Ep 60: Tim Ferriss Interviews Arnold Schwarzenegger on Psychological Warfare (And Much More)

In this episode, I interview the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger... at his kitchen table. We dig into lessons learned, routines, favorite books, and much more, including many stories that I've never heard anywhere else. As a starting point, we cover: - The Art of Psychological Warfare, and How Arnold Uses It to Win - How Twins Became His Most Lucrative Movie (?!?) - Mailing Cow Balls to Politicians - How Arnold Made Millions -- Fresh Off The Boat -- BEFORE His Acting Career Took Off - How Arnold Used Meditation For One Year To Reset His Brain - And Much More... Links and show notes can be found at fourhourworkweek.com/arnold http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/arnold.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Tim Ferriss?

  No, we're just sitting in a broken time.

• 0:12Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Onnit. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen, in my garage, you will find AlphaBrain, chewable melatonin for resetting my clock when I'm traveling, kettlebells, battle ropes, maces, steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it kind of is. It's a torture chamber for self-improvement. And you can see all of my favorite gear at onnit.com/tim. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com forward slash tim. And you can also get a discount on any supplements, food products. I like Hemp Force. I like AlphaBrain. Check it all out. Onnit.com/tim. The Tim Ferriss Show is also brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is your one-stop-shop

• 1:08Tim Ferriss?

  for anything graphic design-related. You need a logo, you need a website, you need a business card, or anything else. You get an original design from designers around the world who submit drafts for you to review. You are happy, or you get your money back. And I have used 99designs for book cover ideas, for The Four Hour Body, which went to number one New York Times, for banner ads. And you can check out some of my actual competitions at 99designs.com/tim. You can also get a free $99 upgrade if you want to give it a shot. That's 99designs.com/tim.

• 1:45Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to a very special episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where each episode, I attempt to deconstruct world-class performers to find what makes them tick, the tools and tricks that you can use in your daily life, ranging from professional athletes, to chess prodigies, to billionaire investors, to, in this episode, that's right, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 2:10Tim Ferriss?

  The man himself, the Governator, the Terminator, the man who killed the goddamn Predator. People, this was an amazing experience for me. Of course, there are many things that I associate with my upbringing, if you want to call it that, in the 80s, Guns N' Roses, but of course, there's Commando, there's Predator. The list goes on and on. This man is a force of nature and I had the opportunity, the rare opportunity, to visit him at his home in Southern California. At the kitchen table, we dug into everything. And I really wanted to dig into areas that had not been explored widely in any other interviews that I could find. And that ranges from the art of psychological warfare. He is a master. How did he apply that?

• 2:55Tim Ferriss?

  What phrases did he use? Questions did he use to get inside the heads of his opponents? We cover that. What was his most lucrative movie? I'll give you a hint, Twins. How the hell did that happen? Well, there's a lot that goes into the backstory of that. How did he make millions of dollars, fresh off the boat, before his acting career took off? A lot of people don't realize, he was a millionaire before his acting career took off. How did that happen? We dig into it. How did Arnold use meditation for one year, and just one year, to completely reset his brain and prime the stage for massive success? And of course, mailing cow balls to politicians, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. This was an amazing episode. I want to let you get right into it.

• 3:40Tim Ferriss?

  The show notes, links, all that good stuff will be found at 4hourworkweek, all spelled out, 4hourworkweek.com. Click on Podcast, or you can just go to 4hourworkweek.com/arnold. And without further ado, please enjoy a wild romp through the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 4:04Tim Ferriss?

  Kind sir, I wanted to start with a thank you for welcoming me to your house, number one, but number two, I've felt awkward all morning because I don't know how I should address you. And I wanted to ask you how I should address you.

• 4:18Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, you can address me anywhere you want. You can call me Governator, Governor, Schnitzel, Arnold. But I think Arnold would be right.

• 4:30Tim Ferriss?

  I'll go with Arnold. It's I felt like my first year in Japan when I was 15 because I didn't know how to address anybody. So I figured we could start with a favorite topic, or it's become a favorite topic as I've been thinking about this, which is big balls and cow balls and bull testicles. So you've mailed sculptures of bull testicles to people before, is that right?

• 4:57Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, there was one incident in particular, that was when I was governor.

• 5:06Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And there was, you know, one of the leaders, legislative leaders, Daryl Steinberg, and I, we both had a huge challenge. California was hit by an enormous, you know, economic decline. There was a worldwide recession that was hitting us in 2008. And everyone kind of was caught by surprise of what effect it had. That all of a sudden, we had $20 billion less in revenues. Therefore, we had to make big cuts in education and in various different areas that really hit the vulnerable citizens of California. And so when we did the budget, I basically sent him up before we negotiated, you know, a set of balls.

• 5:51Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And, you know, kind of just with a note, I'd say, I hope you have that when we negotiate the budget, because that's what we both need, that what we all in this building need in order to get this budget done, because it's not going to be a pretty budget, because people will hate it. They will hate us, you know, they'd be making those cuts, but it's all the money we have. And so he didn't take it lightly.

• 6:16Tim Ferriss?

  Did he take it well, or did he take it seriously?

• 6:18Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  No, no, because he took it seriously. He kind of like, what happened is, is I've, like you said, I've done it before. And it's kind of things that I do, you know, I do always in a pranks and people and jokes and stuff like that, but it's always kind of meant with a sense of humor.

• 6:35Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 6:35Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  You know, so it's always when you and I always have this tendency that when things get really intense and when people start, you know, freaking out, I try to make a joke or something to lighten things up and just say, look, you know, ten years from now, we're gonna look at this day and laugh about it. Right now, it's very serious and now, you know, we have to, you know, really concentrate on this and we have to do something that we don't feel comfortable, whatever the situation is. In this case, at the capital, this was the situation. It was a terrible situation that we were in economically and I thought it would loosen it up before the legislative leaders come down, you know, to my office and we start negotiating and it just didn't go very well. I mean, he felt insulted and he felt hurt and he felt, how could I do this and all

• 7:20Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  this stuff, you know, so I said, I said, look, I'm sorry, I did not mean it that way. I don't think it's as serious. It was meant to be a joke and stuff like this. Just things happen, you know.

• 7:29Tim Ferriss?

  Now, you've, you're no stranger to adversity, of course. I mean, you grew up in a very small village in Austria. You had, I think, a splash toilet or what was the nickname for it? Basically a chamber pot.

• 7:41Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  A sponge toilet, yes, exactly. And basically, it's like an outhouse, but it is in the house. And, you know, you sit there and, you know, and you hear, maybe a second later after, you know, you go number two, you hear then they plunge, you know, so that's why they call it sponge toilet. And, and so that was a common thing in, in, in old buildings. Our building was like two hundred and some years old and there was, you know, there was no flushing toilet and there was also no running water in our house where I grew up.

• 8:23Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And so we had to get basically the water from around the hundred to two hundred yards away from a well that we had to pump and winter and summer didn't make any difference. And we had to carry the buckets of water to our house, to our kitchen. And then it was used very sparingly. We drank from that water. We washed ourselves with that water. There was no shower, so we washed ourselves with washcloth and with soap. And there was a whole kind of, you know, but everyone had their position. My mother went first and washed herself. And then it was my father's turn and then it was my brother's turn. And by the time I washed myself,

• 9:08Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  the louvre of that base where the water was in was pretty black, you know, so it was not pretty anymore. I maybe got more dirty from the water than I actually cleaned myself.

• 9:20Tim Ferriss?

  Good idea to drink first. Make sure you seat your thirst first.

