Arnold! Arnold! Arnold, come on! The voices of his friends drifted up from the lake. Arnold was 15 years old, hanging out with his friends by the lake in his hometown of Thal, Austria. They had carried in weights and were working out in the grass and trees. Arnold was far from the biggest or strongest. In fact, he was brand new to bodybuilding.

 But already, he was showing signs of promise. He was naturally athletic and his body was very adaptive, rapidly building strength and size in response to the little weight training he had already undertaken. He had a vision now. He later said, It was more than a young boy's mere pipe dream of a distant hazy future, confused fantasies of being a fireman, detective, sailor, test pilot, or spy.

I knew I was going to be a bodybuilder. It wasn't simply that either. I would be the best bodybuilder in the world. The greatest. The best built man. He shook himself out of his daydream and joined his friends curling dumbbells, doing pull ups on tree branches, and doing handstand push ups in the grass. He was lifting more intensely than them, pushing himself harder, because he could see his destiny now.

He saw himself standing on a podium, holding a trophy, and he could hear the cheering in his ears. It would take years for the rest of the world to find out, but he already knew his destiny. Run footage from one of his victories where people are shouting Arnold, Arnold, Arnold. Hello, and welcome to How to Take Over the World.

This is Ben Wilson, and this episode is about the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian American bodybuilder, actor, entrepreneur, and politician. How I already know that some of you are going to complain that he didn't truly take over the world. And you're right insofar as clearly he's not a Caesar or an Alexander, and he's still alive.

He's not even a historical figure. But there are a few reasons why I wanted to do this episode. One is that Arnold's first autobiography, The Education of a Bodybuilder, is one of my favorite books of all time. It's really amazing. And the second reason is that I just love Arnold's mindset. I find it incredibly motivating.

And [00:02:00] obviously the story is going to have a lot of applications to a lot of people, aspiring athletes, entrepreneurs, actors, influencers, and politicians can all learn something from what he did. I really loved researching it and I hope you enjoy it. My sources for this episode are Arnold's three autobiographical books.

The first is Arnold, The Education of a Bodybuilder, written in 1977. The next is total recall, which he wrote in 2013. And then the last is called be useful seven tools for life, which was published this year in 2024. And by the way, if you like it and you want to learn more about Arnold, let me recommend the founders podcast episode 309 founders is a lot like how to take over the world, but it's about great founders.

And it's specifically for aspiring entrepreneurs. And in episode 309, the host, David Senra, goes over his takeaways from the book, Arnold and Me in the Shadow of the Austrian Oak, which is a biography from Arnold's first girlfriend. And it's a really interesting perspective because she's kind of an outsider, so it dives into, um, how other people saw him early in his career, and it gets into a lot of stuff that I don't talk about in this episode.

So thank you to founders for supporting how to take over the world. I love David and he's got a great podcast, so go check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, let's get into it. Here is the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger origins. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, Austria in 1947. In the wake of world war two, his father was a proud and strong man who keenly felt the sting of defeat of the German army in which he had served during the war.

His father cared very much for his two sons, but he could be very strict and implemented a very regimented life of discipline. Here's what Arnold wrote about it. He said, His answer to life was discipline. We had a strict routine that nothing could change. We'd get up at six, and it would be my job, or Meinhard's, that's his brother, to get milk from the farm next door.

When we were a little older and starting to play sports, exercises were added to the chores, and we had to earn our breakfast by [00:04:00] doing sit ups. In the afternoon, we'd finish our homework and chores, and my father would make us practice soccer no matter how bad the weather was. If we messed up on a play, we knew we'd get yelled at.

He had high expectations, which Arnold often failed to live up to. Arnold was entrepreneurial, and this sometimes got him into trouble. For example, he found one good way of getting money was simply asking for it. He would go to the nearby city of Graz and pretend that he had forgotten the money for the train ride home and make decent money asking various people, usually older ladies, for a few bucks for the trip home.

But soon, his father found out that his son was begging in Graz. Arnold wrote, This led to a huge uproar at home with tremendous physical punishment, and that put an end to my panhandling career. He was also an athletic boy, competing and standing out in a number of sports. The one that stuck out the most was soccer.

He liked soccer, but didn't love it. Arnold loved being the center of attention, and a big team sport like soccer didn't lend itself to the kind of glory that he enjoyed. However, Arnold made a fortuitous discovery when his coach took the team to do some weightlifting to strengthen the boys legs. And Arnold immediately took to it.

He later said, I'm not exactly sure why I chose bodybuilding, except that I loved it. I loved it from the first moment my fingers closed around a barbell and I felt the challenge and exhilaration of hoisting the heavy steel plates above my head. And one of the reasons I love the book, The Education of a Bodybuilder, so much is that you can just feel the enthusiasm and the obsession dripping off of Arnold.

He's so in love with bodybuilding. He said, After two or three months with the bodybuilders, I was literally addicted. I loved the feel of the cold iron and steel warming to my touch, and the sounds and smells of the gym, and I still love it. There is nothing I would sooner hear than the sound of heavy steel plates ringing as they are threaded onto the bar or dropped back to the rack after a strenuous lift.

I remember the first real workout I had as vividly as if it were last night. [00:06:00] I mean, to me, it sounds a lot like a love letter. It's almost romantic. As you might have gathered from that passage, Arnold quickly progresses beyond just lifting with the soccer team, and he starts working out with real weightlifters and bodybuilders.

And he really falls in love with this crowd. He loves them and they love him. But the sport isn't popular. Weightlifting and bodybuilding were totally different back then. People really looked down on it. Bodybuilders were thought of as freaks. Almost no one just casually engaged in weightlifting. His friends, and especially his parents, try to talk him out of this newfound obsession.

