifter from the Russian Weightlifting Federation,
Speaker 1: and so I've collected them. Also.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like we've entered your mind. That's what
Speaker 2: it feels like when you enter this room, like all
Speaker 2: these aspects of yourself. I was I was wondering, what's
Speaker 2: your earliest childhood memory that you think defines the person
Speaker 2: you are today. I heard somewhere you mentioned your father
Speaker 2: made you earn your breakfast, and I was thinking, what
Speaker 2: does that feel like?
Speaker 1: You know, I really don't know exactly why it was
Speaker 1: that gave me the drive or gave me the ability
Speaker 1: to visualize my goals in order, but I think it
Speaker 1: was a combination of things of growing up after the
Speaker 1: Second World War in nineteen forty seven I was born,
Speaker 1: and to grow up with no food, midst starvation and
Speaker 1: faman and you know, my mother going around what they
Speaker 1: called hamsterring, which means begging at various different farmers for food,
Speaker 1: so she had food for the children. So all of
Speaker 1: that I think had an impact and a strict upbringing.
Speaker 1: My father was very strict. You know. We were hit
Speaker 1: many times and punished for not doing the things the
Speaker 1: way they thought we should do things. We had to
Speaker 1: earn breakfast, like you said, you know, we had to
Speaker 1: do push ups and sit ups and compete knee bends
Speaker 1: and all this stuff running around the house in order
Speaker 1: to be allowed to have breakfast. I think all of
Speaker 1: that contributed. You know. Also, I think having the military around,
Speaker 1: the British military that was because they occupied that area
Speaker 1: of Austria. They came always around with their tanks and
Speaker 1: with the big trucks and everything, and I think that
Speaker 1: gave me the fascination of, you know, becoming a tank
Speaker 1: driver myself, and I've met into the Austrian Army. Ever
Speaker 1: since then, I have had a fascination with big cars,
Speaker 1: big trucks, with tanks and stuff like that. And I
Speaker 1: now have the tank that I drove in the military.
Speaker 1: I now have over here in Los Angeles and it's
Speaker 1: at the Melody Ranch where they have a lot of
Speaker 1: various different military vehicles and they do the upkeep and
Speaker 1: they drive it like once a month, especially with after
Speaker 1: school kids that are staying in school in the afternoons
Speaker 1: and sounds. So we have a lot of fun with that.
Speaker 2: Do you still drive it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I drive it every month. Yeah, I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. But that's why I have hummers, you know,
Speaker 1: the big military trucks and cars and sues and that,
Speaker 1: the ashcash and all of this. It's a certain craziness
Speaker 1: that never leaves you. You know, I didn't know boys
Speaker 1: their toys, right, yeaheah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. You said somewhere as well that you're you felt
Speaker 2: like your father was maybe struggling with some post traumatic
Speaker 2: stress disorder, like he had that energy that kind of
Speaker 2: came through onto you guys.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, my father was a very complicated guy. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I never really got to know him that well. You know,
Speaker 1: by the time I left, it was like I was
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, I mean a military Then it moved
Speaker 1: to Munich. Then it moved from Munich to America, so
Speaker 1: it really was not home. I wish the day I
Speaker 1: could have a conversation with him, because I'm much smarter now,
Speaker 1: I'm much more interested in various different issues like that
Speaker 1: would make someone tick, but make someone you know, happy
Speaker 1: and suffer whatever. So in those days, we didn't talk
Speaker 1: about any of that, you know, So it's it. But
Speaker 1: he was complicated because he was a victim of the
Speaker 1: Second World War, meaning that he was dragged into the war,
Speaker 1: became a soldier, a Nazi officer, you know, was shattered
Speaker 1: in Starting Grat or Leningrad should say, and he was
Speaker 1: you know, buried on the rubble of buildings that collapsed
Speaker 1: on top of him for three days and then he
Speaker 1: had back surgeries and then he was shipped back home
Speaker 1: to Austria, and that actually probably would saved him because
Speaker 1: he got out of Russia just on time before the
Speaker 1: whole thing collapsed, and so it created a certain kind
Speaker 1: of a thing. He had malaria, so he was suffering
Speaker 1: from malaria, He was suffering from shrubnos moving around in
Speaker 1: his body. He was depressed obviously that they lost the
Speaker 1: war in the first place. So that must have had
Speaker 1: an impact on alliest man. Because everyone around me when
Speaker 1: I grew up was kind of drinking. And so people
Speaker 1: only drink when they're really unhappy, you know, or you
Speaker 1: drink a glass of wine like I sometimes do, but
Speaker 1: not to get drunk, but say like they did. So
Speaker 1: there was a lot of drinking going on, a lot
Speaker 1: of violence going on, hitting the kids, not just my dad,
Speaker 1: hitting me or my brother. But the neighbor hit his kids,
Speaker 1: and the other neighbor hitting I mean, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, that a regular kind of a parent teachers.
Speaker 1: They would be when the parents come into the classroom,
Speaker 1: they will go up to the teacher, they talked for
Speaker 1: a few minutes, and then they go go to their
Speaker 1: kids in the classroom and snack them. But every parent
Speaker 1: was It was just the wildest kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: It would be great for comedy today, I think, you
Speaker 1: know if because now I have to laugh about it
Speaker 1: because people all kind of like laughing about it because
Speaker 1: we knew. Like when my dad came in, you know,
Speaker 1: he then had this look. You know, at first he
Speaker 1: talked to and then all of a sudden it was
Speaker 1: just this look towards me. Then you will just come
Speaker 1: over and bomb, we snack you. Then we walk out.
Speaker 1: And then some old lady would come in with the
Speaker 1: walking cane, and she was the grandmother of one of
Speaker 1: the kids that were sitting next to me, and she
Speaker 1: would go to the teacher. Then she would walk over
Speaker 1: the cane and she take a cane and snack the
Speaker 1: kid over the head of the cane. And so this
Speaker 1: was normal. So you know. So that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's it was such a different way of upbringing than
Speaker 1: maybe you had, or that the kids have the day,
Speaker 1: or that my kids had, you know, where there was
Speaker 1: always love and affection for them. Yes there was discipline,
Speaker 1: but it was all done in a measured way and
Speaker 1: not with hitting and stuff like that. So it's it's
Speaker 1: it's better I think of This had an impact, yeah,
Speaker 1: on the way of view the world and my drive
Speaker 1: to get out of there, out of Austria and to
Speaker 1: come to America and to get in the body building
Speaker 1: and all those kind of things.
Speaker 2: What was the most intense part of your involvement in
Speaker 2: the military. What was the most intense experience you had there.
Speaker 2: Obviously there was this experience at home and at school,
Speaker 2: as you just said, but I think.
Speaker 1: That the military, even though when I went through it,
Speaker 1: it was really tough. But I have to say that
Speaker 1: when I look back at it, I recommend it very
Speaker 1: strongly for any young man or woman as fast it
Speaker 1: goes to go through that, because you learn how to
Speaker 1: be tough. You get up at five in the morning,
Speaker 1: you run for an hour, then into your basic training,
Speaker 1: you know, crawling on all fours and with the gun
Speaker 1: in your hand, and shooting and learning how to drive
Speaker 1: motorcyclists and cars and trucks and tanks. You learn about leadership,
Speaker 1: but you also learn simple things like how the iron
Speaker 1: your shirt, how to sew on button, how to iron
Speaker 1: your pants, how to brush your shoes, how to clean
Speaker 1: your shoes, clean belt bucklets and oils. So become kind
Speaker 1: of self sufficient, and it gives you, I think, a
Speaker 1: certain amount of confidence that I don't need to be
Speaker 1: babed by anybody. I can take care. I can cook,
Speaker 1: which you'll learn the basic foods. As a matter, we
Speaker 1: made scrambled eggs on top of the tank because the
Speaker 1: back of the motor will be so hot, so we
Speaker 1: just put the eggs on top and just scrambled it
Speaker 1: there and ate it of the tank dirty as it was. Right.
Speaker 1: But I mean, so you feel kind of look, I
Speaker 1: can handle food, I can handle ironing mail own stuff,
Speaker 1: I can handle washing my own stuff. I don't need
Speaker 1: anybody to do this kind of you know, stupid choice.
Speaker 1: I can do it myself, and I feel good doing
Speaker 1: it myself. So there's a lot of things like that.
Speaker 1: Did you learn in the army. It just gives you
Speaker 1: a certain base where you don't get a afraid of anything.
Speaker 1: You feel like I've gone through all kinds of hell.
Speaker 1: Now with the military, you know, they make sure of that,
Speaker 1: and so I think that's that's really terrific. But I
Speaker 1: remember there were times that were really tough, Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you make a mistake, they will have you open
Speaker 1: up the hatch that is underneath your seat and made
Speaker 1: the driver's seat is of the tank, and you open
Speaker 1: up that hatch and it falls out, and then they
Speaker 1: have you crawl out of that hole and then drive
Speaker 1: then crawl under the tank in a mud and with
Speaker 1: your uniform on and everything, and then you have you
Speaker 1: have to climb up the back of the tank up
Speaker 1: to the turrent, down the turrent, back to your driver's seat,
Speaker 1: and then out that hole again. And they do that
Speaker 1: like fifty times. So by the time you do it
Speaker 1: is like hours later, and you were you literally collapse,
Speaker 1: You're so exhausted for more this stuff. So there's punishments
Speaker 1: like that that were really really tough. So I would
Speaker 1: not wish that than anybody, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could handle it, but I think I
Speaker 1: could handle it because it was eighteen years old, and
Speaker 1: you know, you're very, very tough in your eighteen dais
Speaker 1: about anything, you know, the endurance and the strength. And
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of my weightlifting and body
Speaker 1: build in Korea, so I was also strong, but it
Speaker 1: was strong Willdors. So to me, it was all kind
Speaker 1: of it was good, but it was tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was your first I know that you've talked
Speaker 2: about how like you wanted to get out of Austria,
Speaker 2: you wanted to get away, But what was your first
Speaker 2: glimpse of America? Like, what was your first experience of
Speaker 2: the United States that you had?
Speaker 1: The first experience was I was competing in Florida in Miami,
Speaker 1: So to me, Miami was the first experience, really arriving
Speaker 1: in New York, changing planes and then flying to Miami.
Speaker 1: I came from London to New York and then from
Speaker 1: New York to Miami. That to me was the first experience.
Speaker 1: You know, the high rises, the beautiful hotels, the water,
Speaker 1: the boats. Everyone had a boat there. Can you believe that?
Speaker 1: I mean everyone they have an apartment and at the canal,
Speaker 1: at the waterway and then they have a boat and
Speaker 1: they were just all cruising around and we were invited,
Speaker 1: we bodybuilders that were competing in the competition. We were
Speaker 1: invited on boat rides. There was this one bodybuildt that
Speaker 1: had a boat for like ten people. So we were
Speaker 1: going around and we saw how much fun they had,
Speaker 1: you know, how well people lived, how happy they were.
Speaker 1: To me, there was like a really interesting experience, unlike
Speaker 1: the experience when it came to California, because I felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm coming to California and I'm going to see all
Speaker 1: the things that made me want to come here, Muscle Beach.
Speaker 1: But the Muscle Beach by that time was closed, you know,
Speaker 1: they closed it in the sixties and and so there
Speaker 1: was no Muscle Beach per se. Then Gold's Gym was
Speaker 1: not as big as I thought it's going to be.
Speaker 1: The buildings when you look around out here be in
Speaker 1: Venice right now, it's there still the day, very no
Speaker 1: buildings compared to the high rises in New York. So
Speaker 1: I thought that there will be high rises here, also
Speaker 1: Los Angeles high rises. And then when my friends took
Speaker 1: me to Hollywood, they try to convince me this is Hollywood.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at this, And I looked around and
Speaker 1: I just couldn't see anything right, So I thought there
Speaker 1: would be studios left and right of Hollywood Boulevard. There
Speaker 1: would be studios that will be Paramount Studios, and that
Speaker 1: would be Sony, and then there will be you know, Columbia,
Speaker 1: Disney and Warner Brothers and all of the students will
Speaker 1: be lined up left and right with hotels and luxury
Speaker 1: and and I got down to Hollywood Boulevard. It was
Speaker 1: like a bunch of homeless people running around and weirdos
Speaker 1: and drug addicts and hippies and that's what I saw.
Speaker 1: And there's and tourists, you know. So I said myself,
Speaker 1: this is Hollywood. They said, well, you know, I have
Speaker 1: to understand this is daytime. At night it really lights up.
Speaker 1: And then they said, well, why don't you bring me
Speaker 1: here at night when it really lights up. So and
Speaker 1: they took me at night, and it was also very disappointing.
Speaker 1: There was a few lights and a few billboards. But
Speaker 1: you know, I just I came from London, right, So
Speaker 1: I've been at that point. I've been several times to
Speaker 1: London because I was competing in bodybuilding in London and
Speaker 1: I started my bodybuilding Korea there. So I saw Piccatilly Square,
Speaker 1: and I saw lights, I mean I saw action. It
Speaker 1: was like staggering that really blew me away, you know.