• 9:23Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  The interesting thing about it was, it was, you know, other places had exactly the same situation. We were not the only ones. So we didn't feel like kind of, wow, you know, we are really growing up poor. As a matter of fact, I never felt when I was a kid that we were poor. I always felt like we were like everyone else because we were surrounded by farmers that had very little money. They had little farms or workers, the working class, where workers made actually less money than my dad. And my dad didn't make much money at all because he was a police officer. And there was much more the benefits, the, you know, the pension that you get and the healthcare and all this stuff. But not much salary, just enough that my mother could buy to buy the groceries and to buy some things.

• 10:04Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And once a year to buy clothes at Christmas time for us or to knit some clothes for us and stuff like that. So, but I mean, there was like the neighbors were living the same way and everyone, when I went to school, all the other kids were kind of in the same boat.

• 10:16Tim Ferriss?

  And which brings up a question for me that I've always wanted to ask you related to confidence. Because I was looking at, of course, I think your name is almost synonymous with confidence for a lot of people. And people look to you to try to borrow confidence. And that's part of the appeal of a lot of your movies and your successes. But I was looking at a very old photograph of, I think, your first major bodybuilding competition in Stuttgart. I think it was the Junior Mr. Europe. And I looked at this photograph and what stuck out to me was, if we had just looked at the faces, not the bodies, it was so clear to me that you were going to win and that you knew or believed you were going to win. Your face was so confident compared to every other competitor. Where did that confidence come from?

• 11:02Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  My confidence came from my vision. Because I am always a big believer that if you have a very clear vision of where you want to go, then the rest of it is much easier. Because you know always why you're training five hours a day. You always know why you're pushing and going through the pain barrier. And why do you have to eat more? And why do you have to struggle more? Why do you have to be more disciplined? And all of those things become much more clear. It's not like, oh my God, I have to do another, you know, 200 sit-ups. It's more kind of like, I can't wait to do another 200 sit-ups. Because that will get me one step closer to have the abs that I need to win that Mr. Universe.

• 11:47Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And that's my goal. I see myself clearly on that stage, winning the Mr. Universe. I see myself very clearly of getting the trophy, standing there with the trophy, raising it above my head, and having hundreds of bodybuilders around me, kind of below me onstage, looking up and idolizing me, including the thousands of people that are watching the event. So that was always my clear vision, and that always inspired me to go all out. And so when I went for a competition, you have to understand, I went from the, to the Junior Mr. Europe during my time in the military. And so what it took for me to go and to get on that train,

• 12:29Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Besonnenzug,

• 12:32Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  which was a people's train, meaning kind of like, it was not a schnellzug, that the fast train. It was the slow train that literally stopped on every train station to let workers off and to bring new workers on, and that's what the train was. And so with that, you went all the way to Stuttgart, because it was the cheapest way of going. Because I didn't have much money.

• 12:54Tim Ferriss?

  And you didn't get hit by any customs officers or anything like that?

• 12:56Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, we got hit, but I mean, we got through it, you know, and I didn't have my passport, because you have to give up the passport when you go into the military, right? So, oh, you pass. I didn't even have a passport. Passport we got afterwards when we were finished with the military. But I mean, so we got through and we got to Germany, to Stuttgart. And so there was this will there, that no matter what it takes, and even if I have to crawl to Germany. That I will be there at that event because that was my shot. When I saw the ads about this Mr. Europe Junior Competition. Best gebauter Athlet Europas in German.

• 13:38Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And and that was my opportunity to really go and to make my first kind of entry into an international competition. And I felt that, you know, I can win it. And that's what I was there for. I wasn't there to compete, I was there to win. And and so that's why you saw that facial expression. There was a certain arrogance there. There was a certain way that I posed with the other competitors. I always felt during the pose of that I had my act together much more than the others did. And then I'm gonna, you know, uh, kind of, you know, make them feel inferior. And and I will win and I will look facially and physically to the judges that I'm the champion.

• 14:24Tim Ferriss?

  So you touched on something I really want to dig into, which is the the psychological warfare of bodybuilding, of life in general. I really feel, and this is a compliment, I mean it as a compliment, a real master. And if anyone who's watched Pumping Iron or or anything, I think, comes away with one, that is a takeaway.

• 14:44Tim Ferriss?

  How did you, how did you develop that? And for instance, when you were, I guess, seventeen or eighteen. How did you get inside the heads of those people at that point?

• 14:54Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I think that it uh came about when I trained in the gym. I always felt that people are kind of really vulnerable

• 15:09Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  in certain areas. So that someone that comes to the gym and works out because he wants to have a better body, that he most likely will be vulnerable. And that's during conversations that I discovered in Munich when I was trainer in the gym. They were vulnerable when you said something like, you're fat. Well, there was, there was, there was not like even a doubt in anyone's mind if ten people would have looked at that guy or a hundred people, they all would have said that that guy is fat, but he was outraged. He said, "What? Do you really think I'm that fat that you're mentioning it?" I said, "Well, you're in the gym." I said, "I go to the doctor's office and say, 'I have a cough.' I don't go and beat around the bush." I say, "I have to tell him what the problem is and then he can give me the medication."

• 15:54Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I said, "And it's the same thing in the gym." I said, "You come here because you're fucking fat." And so that, that, so now that solves the problem. And so there's no beating around the bush there either. And so, you know, so I could see that they were kind of like shriveling up and kind of shocked. So I could see the vulnerability. And then I, I tried different lines and people and, you know, we'll talk about their hair, their hairline, uh, or we'll talk about their hair color turning gray or something. And then they, it would just freak out, you know, about little things like that. So it was natural that with all the experience that I got now being a trainer and working with people and all this, that I learned about people's psychology and about their weaknesses and their strength and all this. How do you build people up?

• 16:37Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Because my whole thing was, let's first discover and talk about the weakness. And then let's go and rebuild everything. And so that was the idea, to give this guy six pack, to make him feel great, to declare victory by next summer, that he can go to the beach and that he can go and feel proud of himself and feel great and all this, and then continue training. So that was the idea. Uh, so by the time I came to America and I started, you know, competing over here, uh, it was very clear that when I said to someone, um, "Let me ask you something, is it, do you have any knee injuries or something like that?" And then they would, they would look at me and say, "No, why? Why, no, I've no, no knee injury at all, no. My knees feel great." And I say, "Why are you asking?"

• 17:21Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I said, "Well, because your thighs look a little slimmer to me." I mean, I, I, I thought maybe you can squat or maybe there's some problem with leg extension. I was like, "This is, really?" And then I saw them all for two hours in the gym, always going in front of the mirror and checking out their thighs, if their thighs still exist or something. So, but I mean, this is, you know, people get, people are vulnerable about those things. So naturally, when you now have a competition... You use orders.

• 17:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 17:48Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And so they use, you ask people whether they're sick for a while, you know, whether they look a little leaner. Or that, you know, you know, did you take any salty foods lately? And they say, why? I said, because it looks like you have water retention. I said, it doesn't look as ripped as you were like a week ago. So that throws people off in an unbelievable way.

• 18:08Tim Ferriss?

  And they get defensive.

• 18:09Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And they walk away kind of like, oh, this didn't bother them at all. But then you can see, you watch them as they walk around the pump-up room. And when you warm up for the competition and you could see them kind of thinking to themselves, kind of then going to a mirror and checking it out secretly and all that stuff. So, you know, it works. I just slowly developed it because I always felt that sports are not just a physical thing. As a matter of fact, I felt that the mentality and the mental strength in sports and the psychology in sports is much more important than the physical thing because in reality, I mean, I see when I watch a Mr. Olympia competition

• 18:49Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  or Mr. Universe competition or any of those things, you know, they all look pretty much the same, the top five guys. But what makes one emerge is the way he acts. If he acts like a winner, if he seems smiling, having a great time on stage and all that. So I felt, you know, one should use the psychology. Well, one should use everything in as far as food supplements is concerned. You know, use your best, you know, posing trunks. Use, you know, try to use the sun out there and work out in the sun. So you get tanned all around. Use the best posing routine. Just really give me a ten of everything. Then you have a shot of winning. And psychology was definitely part of that.