But he just can't be dissuaded. He says, I remember certain people trying to put negative thoughts into my mind, trying to persuade me to slow down. I had found the thing to which I wanted to devote my total energies, and there was no stopping me. My drive was unusual. I talked differently than my friends.

I was hungrier for success than anyone I knew. I love that passage. I had found the thing to which I wanted to devote my total energies and there was no stopping me. I think there's so much clarity that comes into your life when you find that one thing. Another big moment for young Arnold is when he first gets a bodybuilding magazine and sees a photograph of someone named Reg Park.

Reg was Mr. Universe, the world's top bodybuilder, and he had leveraged his status as a bodybuilder into success as an actor as well. Arnold becomes completely obsessed with Reg. I love that passage. with the look of his physique. He was enormous, his body was breathtaking. Arnold writes that, from that point on, my life was utterly dominated by Reg Park.

In weeks that followed, I refined this vision until it was very specific. I was going to go for the Mr. Universe title. I was going to break records in powerlifting. I was going to Hollywood. I was going to be like Reg Park. The vision became so clear in my mind that I felt like it had to happen. There was no alternative.

It was this, or nothing. He puts up pictures of Reg in his bedroom. He read everything that Reg wrote that had been translated into German. He studied every photograph he could find. He is just obsessed. And [00:08:00] this follows a common theme, great achievers always pattern themselves after other greats. And this is sort of the thesis of this podcast, that you can become great by studying the other greats.

You know, John D. Rockefeller was patterning himself after this guy Amos Lawrence, who made a bunch of money and gave it away. Napoleon was trying to be Julius Caesar. Steve Jobs was trying to be Edwin Land. Thomas Edison was trying to be Michael Faraday. It goes on and on. But it's not always just one person.

So his life becomes consumed by trying to imitate Reg Park, but he is able to actually have contact with and learn from a guy named Kurt Marnul, who was Mr. Austria. So not as accomplished as Reg, but still a great bodybuilder in his own right. And Kurt kind of takes Arnold under his wing. And Arnold is totally obsessed.

He writes in Total Recall, Soon life at the gym totally consumed me. Training was all I could think about. One Sunday when I found the stadium locked, I broke in and worked out in the freezing cold. I had to wrap my hands in towels to keep them from sticking to the metal bars. So, he's so obsessed he's willing to do anything and nothing is going to stop him.

So throughout high school, he's lifting weights and getting stronger and stronger and bigger and bigger. And this obsession has a special effect. He says, before long people began looking at me as a special person. Partly this was the result of my own changing attitude about myself. I was growing, getting bigger, gaining confidence.

I was given consideration I had never received before. It was as though I were the son of a millionaire. I'd walk into a room at school and my classmates would offer me food or ask if they could help me with my homework. Even my teachers treated me differently, especially after I started winning trophies in the weightlifting contests I entered.

This is one of my biggest takeaways from the life of Arnold. When you have a really clear vision, the world almost like conspires to help you achieve it. This isn't something woo woo, like the universe isn't speaking to you, um, there's nothing like weird metaphysical. I think it's more about people are really attracted to a strong vision, to a strong will.

They want to be a part of it. And the world really lacks people with strong vision and will. So when you express that, people just respond. They're willing to help you out. And that is something you see over and over in Arnold's [00:10:00] career, is people helping him for no apparent reason. But it's because when you see someone with that strong of a vision, you want to see them accomplish it.

You want to help and be a part of it in some way. Early on, that is something as simple as his neighbor saying, Hey Arnold, let us know if you need extra eggs or milk. I know for weightlifting you need milk. Another great example of this is when he graduates from high school and has to go into the army.

They have compulsory service in Austria. You have to serve time in the army when you graduate from high school. So Arnold goes in and he is a tank driver. And while he's in the army, he gets invited to the junior division of the Mr. Europe contest in Stuttgart, Germany. But he's in basic training. You can't leave.

And he asks for leave. He says, hey, can I go compete in this competition? And his officers say no. So he has to decide, all right, what do I do? Well, he decides, he sneaks out anyway, and he goes and he competes in Mr. Europe. He has to borrow money to get there and back. He has to borrow posing trunks, like all these strangers are just giving him stuff to help him realize his dream.

And, uh, and be able to compete in the contest. In the Genghis Khan episode, I called this the golden boy effect. People just wanting to help you for no reason. But again, it's not for no reason. Genghis Khan wrote, Without the vision of a goal, a man cannot manage his own life, much less the lives of others.

And that's exactly what it is. That vision of a goal that people respond to and makes them want to help you. So anyway, he goes, he sneaks out, and he wins the Mr. Europe competition. This is his first real taste of international recognition. People go wild for his physique. He's the toast of the competition.

He's not the most chiseled or the most fit, but he's huge and people really respond to that sheer size. He's only 19 years old. He's already much bigger than a lot of the other competitors and the judges and the people in the competition, they can tell that this guy, that this kid, Arnold is going to be the next big thing, but he doesn't get to bask in his victory for long.

He's got to go back to Austria and try to sneak back into his military base. But when he's climbing the wall, he is caught. [00:12:00] And thrown in military jail, but in jail, he's telling everyone about his victory showing off his trophy and eventually his officers decide that this success is actually bringing prestige and honor to the army.

So not only do they let him out of jail, they create a weight room, fully stock it with weights and give him relief from his regular duties so that he has time to train and give him full access to the mess hall whenever he wants so that he can get as much nutrition as he needs. So, in this year, in the army, half of it, he's basically a full time bodybuilder.