Speaker 1: And then driving out this double decker buses and the
Speaker 1: transportation with the subway or the two whatever they call
Speaker 1: underground they they call it in England, and all of
Speaker 1: this to me. The airport, the Heathrow Airport, that really
Speaker 1: blew me away. But when it came to America, when
Speaker 1: it came to Los Angeles, I had a vision like
Speaker 1: it would be like that, but it wasn't. And so
Speaker 1: I was very, very disappointed in the beginning, until I
Speaker 1: got used to it, and until I understood that this
Speaker 1: is earthquake country that you don't build high rises, you know,
Speaker 1: because they would collapse. Later on, as time went on,
Speaker 1: they figured out the technology to put them rollers or
Speaker 1: major tires or something so that the moves so they
Speaker 1: don't collapse. But I mean, I learned to understand all
Speaker 1: of that later on. But the first thing was a
Speaker 1: shock to me in a negative way. But then when
Speaker 1: I got used to Los Angeles, and when I got
Speaker 1: used to the gym and used to the members and
Speaker 1: the kindness of the American people and the sweetness of
Speaker 1: the bodybuilders, you know, that would invite me on Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: when it didn't even know what Thanksgiving was, and they
Speaker 1: would invite me, a stranger like me to the home
Speaker 1: for Thanksgiving dinner, or they will come and show up
Speaker 1: at my apartment with silverware because I didn't have any
Speaker 1: with dishes, with the blankets, pillowcases, bed sheets, and I
Speaker 1: remember this one girl gave me like a radio, a
Speaker 1: wooden radio for my aunt Taier next to the bed,
Speaker 1: which I still have next to my bed today, so,
Speaker 1: you know, because I wanted to keep that because it
Speaker 1: was like it was, it simpolizes whenever I look at
Speaker 1: that radio, it symbolizes the generosity of the American people
Speaker 1: and how it was kind of like included and they
Speaker 1: moved over here and all of that. So there was
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting lessons that I've learned right away
Speaker 1: when they came over here, you know, the difference between
Speaker 1: cultures and all that, between Austrians and Germans and British
Speaker 1: and the Americans and all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of what you just said
Speaker 2: about first coming to Hollywood, I think it's very common
Speaker 2: when people got to Hollywood Boulevard and have a very
Speaker 2: glamorous view of what it might be, but it but
Speaker 2: it isn't. And what you were reminding me of just
Speaker 2: now is just this idea of how everyone has like
Speaker 2: dreams and visions of what something might be, and then
Speaker 2: when you experience it, you get a sense of how
Speaker 2: you view it through your own eyes. And for me, though,
Speaker 2: what I'm what I'm fascinated by is who is your
Speaker 2: who is your first ever bodybuilding coach? And do you
Speaker 2: remember your first ever tournament? How did it go?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I've There was a fellow by the name
Speaker 1: of Quid Mannul who was mister Austria. Now I have
Speaker 1: to imagine when you're like fourteen years old, like I
Speaker 1: was in fifteen, and mister Austria was like, it's a
Speaker 1: big star. He came out to that lake where I
Speaker 1: grew up. There was like a lake where there was
Speaker 1: on weekends like three four thousand people around that lake
Speaker 1: lying in the grass and on blankets and then swimming
Speaker 1: in that lake. And it was kind of a muddy
Speaker 1: kind of a lake. And he came out there and
Speaker 1: he looked like God. He was very good friends with
Speaker 1: the swimming coach, the guy that kind of took care
Speaker 1: of everything there at the lake and they were working
Speaker 1: out and they were inviting me to work out with them.
Speaker 1: So to me, there was kind of the first experience
Speaker 1: where someone kind of dragged me in and inspired me
Speaker 1: and said, oh my god, can you imagine looking like that?
Speaker 1: And he if he wanted it or not, happened to
Speaker 1: be very good because he said to me, he says, well,
Speaker 1: in five years, you could look like me. And I
Speaker 1: was saying, I was visualizing right away, oh my god,
Speaker 1: can you believe that if I could look like that?
Speaker 1: And I missed the Austria and I said, there was
Speaker 1: like major and I just felt like, this is almost
Speaker 1: kind of my new dad. He was thirty two years old,
Speaker 1: and he became kind of like a mentor. He invited me.
Speaker 1: Then first of all he invited I realized that they
Speaker 1: invited always these athletes out there, like shot buddhers and
Speaker 1: javelin throwers and weightlifters and boxes, bodybuilders, I mean all
Speaker 1: kinds of athletes. They all will work out together and
Speaker 1: have a good time. And we kids were kind of
Speaker 1: like hanging out with them very so often we will
Speaker 1: work out with them, so we got so I got
Speaker 1: my real early inspiration that way. And then I went
Speaker 1: down to the club, to the weightlifting club. I started
Speaker 1: working out, and Stiff really become religious about it. It
Speaker 1: was like this was my new life. And I started
Speaker 1: having visions, very clear visions of being a Mister Austria.
Speaker 1: Then there were pictures of the Mister Europe contest, so
Speaker 1: I visualized myself being in the Mister Europe contest and winning.
Speaker 1: And then I saw pictures of Reg Park, which is
Speaker 1: a British bodybuilder who then subsequently later on moved to
Speaker 1: South Africa, married a South African woman by then the
Speaker 1: name of Marianne and they created a family in South Africa.
Speaker 1: So that what became kind of my idol. And I
Speaker 1: saw pictures of him winning Mister Universe in London, and
Speaker 1: so that was my new vision. So I started really
Speaker 1: creating through this guy's vision. But that the division was
Speaker 1: so vivid, so clear, that I felt like all I
Speaker 1: had to do now is just follow through with the work.
Speaker 1: Let me now find out what needs to be done.
Speaker 1: And so I read about redg Park. How did he train?
Speaker 1: He trained like four or five hours a day, and
Speaker 1: he didn't soarn so many sets and so many reps.
Speaker 1: And these are the exercises. He did that, the bench press,
Speaker 1: the incline, prents, the bat, the girl that shoulders presses
Speaker 1: and this and that, and I just wrote everything down
Speaker 1: and I started following his routine, and that was absolutely
Speaker 1: convinced that I will be another wretch Park. And so
Speaker 1: that's how I really developed my first rule that I
Speaker 1: always talk about the success is you got to have
Speaker 1: a very clear vision of where you want to go,
Speaker 1: because if you don't have that, you're just floating around.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I was very fortunate that they
Speaker 1: created that vision. I was very fortunate that there was
Speaker 1: not the site kind of things going on. We didn't
Speaker 1: have a phone in our house. We didn't have a
Speaker 1: television in our house at that time. There I on
Speaker 1: the iPads, there was no computer. There was just really
Speaker 1: you had all the time in the world to think
Speaker 1: and to really just sit quietly and to just visualize.
Speaker 1: And I always say that I feel sorry for kids
Speaker 1: today that they're spending hours and hours on that iPhone,
Speaker 1: an iPad or computer and they don't give themselves the
Speaker 1: chance to just settle back and to just figure out
Speaker 1: what do they want to do or who do they
Speaker 1: want to be? And so this is why I think
Speaker 1: that I made that kind of the rule Number one
Speaker 1: is visualized and I always comp be to that. You
Speaker 1: can have the best airplane in the world with the
Speaker 1: most advanced pilot, but if he doesn't even know where
Speaker 1: to go, it's just going to fly around and really crashes.
Speaker 1: And that's what happens to your life. If you don't
Speaker 1: know where you want to go and who you want
Speaker 1: to be, you eventually just float around. Then you will
Speaker 1: eventually crash. And that's why a lot of people are unhappy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they or they take drugs, or they drink, or the
Speaker 1: suicide raisedness. I think a lot of it is because
Speaker 1: people really don't have as much of a purpose and
Speaker 1: the mission and the vision and of the things, the
Speaker 1: things that drove me from the time it was like
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, it was very clear which direction I
Speaker 1: want to go.
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Speaker 2: sure you use the code on purpose. Yeah, I love
Speaker 2: that you start the book with that rule of have
Speaker 2: a clear vision, because when you hear about your childhood,
Speaker 2: it's not easy. It's tough, it's rough, it's harsh. There's
Speaker 2: so many internal challenges at home, there's external challenges, there's limitations.
Speaker 2: That you're in a country that's obviously just survived a
Speaker 2: world war. It almost looks like there is no space
Speaker 2: to have vision. Like someone could argue that Arnold, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, how are you having a vision in this space?
Speaker 2: I think what's really interesting is sometimes we feel helpless
Speaker 2: because of where we're born, where we're from, our parenting structure,
Speaker 2: our surroundings. Some people struggle to have a vision because
Speaker 2: they say, well how can I have a vision? Look
Speaker 2: where I am? And then some other people they can't
Speaker 2: have a vision because when they see someone like reg
Speaker 2: Park or mister Austria and your example, what they see
Speaker 2: is oh envy, I wish I had that, you know, like,
Speaker 2: oh why does he have that? Or maybe you know
Speaker 2: I should have that. So I think we live in
Speaker 2: these two worlds where we either feel helpless or sometimes
Speaker 2: we feel envious and egotistical about visions. How did you
Speaker 2: allow yourself or how did you develop that ability? That
Speaker 2: even though around you there wasn't that much success, there
Speaker 2: was more stress, but you saw mister Austria and were
Speaker 2: able to do that. Have you ever figured out what
Speaker 2: that was compared to everyone else you grew up around.
Speaker 1: I just can tell you I was very unhappy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was unhappy with the reality of what was around me,
Speaker 1: you know, the tough parents and the lack of food.
Speaker 1: And others had steaks. We didn't have the money for that.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, we never ate meat during
Speaker 1: the week. Now the day they would say, oh, this
Speaker 1: is really good because here vegan because more because of
Speaker 1: a lack of money. So we didn't have anything. So
Speaker 1: everywhere I looked, so I think, to me, the only
Speaker 1: way really was in order to be happy is to
Speaker 1: create my own world and to visualize. You know. That's
Speaker 1: why people sometimes read a lot, because they want to
Speaker 1: escape into another story or the day they watched movies,
Speaker 1: to go in to see another to escape into another
Speaker 1: story and all etf For me, that wasn't available in
Speaker 1: the first movie. I was always like when it was
Speaker 1: like nine or ten years old. It was not a
Speaker 1: common thing in the village where I grew up to
Speaker 1: go to movies, and I remember there was a collapsible
Speaker 1: kind of a seat. I just felt right down on
Speaker 1: the floor because I had never even heard of a collapse.
Speaker 1: It was did you have to fold it down? So
Speaker 1: I folded it down, then waited a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then of course it went back up again. And I
Speaker 1: haven't right down on to the floor. Because of that world,
Speaker 1: the negative world, I had to kind of create my
Speaker 1: own world. So I was just always daydreaming of wonderful things.
Speaker 1: So it was I developed that art, and it put
Speaker 1: a smile on my face so clearly. When I then
Speaker 1: saw mister Austria, mister Universe, and I saw these guys
Speaker 1: and so photographs of it, and I read about it
Speaker 1: in the magazines. I created my vision and they saw
Speaker 1: in that vision myself being up on that stage, and
Speaker 1: I saw myself, you know, people screaming around me and
Speaker 1: screaming on or or and all this crazy stuff. It
Speaker 1: was all insane, crazy stuff. Stuff that I never shared
Speaker 1: in those days with anybody is that they would have
Speaker 1: put me in a mental institution, right, So, I mean,
Speaker 1: so I was I just remember that I was sitting
Speaker 1: in a classroom in school. I was like thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: fourteen years old. The teacher will be where you and
Speaker 1: now in front of me teaching, and I would just
Speaker 1: slowly look off to the side out the window, and
Speaker 1: I saw the screen trees, and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden there said seeing things, and I had a smile,
Speaker 1: just this wonderful stuff to that saw and always said
Speaker 1: I had a chalk landed on my forehead. So the
Speaker 1: teacher threw a chalk at me, kind of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm here. I'm getting paid to teach you, to teach
Speaker 1: this class of thirty Why are you looking out the
Speaker 1: window now? I couldn't even articulate that this what you're
Speaker 1: teaching here doesn't really blow up my skirt. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's not like kind of something that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1: What I'm interested in is what I just saw when
Speaker 1: I looked out there, and I saw myself on that
Speaker 1: stage in London at the Mister Universe contest, you know,
Speaker 1: and things like that. So I think that with me,
Speaker 1: visualizing became a normal thing. And I never really knew
Speaker 1: that I had really a very special ability to visualize
Speaker 1: and to connect the dots to set myself. Well, if
Speaker 1: I can see it, then it must be a reality,
Speaker 1: and I can make it a reality. So for me,
Speaker 1: the vision became a reality. So it was only then
Speaker 1: a matter of following through with the work to get there.
Speaker 1: And this is why in the book one of the
Speaker 1: things I talk about is work your ass off, because
Speaker 1: every single time when I had a vision about anything,
Speaker 1: I had to work my ass off. But it was pleasure. See,
Speaker 1: that is the great thing. When you go to work
Speaker 1: and you know exactly why you're working, then it becomes fun,
Speaker 1: a challenge, it's entertaining sometimes. And when you read that
Speaker 1: seventy eight percent of the American people hate their jobs,
Speaker 1: now think about that. I mean, that must be so
Speaker 1: depressing that you go. Let's say you're working in some
Speaker 1: car planted and you do, like, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the same work within a window in a car over
Speaker 1: and over, you know, fifty times a day, every day,
Speaker 1: all year long, for thirty years. I mean, it's tough.
