Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger
Born in the small city of Thal, Austria, in 1947, Arnold Schwarzenegger moved to Los Angeles at the age of twenty-one. Within ten years, he was a millionaire businessman. After twenty years, he was the world’s biggest movie star. In 2003, he was elected governor of California and a household name around the world.
Chronicling his embodiment of the American Dream, Total Recall covers Schwarzenegger’s high-stakes journey to the United States, from creating the international bodybuilding industry out of the sands of Venice Beach, to breathing life into cinema’s most iconic characters, and becoming one of the leading political figures of our time. Proud of his accomplishments and honest about his regrets, Schwarzenegger spares nothing in sharing his amazing story.
Arnold’s way to embrace failure
One lesson from Arnold I liked very much was when he talked about how to embrace failure with a big smile instead of feeling bad.
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" That afternoon at the gym, I thought more about my loss to Frank Zane. Now that I’d stopped feeling sorry for myself, I came to harsher conclusions than those I’d reached the night before. I still felt the judging had been unfair, but I discovered this wasn’t the real cause of my pain. It was the fact that I had failed—not my body, but my vision and my drive. Losing to Chet Yorton in London in 1966 hadn’t felt bad because I’d done everything I could to prepare; it was just not my year. But something different had happened here. I was not as ripped as I could have been. I could have dieted the week before and not eaten so much fish and chips. I could have found a way to train more even without access to equipment: for instance, I could have done one thousand reps of abs or something that would have made me feel ready. I could have worked on my posing—nothing had stopped me from doing that. Never mind the judging; I hadn’t done everything in my power to prepare. Instead, I’d thought my momentum from winning in London would carry me. I’d told myself I’d just won Mr. Universe and I could let go. That was nonsense.
Thinking this made me furious. “Even though you won the professional Mr. Universe contest in London, you are still a fucking amateur,” I told myself. “What happened here never should have happened. It only happens to an amateur. You’re an amateur, Arnold.”
Staying in America, I decided, had to mean that I wouldn’t be an amateur ever again. Now the real game would begin. There was a lot of work ahead. And I had to start as a professional. I didn’t ever want to go away from a bodybuilding competition like I had in Miami. If I was going to beat guys like Sergio Oliva, that could never happen again. From now on if I lost, I would be able to walk away with a big smile because I had done everything I could to prepare.”
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Lessons from the book
1. Forget Competing - Go into a battle to win and not compete.
2. Your mind is what is holding you back. Once you believe in yourself, all you need is a second person to believe in you, and you can achieve amazing feats.
3. Life is reps. The psychology of success that Arnold learned as a bodybuilder was something he used in everything else he went on to do in his career. Bodybuilding is about building muscle by doing repetitions (known as reps) of a certain exercise.
4. Staying on top of the hill is harder than climbing it. Once Arnold reached the top in bodybuilding, he found himself at one point where he got lazy, complacent and distracted by study because he had already achieved his big goal. For him, it was harder to stay on top of the hill than climb it.
5. Smile no matter what. Even when Arnold was lifting huge amounts of weight, he always had a smile on his face. The pain he must have been enduring in order to push such heavy weights should have made him look angry or frustrated. The reason he wasn’t angry or frustrated was because he had something on the other side of his goal to smile about.
6. Passion hides the audience. The first time Arnold did a proper TV interview he told the pre-interviewer that he doesn’t see the audience because he’s so passionate about what he’s talking about. By having the audience blocked out in his mind, he is able to minimise the nerves and stay focused.
7. When they say no you hear yes. This could seem quite stupid, but it allows you to act in a way that is humble, brave, and unwavering in your pursuit. In a way, Arnold was lying to himself. He did this often, and these lies to himself are what allowed him only to see what he could do rather than what he couldn’t.
8. Think beyond your own career. What was unique about Arnold’s bodybuilding career was that he felt it was his responsibility not just to make himself successful, but to use his success as a way to elevate and promote fitness. This is one of the primary reasons why he took part and became the star of the “Pumping Iron” documentary.
9. Make your peculiarities into assets. Instead of being embarrassed by his peculiarities he embraced and acknowledged them. He was vulnerable enough to trust his own abilities and to stay focused on how he could achieve his vision. The aspects that make you different can be utilised in the same way.
10. You get harder and more durable the more you struggle. He knew that just like his muscles couldn’t grow without the struggle, neither could his mind or his life.
11. The Whole world is not focused on your failure. Your failure will consume you if you spend every waking minute thinking about how people are reacting to your pitfalls in life. Instead, focus on your next win and don’t dwell on the past.
12. We need to look less at ourself and more at each other. Entrepreneurship and life is not about you. This is why Arnold has been able to have so much success, and the people that have followed his footsteps have done the same. It’s one of the only secrets to success you need to understand to mirror his achievements.
13. Be part of a cause that will outlive you. Find your cause, exploit it to your full potential, and serve the greater good.
14. Celebrate the circumstances that traumatised you. Our struggle defines us. In Arnold’s life, his father always put him down and physically hit him. When he was a kid this upset him, but as he grew older, he figured out that this pain and struggle is what motivated him to leave Austria and become world famous.
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