You know, this should have been an obstacle to his bodybuilding career. He instead comes out 25 pounds heavier and is in even better shape. Rise in Europe. One of the judges in Mr. Europe, a guy Arnold calls Schneck, had taken a liking to Arnold and made him an offer. He said, whenever you're done in the military, come see me in Munich, Germany.

And I'll give you a place to stay and a place to train. And he tells him, if you come out and train with me, I'll even buy you a ticket to London to go watch the Mr. Universe contest. And Arnold's immediate response is, watch, I'm not going to go, just watch. So he has plans that, uh, he's going to go, he's going to stay with this guy, Schneck, he's going to train.

And then in only a year, as a 20 year old, he wants to compete in Mr. Universe. So after only a year in the army, Arnold shows up in Munich penniless. And true to his word, Schneck gives him a place to stay and a place to work out and a job as a trainer at the gymnasium. Schneck said that he had an extra bedroom.

But when Arnold shows up at his apartment. Uh, this extra bedroom doesn't have a bed in it. And so he tells Arnold that the bed is coming really soon, and in the meantime, he can sleep on the couch. But day after day, the bed never comes. And finally, Schneck comes in at night and says, You know, that couch looks really uncomfortable.

Why don't you just come stay in my bed with me? And, uh, he's clearly making moves on Arnold. And so Arnold freaks out and tries to leave and Schneck follows him into the street and reasons with them saying, look, don't go, just come inside. It's not that [00:14:00] bad. Lots of guys do it. And if you will be my special friend, I can make everything happen for you.

I can get you in the magazines. I can get you the sponsorships. I can get you into all the big competitions. I can pay for your equipment and your travel. All you have to do is come back inside. And Arnold says that he actually considers it. He had this clear vision of exactly what he wanted and here was someone offering him all of it Everything that he wanted in life, but to his credit Arnold says no and he walks away He wasn't willing to compromise on who he was on his fundamental values and he wanted to accomplish his dreams on his own terms So he finds some ratty spare bedroom that he can stay in and continues to work out And actually Schneck allows him to continue to work at his gym.

Their relationship is obviously kind of weird and a little strained. Um, but he is working for this guy. Munich was a boom town in the late 1960s. He was a fast city with a huge population of recent transplants and a vibrant nightlife. And Arnold fed on the energy. He also fed on his association with the other regulars at the gym.

This was the first time he could seriously train with other serious bodybuilders on a regular semi professional basis. And he had only one goal. Become Mr. Universe. He said, At that point, my own thinking was tuned into He said, At that point, my own thinking was tuned into only one thing. Becoming Mr.

Universe. In my own mind, I was Mr. Universe. I had this absolutely clear vision of myself up on the dais with the trophy. It was only a matter of time before the world, it was only a matter of time before the whole world would be able to see it too. And it made no difference to me how much I had to struggle to get there.

So he's got this clear vision. He really wants to be Mr. Universe. But as he starts to study the other competitors, the people who he knows will be competing next year in Mr. Universe, he starts to get a little bit intimidated. He says, no, I decided I can't be the guy who won. I'd look at the second place [00:16:00] winner.

No, I can't beat him. I'd look at the guy who placed third. I can't beat him either. I went right down the line trying to figure out who I might beat. I got to 8th or 9th place and figured I might have a chance if I tried hard enough. It was a loser's way of looking at it. I defeated myself before I even entered, before I'd even completed the year's training.

But I was young, I was being self protective. I hadn't yet pulled together my ideas about positive thinking and the powers of the mind over the muscles. So he trains all year with his mindset, and then, He goes, he enters the competition, and he competes with what he calls, this is his loser's mindset, and he does surprisingly well.

He's just hoping to place in the top six. Um, but he takes second place. He loses to the American Chet Yorton and, uh, and gets the silver medal. He's not optimized at all. He hasn't optimized his physique, he's too heavy, he hasn't optimized his posing, he doesn't know the proper way to pose to maximize the effect on the judges and the crowd.

He said, as always, once I was over the initial disappointment of losing, I began trying to understand exactly why I had lost. I tried to be honest, to analyze it fairly. Aside from my total lack of finish, I still had some serious weaknesses. I'd come to the contest with something good, but not good enough to win.

I had a lot of mass, a great rough cut. My weak points were calves and thighs. I needed to work on posing, on diet, and all the finer points of bodybuilding. So he is very honest with himself, and that was one of his trademarks, was he wanted to be completely honest in his self criticism. He didn't want to have any surprises for himself.

He didn't want to delude himself. So he has an opportunity to up his game when he's brought in by one of the judges. A guy named Charles Wagbennett, who helps him train in London in preparation for the next Mr. Olympia the following year. He also works out with Chet Yorton, the guy who had just beaten him.

Wagbennett teaches him to put music to his posing routine, and works with him on his legs, his [00:18:00] calves, his thighs, and his abs, all his weak points, to get ready for the next year. He is a data junkie, is what you might call him. He's constantly measuring himself, so he doesn't want to just rely on Kind of amorphous impressions.

He really wants to know, okay, what's my ratio of my arms to my waist with my ratio of my calves to my thighs. He's constantly measuring to see when he's adding mass and to see exactly what he needs to do. He also at this time, um, is kind of a, a self described dirtbag. Um, he says that when you're at that time in life, When you're striving really hard for something, but you're not yet at the top, it's typical for people to become kind of jerks.

He is a jerk at this time. He's just running through girls and relationships. You know, he won't settle down into a real relationship, different girl every night, because he thinks that any sort of relationship might distract him. And he's also picking fights all the time because he knows he's big. Uh, he knows he can beat up on a lot of these people and he likes this way of kind of puffing himself up.

So he's getting into bar fights like every weekend. So it's not the best mindset for him as a person. It's maybe a little bit toxic, but he is training really hard and he is. Uh, at least inside the gym, trying to get his mindset right. He wrote, I knew I was a winner. I knew I was destined for great things.