Speaker 1: And so this is why it's so important that we
Speaker 1: really have a clear vision, so that you know where
Speaker 1: to go and that wherever it is. If it is
Speaker 1: to become a great auto mechanic, or if it is
Speaker 1: become a great teacher or a politician or a high
Speaker 1: tech engineer, whatever it is. But have a vision and
Speaker 1: then you go after that. You should because now every
Speaker 1: step of the way is going to be great. You
Speaker 1: know when I mean, you pick a doctor. Let's say
Speaker 1: I want to be a doctor. I want to be
Speaker 1: a surgeant. The kid says to themselves at the age
Speaker 1: of fifteen, Well, from that point on, he knows, yeah,
Speaker 1: all the classes he has to take already in high school.
Speaker 1: And then when he goes to college, you know which
Speaker 1: university did to go, what kind of classes is to take,
Speaker 1: and then how long would it take him and all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. So there is a reason for going
Speaker 1: to school rather than all my parents told me that
Speaker 1: I have to go to college, and you just go
Speaker 1: to fulfill this obligation, but there's no goal. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what happens to the maturity of kids today. They don't
Speaker 1: have to go and that's why they end up being
Speaker 1: one of the seventy eight percent that are unhappy with
Speaker 1: their jobs and they wish they could change jobs. But
Speaker 1: then it's too late because now you've created a family
Speaker 1: and you have to pay for you know, you rent
Speaker 1: for the apartment, and you have to put food on
Speaker 1: the table, and you have to provide money for the
Speaker 1: kids and for your wife and for the family and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. So it's really tough. So that's why
Speaker 1: so many people are really always looking for an answer
Speaker 1: or searching for the answer. How can I improve my life?
Speaker 1: How can I make it a little bit better? And
Speaker 1: order stuff? And this is why I did the book,
Speaker 1: and I'll be useful.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you put it in that order, though,
Speaker 2: because I think for everyone who's listening and watching, a
Speaker 2: lot of people will say, I do work hard. I'm
Speaker 2: working my ass off, I'm working my socks off, I'm
Speaker 2: like doing everything I can. But I think what's really
Speaker 2: important is that in the book you start with have
Speaker 2: a clear vision. And I agree. I think there are
Speaker 2: a lot of people who are working really, really hard,
Speaker 2: and it's almost like if that hard work was channeled
Speaker 2: toward a clear vision, as you say, then that hard
Speaker 2: work pays off, right, because otherwise a lot of people
Speaker 2: just working hard, getting stressed, putting on pressure, but there
Speaker 2: isn't that vision. Have you found what was the greatest
Speaker 2: sacrifice you ever made in your life? Do you think?
Speaker 2: And what was the reward that you gained from it?
Speaker 2: What was the biggest sacrifice.
Speaker 1: That is really the question is is it really a sacrifice?
Speaker 1: Because you love it exactly. To me, it's also a
Speaker 1: real question is the word discipline, because I tell you
Speaker 1: I felt many times that I'm not a disciplined person.
Speaker 1: But people always insist and said, oh, it must take
Speaker 1: so much discipline every day to get up and every
Speaker 1: day you went in a gym at seven in the morning,
Speaker 1: and you worked at the nine thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: and then you went to college after that, and then
Speaker 1: you went desinated and he worked in constructions. I was
Speaker 1: like looking forward to getting up in the morning and
Speaker 1: looking forward driving to the gym and working out two
Speaker 1: enough house and then going down to the beach and
Speaker 1: taking around in the deep sand and getting some cardio
Speaker 1: work down in the orders of I said, I was
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. It was not like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I have to do another workout. Yes, you do that when,
Speaker 1: for instance, sometimes people go to the gym and the
Speaker 1: doctor says, you know, you should go to the gym
Speaker 1: and you should work out because otherwise, you know, I
Speaker 1: see some problems coming up high cholesterol and body fat
Speaker 1: and this and that, and you're gonna go and wipe out.
Speaker 1: You know, ten years is younger than you want to
Speaker 1: if there's every the right time to wipe out. But
Speaker 1: I mean, in any case, so that person you can
Speaker 1: see in the gym is there and they just they
Speaker 1: do their reps and they do their sets, and they're
Speaker 1: not really into it. You can see there's not life
Speaker 1: in the eyes, you know what I'm saying. Way, just
Speaker 1: like really, they grab the weight and they do the sets,
Speaker 1: and they get the pump and they feel good and
Speaker 1: they put the weights down and get the next heavy
Speaker 1: weight and then do the set and so that's really fun.
Speaker 1: But that person is kind of like a vegetable in
Speaker 1: a way. They just cruise around in the gym. They
Speaker 1: sit on the life cycling and they just peddle away.
Speaker 1: And when you say to them, missus, so why do
Speaker 1: you work out? They have no answer. Then eventually they say, well,
Speaker 1: to be honest, we do. The doctor told me that
Speaker 1: I should get in shape. That's better for my health,
Speaker 1: to bring my blood pressure down and my cholesterol down
Speaker 1: and my body fat down. And always so then it
Speaker 1: really so I say to them, I always say, said,
Speaker 1: you know what you should do is you should just
Speaker 1: pick a goal that you can chase. They will say
Speaker 1: like what I said, Well, how much you weigh? I'm
Speaker 1: weighing one hundred and ninety pounds, And then I want
Speaker 1: to lower my body fat body weight. I said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you pick a goal, like you want to
Speaker 1: go down one hundred and seventy and did and is
Speaker 1: now March, and by August when you go to the beach,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a slimmer waist, less body fat, and
Speaker 1: you look leaner and you can be proud of your body.
Speaker 1: And then picked that. Go, oh, that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: I said, write it down, and then write down the
Speaker 1: sets you have to do to get you there, and
Speaker 1: the amount of reps you have to do, and the
Speaker 1: amount of life cycling did you have to run? And
Speaker 1: raking a bicycle and running? Did you have to write
Speaker 1: all of this down? And then you market off every
Speaker 1: day you market off. That's what I did to me.
Speaker 1: There was really that dead feedback that they see a
Speaker 1: line being crossed that means one was set, was done.
Speaker 1: It was a satisfying kind of a thing. The line
Speaker 1: was crossed off, the next line was crossed off. And
Speaker 1: so I tell people that and then they they say, oh,
Speaker 1: my God, this is your I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1: That is such a great idea. Then they come back
Speaker 1: to me like a few months later and they said,
Speaker 1: this worked. It was underlore. It worked, it was fantastic,
Speaker 1: and it really gave me a purpose. She said, that's
Speaker 1: what it's important to have a purpose, Ma, to do
Speaker 1: things that a clear vision will they do things, because
Speaker 1: then you don't have to look at it kind of
Speaker 1: like I have to be really disciplined to do that,
Speaker 1: or I have to make certain sacrifices to do that,
Speaker 1: because then it just drags you in the dead direction
Speaker 1: and you just do the work, you know. So that's
Speaker 1: what I think is always that, But clearly there were
Speaker 1: sacrifices like for let me just give you one exact please,
Speaker 1: What do you think it's like when you go and
Speaker 1: you run for governor and you promise the people that
Speaker 1: you are going to be my number one pro. Now
Speaker 1: you win. Now you have to do the work. But
Speaker 1: now you come home and your kids are crying on
Speaker 1: the dinner table. When you come home and Daddy didn't
Speaker 1: come to my recital on Monday. Daddy, you didn't come
Speaker 1: to my football practice on Tuesday. Daddy, you promised me,
Speaker 1: did you come into the school and to take me
Speaker 1: to school? You didn't this week, So that is devastating
Speaker 1: when the kids are crying and complaining and you say yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, I promised the people that they're number one,
Speaker 1: but I also promised my family. I promised my wife
Speaker 1: when you are the first child, that they're going to
Speaker 1: be number one. So that's a dilemma. Now you're in
Speaker 1: a dilemma, and now you have to make certain sacrifices.
Speaker 1: And I had to make certain sacrifices comes to spending
Speaker 1: time with my family, where my wife had to pick
Speaker 1: up the slacks and she had to do the extra work.
Speaker 1: So there were sacrifices made that were painful. Sometimes when
Speaker 1: you see your kids crying, that's painful and then you
Speaker 1: know it's your fault. But that's the situation you're in,
Speaker 1: and you put yourself in this situation. You had a
Speaker 1: choice to run for governor or not to run for governor.
Speaker 1: Right if I would have continued with my movie business,
Speaker 1: those kids were in heaven because they were in a
Speaker 1: movie in my makeup trailer. They were watching me getting
Speaker 1: made up as the terminator or for any of those
Speaker 1: kind of movies. They were in my motor home and
Speaker 1: they were doing their homework in the afternoon. There. They
Speaker 1: brought their friends with them, so there was fun. Now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they go up to Sacramento and
Speaker 1: everyone is running around with a suit and with the tie.
Speaker 1: And they come to me and says that what did
Speaker 1: you do? Why are you having this job? They were
Speaker 1: like eleven twelve years old, and they said, why do
Speaker 1: you have this job? Now? I say, everyone has a
Speaker 1: suit and at tie, and everyone looks really serious and
Speaker 1: they all attack you. They say bad things about you.
Speaker 1: I said, what is the way? It's politics. I say,
Speaker 1: as soon as you run first you have like an
Speaker 1: eighty percent popularity, and then as soon as you run,
Speaker 1: they see if you popularity goes down to fifty percent
Speaker 1: because fifty percent of the other side, uh the other party.
Speaker 1: So you run as a Republican, say it's fifty percent
Speaker 1: of the Democrats they hate you or they don't like you.
Speaker 1: And then that the Republicans like you, but they don't
Speaker 1: even like you because says, yeah, he's doing to socially
Speaker 1: liberal whatever. So he said. My campaign manager always says,
Speaker 1: this is honord. Twenty percent of the people hate their mother.
Speaker 1: So don't worry about someone hating you. It's just the
Speaker 1: way it is in politics, you know. So anyway, So
Speaker 1: this is so you have to make sacrifices like that.
Speaker 1: Imagine a sacrifice you have to take when you come
Speaker 1: to this country. I mean, you know what it is like.
Speaker 1: You leave everything behind, my friends, my parents, my relatives,
Speaker 1: everything that was around me that was kind of like
Speaker 1: a sure thing. I had a job after the military
Speaker 1: that it could go to continue on the job that
Speaker 1: they did as a salesman. I had all of this
Speaker 1: that left orders for uncertainty because there was no certainty
Speaker 1: coming to America. There was Joe Weeder that said I'm
Speaker 1: going to help you find the apartment, I find your car.
Speaker 1: Yet there were some people that helped a lot. He's
Speaker 1: the one that said, gave me the alien ticket, become
Speaker 1: to the American and order stuff. Choe Whedder is the
Speaker 1: publisher of the Muscle magazines. He has passed away in
Speaker 1: the meantime, but I mean he was like the guru
Speaker 1: of bodybuilding. He created bodybuilding. The Federation was created by
Speaker 1: his brother Ben Whiter and Joe had the endless amount
Speaker 1: of magazines and distribution company for weight equipment for food
Speaker 1: suppraments and order. So he brought me here. So there
Speaker 1: was some help like this, but I mean I walked
Speaker 1: away from all this comfort didn't coome to America. So
Speaker 1: yet there were major major soccer like that. But I've
Speaker 1: really never looked at it in that way because I
Speaker 1: just said to myself, I want to go to America.
Speaker 1: I want to go and be there and work my
Speaker 1: way up to become the greatest bodybuilder of all times.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, we are talking about one of
Speaker 1: the other rules, yes, is in that book, which is
Speaker 1: that to shoot for big gore. Yeah, and never think small.
Speaker 1: It's just as much energy or as little energy as
Speaker 1: shooting for a little gore. You know that it's just
Speaker 1: as much hassle. I mean if a little gored. Let's say,
Speaker 1: if I would say I want to be mister Austria,
Speaker 1: well that's as much working out then working out for
Speaker 1: mister Europe or mister Universe. So I mean you might
Speaker 1: as well just continue on and just say okay or
Speaker 1: after now. The difference rule is then you have to
Speaker 1: become a real professional. You have to know how to pose,
Speaker 1: you have to have the right tan, you have to
Speaker 1: take the right food supplements. You have to eat the
Speaker 1: right food. You have to really fine tune, you have
Speaker 1: to get the definition. It's not just the size of
Speaker 1: the body. So the higher you go, the more complicated
Speaker 1: he gets to win. But I said to myself, to
Speaker 1: me to shoot for the goal of being a world champion,
Speaker 1: it's just as easy shooting for goal of being mister Austria,
Speaker 1: being the Austrian champion. So I just went all out,
Speaker 1: and not only to to win the world championships in bodybuilding,
Speaker 1: but to go beyond Rich Park, who won at that
Speaker 1: point three mister Universe titles. To go beyond that, and
Speaker 1: they say, I want to actually become the greatest bodybuilder
Speaker 1: of all time, all times that there was the mcgaurdan.