• 19:31Tim Ferriss?

  And you developed this arsenal of intimidation through the bodybuilding. Did you use that, for instance, in movies, waiting in line to audition against other people who were going into audition or anything like that? Did it apply to show business?

• 19:49Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I never auditioned.

• 19:52Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Okay. Never. It would because um I would never go out for the regular parts because I was not a regular looking guy. So my idea always was, okay, everyone is going to look the same and everyone is trying to be the blonde guy in California, going to Hollywood interviews and then looking somewhat athletic and cute and all this. Uh, okay, how can I carve myself out the niche that is unique that only I have? And so I always felt like really strong about, you know, I have to get into the movie business like Reg Park did, like Steve Reeves or Paul Winter, uh, Larry Gordon and all those, uh, in a, uh, all those guys that were in the muscle movies in the, in the fifties and sixties, that's the way I'm gonna

• 20:32Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  get in there. Of course, you know, the naysayers were right there and they said, well, you know, this time has passed. This was twenty years ago. Uh, you look too big, you're too monstrous, uh, too muscular, you will never get in the movies. So that's what producers said in the beginning in Hollywood and that's also what agents said and managers. They said, I doubt that you're gonna be successful in that because today's idols, I mean, this is not the seventies, Arnold, the days idols are, you know, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Woody Allen. I mean, look, this is all little guys, you know, those are the sex symbols. Those are the hot stars. Look at you, you weigh two hundred and fifty pounds or something like that. This is, that time is over. And, um, but I felt still very strongly and had

• 21:17Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  a very clear vision that the time would come where someone would appreciate that. And then sure enough, you know, um, when, uh, people saw me on talk shows, they got inspired, directors like Barbara Raffelson, and then, you know, bought the script of Stay Hungry, uh, the book of Stay Hungry and had it written into a script and then did the movie with me because he believed in me that I had the personality and I had a certain strength and, um, a certain kind of a look that would be great on the screen, that the camera loves me, uh, and all that. And so it worked. I did Stay Hungry, I did then Pumping On, the documentary, and, uh, you know, I did, uh, the Streets of San Francisco and, uh, worked

• 22:00Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  then with Anne Margaret and with Kirk Douglas and the villain. And then all of a sudden I got the contract for Conan the Barbarian. And bang, there we were, twenty million dollar movie, which today will be a equivalent of a two hundred million dollar movie. And Dino Delaurentis producing, Universal Studio, an international studio, you know, financing the movie and so it was and John Millias, a first class director directing it. So my whole plan worked and I was so right. Even John Millias, after he has done the movie, he said, if we wouldn't have had Schwarzenegger, we would have had to build one because of the body. And when I did Terminator, Jim Cameron said, if we wouldn't have had Schwarzenegger and we

• 22:44Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  couldn't have done the movie because only because he sounded like a machine, was it so believable that he actually played a machine? And that's what where people bought in when he says, I'll be back. It's totally different than when I say, I'll be back kind of thing is so. So so he was the greatest compliment that the very things that the the agents and the managers and the studio executives said would be a total obstacle became an asset. And my career started taking off.

• 23:13Tim Ferriss?

  So the the not auditioning is really interesting to me and I I knew you were very successful in real estate, but correct me if I'm wrong, you had basically made become a millionaire in real estate before your first movie. Is that right?

• 23:25Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Not before the first movie, before my career took off.

• 23:28Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 23:28Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So I did not rely on my movie career to make a living because that was my my intention because I saw over the years, the the the people that worked out in the gym and that I met in the acting classes, they all were very vulnerable because they didn't have any money and they had to take anything that was offered to them because that was the living. I didn't want to get into that situation. I felt like if I am smart with real estate and take my little money that I make in bodybuilding and with seminars and selling my courses through the mail order and orders, I could save up enough money to put down money for an apartment building.

• 24:12Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And I realized that in the seventies, the inflation rate was very high. And therefore, uh, an investment like that is like unbeatable because buildings that I would buy for five hundred thousand dollars, you know, within a year were eight hundred thousand dollars and I only put maybe a hundred down. So, you know, you made three hundred percent on your money. So you couldn't, you couldn't beat that. So I quickly developed and traded up my buildings and bought more apartment buildings and office buildings on Main Street down in Santa Monica and so on. And the investments were very good and it was just one of those magic decade. Uh, the day you couldn't do it in that same field. There's another field in real estate where you can do that, but in this particular field,

• 24:56Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I don't think you will see those kind of jumps ever again. And I benefited from that and I became a millionaire from uh, uh, my real estate investments. And that was before my career took off in a show business in acting, which was after Conan the Barbarian in nineteen eighty-two, that movie came out. We shot it in eighty-one and in eighty-two it came out. So from that point on, my career took off because people saw, you know, that the movie was successful at the box office. Then, you know, I signed a contract to do Conan number two and, uh, you know, then that led to a contract, you know, with, uh, for Terminator one and then Commander and, you know, then the action genre. Also, that was another fortunate thing. Each of those decades offered something very fortunate

• 25:39Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  that was a little bit beyond my control, but I benefited from that, you know. So that there was the action genre that all of a sudden took off in the eighties. With Stallone and Fantom and, uh, all those guys, uh, coming in, uh, really was terrific. And, you know, our salaries went, you know, mine, I got like a million dollars for Terminator two and then all of a sudden by the end of the decade, I made twenty million dollars.

• 26:03Tim Ferriss?

  That's incredible. And, uh, so I wanted to talk about the mail order for a second because that was done with, with Franco Colombo or?

• 26:13Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  No, the, the, uh, with Franco Colombo, who for those that don't know, is a European, was a European champion in powerlifting and also a boxing champion and then became a bodybuilding champion. And then I brought him over here with Joe Weider's help uh, to train with me here in America. But at that point, there was no money in bodybuilding. That's a key thing that everyone has to understand. Unlike the day where the top bodybuilding champions make millions of dollars, in those days, there was no money in bodybuilding. And so when we Didn't have enough money, we literally had to go to work. And so Franco and I, since Franco's talent was to be a bricklayer,

• 26:54Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  and a very skilled bricklayer, and learned that in Italy and in Germany. We were able to go and start thinking about the idea of putting an ad in the LA Times, creating a company, and calling it European Bricklayers and Masonry Experts. Marble Experts, building chimneys and fireplaces, the European style. And this was also a time where everything that was European was huge in America. So we benefited from that, you know, Swedish massages and everything had to be kind of a foreign name. Or Japanese this and this. So Europe and Japan and all those places, you know, were used, the names were used because

• 27:37Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  for some reason the other people just thought that was better. And so we used that in the ad. And we put the ad in the paper and literally a week later, we had the big earthquake in Los Angeles. And I mean, the chimneys fell off the apartment houses and all this stuff. And it cracked walls and all this. And so Franco and I, we, as a matter of fact, one of the friend of ours wife, who was very smart and she worked in a supermarket. She did answering the phones and calling people back and all this, just to make sure that our English doesn't get all screwed up with talking over the phone and all this.