People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way. I hope it never will. He's also dialing in his training. And one of the ways he does that is when he works out with Chet Yorton, the guy who had beaten him, he's observing exactly how he lifts, how he trains, to see if he can pick up any secrets.

And here's what he says. He said, I had thought perhaps he had some special exercises. But that wasn't true. He concentrated on the standard exercises. That was his secret. Concentration. He worked to get everything an exercise could give him. And so [00:20:00] concentration becomes a big theme for Arnold. Becomes a part of how he differentiates himself and succeeds.

So he has a bunch of great quotes that I love about concentration. So here's one. He says, I started training in an area where there were no distractions. There was nothing else going on. And that gave me enough time to concentrate and find out what bodybuilding was. was really all about another one. He says they weren't mentally prepared for intensive championship training.

They weren't thinking about it. I knew the secret concentrate while you're training. Do not allow other thoughts to enter your mind. Another one. He says it became part of my routine that year to start out every day with total concentration. The way I did it was to play out exactly what I was going to use, how I was going to pull my muscles, and how I would feel it.

I programmed myself. I saw myself doing it. I imagined how I would feel it. I was thoroughly, totally into it mentally. I did not waver at all. All my energies, both psychic and physical, were focused on one thing. Becoming Mr. Universe. And so that emphasis on concentration really stands out to me because it reminds me of of a quote from John D.

Rockefeller about concentration. He said, Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things fail because we lack concentration, the art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everything else. Another thing that Arnold does is just train more. So yeah, he's trying to train differently by concentrating more, but he's also just like, you know, One of the only ways to be better is to work harder, do more.

So he says, I sacrificed a lot of things. Most bodybuilders didn't want to give up. I just didn't care. I wanted to win more than anything and whatever it took to do it, I did. So he's spending insane amounts of time in the gym, five, six hours per day. No one is going to outwork him. One of my favorite stories is when he starts to plateau and he's trying to find new things to do.

So in weightlifting, um, you know, [00:22:00] especially when you're starting out, you lift and your body just responds, you're just growing, you're getting stronger. But then you realize after a while of working out in the same way, um, your body stops growing and you hit these plateaus where you just kind of your progress flattens out.

So he's hitting one of those plateaus and here's what he says. He says, Arnold, I asked myself over and over, what can you do to be special and different? I finally arrived at the idea of shocking the muscles. If you do 10 sets of bench press or any other exercise regularly for a year, the muscles gradually get used to 10 sets of bench press and the growth slows down.

So once a week I took a training partner and drove out into the country with the weights. We limited ourselves to one exercise for a particular body part. I remember for the first day, we carried 250 pounds out into the forest and did squats for three hours straight. I began by doing 20 repetitions with 250 pounds.

Then my partner did whatever he could. Then it was my turn again. We ended up doing something like 55 sets of squats each. The last hour seemed endless. But it worked. Our thighs pumped up like balloons. That first day, we gave our thigh muscles such a shock that we couldn't walk right for a week. We barely could crawl.

Our legs had never experienced anything as tough as those 55 sets. And each of us put something like an eighth or a quarter of an inch on our thighs. They just blew up. They had no chance to survive. And so, you know, with this, he breaks through that plateau and his physique is just blown up. And he wants to have everything locked, everything dialed.

And sure enough, when Mr. Universe comes around in 1967, he feels supremely confident. Victory is on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach. He felt confident and prepared enough that he's not just worrying about his own performance. He's trying to psych out his competitors. His main opponent asks him how he's doing and he responds fantastic It's the kind of day when you know, you're going to win But he's so psyched up that he can't sleep the night before the competition begins He's so [00:24:00] tired on the day of the competition that he takes a nap In the middle of the day and he wakes up to someone pounding on his hotel door judging has already begun If he's not downstairs and on stage in 10 minutes, he'll be disqualified.

So he jumps up and runs downstairs and has to go straight on stage. Now, bodybuilders pump themselves up before competing. Literally. If you've never lifted weights before, there's something called the pump. And that is when you lift weights, the blood flows to your muscles, uh, when you're working out, which causes them to expand.

You can literally see your muscles getting bigger. As you're working out, so every bodybuilder before they go on stage is lifting weights, doing push ups, doing everything they can to get their blood pumping and their muscles expanded to look as big and buff as possible. Coming into a competition cold is a huge disadvantage.

But Arnold, you know, he just woke up. He has no time to pump, but he isn't worried. He says he had begun to get what he calls the feeling of magnificence. I just, I love that the feeling of magnificence. It's this supreme feeling of confidence that you have, that nothing can go wrong, that you're just bound to win.

He watches as others pose. There are a lot of great bodies, some very impressive muscles, but nothing that overawes him, nothing that he doesn't think he can beat. The competition was run according to height, and Arnold was pretty tall, 6'2 so he went last. He steps on the stage and starts posing. Here's how he describes what happened.

When I hit my first arm pose, the place fell apart. Everybody started roaring. I swept into a back pose and the same thing happened. I had people screaming and whistling and hollering. I finished off with the most muscular pose. Everybody started applauding and applauding and going crazy. Usually at the prejudging, applause is not allowed because it might influence the judges.

But the people couldn't hold themselves back. The next day, when he poses for an audience, the reception is even more enthusiastic, and he is called back on stage for an encore. He wins the competition and is Mr. Universe. At 20 years old, Arnold Schwarzenegger was already the [00:26:00] greatest and best bodybuilder in the world.

Only he wasn't. As he soon discovered, there were overlapping governing bodies that administered different bodybuilding contests. Arnold was something of a provincial at this point in his career, and wasn't totally aware of the wider world of bodybuilding. And he was only now learning that there were other competitions, and that those winners also had a claim on the title of best bodybuilder.