Speaker 1: So that's why I had to come to America, where
Speaker 1: there is a muscle beach, where there's gorge gym, where
Speaker 1: all the champions work out together, where there's Joe Weed,
Speaker 1: that they can be helpful and publish you and put
Speaker 1: you on the cover of his magazines. And of this
Speaker 1: the promotion, the campaign, the training, the marketing of bodybuilding
Speaker 1: and order. So to me, this was really the only
Speaker 1: way to go is to come to Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: on top of it, Los Angeles is known for Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and this is my next career. So I always say
Speaker 1: to myself that wed Reg Park, I saw him in
Speaker 1: Hercules movies. So can you believe that that this guy
Speaker 1: won Mister Universe three times? And then he was discovered
Speaker 1: in Rome in Gini Chitta and I saw him there
Speaker 1: and they said, oh my god, you are Hercules. We're
Speaker 1: going to send you the acting classes in the acting
Speaker 1: school and you're going to play Hercules. And then Steve
Speaker 1: Reeves did the same thing, who was another Mister Universe
Speaker 1: from nineteen forty, nineteen fifty. Yeah, Steve Reef from nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: Rich Park nineteen fifty one. So both of them became Hercules.
Speaker 1: Then there was many other body bullers that became They
Speaker 1: did Hercules movies or those Gladiator movies and muscle movies
Speaker 1: and stuff like that in the sixties. Said but it
Speaker 1: became very famous. But the MESSI I said myself, if
Speaker 1: rig Park could get into movies, maybe even I go
Speaker 1: to America and I become the world's greatest bodybuilder, then
Speaker 1: they would ask me to go in the movies. And
Speaker 1: so this is what's the idea. So to me, it
Speaker 1: was natural. There's Hollywood in Los Angeles, there's Muscle Beach
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, there's Coach sim in Los Angeles, there's
Speaker 1: Showda here. This is perfect. I have to go there.
Speaker 1: That was the reason why I went here.
Speaker 2: Did you ever have a Plan B?
Speaker 1: I never believed in plan B because I felt kind
Speaker 1: of like one of the rules we have in there
Speaker 1: in my book is never listened to the naysayers, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, I always felt kind of like every single
Speaker 1: dream of mine, of course, I have to say, they
Speaker 1: were outrageous dreams. So people said, this is stupid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well is the matter with you? That would never happen?
Speaker 1: I mean, your dreams to go to America? What do
Speaker 1: you think they're waiting for you over there? I mean,
Speaker 1: if plenty of people over there, they've always three hundred
Speaker 1: million populations. They don't need any more. And so that
Speaker 1: was the kind of thing, is that you would never
Speaker 1: make it to America and they don't need you. So no, impossible.
Speaker 1: When I said don't want to be a world champion
Speaker 1: body but that was impossible. When I didn't want to
Speaker 1: get into movies, that was impossible. So it was always impossible.
Speaker 1: So I felt that we can go and defend ourselves
Speaker 1: from that and just not listen to the naysayers. But
Speaker 1: if I start having a plan B, then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I'm becoming in a way and they say
Speaker 1: it to myself. So because that means now that I'm saying, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't working out, and if it's not working out,
Speaker 1: we should have a plan B. So to me, this
Speaker 1: is the most dangerous of all the they sayers is
Speaker 1: me saying no, and it's impossible, maybe to myself. So
Speaker 1: therefore I felt the best way of handling that is
Speaker 1: is not to have a safety net and not to
Speaker 1: have a plan B. That I'm at risk and therefore
Speaker 1: I have to be at all times on the edge
Speaker 1: and a ten so I don't fall where I would
Speaker 1: need a safety net. This is the way I had
Speaker 1: dealt with that issue. Never have a plan B. Always
Speaker 1: go for go all out with my plan and really
Speaker 1: put one hundred percent of effort into it in order
Speaker 1: to really achieve it. And I just always believed in
Speaker 1: my goals. I mean, I remember when I ran for
Speaker 1: governor and people said you're crazy. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: this great Davis is going to take you out, and
Speaker 1: then if he doesn't push the monthy is the lieutenant governor.
Speaker 1: There's all seasoned politicians. You don't know anything about politics,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. Why don't you run first for
Speaker 1: mayor and why don't you do this? No. I was
Speaker 1: very clear with my vision. I could see myself as
Speaker 1: the governor because I felt that the people in California
Speaker 1: were very upset at the regular politicians. I mean, they
Speaker 1: were always talking about what they know and how smart
Speaker 1: they are and how they're going to fix things. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we had a thirty billion dollar deficit. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we're blackouts. In the meantime, they were handing
Speaker 1: out driver's license to illegal immigrants or they called undocumented immigrants,
Speaker 1: and everything that the people were against, and the people
Speaker 1: didn't like the Indian gaming tribes were gambling and having
Speaker 1: gambling casinos but not being taxes, so they were mad
Speaker 1: about that. So I would just tell people if I
Speaker 1: become governor, I would change all that. And the workers'
Speaker 1: compensation costs for businesses in California, I would cut it
Speaker 1: in half. That's why so many businesses left California because
Speaker 1: of the costs of doing business. So I said, I
Speaker 1: were cut it in half. And so this is exactly
Speaker 1: people bought in because I was talking believable. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was I could put my hand in the fire
Speaker 1: for the people to do the things that I promised
Speaker 1: those things will be done, and I said I would
Speaker 1: do it most of those things before breakfast, the first
Speaker 1: event I'm in office. So that always sounded good, so
Speaker 1: in anykay. So but the people bought in. And I
Speaker 1: remember that when President Bush and this guy has called
Speaker 1: me from the White House. They said, you want the
Speaker 1: president to come out the campaign for you. I said no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I said, because then it becomes kind of a political thing.
Speaker 1: But the Republicans are helping each other. And then Greg
Speaker 1: Davis is going to have out, you know, Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: and I'll go and John Carry and you know all
Speaker 1: of those guys. And that's exactly what happened. He had
Speaker 1: all those people come out campaign for him. And I told, oh,
Speaker 1: my guys, no, don't come out because I wanted to
Speaker 1: be the David and not the goliath. I want to
Speaker 1: be the underdog and kind of say, look, this is
Speaker 1: just between me and the voters. So that was my vision,
Speaker 1: not a political strategy vision, but I mean that was
Speaker 1: my vision. I said, I have to be the person
Speaker 1: that is by himself that is kind of crawling up there,
Speaker 1: and that it's communicating with the voters. I don't need
Speaker 1: someone to speak for me or anything like that. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: you and communications director and all this stuff. But I
Speaker 1: didn't need to have President Bush come out and speak
Speaker 1: for me. I didn't have to have the Vice president
Speaker 1: come out to speak for or anything like this. I
Speaker 1: wanted this between me and the thing, and it worked.
Speaker 1: People figured it out that I'm out there that I'm
Speaker 1: promising them, and they bought into it. And that one
Speaker 1: and so this is why it is so important that
Speaker 1: did you have really a one percent belief and not
Speaker 1: having to go and say, my plan B if this
Speaker 1: doesn't work is I'm going to go back to movies.
Speaker 1: But they would unfold anyway, you know. So, but let's
Speaker 1: first go all out and not have a plan B.
Speaker 1: This is the thing. And so I've never had a
Speaker 1: plan B.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's really really great clarity again of just
Speaker 2: determination that there's no other options. And I like what
Speaker 2: you said, Well, what really connected with me at least
Speaker 2: is this idea of how you can become your own
Speaker 2: naysayer right now having a plan B, is you talking
Speaker 2: yourself out of why you should go all in.
Speaker 1: Or you're you're already putting it on a kind of
Speaker 1: shaky grounds.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, go yeah, you're already setting it.
Speaker 1: You already say well if we wait a minute, If
Speaker 1: you say if, that means there's a possibility in your
Speaker 1: mind this could fail, and that is a dangerous road
Speaker 1: to go. I think I agree.
Speaker 2: Where did you go when a few moments ago you
Speaker 2: were talking about how the kids are upset when your
Speaker 2: governor obviously public gets upset when someone's in a position
Speaker 2: of power. You've got all these people who rely on
Speaker 2: you personally and professionally, and you even said to yourself like,
Speaker 2: I couldn't really talk about it. You can't really, no
Speaker 2: one can really understand that. What did you do at
Speaker 2: that time? Where did you go for connection and understanding
Speaker 2: and even getting to talk to yourself at that time?
Speaker 1: Well, you just have to find a compromise. So what
Speaker 1: you then do is you just say, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go and spend an extra day at home. So,
Speaker 1: because there was the choice being in Los Angeles, a
Speaker 1: lot of days or the been Sacramento. So I spent
Speaker 1: four days a week in Sacramento and three days a
Speaker 1: week in Los Angeles. And I decided then to spend
Speaker 1: another day in Los Angeles and to go to this
Speaker 1: school recital or to go to some kind of a
Speaker 1: practice sessions of you know, my kid playing football or
Speaker 1: baseball or something like that, and to go to those things.
Speaker 1: So to figure out a way, and it didn't take
Speaker 1: anything away from my public service, but it gave a
Speaker 1: little bit more time FaceTime for the kids. And you know,
Speaker 1: it really is absolutely crucial for the kids, not just
Speaker 1: to see their mom coming to school, but then he
Speaker 1: did dad also, you know, And so that's exactly what
Speaker 1: it did. And I totally understood. I talked to my
Speaker 1: wife about it. But like I said on the aunt,
Speaker 1: she was really the one that was the powerhouse in
Speaker 1: the family because she spent I would say, eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the time with the kids and I did twenty
Speaker 1: percent because I was stuck in Sacramento. And even though
Speaker 1: she worked also as first lady, and she was in Sacramento,
Speaker 1: but she spent much more time with the kids. And luckily,
Speaker 1: when you have a good partner then you can do
Speaker 1: a lot of those things alone. I couldn't have done it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And you mentioned I think in the documentary too,
Speaker 2: that if there was an oscars for divorces, then you
Speaker 2: should get one because of how even in that circumstance
Speaker 2: you both have found a way to let the kindness
Speaker 2: be even the way you're speaking about Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because because it's kind of the most important thing is
Speaker 1: it's one thing if you suffer through it. It's another
Speaker 1: thing if your wife suffers through it. But the kids
Speaker 1: are really totally innocent bystanders, right, So we had too
Speaker 1: kind of My wife and I have a very good
Speaker 1: working together, so the kids don't really feel a bump
Speaker 1: in the road, and that's things are smooth for them.
Speaker 1: And again it's important. I mean I saw it very
Speaker 1: clearly that it can be done, and we did it,
Speaker 1: and we were very happy with the outcome. We're very,
Speaker 1: very proud of our kids. I mean, they're extraordinary.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had the fortune of interviewing Catherine probably a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago when her book came out, so
Speaker 2: I've got to have some interaction with her and Maria
Speaker 2: and I've had several interactions too, and.
Speaker 1: Katherine is a carbon copy of Maria, and Maria is
Speaker 1: a carbon copy of Eunice, and Unice is a carbon
Speaker 1: copy of Rose Kennedy. So this is how it goes
Speaker 1: down to me. It's like they're like clones. They exactly
Speaker 1: you know, exactly what you get from them. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like Katrine, I mean, I'm so proud of her
Speaker 1: of what the woman she has become, and so is
Speaker 1: with Christina, with my other daughter and the boys. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a lot of fun. I never thought that
Speaker 1: having kids would be that much fun, I said, because
Speaker 1: I only in the beginning. I always thought about, you know,
Speaker 1: the work that it would take, you know, to take
Speaker 1: them to school and to go to their recitals and
Speaker 1: the practices and to teach them and to have to
Speaker 1: swimming coach o when you know you have to just
Speaker 1: be part of everything you have to teach them, to
Speaker 1: teach them, you know, from just swimming to running, to
Speaker 1: football to what snow skiing. You know, you have to
Speaker 1: just be on top of everything. And also having animals,
Speaker 1: because one of the most important things with kids is
Speaker 1: if you have the space. That is, if you're in
Speaker 1: a little tiny apartment and maybe a cat is good,
Speaker 1: but the mean normally it's kind of like good when
Speaker 1: you have dogs or when you have like we have
Speaker 1: a miniature pony, We had horses, a donkey and the
Speaker 1: Lulu the miniature donkey. We had pigs now I have
Speaker 1: a pig again. The kids and the anymore. But it
Speaker 1: never stops. But I mean so because the kids grow
Speaker 1: up with this animals and you teach them how to
Speaker 1: take care of them. This is extremely important because they
Speaker 1: have to have a sense of responsibility. You can't just say, oh,
Speaker 1: I would like to have a rabbit or I would
Speaker 1: like to have a pig. Yeah, but you take care
Speaker 1: of it. So that's what they've learned.
Speaker 2: One of the lessons in your book is sell, sell, sell,
Speaker 2: and we just talked about it now. When you're talking
Speaker 2: about almost selling yourself to become governor, there's a certain
Speaker 2: promotion marketing approach to galvanizing people to get behind you.