• 28:19Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And so she gave us then the addresses and then we got to do the estimates. And I was kind of like set up to be the math genius. And that figures out the square footage. And that Franco would play the bad guy and I played the good guy. And so we would go to someone's house and then someone would say, well, look at my patio, it's all cracked. Can you guys put a new patio in here? And I would say, yes. And then I would run around with the tape measure. But it would be a tape measure with centimeters. And no one in those days could at all figure out anything with centimeters. And we would be measuring up and I say, well, this is, you know, four meters and eighty-two centimeters. And they had no idea what we were talking about. And this is so much.

• 29:01Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And then we would be writing up formulas and the dollars and the amounts and square centimeters and square meters and all this stuff. And then I would go to the guy and I said, well, I said, it's five thousand dollars. And the guy will be in a state of shock. And he says, it's five thousand dollars. I said, this is outrageous. I said, I mean, I didn't think that this. I said, well, what did you expect at the basis? I thought maybe it's like two, three thousand dollars, it's about five thousand. He says, I said, let me talk to my guy. I said, because he's really the masonry expert. I said, but I can beat him down for you a little bit. Yeah, let me soften the meat. And then I will go over to Franco and we will start arguing in German. You know, this is eine Schweinerei, du kannst nichts so viel verlangen.

• 29:46Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Das ist ein Pleiz, wir arbeiten hier in Amerika. And this will be going on and on. And he was screaming back in Italian and some, some stuff. And then I will be, then all of a sudden he calmed down and then we go to the guy. I said, okay, here it is. I said, I could get him as low as three thousand eight hundred dollars. I said, can you go with that? And he says, thank you very much. He says, you know, I, I, I, I really think that you're a great man. And blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. I said, okay, I said, give us half down right now. We go right away and get the cement and get the bricks and everything that we need for here. And we get started working, I said, a month. And the guy was ecstatic. He gave us the money. We immediately went to the bank, cashed the check to make sure that the money is in the bank account.

• 30:30Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And then we went out and got the cement and the wheelbarrow and the order, the stuff that we needed. And, and went to work. And so we worked like that for two years. I mean, very successful. As a matter of fact, and we had various different jobs where we employed like sixteen different bodybuilders. All the laziest bastards that you can ever hire, but never the, because they all were interested in working outdoor and getting a tan at the same time for their bodybuilding competitions. They were not interested in working. But anyways, we all had a good time. We all made money and, you know, and this is actually then, I did this until I started my mail order business. And then that became the new source of extra income. So we could afford everything and then save also some money and so on.

• 31:12Tim Ferriss?

  And so I've, well, I shouldn't say of course, but I've followed, followed you since I was a little kid. Also Franco though, I remember watching the replay of the World's Strongest Man competition with the refrigerator walk when his leg gave out, but I was always impressed by how, how strong he was for his weight. I mean, I think he deadlifted more than 750 pounds at less than 190 or something like that.

• 31:35Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, he did with 730, he did like five reps.

• 31:39Tim Ferriss?

  That's just amazing.

• 31:40Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  It was like.

• 31:41Tim Ferriss?

  And how, what are the reasons the two of you have remained, remained friends for so long?

• 31:49Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I think we both come from Europe. I think we both were struggling in the beginning. I met Franco the day of the Mr. Europe Junior Competition. That same day, he won the powerlifting championships in the lightweight category. And so he was up there on the stage getting his trophy. I was up there on the stage getting my trophy. And then the category of bodybuilding championship of the world passed 18 years of age, which they called the senior division, but it was not really senior what they consider now. He is senior, being over 45 or whatever it is. But I mean, then it was just someone that was older than 18.

• 32:33Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  He was up there, the winner on stage. So there was all three of us on stage and then, you know, Franco worked out in Munich. And I said, I want to come to Munich, I want to work out in Munich. After the military is finished and, and you know, Franco said, well, you know, I'm, I'm there. If you ever come, he says, let's work out together. And I told him that I admire powerlifting, that I do powerlifting and weightlifting and bodybuilding. And I want to work out with him and get stronger. And so when I basically moved to Munich, Franco was one of the first guys that I went to see and asked him if he wants to be my training partner. Now Franco didn't train as much as I did at that time.

• 33:17Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So I used several training partners, but Franco was one of them and we just developed a really. A great friendship because he was a foreigner in Germany. He was a, what they call a Gastarbeiter. And I was considered a Gastarbeiter, you know, I mean, a kind of a guest from the outside, from Austria coming to Germany. And, you know, we developed a really close relationship. So we trained for two years together. He helped me with the powerlifting. I helped him with the bodybuilding. And then, uh, by nineteen sixty-eight, I moved to California and I convinced Joe Widder then to, uh, give Franco a airline ticket. Bring him over here that he will not regret it, that he is really what I am in bodybuilding, except in the short man category.

• 34:01Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  The champion, he's like the ultimate. I said, there's no one better. And he's a great strong man. I say he bends steel bars and blows up hot water bottles and breaks wood and steel and everything. I say he's a crazy guy. I said, and his tremendous power, I said, that if he has this sunshine here and the training equipment and the food supplements, I said that he will blow everyone out of water. I mean, we're just, he will be unbeatable. And that's exactly what happened. Franco came here in nineteen sixty-nine and we trained together and he won every championship after that. He won Mr. Universe and Mr. World. And then eventually, uh, even Mr. Olympia after I, I retired. And we always worked that together.

• 34:40Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  We always were very good friends and very supportive and everything. And even today, and I'm very proud of him because he spoke no English. Unlike me who spoke a little English, he spoke absolutely none. And he went then and passed the entrance examination to the chiropractor college. And, uh, went and with me to take some classes at the community college. And, uh, got his English better and his, his commander with the language, then passed the, the entrance examination at the chiropractor college. And then become, became a chiropractor and passed his board.

• 35:16Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  The first time, not like some of the guys that I worked out with in the gym that tried it two or three times and then finally passed it the third time. So I was really proud of him at that. And then he was just became an expert in actual manipulation and working with the body. He had a special talent for that. And that's why he has so many patients today.

• 35:38Tim Ferriss?

  I remember watching his just catastrophic leg explosion on on video. And then he's called me laying on a stretcher and he says, well, just by looking at my leg, I can tell it's not broken. It's a dislocation. He went on and people thought he was was doctors included, as I understand it, thought he would never walk again. And then he came back and after he retired, I guess in eighty or eighty one, he won. That's when he won the Olympia.

• 36:01Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  That's right. Yeah. I mean, it was it was one of those unfortunate things that the Universal, the back lot where they did the strongman act, that there was a hole in the in the road at the parking lot. And no one saw it. It's, you know, it was just one of those unfortunate things. And, you know, Franco had to pay for it for that mistake that the organizers made. And, you know, but he came back. I think Franco knew that I had a few years before a heavy knee injury in seventy two, when I hurt my knee down in South Africa, doing squats and posing. And and I came back from that knee injury

• 36:42Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  and my thighs were bigger and better and more cut in nineteen seventy three at the Olympia and I won the Mr. Olympia. So he knew that you can come back, that if you have a great surgeon, and if you have great therapy after the surgery, that you can come back and be better than ever. And so that's exactly what Franco did. And, you know, he, he went through his surgery, went through the therapy and came back. And then he was squatting again with his six hundred pounds, like at great ease.

• 37:12Tim Ferriss?

  So incredible. I want to talk about language for a second. When is the last time you spoke German privately in a conversation?

• 37:20Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I sometimes speak with a friend of mine, Ralph Muller, who is German. And so we sometimes speak German. And sometimes, I would say it's a mishmash between German and English. Because some words are more accurate in German. And some words are more accurate in English. Or it's easier to use in English. You find more specific words in English. So we sometimes do, you know, like I said, mixture of both. And then Franco also speaks German. And so sometimes we will be talking in English. And then all of a sudden, he will get into a German thing. And then all of a sudden, we talk German.