If he wanted to be the undisputed greatest bodybuilder in the world, he would need to go to America, And win a separate Mr. Universe contest and win Mr. Olympia, another building competition that was, once again, run by a different governing body. As he learned about the bodybuilders who had won those contests, especially two guys, one named Frank Zane and another one named Sergio Oliva, he saw that their physiques truly were amazing.

And he wasn't necessarily ahead of where they were. He would need to up his game if he wanted to defeat them. He went back to Munich where he worked out with his training partner, Franco Colombo, and where he now owned and managed the gym that he worked out at. He used the publicity from his win at Mr.

Universe to publicize his gym and get more members. He really wanted to break through to the non gym going public. As I said, most people thought that Weightlifting was weird and like, um, in some ways kind of sinister. So everyone who lifted weights in Munich already knew his gym. There were only like two or three gyms for weightlifting at.

But he wanted to get through to everyone else. And so he comes up with an ingenious way to do it. From Total Recall he writes, But Albert came up with an idea. If we had asked the newspapers to write a story about me winning Mr. Universe, they'd have thought we were nuts. Instead, he had me walk around the city on a freezing day in my posing briefs.

Then he called some of his newspaper friends and said, You remember Schwarzenegger who won the stone lifting contest? Well now he's Mr. Universe, and he's at Stackis Square in his underwear. A couple of editors thought that was funny enough to send photographers. I led them all over the city, from the [00:28:00] market to the Hauptbundhof, where I made a point of chatting up little old ladies to show I was friendly and nice and not some kind of monster.

This is what politicians do all the time, but it was very unusual for a bodybuilder. In spite of the cold, I was having fun. The next morning, a picture ran in one of the papers of me and my briefs at a construction site where one of the workers, who was all bundled up against the cold, was gawking at me in amazement.

And this works. Um, it makes a big splash in the newspaper and it gets a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't have been interested saying, okay, what is this with weightlifting? This guy looks great. And more people start coming to the gym. Now in 1969, he flies out to America to compete against Oliva and Zane, and he comes up short.

He comes in second against both of them. And he has to admit that the judges are right. He doesn't just lose. Uh, he loses because. They are better than him. They have better physiques. He's very honest with himself about that. And, again, that is one of the major themes. Always be honest with yourself about where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

He decides that if he wants to be able to beat Zayn and Oliva, he needs every advantage. He needs to up his game. And the best way to up his game was to go where the action was. The place where he had always wanted to end up. Arnold was headed to America. Musical cue. When Arnold first showed up to Los Angeles, he was a little bit disappointed.

He thought everything was supposed to be bigger in America. But there were few skyscrapers in LA, Hollywood was just a bunch of walled off lots, you couldn't see the movies being made, and Gold's Gym, the bodybuilding mecca of the world, was just a dingy little weight room. After overcoming this initial shock, Arnold quickly fell in love with California, a love affair that would last right up until the present.

The sunny weather matched his cheerful disposition, people were friendly, open, and helpful, quite unlike Austria. The place really was quite free. You didn't have the same kind of suffocating regulations and controls and social expectations like you had back in Austria either. Despite the weather, Arnold spent most [00:30:00] of his time indoors, working out.

One of the things he had become famous for were his splits. He would do one three hour workout in the morning and then a second one in the evening. He's training so hard that he has professional bodybuilders with him at both workouts, and that is their only workout for the day. So he is literally working out about twice as much as other professional bodybuilders.

When 1970 comes around, the three competitions that he needs to win to be the undisputed bodybuilding champion are within a few weeks of each other. Mr. Universe, Mr. World, and Mr. Olympia. They're back to back to back. And as I mentioned earlier, one thing that Arnold was great at was that he would be so prepared and dialed in that he didn't have to worry about himself at the last minute.

He knew he was ready to go. So he could worry about competing. He could look at the other bodybuilders, try to psych them out, try to match their energy, their strategy, their posing, whatever. I think this is best illustrated by what he did to Sergio Oliva at Mr. World in 1970. It comes down to the end of the competition, and it's obviously between the two of them.

They are way ahead of everyone else, so they have what's called a pose off. The judges ask the two of them to pose next to each other so that they can get a more direct comparison. Here's how Arnold describes, uh, what happened next. He said, we were exhausted. That's when I went in for the kill. An idea came into my head.

I said to Sergio, I've had it. I think those guys ought to know now. However, the chips fall. He said, yeah, you're right. He walked off one side of the stage and I started to walk off the other, but I walked only two steps. Then I stopped and hit another pose. And I turned toward the side and shrugged as if to say, Where'd he go?

Sergio came right back on stage a little confused, but by this time, Arnold was the only name they were chanting, and some of the fans were even booing him. I used the moment to execute my best professional posing and shots. Then it was over the judges held a little meeting backstage and the MC came out and announced that I was the new mr Olympia Sergio never said anything [00:32:00] to me about how I'd mocked him, but he told other people he felt he'd been had That's not how I saw it.

It was a primal moment I'd finished him off by instinct in the heat of a competition that I dominated by then all the same So he wins that competition and he completes the trifecta in 1970. He goes boom. Boom. Boom. Mr. Universe. Mr World and mr. Olympia And he is now, after having won those three competitions, the undisputed bodybuilding champion of the world.

And at this point, he feels like he has proven just about everything he needs to prove. And he wants to pivot toward the next great goal in his life. Just like Reg Park, he wants to become a great actor. Now, over the next ten years, this would be a slow pivot. He still competed at Mr. Olympia, which he would win six more times.