Speaker 2: And I think the word sales and selling has a
Speaker 2: lot of people have a negative connotation or a difficulty
Speaker 2: with selling because it almost feels like there has to
Speaker 2: be something fake about it. I've always found that if
Speaker 2: you're proud of what you're selling, if you really believe
Speaker 2: in it, then it's easier to sell it. But generally
Speaker 2: people have a challenge with like the word cell. But
Speaker 2: you say one of your lessons is sell, sell, sell,
Speaker 2: So walk us through how you were able to I mean, obviously,
Speaker 2: even all the movies, the franchises you've created, it requires promotion,
Speaker 2: it requires selling, and of course they were highly entertaining.
Speaker 2: But tell us what you learned about how to sell
Speaker 2: effectively but also authentically.
Speaker 1: First of all, I think you're totally right that the
Speaker 1: words selling sometimes comes off sleazy. So that's why I
Speaker 1: can call it promotion or communicating or whatever you call it.
Speaker 1: And the point of it is that you can have
Speaker 1: the best product in the world, But if no one
Speaker 1: knows about it, what's the point of the product? I mean,
Speaker 1: I would I like to know, for instance, if there
Speaker 1: is someone out there that does a heart surgery or
Speaker 1: valve replacement without having to have open heart surgery. But
Speaker 1: if I don't know, I would just go to the
Speaker 1: husband and say I won't have an open heart surgery
Speaker 1: and I want to get the valve replaced. But if
Speaker 1: I know because they promoted it, well, I can go
Speaker 1: down and call that expert and then go and say, so,
Speaker 1: this is why I think it's so important. So to me,
Speaker 1: I learned the art of selling way back when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen years old, when I was in trade school,
Speaker 1: and when I was working for this lumberyard, kind of
Speaker 1: construction company, hardware store. It was like a combination of things.
Speaker 1: We were taught how to sell the merchandise, and then
Speaker 1: sometimes we were able to follow the guid that is
Speaker 1: the boss. And he one time said to missus, Arnold,
Speaker 1: why don't you help me here? And he would talk
Speaker 1: to the customer, and I realized quickly that there was
Speaker 1: something art going on that all of a sudden his
Speaker 1: attention focused on the wife. It was this couple. They
Speaker 1: wanted to have some tiles for the bathroom and for
Speaker 1: the kitchen, and there he first talked to him and
Speaker 1: how much money does he want to spend in order
Speaker 1: what colors? Then all of a sudden, it was like
Speaker 1: he ended up only talking to the woman. So he said, so,
Speaker 1: what did you learn? I say, well, I learned that
Speaker 1: you were really very clear about all the advantages and
Speaker 1: disadvantages of the various different tiles and the verious different colors.
Speaker 1: He says, yeah, yeah, that's right. But it's one dimension,
Speaker 1: but what else, I said, I don't know. He says,
Speaker 1: did you see how I shifted and my attention went
Speaker 1: from the husband to the wife? I said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what was that all about? And he says, well, I
Speaker 1: realized that he had really no interest in the tiles
Speaker 1: and what color should be, what type real tiles or
Speaker 1: fake tiles or what. It was her vision and it
Speaker 1: was her desire to have new tiles, and he just
Speaker 1: went along with it because he's the husband, is the
Speaker 1: provider of the family. He makes the money. She didn't
Speaker 1: make the money, but she had a very clear vision
Speaker 1: of what she wanted. So I shifted my focus because
Speaker 1: I realized that she is the customer, not him, and
Speaker 1: you got to go and be able to reach the customer.
Speaker 1: And this is why I started talking to her more.
Speaker 1: It was and then he just out of courtesy, said so,
Speaker 1: what do you think should have delivered on Thursday? And says, yeah, whenever,
Speaker 1: you will just always say whatever, And she says, Friday
Speaker 1: is better because Friday, my husband is at home in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, so he can help you carrying all this
Speaker 1: stuff up to the second floor and flower. So she
Speaker 1: was much more precise and so that's why he spent
Speaker 1: most of his time with that. So those are the
Speaker 1: things that I've learned when I was selling, and how
Speaker 1: important it is to actually let the people know that
Speaker 1: you have this product I was. I went right after
Speaker 1: that a few years later, I went to Munich and
Speaker 1: I after the military, served there as a trainer in
Speaker 1: a body building gym and we had, like I remember,
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty members, and there was another gym
Speaker 1: in Munich that had five hundred members. And that guy
Speaker 1: his name was Ryan huts Moulana. He was mister Europe
Speaker 1: and I was at this point not mister Europe yet.
Speaker 1: That was junior mister Europe, but not mister Europe net
Speaker 1: yet and that didn't compete in any other international competitions.
Speaker 1: So I was training really hard. I said myself, if
Speaker 1: I could go to the Mister Universe contest and I
Speaker 1: compete and they do really well, I could maybe outdo him.
Speaker 1: And so this is what I did. I trained really
Speaker 1: hard for months, and then in September was the Mister Universe.
Speaker 1: End of September Mister Universe condest, and I happened to
Speaker 1: play second, which they called runner up. Yes, so this
Speaker 1: was my order that point was to be in the
Speaker 1: top six. Because I was nineteen years old. There was
Speaker 1: second place winner. So when I came back from London
Speaker 1: to Munich, I ran around on a construction site which
Speaker 1: is a baiting Sudan like a lunatic, and everyone was
Speaker 1: dressed up in their suits and everything else, and they said,
Speaker 1: what is this guy doing? That was walking out on
Speaker 1: the construction site and greeting people and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: hoping that some press would show up because there's this
Speaker 1: crazy guy running around in the cold weather with just
Speaker 1: a bad little basing suit. And sure enough, newspaper showed up,
Speaker 1: a photographer showed up, and they asked me after it's
Speaker 1: why are you running around like that? And they said, well,
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that my Gymnasium Universal Gym
Speaker 1: is in the newspaper. I said, okay, well let's take
Speaker 1: a good shot. When you take this saw over the end,
Speaker 1: you help this guy with the construction sat doing some
Speaker 1: cutting off the wood and stuff, and then we would
Speaker 1: take we would create some pictures that are really funny,
Speaker 1: and they put it in the newspaper the next day
Speaker 1: and he says, Schwartzenegger just came back from mister Universe
Speaker 1: was running up in the Mister Universe contest, which makes
Speaker 1: him the biggest title holder in Germany. Wow. So I
Speaker 1: made it clear that they know that, not that the
Speaker 1: Mister Europe is bigger or but the second in the
Speaker 1: Mister univers is the biggest title holder. So he said
Speaker 1: there was like I was. Now that story was in
Speaker 1: the paper and we had within no time, we had
Speaker 1: beaten him with the Timnasium membership and had over five
Speaker 1: hundred and his was low and he I remember him calling.
Speaker 1: So in fact, I worked out him myself in his
Speaker 1: gym because we worked out together, because it's much better
Speaker 1: when you have a good training partner that is a
Speaker 1: champion himself. And we were laughing about it. So then
Speaker 1: just to show you how important promotion is, so then
Speaker 1: he started secretly posting posters all over the city on
Speaker 1: construction sites the Simulana gym. We train you, you become
Speaker 1: a champion, more energy, healthier body, this, this and that
Speaker 1: and noticed stuff. So when I saw the posters, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go and create posters myself for the gym.
Speaker 1: So we created posters and then we went. I followed
Speaker 1: him with the car and he was going at ten
Speaker 1: o'clock at night on Friday, putting the posters up there.
Speaker 1: And then after you put the post up with the glue,
Speaker 1: he then left, and then I put my post on
Speaker 1: top of his wet glue because I came right after him.
Speaker 1: I didn't wait until the tries went after him include
Speaker 1: my post on top of him. And so this was
Speaker 1: kind of like the post of war amongst the gym owners.
Speaker 1: It was hilarious, but it was all It was all
Speaker 1: about selling memberships because I knew that my salary comes
Speaker 1: and it's getting paid for from those moneies that are
Speaker 1: coming in from the members, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to buy food supplements. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: able to buy myself good food and the trips to
Speaker 1: those various different competitions in order to say it was
Speaker 1: very important that our membership goes up, that we are
Speaker 1: very successful. But it's all about selling. And so when
Speaker 1: I came to America, there was in my ploot now
Speaker 1: selling and communicating and promoting. So when I did, I
Speaker 1: remember my book promotion I'm Not the Education of a Bodybuilder.
Speaker 1: Simon and Schuster wanted to have it, you know, sell
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand copies. So I said, well, I want
Speaker 1: to have it on the best seller list. No body
Speaker 1: building magazine was ever on the best seller list, forget
Speaker 1: about that. I said, well, I said, let's give it
Speaker 1: a shot. How many cities do we go and promote
Speaker 1: the book? And he says, well, here's six cities I suggests,
Speaker 1: And so I said to him, I said, why don't
Speaker 1: we go to thirty cities? You're crazy? So he was laughing.
Speaker 1: But then I put together schedule and for thirty cities
Speaker 1: in thirty days, and I was crisscrossing America. I was
Speaker 1: going from ninety degree temperature in Miami up to Minnesota
Speaker 1: that was like in the below zero. So it was
Speaker 1: literally like one hundred degree temperature differences in the same day.
Speaker 1: So this is how much I crisscrossed this country. And
Speaker 1: it was absolutely fantastic. We want the best seller list.
Speaker 1: We sold, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand hardcovers
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, and it was like a total
Speaker 1: smash as a body building and fitness book. And so
Speaker 1: this is again and over again I have seen that
Speaker 1: not just the will power to succeed, but to be
Speaker 1: able to sell and to communicate and to be out
Speaker 1: and to actually talk about it. You know, I think
Speaker 1: it's important to let people know you don't have to
Speaker 1: force the issue into the heart cell where you talk
Speaker 1: about all time. Buy my book and by and by it.
Speaker 1: This is the only way you're going to stay healthy.
Speaker 1: In the orders of no, you don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: It's just in an indirect way. But the key thing
Speaker 1: is that when people walk away from the interview that
Speaker 1: they know about it. And this is also very important.
Speaker 1: Like for instance, when when we were doing Johnny Corson Show,
Speaker 1: you know, I was learning at that time about bridging.
Speaker 1: You know, where the bridge from a specific subject. Someone
Speaker 1: asked you to then, what do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1: It's an art, you know. So my friend was vice
Speaker 1: president of Nationwide Insurance and he told me about it.
Speaker 1: He said that he has taken many seminars about the
Speaker 1: you know, promotion because insurance business is very important. Did
Speaker 1: you promote and did you communicate and publicize and orders?
Speaker 1: And so I asked him about it and he told me.
Speaker 1: He says, well, bridging is one of the most important things.
Speaker 1: So he taught me about that, and of course I
Speaker 1: was on Johnny Corson Show promoting Conan the Babarian, just
Speaker 1: to give you an example. And Johnny Coston says, he says, so,
Speaker 1: oh no, this is really unbelieverable. It says that how
Speaker 1: long have you been working out? When did you start
Speaker 1: and why did you start working out? So I said
Speaker 1: to myself, Okay, if I answered this question in a
Speaker 1: thorough way, he will not sell one to go to
Speaker 1: see Conan. So I said, I got to go and bridge.
Speaker 1: And so what I did was the answered very briefly,
Speaker 1: because you have to sound stupid if you talk about
Speaker 1: something else. But I would say, say, Johnny, the very
Speaker 1: good question is say I was fifteen, but I tell you,
Speaker 1: at fifteen I did not know that at one time
Speaker 1: it is absolutely essential to have this kind of a body.
Speaker 1: He says. Imagine Conan the Barbarian, the way Frank Frazetta
Speaker 1: painted Cone and the Barbarian with the muscles amid the
Speaker 1: determination of yourself. And there was no one around to
Speaker 1: do this character. That's why they've never filmed Conan. I said,
Speaker 1: now here I come, missed the universe body, and now
Speaker 1: I do Conan the Barbarian, and it is now believable
Speaker 1: because people want to see me handle the sword and
Speaker 1: killing all these people. I said, it's believable because they
Speaker 1: see the muscles. So I said, now that my wildest
Speaker 1: dreams with fifteen, did I think that one day there's
Speaker 1: muscles would be so important in the movies and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So I sold now to answer this question.
Speaker 1: So I was fifteen, but I sold Conan the Barbarian,
Speaker 1: you know, the muscles and the fight scenes. And they
Speaker 1: then would add on and say there was just one
Speaker 1: scene in the camera, and I punched up the camera
Speaker 1: and blah blah blahah. So you then just spice it up,
Speaker 1: and so this is what you know, selling and communicating
Speaker 1: is all about. I was very fortunate that my head
Speaker 1: was in that so much because when I was governor,
Speaker 1: that is the most important thing to communicate to the people,
Speaker 1: because otherwise how do you get their boat?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right, So you need the people. You need to go
Speaker 1: and say here's why we need infrastructure. We need to
Speaker 1: rebuild our roads. We need to build extra freeways, extra highways,
Speaker 1: extra tunnels and bridges and on rams and off rams.
Speaker 1: I say why, because you want to go do you
Speaker 1: kids school and watch them play football. You don't want
Speaker 1: to be late two hours? I say, how many people
Speaker 1: get stuck in traffic. Neverone will be raising their hands
Speaker 1: and say, well, let's eliminate it. Let's terminate this problem,
Speaker 1: let's build my roads. Vote yes and proposition one A.