• 38:02Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And the same is also with my nephew, who is now a prominent entertainment attorney here. He came, I brought him over when he was eighteen, from Austria and from Portugal. He speaks Portuguese and he speaks German and French and also English now really well, since he has been here all these years. And he also sometimes slips into the German and then we start talking German and sometimes in English. So every so often, I get to speak German also.

• 38:32Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I enjoyed listening to on audio Total Recall, your book. And you threw in Gemütlichkeit.

• 38:39Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Yeah.

• 38:40Tim Ferriss?

  And then kept on moving. And I was like, oh, I like that. Because I lived in Berlin for a short period of time.

• 38:44Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Right.

• 38:45Tim Ferriss?

  And I really enjoyed it.

• 38:46Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And also in The Escape Plan, I used the German. And, you know, we did this whole scene in German, going crazy, going crazy in German. So that was fun to do and all that stuff. But, you know, the Austrians have a different dialect. It's kind of the Austrians are like southerners.

• 39:05Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 39:06Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  You know, where people say, huh, what did you say? You know, kind of thing. So the people that have to hide German or that live up more north, that speak more and more perfectly. Like when you go to Berlin, it's like totally like the way you write it.

• 39:18Tim Ferriss?

  Hochdeutsch.

• 39:18Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Yeah, Hochdeutsch, exactly.

• 39:21Tim Ferriss?

  Now, I was having a conversation not too long ago with Arianna Huffington. And she was telling me about a conversation she had with Henry Kissinger. Because she was taking accent reduction classes. And Kissinger just said, no, no, no, you want to keep your accent.

• 39:36Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  That's right.

• 39:37Tim Ferriss?

  So I wanted to ask you, you've taken accent reduction classes before. Was there a point at which? You know, you realized, wow, this is actually a strength. I don't want to get rid of this.

• 39:47Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, the object, the objective was not to get rid of the accent. When you take accent removal classes and dialect classes and English classes, that whole combination, it's all designed that you speak so everyone understands you. Sometimes people have a tendency, foreigners have a tendency of pronouncing a word so wrong or with such wrong emphasis that people don't know what they're talking about. And then when you correct them and they say it the right way, then you totally understand it and you're perfectly fine. So the trick is really to learn how to enunciate and how to really speak the language well and how not to rush

• 40:32Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  and throw words together that makes it then almost impossible to understand. So Henry Kissinger is right. Everyone will always remember Henry Kissinger because of his accent and because of his brilliance. And I think everyone will always remember Arianna Huffington for her accent and for being this woman that set out the goal of creating this magazine and being highly successful and being always politically oriented and policy, you know, becoming a policy wonk and all those kind of things. But there are many of those, but what separates her is the accent.

• 41:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  You know, the way she talks, you know, and she's Greek. And so she has, of course, a different accent than I have, which made it really funny during the debates. When we had the gubernatorial debates in Sacramento, she was there, you know, whining with a Greek accent and I was there talking with my German accent and all this. It was hilarious. It just showed, you know, how far, you know, kind of the world has come or California has come that all of a sudden you have two of the top candidates, you know, all foreigners, with foreign accents and all this for running for governor.

• 41:42Tim Ferriss?

  So the, I've been very fascinated to look at your, your film career and hear the story of, of twins. So I was hoping maybe you could tell us the story of twins, how twins came together and how you guys structured that deal because I didn't know anything about that.

• 42:01Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, twins came together because I felt.

• 42:05Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Very strongly that I had a side of me that is a very humorous side. And that if someone would be patient enough and willing to work with me as a director, that they would be able to bring that humor out of me.

• 42:24Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And that's, you know, something that is very difficult because you can be humorous in your private life, but cannot pull it off in a movie. There's many actors that have tried that and were not successful. So I felt, you know, that I should really talk to Ivan Reitman. Because I really loved Ghostbusters. And I said to myself, God, it was so well-directed and all this. And I just happened to run into him when I was in Aspen. And we were hanging out, there was Robin Williams and some other people. And we were all up there, it's no mess, and we were skiing. And then at night, before dinner, we all had a great time, sitting by the fireplace and joking around.

• 43:08Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And Ivan Reitman would say to me, Arnold, I listen to you and I see a side of you that has never really been on screen. And I said to him, I said, you know, I would love to do a comic and I would love to bring that side out, if it is the innocence of me or the naivety of me or the humor of me, whatever it is. I said, I would like to see that on the screen. I think it could be good. And then he said, OK.

• 43:35Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So I said to him, I said, I want you to work with me and to direct me in a movie. Let's figure out what it should be. And he said, OK, I would love to do that. I'm gonna go home after Christmas, after this vacation, and I'm gonna look into and develop a bunch of ideas. And then you and I get together and then pick the one that we like the best. He developed immediately, within a short period of time, a bunch of ideas. I think there was five ideas. And the one that we both liked the most was called The Experiment. Which then became Twins. Experiment we didn't like because of my German Austrian background. So we thought that it would be better to call it Twins. And um uh and we developed that project, got it written.

• 44:20Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I came up with the idea then of Danny DeVito. That it shouldn't be just someone that is acting totally opposite of the way I am. But it should also look physically totally opposite of the way I am. And Ivan loved that idea. And then we went after Danny DeVito. And I remember we sat in the restaurant and we made a deal on a napkin. And wrote down, you know, this is what we do. We're gonna make the movie for free. We don't want to get any salaries. And we get a big back end. And Ivan should take this deal with the agent to the studio. And he took it to Tom Pollock, who was then running the Universal Studio. And Tom Pollock said, this is great. We can make this movie for, you know, sixteen and a half million dollars.

• 45:05Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  If you guys don't take a salary. Um and you get a big back end. We're gonna give you thirty seven percent of whatever it was together. But Danny, Ivan and me. And uh and we worked out the percentage of what our salaries are. So whatever Danny got at that time for a movie versus what I got for a movie. And versus what Ivan got for directing. So we worked it out percentage wise and that's how we ended up dividing up the part amongst ourselves. And let me tell you, I made more money on that movie than on any other movie. And the gift keeps on giving. It's just wonderful. And uh and I remember Tom Pollock, after the movie came out.

• 45:48Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  He said to me, he says, all I can tell you is, he says, this is what you guys did to me. And he bent over, he turned around, bent over and he put his pockets out and he says, you fucked me and cleaned me up. It was very funny. He says, I will never make that deal again. But anyway, so the movie was a huge hit. It came out just before Christmas and throughout Christmas and New Year, it made every day, uh, three to four million dollars and, uh, which in today's term, it will be of course, you know, double or triple, uh, but it was just huge and it just went up to a hundred and twenty-nine million dollars domestically. And, uh, I think worldwide, it was like, uh, three hundred and, uh, two hundred and sixty

• 46:31Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  million dollars or something like that. So it was really very, very successful and it, like you said, it, uh, it ended up costing, I think around eighteen million dollars, the movie.

• 46:39Tim Ferriss?

  Amazing. So amazing. Now, you know, I was, when, when I hear a story like that, I think of the deal that George Lucas did for Star Wars where the studio's like, ah, toys, whatever. Sure. Yeah. You can have the toys. And then they probably felt very much the same way. They're like, wow, we're not gonna make that mistake again.

• 46:55Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  That's right.

• 46:55Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, now you have, um, a new film, uh, you have several, but Maggie. And, uh, I'd love to, for you to tell people about it, but I was also curious, maybe you could comment on this, but in this day and age, why, why you don't say finance an entire film yourself or crowdsource all the financing yourself. So you're the only, uh, not necessarily the only producer, but you're the, the sole owner of that film.