And it's a number of years before he gets true leading man level roles. In fact, throughout the 1970s, he resists taking any of the roles that people typecast him as. And actually try and give him offers for he was always being asked to play villains, Nazi guards, you know, things like that. And a big part of that is his Austrian accent, which despite years of classes, he was unable to fully shake and has still been unable to fully shake.

As you probably know, it's during this time that one of Hollywood's most famous actresses, Lucille Ball gives Arnold some really interesting advice. She says, Arnold, when someone tells you, no, you should just hear. Yes. And he takes that to heart. When people tell him no, he just acts like they told him yes.

And that's a technique that works in ingratiating himself to the Hollywood crowd. Because he's hearing no a lot, and yet somehow, he keeps moving closer and closer to the inner circles of the film business. He hires an agent who believes in him as a leading man, and refuses to compromise for him. He's not going to do anything that will get him typecast as a bit part actor or as a villain.

He's got an interesting quote about this. Arnold says, it's easier to stand out when you aim straight for the top, [00:34:00] which I think is a very interesting point. And luckily he's got the freedom to be choosy. Because he has a few side businesses. One is a mail order business that sells instructional weightlifting tapes.

He and his Italian buddy, Franco Colombo start a bricklaying company as well. Um, I think it's really interesting their strategy. Here's what Arnold says about it. He said, I said to Franco, why don't we just start our own company? Franco knew bricklaying and I knew business. So that's what we did. We put an ad in the newspaper that said European bricklayers.

Frank and I had noticed that Americans loved foreign names. Swedish massages, Italian design, Chinese herbs, German ingenuity. We decided that we should highlight being European. The fact that Franco was Italian was especially good. And one of the reasons that they do this, that he gets into bricklaying, is that it allows him to work out while he's making money.

You know, bricklaying is very physical. You're doing lots of lifting and, um, and swinging when you're doing demolition with a big hammer. So he is getting more fit as he is working and making money. And the European marketing angle is genius. And the business does quite well for as long as he needs it to.

He also invests in an apartment complex and he starts investing more and more in real estate, especially in Santa Monica, which at the time was not very nice. It's kind of a rundown part of the L. A. area, but is now one of the nicest places in Southern California and one of the most expensive places on earth.

So these investments do really well for him. But even while he's investing and doing all these businesses, he's also turning down any opportunities that don't fit into his master plan. For example, he's offered a job managing a leading gym chain for 200, 000 a year, uh, for this fitness guru Jack LaLanne, um, and 200, 000 a year, a lot of money now.

It was a ton of money back in the 1970s, uh, but it would have taken all his time and wouldn't have left anything over for trying to make it as an actor. And so he says no, and he doesn't manage this gym chain. [00:36:00] His first big break in terms of acting comes when a documentary is produced called Pumping Iron.

Arnold is essentially the main character and definitely the breakout star. It's a pretty simple, straightforward documentary that is just trying to expose the wider public to this world of the sport of bodybuilding. But it's well done by a couple of talented filmmakers. And even though he isn't acting per se, you can see that Arnold is a natural in front of the camera.

And as he goes around the country promoting the film, he gets to know other actors, directors, people who are involved in the movie business. So, a director named John Milius sees this movie, Pumping Iron, and he thinks that Arnold would be great on his upcoming film, Conan the Barbarian. He's looking for someone who can embody the physicality of Conan, who was a comic book character, who's supposed to be this tough, massive, sword swinging hero.

And Conan is a weird story, it's a weird movie. It's set in the distant past during a time and place that you can't totally locate in history. And so Arnold's accent Isn't a problem at all because you know, it's this weird time unplaceable. So who knows what accents they might have back then There are a lot of concerns from the studio about this movie Conan the Barbarian They think it might not sell well because it's really violent very bloody Arnold takes the perspective that he wants to do everything in his power to make sure the movie is a success Maybe this gore is gonna make it not accessible to the wider public, well then I better make up for that difference.

So he wants to help sell it. The studio wants to send him on a press tour internationally, but they wanna send him to just France and Italy, which is kind of standard for the time. But he manages to convince them that, hey, there are more European countries than just France and Italy. And there are more people that could see this movie, and so he convinces them to send him to six countries, more than they had planned.

And he's the only actor they have who is pressing them to do more promotion work. [00:38:00] And this is really smart for Arnold. You know, you don't get paid for doing the press tour. So most actors think, Why would I want to do this? Why would I want to do free work? I already got paid for the movie. So, you know, I have to do this as a Commitment to the contract but I'm not gonna do more than I'm getting paid for but Arnold is thinking that if this movie does well That will elevate him as a bankable star and he'll get more opportunities And he couldn't have been more right.

Conan is a huge hit in part because of his massive promotional efforts. There are lines around the block to see it at the movie theaters across the country. And it's the one film that flips Arnold from a nobody actor to a star. Of course, the fact that his follow up film was The Terminator also helps.

And this part of Arnold's life is crazy. He's still training for hours every day. He still occasionally competes. His last bodybuilding competition is in 1980. Uh, he's acting. He's got more and more real estate holdings. He takes courses at the local community college to improve his business knowledge and his English.

He's got more fitness businesses. But he said, He was never tired out by all of this. He loves it. He had a passion for work. He has a quote that I love. He said, so for me, work just meant discovery and fun. If I heard somebody complaining, Oh, I work so hard. I put in 10 and 12 hours days. I would crucify him.

What the hell are you talking about? When the day is 24 hours? What else did you do? He said, everything I did could have been my hobby. It was my hobby in a way. I was passionate about all of it. My definition of living is to have excitement always. That's the difference between living and existing. Later, when I learned about the Terminator, I loved that idea that he was a machine that never had to sleep.