Speaker 1: So I explained it to them, not just talking about infrastructure,
Speaker 1: which politicians normally do. But people don't know what infrastructure is.
Speaker 1: I cannot expect them to know. With infrastructures. Is it
Speaker 1: the electric lines, the power lines? Is it the plumbing?
Speaker 1: Is it the sewage? Is it the building freeways? Is
Speaker 1: it building high speed rail? What is infrastructure? All of
Speaker 1: this is infrastructure, but cer you have to explain it
Speaker 1: to people by saying, do you ever get stuck in traffic?
Speaker 1: Of course everyone does, So then you say, well, let's
Speaker 1: build my freeways. Let's go and vote for this so
Speaker 1: they don't get stuck in traffic. So then then know, ah,
Speaker 1: it moves the traffic fast because we get stuck in traffic.
Speaker 1: So this is why communicating, communicating, communicating, selling, selling, selling,
Speaker 1: This is what it is about.
Speaker 2: Oh, those a great story is great examples. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: love I hope everyone who's listening and watching can latch
Speaker 2: on and get some insights for their own challenges. Those
Speaker 2: are great, and I love that you're going all the
Speaker 2: way from governor through to the gym and the story
Speaker 2: of you running around in your swimsuit is brilliant. What's
Speaker 2: the There was one story actually that aligns with that
Speaker 2: selling point that Will Smith tells of meeting you, and
Speaker 2: he said that he walked into a room and it
Speaker 2: was you, Sylvester Stallone and John Claude van Dam and
Speaker 2: you were the three that inspired him to go international.
Speaker 2: So he said that when he spoke to you three,
Speaker 2: you all said to him that the market in the
Speaker 2: USA is huge, but until he become a global superstar,
Speaker 2: you're not really a superstar. And so in the same
Speaker 2: way as you were saying you were going around the
Speaker 2: thirty cities of the US, you've done a lot of
Speaker 2: world touring as well for the movies.
Speaker 1: Well, I explained to him that when I got in
Speaker 1: the movies and talking about Conan the Barbarian was my
Speaker 1: first big international movie. Again, the studio says, we're going
Speaker 1: to send you to Khan to the film firstival was
Speaker 1: then we're going to go and send you to London
Speaker 1: and maybe the Rome and definitely to Japan. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: why are we only going to four places. They said, well,
Speaker 1: this is where the big markets are Germany, but the
Speaker 1: Germans always come to England. Maybe do the press chun
Speaker 1: kits in England so the Germans are taken care of.
Speaker 1: Then we have the Japanese. We go to Japan and
Speaker 1: you're going to do a big promotion there, and then
Speaker 1: then America. Those are the three big markets. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: if this is the three big markets, I said, when
Speaker 1: I look at the globe today, I see so many
Speaker 1: other potential markets. I said, you don't want to build those,
Speaker 1: you don't want to create those. So I told will Smith,
Speaker 1: I said the story, I said. I told them, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to France. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: to England, to Germany, to Holland, to Finland, to Sweden,
Speaker 1: to Norway. I want to go all over the place.
Speaker 1: I want to go to the Middle East. I want
Speaker 1: to go to Africa. I want to go to Australia.
Speaker 1: I want to go all over the place. And said that.
Speaker 1: They said, you're nuts. I said so because I was
Speaker 1: thinking about two things. One is to promote the movie
Speaker 1: and the other one is I have to promote myself.
Speaker 1: Because most people know me as a bodybuilder, not as
Speaker 1: an actor. So this is a good opportunity for me
Speaker 1: to go around the world for the next month and
Speaker 1: to promote myself as well. I now I'm doing movies,
Speaker 1: and this is my first big movie. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's called The Barbarian. So it was like a great opportunity.
Speaker 1: So I told him that, I said, so I slowly
Speaker 1: started building an international market, and the studios were extremely
Speaker 1: pleased because every one of my movies started to get
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger internationally. So it used to be that
Speaker 1: one third was international box office and two thirds was domestic.
Speaker 1: Then with me, it started going to be fifty to
Speaker 1: fifty domestic, fifty percent international, and eventually it became one
Speaker 1: third domestic and two thirds international. So imagine how much
Speaker 1: more money that it added because of that. And so
Speaker 1: this was a tremendous powers. I said to them, I said,
Speaker 1: don't ever assume that everyone would know about the movie.
Speaker 1: And so you got to go there. You've got to
Speaker 1: show your face. The people, the journalists like to shake
Speaker 1: your hand. They like to sit down on the round
Speaker 1: table with all of them mic sticking out the ten
Speaker 1: leading radio programs of that country. They sit there all
Speaker 1: day on the table. You're that the eleventh person that
Speaker 1: sits there, and now you're telling them stories about the movie.
Speaker 1: I said. They go back to the radio station, says,
Speaker 1: I have an exclusive interview with Will Smith and he's
Speaker 1: coming up with this movie. It is hot. He looks fantastic,
Speaker 1: great actor or is it? I say, hey, how can
Speaker 1: it hurt? But do it? Just promote yourself internationally and
Speaker 1: go from country to country. And he said, thank you
Speaker 1: for this really great advice, because if the studio would
Speaker 1: have said that to me, I would have just said,
Speaker 1: what did you want to use me? Because but you're
Speaker 1: saying it. I buy in, I believe it. And he
Speaker 1: has been thankful ever since because of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's great advice. It's great advice, but it's
Speaker 2: it's it's you know, you've got to always let people
Speaker 2: know that there's nothing sleazy about the marketing. And there's
Speaker 2: so many actors always feel like it's beneath them to
Speaker 2: go out and sell the movie.
Speaker 1: And they tell them. I said, look, no matter what
Speaker 1: you do, if you're a painter and you paint great paintings,
Speaker 1: or if you're a musician and you want to promote
Speaker 1: an album, or if you're a movie act and you
Speaker 1: promote the movie. I said, you have to do that
Speaker 1: because it's the only way people who know about it.
Speaker 1: The more you do and the better you do it,
Speaker 1: and to actually say the right things about the movie
Speaker 1: that is snappy, that really makes people curious when it goes.
Speaker 1: That's why it's all. It's an art by itself, not
Speaker 1: just the acting is an art, but the sullen is
Speaker 1: an art as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I love about what you're saying is, you know,
Speaker 2: for me as well, I only moved to LA five
Speaker 2: years ago, and I feel like I can be quite
Speaker 2: audacious and you know, driven as well. And so when
Speaker 2: I'm listening to you, what I always find it's interesting
Speaker 2: because the most successful people in the world they have
Speaker 2: this audacity in that they already see it as reality,
Speaker 2: and everyone else because it's so audacious, people are trying
Speaker 2: to catch up or they can't really see it, they
Speaker 2: can't figure it out. And you almost have to have
Speaker 2: that trust that you know where it can go and
Speaker 2: how big it can get. Having actually achieved all your goals,
Speaker 2: becoming the biggest bodybuilder of all time, going further becoming
Speaker 2: this huge movie star you know, you just said that
Speaker 2: you had to go to educate people at one point
Speaker 2: that you even were a movie star. I think you've
Speaker 2: been good at redefining yourself and re educating people about
Speaker 2: who you are, from bodybuilding to movies to obviously governor
Speaker 2: of California. How does it feel to have lived out
Speaker 2: so many of your visions that you saw so clearly
Speaker 2: as that young man in Austria, How does that actually
Speaker 2: feel well?
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I always say to people,
Speaker 1: I would never switch my life with anyone's life, no
Speaker 1: matter who it is, because I think that I am
Speaker 1: the most privileged person in the world. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like to be able to live this many types of lives,
Speaker 1: to live the life of an athlete, of an amateur,
Speaker 1: of a professional, to really get the inside scoop, because
Speaker 1: when you get the inside scoop of one profession, of
Speaker 1: one sport, you pretty much because you hang out with
Speaker 1: the bet top football players, with Joe Namath, all of
Speaker 1: these guys in the seventies, I mean, and with George
Speaker 1: Foreman and Muhammad Ali, so you get to know really
Speaker 1: the inside of all sports basically, and uh, I think
Speaker 1: to learn everything about sports to then learn everything about entertainment.
Speaker 1: To be now with the greatest of the greatest. I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine that I still met people like Frank Sinatra and
Speaker 1: Bob Hope, Uh, Sammy Davis Junior, Dean Martin and all
Speaker 1: of those guys. The guy that trained me in comedy
Speaker 1: was built, Milton Burrow, and then the all these old
Speaker 1: timer guys, Jimmy Stewart, I mean, the list goes on,
Speaker 1: Lucille Ball, the list goes on and on and on.
Speaker 1: To meet all these people, to work with them, to
Speaker 1: do photo shoots with them, to go to parties with them,
Speaker 1: to be at dinner with them, at charity event events
Speaker 1: with them, I mean, it's really staggering to have this
Speaker 1: kind of experience, and then to travel around the world
Speaker 1: and to meet or the political leaders from Gorbachev and
Speaker 1: you know, every president in the UN States from around
Speaker 1: with Reagan to Jimmy Carter, the George Bush and everyone that.
Speaker 1: The lists on and on, Clinton and all those guys,
Speaker 1: aller It, Nixon, I mean everyone I met and talk
Speaker 1: to and hung out with and learn from Mandela. So
Speaker 1: it is just like, I mean, who has the privilege
Speaker 1: to do that and to travel around the Middle East
Speaker 1: and to do the things that people say you can't do,
Speaker 1: like to go from an Arab country to Israel or
Speaker 1: from Eastra there. I hop back and forth all over
Speaker 1: the place, from Iraq to Jordan, to Israel to Kuwait,
Speaker 1: I mean everywhere, and uh, you know, visiting the American
Speaker 1: soldiers over there and to be there, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's staggering, this kind of life. And then to go
Speaker 1: into the political arena, and then to figure out what
Speaker 1: makes really a city or a state or come to
Speaker 1: run and tick and what kind of players do you need?
Speaker 1: And how do you negotiate with all these people? And
Speaker 1: how do you bring Democrats and Republicans together, and how
Speaker 1: do you come up with your own vision of how
Speaker 1: things should work? Because very quickly, you know, I was
Speaker 1: a hardcore Republican, but very quickly I realized that that's
Speaker 1: not where the action is. The action is not with
Speaker 1: one party. That America is Democrats and Republicans declined to
Speaker 1: state independents together and so that's the team. And as
Speaker 1: a team together we can do great things. But if
Speaker 1: you start splitting the team, U start falling apart. It's
Speaker 1: like any football team or basketball team. So I said, myself.
Speaker 1: The action is honard bringing them together. Don't insult the Democrats,
Speaker 1: don't insult anybody, bring them together, and let's be a
Speaker 1: public servant rather than a party servant. And so that
Speaker 1: was my new theme. I was so proud of myself
Speaker 1: as it. Maybe five thousand other politicians have talked about this,
Speaker 1: but I mean Obama said there's a blue state and
Speaker 1: read state. There's only the United States. But there's a
Speaker 1: bogus lines. Really, I mean it sounds good, but I
Speaker 1: mean the reality is different. So you really have to
Speaker 1: show leadership quality, and you really have to kind of
Speaker 1: make an effort to bring both of them together and
Speaker 1: to be not afraid to say to the Democrats, as
Speaker 1: a Republican, I need your help, but together we can
Speaker 1: solve this problem. I cannot do a long healthcare reform
Speaker 1: as a Republican. I need the Democrats, I need everybody,
Speaker 1: you know. So this is the kind of things, of
Speaker 1: building infrastructure, doing anything in this state. It was our
Speaker 1: best work we did together. So I cannot give any
Speaker 1: party a credit. I have to give credit to the
Speaker 1: politicians and to the people. And the people really enjoyed
Speaker 1: that when Democrats and Republicans got together and campaigned together
Speaker 1: for propositions, to vote for the certain propositions in order.
Speaker 1: So I think so I was very, very privileged to
Speaker 1: be able to do all of those things and to
Speaker 1: have millions of people listen to you and vote for you.
Speaker 1: And then of course goes to another chapter and another
Speaker 1: subject in a book, which is, you know, give something
Speaker 1: back to the community, you know, because we are not
Speaker 1: self made people. And I talk about this at great
Speaker 1: length in the book because you know, people so many
Speaker 1: times call me a self made man. I know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, but I always want to make clear
Speaker 1: at the same time, I'm not a self made man.
Speaker 1: I was created by my mother and my father. I
Speaker 1: was created by my teachers, by my coaches, by my
Speaker 1: body building champions that they were my idols, and Joe Wheder,
Speaker 1: they brought me to America, Eric Morris who was my
Speaker 1: acting coach, Chuck Nicholson that recommended this acting coach. So
Speaker 1: all of these people I had, it's a tremendous amount.
