I’ll let Arnold tell his story in his own words. [a partial transcription for the above video]
“The first rule of success is to have a vision”
If you don’t have a vision or a goal of where you are going, you drift around, and you never end up anywhere.
I was born in 1947 in Austria after the Second World War. I was very fortunate that I stumbled onto my vision. And I didn’t really like Austria when I grew up. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I couldn’t see myself becoming a farmer, or a worker in a factory, or anything like that. Even my parents wanted me to stay there and have a normal life. But that was their vision, not mine. My vision was totally different. I felt that I was born for something special, something unique, something big.
Then one day I went to school, I remember when I was 11 years old, and they showed a documentary about America. There they showed in this documentary the huge skyscrapers, the high rises, the huge bridges, the six-lane freeways. And I said to myself, that where I want to be. I don’t want to be around here with the little farm houses and these little buildings. I want to be in America.
One day after school, I walked by a store in Graz. So, I went inside and I looked around, and then I saw a magazine. It was a body building magazine that had Reg Perk on the cover. Reg Park was then a three-time Mr. Universe. And, I saw him on the big screen as Hercules. I read that, and I said to myself, “Wow, this is the blueprint for my life. This is exactly what I want to do. I want to become a bodybuilding champion just like Reg Park. I want to get into movies just like Reg Park. And I want to make millions of dollars and be rich and famous just like Reg Park.”
You know how great it felt that I knew where I was going? Imagine the majority of people don’t know where they are going. I knew where I was going. That I’m going to become this bodybuilding champion just like him. So, it was just a question of how you do it. I was so relieved because when you have a goal, when you have a vision, everything becomes easy.
So, people always asked me when they saw me in the gym in the pumping iron days, they say, “Why is it that you’re working out so hard?” 5 hours a day, 6 hours a day and you have always a smile on your face. And I told people all the time because for me, I’m shooting for a goal. In front of me is the Mr. Universe title.
So, every rep that I do gets me closer to accomplishing that goal, to make this goal, this vision to turn it into reality. Every single set that I do, every repetition, every weight that I lift will get me a step closer to turn this goal into reality. So, I couldn’t wait to do another 500 pound squat. I couldn’t wait to do another 500 pound bench press. I couldn’t wait to do another 2000 reps of sit ups. I couldn’t wait for the next exercise.
By the age of 20, I went to London and I won the Mr. Universe contest as the youngest Mr. Universe ever and it was because I had a goal.
So, let me tell you something, visualizing your goal and going after it makes it fun. You got to have a purpose no matter what you do in life.
74% hate their job in America. That is not much different when you come to Europe. The majority of people don’t like what they are doing because they are really not doing it because they have a goal. They’re just aimlessly drifting around for job openings where they get a job because they have to work. But when they work, it’s a chore. It’s work. It’s not fun. Only a quarter of people really enjoy what they are doing in life. That is unbelievable if you think about it. So I felt so blessed to know what I was doing. It’s like a medical student studies and knows he wants to become a doctor. You know where you want to go.
And the same thing is also in politics. I remember in politics, I had a really clear vision: that I will be the leader of California. That was as far as I could go because I was not born in America, so I could not run for President. Being governor of the largest state and the fifth largest economy in the world was for me really the ultimate title, the ultimate accomplishment in politics. So people come up to me and say, why don’t you go and run for something smaller. You’re never going to make it. I ran for governor and then two months later, I became governor of the state of California. Again because I had a very clear vision of what I wanted to do with California. So, that’s rule number one: have a vision.
Rule number two is, don’t listen to the nay-sayers.
Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. Everything I ever did, the thing I heard out of people’s mouthes was, “That’s impossible,” “That can’t be done,” or “No.” That is what I heard and of course I proved to the people that it can be done. So, whenever someone said to me, “It can’t be done,” I heard, “It CAN be done.” When they said, “No,” I heard, “Yes.” When they said it was impossible, I heard, “It is possible.”
I’m a strong believer of what Nelson Mandela said, “That everything is always impossible until someone does it.” “Well, I’m going to be the one,” I said to myself. I’m going to do it. And I’m going to show to them. Maybe it hasn’t been done before, that’s perfectly fine with me. But, I’m going to do it. And I did not listen to the nay-sayers.
It’s all about the hard work you put in. [the rest is not transcribed]
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