Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

✅ When Arnold worked out, he was the only one smiling. His mindset: every rep gets you closer. Everything is reps, reps, reps. ✅ Staying on top of the hill is harder than climbing it. ✅ Arnold never had an angry look while training, even lifting huge weight. He’s smiling because he knows: “All I would say is that I find joy in the gym because every rep and every set is getting me one step closer to my goal.” ✅ “The whole idea of a conventional existence was like Kryptonite to me.” ✅ The years with Barbara taught him this: a good relationship doesn’t just feel good, it enriches your life. ✅ Don’t go where it’s crowded. Go where it’s empty. Harder to get there, less competition, and it’s where you belong. When you can see it and believe it, you can achieve it. ✅ Everything is reps and mileage. More miles = better skier. More reps = better body. Hard work, grind, don’t stop until it’s done. Everything is reps reps reps. ✅ Make your kids calculate the 20% tip. Sharpen the mind in normal life. ✅ Great leaders talk about things bigger than themselves. A cause that outlives you is where meaning and joy live. The more he accomplished, the more he agreed. Mr. Universe At 18, Arnold joined the army and learned to drive a tank. He made goofy mistakes, then used them as lessons. At Mr. Universe, he overestimated the competition and expected 6th. He got second and realized he could’ve won if he expected to win. From then on: always play to win. “After that, I never went to a competition to compete. I went to win. Even though I didn't win every time, that was my mindset. I became a total animal. If you tuned into my thoughts before a competition, you would hear something like, I deserve that pedestal. I own it. And the sea ought to part for me. Just get out of the way. I'm on a mission. So just step aside and give me the trophy. I pictured myself high up on the pedestal, trophy in hand. Everyone else would be standing below, and I would look down.” He studied Reg Park: unbelievable speaker, entertaining, outgoing, stories, plus Hercules-level presence. Wine, food, French, Italian, the whole act together. You can’t just pose like a robot and walk off. People need to know your personality. Reg talked to people. That’s why they loved him. Entrepreneurship His first company: mail order booklets. People asked for routines and exercises, so he wrote them and sold them. His second business: laying bricks, and selling. He leaned into the European mystique, used a tape measure, estimated in meters, argued in German with Franco in front of the client, and made the client feel like he was getting the inside deal: “Well, I don’t get it why he thinks this patio will cost eight thousand dollars… between you and me… seven thousand… return the extra bricks… get the thousand dollars back.” Instant trust. Writing down goals Arnold wrote down goals like he learned in Graz. Not vague resolutions. Make it specific so intentions don’t float. He’d write on index cards that he would: Get 12 more units in college Earn enough money to save $5000 Workout five hours a day Gain seven pounds of solid muscle weight Find an apartment building to buy and move into Specific goals didn’t handcuff him, they liberated him. Knowing the destination frees you to improvise the route. Knowing exactly what you want to do He turned down managing a leading gym chain for $200,000 a year. Good money, wrong direction. Nothing distracts the goal, no offer, no relationship, nothing. Not knowing is sometimes better than knowing Artie couldn’t understand Arnold pulling off a $215,000 deal. Artie only saw risk: noisy tenants, lawsuits, drunk people, disasters. Arnold caught himself listening and stopped it: “Arty, You almost scared me just now… Don’t tell me anymore of this information. I like to always want in like a puppy. I walk into problems and then figure out what the problem really is. Don’t tell me ahead of time.” Sometimes less knowledge makes decisions easier. Too much can freeze you. On winning Winning didn’t thrill him because it was a given, the job. Not “Yeah! I won!” More like: “Okay, did that. Let’s move on to the next competition.” Meditation Arnold got into transcendental meditation: repeat a mantra for 20 minutes, let thoughts pass, drop into a deeper state of mind. Getting turned down “Look, you have an accent that scares people, you have a body that’s too big for movies. You have a name that wouldn’t even fit on a movie poster. Everything about you is too strange.” He still kept the dream. “Why should I give up my goal because a couple of Hollywood agents turned me down?” You have to be good at more than acting His model was Muhammad Ali: champion + outrageousness. Outrageous means nothing without substance. Being a champion is what makes the outrageousness work. Afford to say no Business income meant he didn’t need acting money. He refused roles that didn’t fit his “leading man” path: Nazi, police officer, wrestler, prisoner. Practice matters, sure, but he believed: treat yourself like a leading man, work your ass off, and hold the line. If you don’t believe in yourself, why would anyone else? Do what other people aren’t doing To promote a new book, he hit 30 cities in 30 days, and picked cities nobody else went to. It worked because it wasn’t the usual path. The importance of selling He saw himself as a businessman first. Too many artists think marketing is beneath them, but selling is part of life. He treated the marketplace like part of the job: a film must be nurtured after filming. Great work that nobody knows about is nothing. It blew his mind that geniuses like Michelangelo and van Gogh didn’t sell much because they didn’t know how. Decision making “I’m a person who does not like to talk about things over and over. I make decisions very quickly, I don’t ask many people for opinions, and I don’t want to think too many times about the same thing.” Arnold's rules Turn your liabilities into assets: the "weird" body, name, accent became action-hero fuel. When someone tells you no, hear yes: if you fail, so what, that’s expected. If you succeed, you improve the world. Never follow the crowd. Go where it’s empty: careers work like highways. The crowded route makes you invisible. He went straight for the top (governorship) because it’s easier to stand out. No matter what you do in life, selling is part of it: “People can be great poets, great writers, geniuses in the lab. But you can do the finest work and if people don’t know, you have nothing!” Arnold’s ten rules Never let pride get in your way. Don’t overthink: too much thinking blocks relaxation. Let mind and body float so you’re ready when it’s time to hit a problem hard. Instinct matters. Turning off the mind is an art. The more you know, the more you hesitate. If you freeze, you lose. Forget plan B: growth requires no safety net. If you’re anxious, don’t build fallback plans, think through the worst that can happen if you fail. Often it’s “really nothing.” His misery baseline: diamond mines in South Africa, 110 degrees, a dollar a day, home once a year. Anything better and you’re in good shape. Use outrageous humor to settle a score. The day has twenty-four hours: "You're talking about six hours a day. The day is 24 hours, so you have 18 hours left…" He stacked training, acting class, construction, college, homework, and he wasn't the only one. Everything is Reps, Reps, Reps: it’s reps or mileage. Skiing, chess, anything. Do tens of thousands. If you’ve done the reps, you don’t have to worry. Don’t blame your parents: they did their best. If they left you problems, they’re yours now. Use upbringing as fuel, vision, goals, joy. “Be useful. Do something.” Harshness can be fire. Change takes big balls: change can take a long time, but act on it. Take care of your body and your mind: Russian leaders and CEOs find time to work out two hours a day. If they can, you can. Stay hungry: hungry for success, for impact, and as you rise, hungry to help others. Don’t rest on laurels. Use what you learned, your connections, and do more. “You’ll have plenty of time to rest when you’re in the grave.” Live risky, live spicy, and like Eleanor Roosevelt said, do something that scares you every day.