I said to myself, imagine what an advantage that would be to have those extra 6 hours every day for something else. Imagine you could study a whole new profession, you could learn an instrument. That would be unbelievable, because for me, the question was always how to fit in all the stuff I want to do.

But like I [00:40:00] said, his run of movies in the 80s is legendary. He produces some truly great movies, and his goal was to keep doubling his pay Which he manages to do for quite a while. He has paid 250, 000 for Conan the Barbarian, and then 750, 000 for Terminator, 1, 000, 000 for Conan the Destroyer, 1. 5 million for Commando, 3 million for Predator, 5 million for Running Man, 10 million for Total Recall, and then 15 million, uh, when he acts in a movie called True Lies.

So in a decade, he more than 50Xs his pay per movie. In the late 80s, Arnold decides that, just like bodybuilding, he's kind of proved what he needs to prove as an action star and wants to show a different side of himself. So, he pivots to comedy. Even though he had proven all the doubters wrong with becoming an action star, once again, Hollywood producers are really reluctant to bet on Arnold as a comedic actor.

And so, for his first movie, which is called Twins, he and his co star, Danny DeVito, have to pitch in and help finance the movie. And as a consequence, they get paid residuals. So, whenever the movie makes money, they get a cut of that revenue. And so once again, the film is a huge hit. And so Twins, even though it was far from his biggest movie, is actually the movie that Arnold has made by far the most money from.

It's estimated that he made over 35 million from Twins, and he continues to make money on it to this day. So there's definitely something to be said for betting on yourself, which is what Arnold does here. Arnold bets on himself again when the opportunity comes to run for governor in 2003. I won't get into the full history here of his governorship.

Um, he had prominently supported Republicans in the past, especially George H. W. Bush. He actually chaired the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under Bush from 1990 to 1993. He ran for governor of California as a moderate [00:42:00] Republican who was fiscally conservative, kind of common sense, but socially more lax.

And this appealed in a state that had been mismanaged under its previous administration. He was elected, and at first he pushes through some really important legislation that helps to balance California's books, and it looked like he's going to be really successful. But then he tries to take on The public unions and basically California had promised these really cushy pensions to all sorts of public employees.

Uh, these retirement benefits that were just really, really generous. And it was actually driving the state broke. And it actually still is. And you can't get the legislature to do that. To pass a bill, uh, to limit these really cushy retirement packages, uh, because the, the congressmen in Utah are kind of really beholden to these public unions.

And, uh, and so he decides to put it as a ballot initiative. And in California, getting things passed through the legislature isn't the only way to pass laws. You can actually have the public vote on it. And so Arnold decides, all right, I can't get the legislature. I can't get the California Congress to work with me.

I'm going to bypass them. Okay. And, um, and put it to a vote. So Arnold puts this ballot initiative out. And the problem is he was doing the right thing, or he was trying to, by targeting all public employees equally. Um, for all of them, he was saying, you can't have this retirement package, uh, that are this generous and we're going to make this, you know, fair across the board.

And so this included teachers and public administrators who tend to be Democrats, as well as policemen and firefighters who tend to be Republicans. So all public employees in California. We're going to cut these retirement packages and benefit packages. And the result is he doesn't really have a base of support.

You know, you've got the liberal side that that's attacking him, you know, all these public administrators, all these teachers who tend to come from the left and then you've also got The right coming after him, you know, these policemen and [00:44:00] firefighters who tend to be Republicans and support Republicans, and so he's getting attacked from both sides, and it's one of the most expensive elections ever.

The union spend hundreds of millions of dollars in TV ads that just crucify Arnold and again, this is coming from both sides. So it's making it seem. Like a bipartisan attack on Arnold. So the average voter is going, Well, this must be a bad idea because Democrats hate it and Republicans hate it. And so the initiative fails.

And his job approval rating goes from over 50 percent down into the low 20s. And it looks like his governorship is over just as it was getting started. But, um, he does a smart move when this fails, he's embarrassed. It looks like his, his political prospects are in the toilet. He appears on TV and he's humble.

He says, Hey, message received my bad. I'm going to try to work on bipartisan stuff. And I'm going to work on common sense things that improve the lives of Californians. I'm going to stay away from controversial stuff for the time being. And so he essentially pivots and decides to govern as a moderate Democrat rather than a moderate Republican, which is obviously much easier to do in California, which is heavily Democratic.

And he's able to get more stuff accomplished, more stuff passed. He even gets a new chief of staff who was known as a liberal, like a pretty far left person to help him be able to work more successfully with Democrats. And this works to bounce back his approvals. He wins re election and had what can be described as a fairly successful tenure as governor, at least by California standards.

For those of you who live outside the U S and might not know the reputation of California, which is where I grew up is, you know, it's an amazing place. It's one of the most beautiful places in the United States. It's one of the most beautiful places in the world. And it's really dynamic economically.

It's got Hollywood, it's got Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, some of the great cities in the world. It's also got some of the best farmland in the world, which not many people know. I mean, it has a ton going for it. It's incredible place, but. It also has a reputation for [00:46:00] almost comical mismanagement.

It costs billions of dollars to get anything done. The public infrastructure is bad. You know, the trains, the metro systems are really dirty and gross. The infrastructure is crumbling. It's unbelievably corrupt. The social services are inept. The public schools are often horrible. The government is just known.

As very bad in California. And so was Arnold able to magically turn that into an efficient and effective bureaucracy? No, no, he wasn't. But did it function a little better than it did before and a little better than it did after? Yeah, I would say it did. And in the public perception, I think that's true.

So in that way, I would say he was a successful governor. Anyway, as his tenure as governor was ending, a scandal rocked Arnold's world. His wife found out that he had fathered a son with their housekeeper. Arnold had never acknowledged the child and he had never told his wife about the affair. But as the boy grew into a teenager, I mean, you can look up the pictures.