Speaker 1: My wife did help me in every step of the way,
Speaker 1: you know, with the kids, that my kids were really
Speaker 1: helpful in my career. So I am a product of
Speaker 1: all of that and so I think it's important that
Speaker 1: when mean recognize that we have gotten the help, they'll
Speaker 1: be therefore give help back. So that's why you have
Speaker 1: to ask yourself the question, Okay, now, if everyone helped
Speaker 1: me to be where I am, how can I go
Speaker 1: out and help Who can I help? What can I
Speaker 1: help them with? And I talk about it in a
Speaker 1: book that my father in law, Sergeant S. Driver, had
Speaker 1: this great line at the university speech at Yale where
Speaker 1: you said, don't look always in a mirror, don't look
Speaker 1: at yourself. You know, destroy that mirror. You will be
Speaker 1: able to look beyond that mirror, and then you will
Speaker 1: see the millions of people that need your help. And
Speaker 1: so this what is all about, is to not just
Speaker 1: look at yourself or be self consumed. Yes you can be,
Speaker 1: but don't forget ever that there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there that need your help. And even though when
Speaker 1: people say, well what can I do? I'm a nobody,
Speaker 1: I don't have any money, it's focus. It's an excuse
Speaker 1: right off the top that I don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1: Because when you see Hawaii burning down to the ground,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that everyone can do, but
Speaker 1: just taking some food and bringing it to this poor folks,
Speaker 1: bringing some clothing, going out and going to some fundraising
Speaker 1: and bring a few dollars to them. Whatever it is
Speaker 1: you can do something, or to go into some inner
Speaker 1: city school and to help with an after school program
Speaker 1: and to help kids learn how to read, especially since
Speaker 1: in America now we have so many students that are
Speaker 1: English is the second language, you know, to help them
Speaker 1: to learn English and all this stuff. So there's endless
Speaker 1: amount of things. I just always felt that I have
Speaker 1: to be all out. I remember when Rudy Giuliani called
Speaker 1: me when he was mayor of New York. He said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you know that buildings came down and
Speaker 1: we're creating a Twin Tower fund. Can you send a
Speaker 1: million dollars? I said, yah, you got it tomorrow in
Speaker 1: two seconds. I didn't even think about it, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what you do when when we need needed masks.
Speaker 1: When COVID broke out and and Los Angeles, the hospitals
Speaker 1: didn't have any masks. So I immediately put in a
Speaker 1: million dollars towards a fund that we put together uh
Speaker 1: to do to raise eight million dollars and then to
Speaker 1: get masks from all over the world and especially from
Speaker 1: Asian countries, and so we can supply them with masks
Speaker 1: and gowns and with gloves and with vandilators and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. There was a company called flex Port that
Speaker 1: was was within days got a the mask. Even though
Speaker 1: the government said they're no mask around. They can get
Speaker 1: any mask. So either this are things like that or
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if it's an Earthquaker. If this is that,
Speaker 1: you go out and you reach out. And that's why
Speaker 1: I'm involved in after school programs. That's why I was
Speaker 1: involved in Special Olympics and being a trained and a
Speaker 1: coach for Special Olympians to help them with the winning
Speaker 1: medals and becoming champions and all of stuff. So that's
Speaker 1: what life is all about. To receive and to give.
Speaker 2: Was said, Arnold was said, and yeah, definitely more notes
Speaker 2: in the book for anyone who wants to dive into
Speaker 2: some of those stories. But Arnold, we end every episode
Speaker 2: with a final five. So these are a fast five
Speaker 2: where you have to answer each question in one word
Speaker 2: or one sentence maximum. So these are your final five.
Speaker 2: The first question is what is the best advice you've
Speaker 2: ever heard or received? Believe in yourself second question, what
Speaker 2: is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: It can't be done.
Speaker 2: Since question number three, You've mastered so many things in
Speaker 2: your life. What are you currently trying to master?
Speaker 1: Bring all of my talents together and the one the
Speaker 1: show business, fitness and politics all in one and make
Speaker 1: that be my new kind of vision and drive to
Speaker 1: help the world.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, I'm going to scrap the final hout. What
Speaker 2: does that look like? That's fascinating. What does that look
Speaker 2: like right now in your mind? As you develop it?
Speaker 2: You can use more than one center.
Speaker 1: I want to be out there and help with environmental
Speaker 1: issues because I learned about that doing my governorship. I
Speaker 1: want to be out there and help with healthcare issues,
Speaker 1: with aging issues, with fitness issues, with entertaining issues, and
Speaker 1: because it's important and entertain people, so all of those
Speaker 1: kind of things. So I have to Schwarzenegger Institute where
Speaker 1: we deal with a lot of those very different issues
Speaker 1: and policies to make it the better world. And I
Speaker 1: have my Environmental Conference in Vienna every year where the
Speaker 1: world comes together. Eighty ninety countries come together and we
Speaker 1: talk about the environment and how to make this a
Speaker 1: fastil feel free, world and reduce pollution so we don't
Speaker 1: have seven million people die every year because of pollution.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, I can't wait to see the impact you have
Speaker 2: in that space. Question number four has two parts to it.
Speaker 2: What is your biggest personal success and what is your
Speaker 2: biggest personal failure?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that my biggest personal success is to
Speaker 1: be able to do the things that I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: that the visualize them and turn them into reality. And
Speaker 1: I think my biggest failure obviously is my marriage. Think
Speaker 1: that from a personal point of view and from a
Speaker 1: professional point of view, I've had many movies going to toilet.
Speaker 1: I've lost bodybuilding competitions and powerlifting competitions and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So I had plenty of failures. It's always important to
Speaker 1: bring it up because people should know that you never
Speaker 1: will be able to go through life without failures. Failures
Speaker 1: make us learn, Failures make you stronger. Pain makes you stronger.
Speaker 1: So I think all of that is good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's address both of those because it's so true.
Speaker 2: Like on the outside, like you said, people can say,
Speaker 2: so privileged, you met the presidents, you did this, you
Speaker 2: did that, You've you know all the winds, you know
Speaker 2: when I'm looking around this room like everything's iconically you know,
Speaker 2: nothing's unrecognizable across the whole world. It's all recognizable. But
Speaker 2: did you ever feel the pressure when things started to
Speaker 2: go well of like, God, the next movie's got to
Speaker 2: be bigger, and the next movie's got to be bigger.
Speaker 2: Did you feel that or did you just kind of
Speaker 2: you were just loving it so much that you just
Speaker 2: kept building and if it went wrong that it didn't
Speaker 2: hurt you that much.
Speaker 1: You know, I never really felt that much pressure probably
Speaker 1: about anything, to be honest with you, because I knew
Speaker 1: what I wanted and I never really fell for this
Speaker 1: thing of what did the people expect me to do?
Speaker 1: So I just I create my vision and when everyone
Speaker 1: says it's impossible, I go after the vengeance, it's like
Speaker 1: I go all out one and it gives me joy
Speaker 1: and it is What is great about it is that
Speaker 1: every time that you accomplish something really big, you see
Speaker 1: and become aware of other things that are new challenges
Speaker 1: that you didn't even think about. Yes, I mean, did
Speaker 1: I ever think about that I will fight for the environment. No,
Speaker 1: But because of the governorship. You know, this is like
Speaker 1: the thing I talk about in the book about Hillary
Speaker 1: the Times Mount Everest and he's up there, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this is another pig to be climbed, right,
Speaker 1: And there's the next one. So there's the same thing.
Speaker 1: I go and win the governorship. I go in there,
Speaker 1: I start working on the governorship and all the different policies,
Speaker 1: and I'm meeting all these scientists and experts and they
Speaker 1: talk about it. You know, how many people diarrhea because
Speaker 1: of pollution and we can do something about it, and
Speaker 1: that dive into that it's a new peak. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: no one has really explored that. Forget the nineteen percent
Speaker 1: of renewables, we have to have fifty percent renewables. Forget
Speaker 1: about in the reducing Quino's gases about five percent. We
Speaker 1: have to reduce about twenty five percent, and we have
Speaker 1: to do it by twenty twenty. And so you said
Speaker 1: big goals. So this is the new peak that you're
Speaker 1: climbing and you go all out for that. Then when
Speaker 1: you get there, then you see another pick beyond that.
Speaker 1: So this is what is fun and this makes my
Speaker 1: life rich. You know that it's always something new and different.
Speaker 1: And I tell you that I also learned when I
Speaker 1: for instance, listen to you because you come from a
Speaker 1: totally different world, right, so you have a different spin
Speaker 1: on things, so that when a listener this, oh, that's
Speaker 1: interesting way of looking at it. And so I think
Speaker 1: we have to learn from one another. And so I
Speaker 1: think that you and I we have a lot in
Speaker 1: common anyway, because otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here right
Speaker 1: a minute to think about it. It's not just that
Speaker 1: I want to be having one of the most popular podcasts,
Speaker 1: but you have to be a curious son of a
Speaker 1: bitch to go and to be really good in what
Speaker 1: you do. And this is what I noticed about your podcast.
Speaker 1: You're really curious and natural curiosity, and I think that
Speaker 1: is you have to have it. You have to have curiosity.
Speaker 1: It shows in your eyes, it shows in everything when
Speaker 1: you ask the question and or you know, it's like
Speaker 1: when you see journalists, which I hate. You know, they
Speaker 1: have like a piece of paper and say, okay, very interesting,
Speaker 1: he says, Now let me ask you another question. You
Speaker 1: want them said, this isn't it? And then how do
Speaker 1: you feel that they they read it off the paper
Speaker 1: and then when you answer, they don't even look at
Speaker 1: you in the eyes. They look at the paper for
Speaker 1: the next question, right, So I didn't detect any of
Speaker 1: that from you. I mean, every question can without looking
Speaker 1: at anything, because you're curious, and so I think I
Speaker 1: just wanted to.
Speaker 2: Mention, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that, and it
Speaker 2: means a lot coming from you. And I am curious
Speaker 2: because I grew up as a fan who didn't so
Speaker 2: that's one thing. But I think I'm even more curious
Speaker 2: because you chose to write a book about being useful
Speaker 2: and life lessons, and I think that that world is
Speaker 2: what I gravitate towards because I think learning from the
Speaker 2: greats is all we have. And I think when we
Speaker 2: ignore to learn from the greats, that's when we make
Speaker 2: We have to make our own mistakes for no reason.
Speaker 2: We can avoid so many. So no, I am very
Speaker 2: curious about you. And I think you're also a fantastic storyteller,
Speaker 2: so that helps you get into someone's detail and so
Speaker 2: many examples and everything, so it's it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I tell you, it was really fun doing this book
Speaker 1: because I really had to kind of drilled down and
Speaker 1: think about a lot of the things that comes natural
Speaker 1: for me, you know, to tell stories about because you
Speaker 1: each one of the rules, you want to be able
Speaker 1: to even the sub rules and the sub sub rules.
Speaker 1: You want to be able to tie it to a
Speaker 1: story so that people can relate to. Like I was
Speaker 1: talking about infrastructure. You can talk to people about infrastructure
Speaker 1: already want they can relate to it. But as soon
Speaker 1: as you tied to getting stuck in traffic making it
Speaker 1: to the recital in the school and you've come late
Speaker 1: an hour because of the traffic in order, then they
Speaker 1: can relate to that. In the same is with any
Speaker 1: of the rules. You know. I kind of had fun
Speaker 1: doing it. It was sometimes frustrating because you want to
Speaker 1: do you know, ten rules, and the publish it and says, no,
Speaker 1: you can only do seven because this book can I
Speaker 1: should only have two hundred and sixty eight pages other
Speaker 1: than three hundred and fifty pages and all of this
Speaker 1: crazy stuff you go through. But it was a really,
Speaker 1: really great process and never met wildest dreams. Did I
Speaker 1: ever think that I would occupy this space at all,
Speaker 1: And it really happened, just totally coincidentally. We're more and
Speaker 1: more people, you know, when you when you finished with
Speaker 1: the governorship, I was asked to do public speaking engagements
Speaker 1: like ex presidents and stuff like that. And as I'm
Speaker 1: traveling around, I think one time someone said, can you
Speaker 1: pump up our crowd? We have like a thousands, you know,
Speaker 1: real estate people. We want you to just pump them up,
Speaker 1: so you do a little bit of success story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden they took golf like wildfire.
Speaker 1: Every one of the public speaking engagements they've had since
Speaker 1: then they want to go and have me talk about
Speaker 1: success and the rules to success and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's like something I didn't even think about because
Speaker 1: I always was a motivator, you know, if it's a
Speaker 1: special Olympics of after school programs or do we just
Speaker 1: my buddies around in the gym. That became my training
Speaker 1: partners because I always have this kind of energy, right,
Speaker 1: come on, let's just said you can do another set. Well,
Speaker 1: you're stopping with ten reps, give me five more reps.
Speaker 1: Let it pain, Let it give pain, you know, and
Speaker 1: you just pump pump up. So I have this energy.