• 47:22Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Yeah. I, I, for some reason or the other, um, always felt that I should keep the two apart and I should not invest and, uh, put money into films. Um, this is a whole other business to be in, to finance movies. And, um, I think that, you know, my strength is to be a performer. I think there's people out there that are very good in financing movies and raising money for movies or people that run studios and all this. And I let them do their job, what they're doing. I do my job, what I'm doing. And this is why I just never did that. Uh, it's, it's something else if someone has a great idea to do a documentary or something like this and says, this costs two million dollars, uh, you know, can you help us with this? And I feel passionate about it. Like, for instance, uh, you know,

• 48:07Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  a Brooklyn Castle, you know, if someone would have come to me and said, uh, hey, uh, here's a, uh, you know, documentary we want to do about after school. Programs in inner city kids. I said, wait a minute, these are two things I'm very passionate about. I love playing chess, which is what it's all about, right? The documentary, uh, how kids in the inner cities play chess and how they become smart and how they stay off the streets. Therefore, not get into trouble with teenage pregnancy and juvenile crime and all those things. And they have adult supervision and they, you know, they get confidence. And there's a kids that are seventy percent of them are below the poverty line. So that's a great story and it is something that both of them, jazz and inner city kids, after school programs that feel passionate about.

• 48:49Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So I would have put money into that, um, and I wouldn't have been in it. I would have just, you know, done it because I think it's a story that ought to be told. And so things like that is something else, but in my own movies, I don't know. I never felt comfortable with that idea.

• 49:04Tim Ferriss?

  Keep them separate.

• 49:04Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Tim Ferriss?

  You know, now I think about it, I, I do a lot of investing in startups and sometimes people ask me, why don't you start your own startup? And I basically give them a very similar answer. It's like, no, I'm already heavily concentrated. I'd like to keep the two very separate.

• 49:18Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  That's right, yeah.

• 49:18Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm glad you brought up, um, Brooklyn Castle. So a friend of mine was, was interviewed on this podcast named Josh Waitzkin. He was the basis for Searching for Bobby Fischer, so very well known as a chess player. And I've heard you talk about the, I think it's the three to six P M. Is the danger zone. Uh, and I'm on the advisory board for donorschoose.org and a number of nonprofits related to education. Why are you so passionate about after school programs?

• 49:42Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Because I felt that been, I grew up, even though we were very poor. But I had someone there twenty four hours a day for me to improve, to learn, to do sports. And to get attention and to get the love and to get the discipline. It was tough upbringing, uh, but it was a combination of, you know, great discipline. And also, uh, love and, but I felt like that that. Having someone there with you twenty-four hours a day, from the time in the morning you get up to the time you go to school and there were the teachers there and there were the coaches there

• 50:25Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  and there was the school principal and all of them. And then you go home and there's your mother there helping you with your homework. And then in the evening, your dad comes home and he goes, takes you to the soccer field and the sports with you and then the winter, ice curling and all those things. So I just felt when I watch and go from school to school, which I did when I was the chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, I traveled through all fifty states and visited one school after the next. And I always at three o'clock, I felt like these kids are going out there. And then I saw half of them standing around in front of the school and then wandering around, the other half were getting picked up. And I said to myself, what happens with those kids out there? And the teachers or the principal will always say, well,

• 51:08Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  you know, the problem today is, is that so many parents are working, both of the parents are working, and they don't have really the ability to pick up their kids from school. And what happens is, a lot of these kids then get into trouble, you know? And so then I started looking into it, the idea of after-school programs. And I saw that there are after-school programs around, but they're not really well organized. And so I stepped in, I started after-school programs here in Los Angeles. We very quickly then spread them all over California and then all over the United States. And now we're in like thirteen or fourteen cities all over the United States, including we're in Hawaii. And they have been really beneficial.

• 51:51Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And we even passed an initiative in California in two thousand and two, which was the After School Education and Safety Act, that provides an additional five hundred million dollars for after-school programs in California. And because of that, which started going into effect in two thousand and six, from that point on now, every high school and middle school in California has after-school programs. And then also churches and other organizations that are not. Connected with the school can also get money for after school programs so they can have their after school programs. So it really has become one of my passions. And it's just simply like I said, I had that upbringing, I had the attention 24 hours

• 52:36Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  a day and it helped me to be who I am. And I felt bad for the kids when they don't get an equal shot because the only way you can be successful is if you really get this kind of attention and if you don't get kind of in the situation where you float around in the streets, then you get involved with gangs and with drugs and with violence and, you know, like I said, teenage pregnancy and you commit juvenile crimes and you end up in jail. It doesn't serve anybody and it costs the community a lot of money. And the way I got Republican support for that in California, it had them endorse my initiative was because I showed to them that for every dollar we spent, we save three dollars down the line. And so from a fiscal point of view, they endorsed it, even though they don't like the,

• 53:21Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  you know, the nanny state thing and to have government step in and do the job for parents. The Democrats endorsed it for that. They thought the government is responsible and we ought to do something because it's the new challenge. That 70% of the kids come from homes where both of the parents are working and they do not have time for the kids in the afternoon. So who is helping this kid with homework? Who is helping this kid with tutoring and with sports programs and adult supervision and giving the kid that love that the kid needs and the confidence building that the kid needs? And for that, after school program is the number one answer to the problem. We have seen it over and over what great success rate we have had with after school

• 54:04Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  programs and hopefully the movement will grow and eventually every child will have the opportunity to join an after school program if they don't have a parent at home that can help them with all those things.

• 54:15Tim Ferriss?

  And everybody listening, I'll obviously provide links to all the organizations that Arnold's involved with and I encourage you and implore you to consider becoming involved, supporting or becoming a mentor, a big brother or sister of some type. I grew up on Long Island and I had, I was a competitive athlete, I was a wrestler for a very long time and that kept me out of trouble and I can see how easily, both my parents worked, many of my friends growing up there. Ended up overdosing on drugs, becoming involved with drugs because they had idle hands during that period of time.

• 54:50Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  But the other thing you have to understand is when you are a foreigner, an immigrant, and you come over here and you enjoy the unbelievable opportunities that America has to offer, it is natural that you feel like you want to give something back. And I felt like when I was the German of the president's council and then when I was a trainer for the Special Olympics, and then with the after-school programs, it was my way also of giving back. Because people listened to me because at that point I was a celebrity already and I had tremendous power of influence because of my movies and all that. So I might as well use this power of influence for something good and also give something back to the country. And that's why I was a rein for government and all this stuff. So I think

• 55:35Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  it just feels good to do something for people that need help. That's, you know, what life is all about.

• 55:42Tim Ferriss?

  Totally agreed. And for those of you out there who've read my stuff, I get asked by readers a lot, you know, what's the key to happiness? And I think if you're not sure of how to make yourself happy, make someone else happy, help someone else, and the payback is enormous. Arnold, when you hear the word "successful," who's the first person who comes to mind?

• 56:04Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I think that people like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, I mean, people like that, right? Because it's the first thing that you do think of when you hear about success, that they're really worldwide known for their success. But then there's another, there's other layers, you know, like, for instance, you know, you cannot avoid someone like Nelson Mandela, who showed to the world about forgiveness.

• 56:36Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And showed the world about tolerance and inclusion. And the job that he did in South Africa was not only a great job for South Africa, but it was a great job for the whole world because he inspired everybody to be remotely like that. And no one can really be like that, but because he was really very, very special. And I was very fortunate to meet him twice and to work with him in Special Olympics in South Africa and to be at his prison cell, uh, in Robben Island and have him show me around in order and I had time to talk with him and spend a day with him twice. So he's definitely one of those guys, Mikel Gopichov. I mean, someone that grows up on the communism.