It's actually kind of darkly funny how much the kid looks like his dad. And so his wife. He sees this kid walking around with their housekeeper who looks just like Arnold, and she figures out what's going on, she confronts him on it, he admits it, his wife files for divorce, and now, just as he was ending his tenure in politics, Hollywood studios no longer wanted to work with him because he was so toxic.

Uh, because of the scandal. So he had to cool his heels for a few years while people, um, kind of waited for this to settle. In the recent past, he has focused more on his motivational content and building his fitness newsletter. And after a few years, he has finally got back into acting in movies. So I know that's kind of an anti climax to a story, but you know, so it goes sometimes.

And who knows, maybe Arnold will surprise us. Your late seventies. Is not the easiest time to reinvent yourself, but if anyone is capable of it, I would say [00:48:00] Arnold is so that's the story. So what were my big takeaways from this episode from the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger? The first is just what I said about vision.

When you have a strong vision, the world conspires to help you achieve it. But it's got to be very clear. According to Arnold, it should literally be a vision. You should be able to see it. And you've got to be able to articulate it. And of course, you've also got to work like crazy for it. The next thing, and this is something he talked about a lot, is concentration.

There's one story that I talked about briefly that demonstrates these two things together. Vision and concentration, and that is when he has offered 200, 000 to run a chain of health clubs on behalf of Jack LaLanne. And here's what Arnold said about it. I like this quote. He said, Being a national spokesman for a health club franchise was not part of my vision.

I didn't think it was embarrassing or beneath me or anything like that. Jack LaLanne was a hero to anyone who cared about physical fitness. The problem was that accepting his offer would prevent me from doing movies. Which is where my vision was taking me by this point in my bodybuilding career knowing that made saying no very easy I was comfortable with the idea of turning down all that money and the different type of fame the job would bring I was calm Knowing that I just sidestepped something that was also an amazing opportunity, but a big distraction Okay, so having that vision helps keep you from getting distracted.

It helps you concentrate helps you focus on what matters most Other things I took away. One is that quote from Lucille Ball. When someone tells you no, you should hear yes. I just think that's such a powerful way to approach the world. And along with that, Arnold is a big believer in positive thinking, in always having a positive attitude.

I love how he described that feeling of magnificence. If you want people to get on board with your vision, You need to come across as positive and confident. Some other ideas. One is it's easier to stand out when you aim straight for the top. That's a great quote from [00:50:00] Arnold. This is an idea that I've heard Tim Ferriss talk about too, which is that less ambitious companies aren't necessarily less risky.

Like you're going to have to put in the work and accept a high chance of failure no matter what you're working on. So you might as well work on something with huge upside, enormous potential. It also reminds me of the Jim Carrey quote, and he talked about his dad who had loved comedy, but had gone to be an accountant because it was safer, and he got fired as an accountant.

And so Jim Carrey said, you can fail at what you don't want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you do love. You might fail even if your goals are modest. So you might as well take a chance by aiming for what you really want. It's easier to stand out when you aim straight for the top, you know, and then this is one of the last things I'll say.

A lot of Arnold's advice reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies, master and commander. And the protagonist, Captain Jack Aubrey, is talking about a time when he had met Lord Nelson, a very famous old British admiral, on the deck of his ship. And it's a cold night and he offers Lord Nelson a coat.

And Lord Nelson says, no, I am quite warm. My zeal for king and country keep me warm. And so this is like touching, but kind of cliche. And so someone scoffs at this and Captain Aubrey says, I know it sounds absurd. And were it from another man, you'd cry out, oh, what pitiful stuff. And dismiss it as mere enthusiasm.

But with Nelson, you felt your heart glow. And that is kind of how I feel about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some of the advice he gives is sort of like roll your eyes, stock motivational advice. Uh, for example, I picked out a few quotes from his books. Uh, one is work works. That's the bottom line. No matter what you do, no matter who you are, my entire life has been shaped by that single idea.

Another one is pain only needs to have meaning to you. For it to be bearable another. He says, let me put it another way. Busyness is bullshit. We're all busy. [00:52:00] We all have things to do every day. Obligations and responsibilities. We all have to eat, sleep, pay the bills. What does that have to do with putting in the work to reach your vision?

If it matters to you, do it. Make the time. Uh, another one failure has never killed a dream. Quitting kills every dream. It touches one last one. Turn your TV off, throw your machines out the window, save your excuses for someone who cares, get to work. So like, this is pretty cliche, just like work hard. Okay.

Novel strategy, Arnold, but just like captain Aubrey, I like hearing it from Arnold. He is so obviously sincere, he's full of enthusiasm, and he's got credibility from what he accomplished. And so, yeah, like, I know you have to work hard, but somehow hearing Arnold say it, and the way he says it, and the stories, Uh, that he tells with it, like just kind of helps it sink in, in a different way and helps me grasp some of these kind of simple concepts in a more profound way where I can start to envision how exactly this will apply to my life and exactly what I need to do to succeed.

This is especially true for me. In the education of a bodybuilder, his first autobiography, which is one of my all time favorite books. And I recommend to anyone. So anyway, all this is to say, I guess none of these takeaways are super revolutionary, but the story and the writing of Arnold Schwarzenegger really brought them home to me.

And hopefully this episode has at least somewhat done the same for you. Find that vision, find that thing you love, that obsession, be able to see it, to envision it, be able to articulate it. And then work for it. And as you do, people around you will help you. They will literally conspire to help you succeed.

The universe will bend to your iron will. So that's it for this episode. Thank you for listening. Until next time. Thank you for listening to how to take over the world.

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