Speaker 1: So never thought that this would be used then for
Speaker 1: seminars and eventually for a book like this. It's it's
Speaker 1: like crazy, No fantastic takes you. Yeah, it's fantastic. It's
Speaker 1: beautiful to see it through your eyes and through your
Speaker 1: lens and for us all to dream as well. And
Speaker 1: I have one final question for you, and actually before
Speaker 1: I ask it, when you said we have a lot
Speaker 1: in common, that there's so many different parallels that I'll
Speaker 1: tell you later, because when I was listening to you,
Speaker 1: I have a very different life, but so many similar
Speaker 1: lessons I've picked up along the way, and I think
Speaker 1: as humans, that's what brings us together. We may not
Speaker 1: have the same life story, we don't grow up in
Speaker 1: the same places, we don't have the same parents, but
Speaker 1: you pick up the same messages from the world and
Speaker 1: the same lessons from the world. So the fifth and
Speaker 1: final question I want to ask you is if you
Speaker 1: could create one law that everyone in the world had
Speaker 1: to follow, what would it be. Well, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: Maybe to get fossil fuels that you have to use
Speaker 1: alternative energy, if it is nuclear with producing energy itself,
Speaker 1: if it is for cast electric or hydrogen. I just
Speaker 1: feel like, if we have seven million people die because
Speaker 1: of pollution, I think by having a law like that
Speaker 1: and eventually make it stick, I think that we could
Speaker 1: save those lives, and this is like more than any
Speaker 1: of the wars that they're fought and any of the
Speaker 1: other disasters or anything like this. It's like so many
Speaker 1: people die because of pollution. So I mean that's huge.
Speaker 1: One thing is I mean, you know then the Bowery.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow morning, I'll call you and say I have another law.
Speaker 2: Great, that's a great answer. We've never had that one though.
Speaker 2: We've never had that answer. So it's a brilliant answer.
Speaker 2: But you've been doing so much work in I feel
Speaker 2: like you've been doing so much work the plant based space,
Speaker 2: you know, with the documentaries on game changes like climate change.
Speaker 2: Now you're talking about like it seems like this has
Speaker 2: been like an immersion for you.
Speaker 1: Well you know that. We know it's crazy. Here's another
Speaker 1: crazy one. Yeah, it's all My life is so insane.
Speaker 1: I believe it. But I mean it's like I'm working
Speaker 1: with the sky cham Cameron. I determinated one. We become friends,
Speaker 1: we're right the motorcycle together, we hang out together, and
Speaker 1: then it does you know, Terminator two, and it does
Speaker 1: other movies in the Titanic and other titles. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: he is an environmentalist. But when we determinated, I never
Speaker 1: knew that, and he never talked about it. So then
Speaker 1: I become governor, and now he goes in the system.
Speaker 1: He says, I only make it to make your way
Speaker 1: of that. The power companies are still resisting that we've
Speaker 1: verse metering, he said, reverse metering? What the hell are
Speaker 1: you talking about? He says, way, it's the thing you know,
Speaker 1: when you produce energy from solar and you produce too much,
Speaker 1: you want to put it back on a grid. That's
Speaker 1: reverse metering, and you get credit for it. So I
Speaker 1: walk away, and how does Jim Cameron knows about reverse
Speaker 1: metering and about that something you know? Of course, it's
Speaker 1: very clear because he's a genius, right and he just
Speaker 1: is with technowledge and stuff like that is unbeatable. But
Speaker 1: sure enough, I go into the office the next day
Speaker 1: in the governor's officer said, look, guys, I want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about reverse metering. Oh, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad to bring this up, because power companies are fighting
Speaker 1: us tooth and nail. They don't want to do reverse meeting.
Speaker 1: But we want to pass a law to be telling
Speaker 1: the legislators to send us a bill so that you
Speaker 1: can sign it in blah blah blah. So this just
Speaker 1: gives you an example of what impact Jim Cameron had
Speaker 1: on me with issues that way beyond you know, movies
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Then he goes and says to me,
Speaker 1: I said to him, I said, my doctor said to me.
Speaker 1: He says, I should get off meat and they should
Speaker 1: only have once a week meat. And he says, well, hello,
Speaker 1: where have you been. I mean, I've been vegan for
Speaker 1: five years. So I said what, And this is I've
Speaker 1: been being for five I mean any meat for five years.
Speaker 1: You don't need me to have it. And he goes crazy.
Speaker 1: Now right, and he says some effect, we're doing a
Speaker 1: documentary right now and the other thing, you know, on
Speaker 1: eating plant based food. So all of a sudden, here's
Speaker 1: the experts. Now I sit down with him and he's
Speaker 1: telling me for hours about you know, plant based food
Speaker 1: and how he can combine and create the right assets
Speaker 1: to create the right protein and all reasons how he
Speaker 1: can get strong. And here's and now he lists the
Speaker 1: name of the athletes, boxes, wrestlers, weightlifters, UFC fighters, everything
Speaker 1: that are on plant based food. Think about that. So
Speaker 1: now I got into it, and I was part of
Speaker 1: this documentary. Right, and now I eat like maybe once
Speaker 1: a week meat, So I would say seventy percent at least.
Speaker 1: The cutdown my meat intake for health reasons, and it
Speaker 1: happens to be also for environmental reasons, as he explained
Speaker 1: as the honold, what do you think where most of
Speaker 1: the pollution comes from more than from transportation, comes from
Speaker 1: breeding live stock? Says, see, are you kidding me? He says, no,
Speaker 1: read up on it. He says, I send you some stuff,
Speaker 1: so I'm reading up on it. Sure enough, twenty eight
Speaker 1: percent of the pollution comes from breeding livestock. So he says,
Speaker 1: if people wouldn't need meat, this is and wouldn't have
Speaker 1: the animals being kind of like the WHRSE cell, kind
Speaker 1: of like the vegetable protein goes into the animal, then
Speaker 1: they eat it in the chase. Then you eat the animal.
Speaker 1: You still get the the you know, the plant based food,
Speaker 1: but through the animal. Now it's it's bullshit. We can
Speaker 1: do better than that. Let's cut out the meat. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing how I get exposed to various different things
Speaker 1: in my life and make me passionate about ways that
Speaker 1: I couldn't even ever have planned. You know, those kind
Speaker 1: of relationships and this kind of knowledge you could never
Speaker 1: plan on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and do you also have a meditation practice?
Speaker 1: Is that right? I used to in the seventies. There
Speaker 1: was a time when I got out of bodybuilding and
Speaker 1: into show business and it was all kinds of things
Speaker 1: happening in the mid seventies. So I was doing the
Speaker 1: last year of competition in nineteen seventy five in South Africa,
Speaker 1: missed Olympia, so I was training for that. I was
Speaker 1: finishing off my movie Stay Hungry with Barb Breaferston and
Speaker 1: Salid Fields and Cheff Bridges. You know they're doing that.
Speaker 1: And I was at the same time going full plast
Speaker 1: in the show business, taking acting classes and investing my
Speaker 1: money in real estate. So I was no matter which
Speaker 1: way I was turning, I was like scrambling, and at
Speaker 1: that point I did not know much about how to
Speaker 1: isolate and just concentrate on one thing at the time.
Speaker 1: So I'm hanging out with this guy, this skinny rat
Speaker 1: down on the beach. Here's a transcendental meditation teacher. But
Speaker 1: they never talked about it. So I said, I feel frantic.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like everything is a little bit overwhelming
Speaker 1: for me. I'm doing this movie. I'm shooting the documentary,
Speaker 1: pumping on, I'm going to the competition, I'm finishing off
Speaker 1: Stay Hungry. I'm trying to the real estate and become
Speaker 1: a millionaire. I'm all over the recess. And let me
Speaker 1: talk to you a little bit, very calmly talks to
Speaker 1: me about it, and he says, when they come up
Speaker 1: to Westward and take some transcendental meditation, he says, I
Speaker 1: cannot be a teacher, even though I'm a teacher. I said,
Speaker 1: your teacher trans Then yeah, he said, but I cannot
Speaker 1: be your teacher's our rules in your friendship and stuff
Speaker 1: if there's someone else's. But don't worry, I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: with the right guy. So I go up there and
Speaker 1: I did the I learned now about meditation, And as
Speaker 1: I got into it, I was then doing meditation like
Speaker 1: for months throughout the summer, that hectic summer. I mean
Speaker 1: the summer was over, it wasn't a hectic anymore. So
Speaker 1: what I learned from meditation was, you know, how to
Speaker 1: kind of like first of all, rejuvenate the mind and
Speaker 1: to kind of disconnect the mind. But also what I
Speaker 1: learned was how to focus on one thing at the time,
Speaker 1: and to just look at that with no peripheral vision
Speaker 1: so that nothing comes in. Solve this and then don't
Speaker 1: think about anything else, and then go over here and
Speaker 1: solve this and then south. Just because he said, you
Speaker 1: can never do of it in one time anyway, and
Speaker 1: as soon as you single out things, it becomes much
Speaker 1: more approachable and much more doable. He said to me,
Speaker 1: I remember, he said, when you drive down and nice
Speaker 1: what walk with your bike, he says, you will look
Speaker 1: sometimes on this busy day and it will be all packed.
Speaker 1: He says, it would look like you would not be
Speaker 1: able to go through this crowd because you're looking at
Speaker 1: the whole shot, the whole what walk all the way
Speaker 1: down a mile venice, So it's overwhelming, he says. But
Speaker 1: if you go not with your bike slowly, you negotiate
Speaker 1: around the people and all of a sudden you find
Speaker 1: spaces where you can go. We don't bump into anybody,
Speaker 1: and always says, you always said you're on the end
Speaker 1: of it, And it was totally doable because he took
Speaker 1: like one person at the time, kind of like by
Speaker 1: sicing around, he says, And that's the way with everything.
Speaker 1: He says, if you just look at it one thing
Speaker 1: at the time, you'll be able to solve any problem.
Speaker 1: And that's why it says, you see people like the
Speaker 1: Pope that has obviously his daily routine, the big daily routine.
Speaker 1: But those guys, they get up at five o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, they work out for an hour and a half,
Speaker 1: very calmly, get that out of the way. Then they
Speaker 1: read newspapers like Pope Jump Paul. I remember he told
Speaker 1: me that he read newspapers in six different languages. So
Speaker 1: they read the newspapers, then they get that done. Then
Speaker 1: they go and take a shower, and then they go
Speaker 1: and have the first meeting. So this is how they
Speaker 1: step best step they approach the day, and says the
Speaker 1: people that get done the most, you can load them
Speaker 1: up with even more responsibilities because they're very organized and
Speaker 1: very systematic in their approach. And so I've learned that.
Speaker 1: So now I've never really been that friendic again, but
Speaker 1: if it would become friendic, I would go right back
Speaker 1: into the meditation because I know now how to do it.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic, Honold everyone who has been listening or watching
Speaker 2: the book is called be useful. Seven tools for life.
Speaker 2: You can grab it right now. We're going to put
Speaker 2: the link in the comments and the captions that you
Speaker 2: can order it right away. As you can tell, Arnold's
Speaker 2: a phenomenal storyteller. Inside of it a lessons stories. And
Speaker 2: one of the things I definitely have in common with
Speaker 2: Donold that I appreciate about him is how simple the
Speaker 2: idea is, how easy they are to digest. They're not complicated,
Speaker 2: and you know, you don't have to learn something new.
Speaker 2: You can actually just sit there, take them in, listen,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you start going, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: maybe it is that easy. Maybe it is that simple,
Speaker 2: and I think that's something that we desperately need in
Speaker 2: today's world. So Arnold, I thank you for putting all
Speaker 2: your lessons into a book for us, and thank you
Speaker 2: for telling so many amazing stories.
Speaker 1: And I signed seventeen thousand copies. Wow pages paye because
Speaker 1: now they sent you the pages, you know, so I'm
Speaker 1: getting the boxes with pages. Each box was a thousand pages,
Speaker 1: and I said them, alf, wait a minute, now you
Speaker 1: know it first was like fourteen thousands for the American Company,
Speaker 1: and then there was another three and a half thousand
Speaker 1: of four thousands for them they're going to be in bookstores. Yes.
Speaker 1: What what they do is I think that the first
Speaker 1: of the books all signed. Yes, so now people will
Speaker 1: be in the order pre order, they will wear signed books.
Speaker 1: I think that was the idea so in the old days,
Speaker 1: that you would go to the bookstore and you will
Speaker 1: sign all the books yourself, and then you sit there
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and after an hour signed one
Speaker 1: hundred books, right because you have to open up the
Speaker 1: book and it's always slow. Now is these pages? So
Speaker 1: I was just like signing, signing, signing. I was for
Speaker 1: three months. I was signing and signing and signing. H
Speaker 1: I mean think about it, I mean seventeen thousands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can relate.
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I never thought that many cigreass.
Speaker 2: I love it. Well, it's available.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Make sure you tag me and Arnold on any social
Speaker 2: media platforms you're using, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, x or
Speaker 2: wherever you are. I'd love to see what resonated with you,
Speaker 2: what's stuck with you? Keep sharing those posts across social
Speaker 2: media because I love seeing what is going to stay
Speaker 2: with you, what you're going to practice, what are you
Speaker 2: going to try? What are you going to implement in
Speaker 2: your life from this episode that will help you become happier, healthier,
Speaker 2: or more healed. Thank you again, Arnold, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: If you love this episode, you love my interview with
Speaker 2: Will Smith on owning your truth and unlocking the power
Speaker 2: of manifestation.
Speaker 1: Anybody who hasn't spoken to their parents or their brother,
Speaker 1: haul them right now. Don't think you're going to have
Speaker 1: a chance to call them tomorrow or next week.
Speaker 2: That opportunity with my father change every relationship in my life.