• 57:21Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And then when he's on the top realizes that the system doesn't work. And then dismantle it. I mean, think about the chutzpah that takes, right? To do that.

• 57:34Speaker 00

  Didn't need to mail him any bull testicles.

• 57:37Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  That's right, yeah. Unbelievable leadership, you know, and vision and all that. Or if in sports, I mean, if you think about Muhammad Ali. How can you not think about success and not think about him? Because that guy was so successful, but also not only successful in sports, but also in generosity. I mean, he gave everything away. I mean, he would go through the airport and if he sees someone that has no money, he would give him a hundred dollar bill. And so he was an extraordinary athlete. So there's a lot of people like that. I think that when he goes through history, also there's someone that I just thought of that I should mention that is Cincinnatus.

• 58:17Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And he was a Roman emperor and in the Roman Empire. And he, why I admire him, and as a matter of fact, Cincinnati, the city is named after him because he was a big idol of George Washington also. And the reason why he is a great example of success is because he was asked reluctantly to step in into power and become the emperor and to help because Rome was about to get annihilated by all these wars and battles. And so to step in there and to help them. And he was a farmer.

• 58:56Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Powerful guy. And he went, took on the challenge, took over Rome, took over the, the army and won the war. And then after he won the war, he has felt that he has done his mission why he was asked to go and be the emperor. And he gave the ring back and went back to farming. And he didn't only do this once, he did it twice. They went back later on to him once again. And when, when they tried to overthrow the empire within and they asked him back and he came back, he cleaned them up the mess. It was through great, great leadership, which he had a tremendous leadership quality

• 59:41Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  and bringing people together. And then again, he gave the ring back and went back to farming.

• 59:47Tim Ferriss?

  That's incredible.

• 59:48Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And to be, as we all know, it's very addictive.

• 59:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 59:52Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  To be powerful. And it's very addictive and I know how difficult it was for me to let go of being governor. And then all of a sudden, you're not sitting there and making decisions about what's going to happen, you know, the financial crisis, what's going to happen to the regulations, the greenhouse regulations, what's going to happen, you know, to our, you know, high speed rail, what's happening with the university. And you're not there anymore, you know, making the decisions. It's very hard to let it go. So imagine someone like that to let go, to be the emperor. It's a whole different thing. And so, so to me, so that's very admirable. And then when I think about success, he's also somebody I would put in that category.

• 1:00:32Tim Ferriss?

  I'll have to do some more research on him. Do we have time for just a few more questions? So feel free to not answer this if you don't want to, but this is almost the opposite of the last question. When you think of the word punchable, who's the first, what's the first face that comes to mind?

• 1:00:47Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Punchable? I, I, I never even thought about that.

• 1:00:53Tim Ferriss?

  Most people don't walk around thinking about it.

• 1:00:55Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  No.

• 1:00:58Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So I don't think there's anyone that I can think of right now.

• 1:01:03Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. I was worried, thinking about asking this, that you might just reach across and knock my front teeth into the back of my head. But the, is there a particular, do you have a favorite book or a book that you've given to people as a gift the most?

• 1:01:18Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, there's one book that I have actually, since it was just Christmas, that I've given away a lot of copies. And this is a book about Winston Churchill by Mayor Boris Johnson. I don't know if you're familiar with him, he's the mayor of London. And he's a real interesting character. They think that he could be eventually Prime Minister of England. Very talented guy, not a party servant, but a people servant. And he came up with the Boris bike that has now bicycles all over London that you can, that anyone can just take and ride around with the bikes. And then now they have this in all over Europe, in France, in Paris, in Vienna and everywhere.

• 1:01:58Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  They all took this idea that people would drive less in the city if they have the possibility to just get a bike from a bike stand. And so he's a very interesting guy. So he, I did not even know that he is, you know, this extraordinary writer at the same time. But I was in London for a promotion and I saw on the bookshelf in my suite, this book, Winston Churchill. And of course, I admire Winston Churchill, he's one of those guys that I really love. And so I took this book down from the bookshelf and then I looked and I said, oh, Boris Johnson, the mayor, he wrote it. I said, I got to get that. So I put it back and then Daniel wrote down, uh, uh, so.

• 1:02:38Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah, there it is.

• 1:02:40Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So, so anyway, so we wrote down the title and we wrote down, you know, all the information. And then we, we got it as a Christmas gift for a lot of people. But the other book that I have given, I mean, hundreds of copies to is Free to Choose by Milton Friedman. And it kind of lays out why the private sector is really the answer to a lot of the problems that we have and not government. And I think it's a real great kind of a. A philosophic kind of a book about how to approach our problems. If it's education, if it's economic growth and all of those kind of various different issues. Uh, you know, he lays it out. It's a very simple book to read, but it is very good. And it has an, it makes an impact on you when you read it.

• 1:03:24Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And the other one I think is um California by Kevin Starr. Kevin Starr was our librarian, a state librarian. And he has written more books on California than anyone. So if anyone is at all interested in a book about California, you know, what makes California unique and special? And the history of it, the political history of it, and all the little details. I mean, that's a good book to have. So it's a, it's a, it's a great gift, especially when I was governor. And you, you give people gifts and you give it, of course, of California, a book about California and so on. So that's, you know, the kind of reading that I like and that I like to share with other people.

• 1:04:04Tim Ferriss?

  Wonderful. I just one more question, then I'd love to hear where we can learn more about all of the projects that you're up to. Uh, and that is, I've, I've heard you mention transcendental meditation in passing briefly. Do you meditate?

• 1:04:17Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Um, I don't meditate now, but I got heavily into it in the seventies. And I remember there was a time in my life where I felt like everything is just kind of coming together. And I did not find a way or couldn't find a way of keeping the things separate. So it was always when I was thinking about, I was thinking about at the same time, my bodybuilding career, I was thinking about my movie career. I was thinking about the documentary Pumping Art that we're shooting right now. And the movie Stay Hungry that we just finished shooting. And the, my investment in the apartment building and is this gonna, do I get the financing from the bank? And all of this kind of stuff was always coming together. And at the same time, I was training for the Mr. Olympia competition in South Africa.

• 1:05:00Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And I was training right here at Gold's Gym. And I remember there was all the camera equipment around five hours a day in my face. And then someone in the middle of squatting was trying to change the battery pack on my, on my lifting belt and all this stuff. So I was like, you know, eventually I felt like I got to do something about it because I have such great opportunities here and everything is happening and everything is going my way. But I'm just clustering everything into one big problem rather than separating it out and having calm and peace and, and being happy. And so, a total, you know, coincidence, I ran into this guy that I've run into many

• 1:05:39Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  times on the beach, very, very pleasant man, who told me that he is a teacher in transcendental meditation. And I said, well, it's interesting you mention it, because I feel like I should do something, because I feel like, you know, I'm just overly worried and anxieties and all this stuff, and I feel like certain pressures that I've never felt before. And then he says, oh, says, Arnold, it's not uncommon, it's very common. Lot of people go through this. This is why people use meditation, transcendental meditation, as one way of dealing with the problem. And he was very good in selling it, because he

• 1:06:20Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  didn't say it's the only answer, he just is one of many. And he says, why don't you try it? He says, I'm a teacher there, up in Westwood, I would not be able to teach you since we have a friend, we have, we have friends, and he says, there will be another teacher there, that will give you a mantra and blah, blah, blah, and teach you how to do it, and then I can help you after that. He says, because I will be teaching, so why don't you come up on Thursday, and I will be there, I will introduce you to the folks up there. And so, then I went up there, took a class, and I went home after that, and then tried it. I said, I gotta give it a shot. And I did twenty minutes in the morning, twenty minutes at night, and I would say within fourteen days, three weeks,

• 1:07:03Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I got to the point where I really could disconnect my mind, and as they say, to find this few seconds of disconnection and rejuvenate the, the, the mind, and, and also learn how to focus more and to calm down. And I did that for, and I saw the effect right away, that I was much more calm about all of the challenges that were facing me. And I continued doing that then for a year. And by that time, I felt like, I think that I've mastered this, I think that now, I don't feel overwhelmed anymore. And I really felt kind of it was one of the things where, you know, transcendental meditation was kind of anxiety and pressure

• 1:07:48Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  meeting around the corner tranquility. You know, this is kind of what, what it felt. And

• 1:07:56Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And so I was happy from that point on, even the day, I still benefit from that because I don't merge and bring things together and see everything as one big problem. I take on one challenge at a time. And when I go and I study my script for a movie, then that time, that day when I study my script for a movie, I don't let anything else interfere in that and I just concentrate on that. So, and the other thing that I've learned is that there's many forms of meditation in a way. Because like when I study and I work really hard, where it takes the ultimate amount of concentration,

• 1:08:39Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  I can only do it for forty-five minutes, maybe. Maybe an hour. But then I have to kind of run off and maybe play chess. And I play chess for fifteen minutes, then I can go back and I have all the energy in the world again and jump right back and then continue on with my work as if I've not done it at all today, right? It's like I'm fresh. And so that's another way I think of meditation. And then I also figured out that I could use my workouts as a form of meditation because I concentrate so much on the muscle and I have my mind inside the bicep when I do my curls. I have my mind inside the pectoral muscles when I do my bench press.

• 1:09:22Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So I'm really inside and it's like, again, a form of meditation because you have no chance of thinking or concentrating on anything else at that time, but just that training that you do. And so there's many ways of meditation and I benefit from all of those and I'm today much calmer because of that and much more organized and much more tranquil because of that.

• 1:09:48Tim Ferriss?

  This whole conversation makes me wanna go tackle the world. I love it. And

• 1:09:54Tim Ferriss?

  I really appreciate all of your time. Where can people, and of course I'll link to all of these things in the show notes for folks, but where can people learn more about what you're up to? What would you like to share with people?

• 1:10:04Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Well, I think that, you know, people, they know my ambitions in the movie business, you know, that I love doing movies. But I think because of my interest in public policy, after my governorship, I have then started at USC, the USC Watsonaga Institute, that deals with some of the issues that I felt very passionate about during the time I was governor and even beforehand, which was in a political reform. We were very successful in doing redistricting reform in California and open primaries and so on, which now brings politicians much more to the center. But this is not the only thing, there's many more things that need to be accomplished in California and nationwide.

• 1:10:48Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  So our institute deals with that. It also deals, you know, with stem cell research, it deals with economic growth and opportunities, it deals with education, after school programs and so on, and especially also with environmental issues. And, you know, I have an environmental organization on top of that, which is the R20, which deals with sub-national governments, because I feel always very strongly that while we are striving towards a Kyoto II treaty, and where all the nations in the world come together, and I hope that they're going to be successful this year in Paris in December, I at the same

• 1:11:29Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  time want sub-national governments like California and other states and other provinces and cities to set their own goals and not to wait just for this treaty, but to have the, from the top-down approach, which the international treaty will be, and from the bottom-up grassroots-level approach, from the bottom up. Because when those two meet, then we really create critical mass. That's what it's all about. So I want to continue pushing towards a renewable energy future, as is my crusade. It's as much a crusade as my fitness crusade was for the last 45 years. And we've been pretty successful with that, uh, so I hope that we're gonna be successful with that too. But it does need everyone to buy in and everyone to participate.

• 1:12:11Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And that's why I go around the world and give speeches on environmental issues. And try to bring countries together, make sure that this year it will be a huge success. But at the same time, have sub national governments set their own goals and do exactly what we did in California. In California, we didn't wait for Washington, we didn't wait for a UN treaty or anything like this. We set the goal of reducing our greenhouse gases by twenty percent, by twenty five percent by the year two thousand twenty. And eighty five percent by the year two thousand fifty. We created the million extra solar roofs in California. We lowered the fuel standards here. We set the goal to to up the renewables from twenty five percent to forty eight percent by the year two thousand and twenty. So these are all things that we did. Uh, we didn't wait for Washington, and so we want other states to do the same thing.

• 1:12:56Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And luckily, California showed great leadership, and now we see other sub national governments doing the same thing.

• 1:13:03Tim Ferriss?

  And that's regions twenty dot org?

• 1:13:04Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  This is our twenty, yeah, regions twenty.

• 1:13:06Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, people can find you on Twitter at Schwarzenegger?

• 1:13:09Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  That's right.

• 1:13:10Tim Ferriss?

  Wonderful. All right. Uh, is there anything else that, uh, that you'd like to mention before we close out?

• 1:13:17Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Uh, yeah, uh, OMAE, we're doing another fundraiser, uh, with OMAE. And, uh, the last time we did for the after school programs, which we talked about earlier. Uh, do fundraising all the time because they always need money and for every dollar, we can sit, you know, send more kids to after school programs. So, uh, we always raising money. So the the last time we had a tank, uh, drive and and and destroy things.

• 1:13:41Tim Ferriss?

  Amazing, amazing video.

• 1:13:43Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Yeah, there's a model tank right there behind you.

• 1:13:45Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:46Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  And this is, so the big tank, the real tank, M forty seven from my military days, it's the real tank. So we basically, you know, whoever won the bid came out and you could sit with me in a, in a, uh, in the tank. And then we crush things together, pianos, toilet balls, uh, living rooms and everything that that he picked, which is destroyed. And we raised over a million dollars from that, which was really great. And we had a lot of fun at the same time. This time, instead of, you know, destroying things with a tank, we blow things up. So this will be the new fundraiser, which we were gonna start, uh, I think in very soon, as in February, as a matter of fact. So there's another thing that I'm doing is always raising money for the after school programs.

• 1:14:23Tim Ferriss?

  And is the, is the link going to be the same as the last?

• 1:14:28Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, amazed.com/arnold. I'll put that in the show notes as well. Sir, thank you so much for the time.

• 1:14:34Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Thank you very much.

• 1:14:34Tim Ferriss?

  This has been wonderful.

• 1:14:35Arnold Schwarzenegger?

  Thank you.

• 1:14:36Tim Ferriss?

  Until next time, thank you for listening, folks. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I will be putting links to all the books mentioned, resources, websites, etc. at fourhourworkweek.com/arnold. And if you enjoyed this episode, two things. Number one, I'm hoping to get some bonus questions answered from Arnold, and I'll be putting those on Facebook at facebook.com/timferriss, T-I-M-F-E-R-R-I-S-S, two Rs and two S's. And if you enjoyed this episode, there are several others of mine that I think you will love. The first is with Tony Robbins, of

• 1:15:19Tim Ferriss?

  course, advisor to people like Andre Agassi, top hedge fund managers, Bill Clinton, Serena Williams, the list goes on and on, about his morning rituals and routines, among many other things. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com/tony to check that out. And then, my vote for the most interesting man in the world in real life is Kevin Kelly. If you don't know who he is, or if you have heard the name before, either way, this is an incredible three-part episode. You've got to check it out. It is fourhourworkweek.com/kevin. And until next time, thank you very much for listening.

• 1:16:01Tim Ferriss?

  The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Onnit. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen, in my garage, you will find AlphaBrain, chewable melatonin for resetting my clock when I'm traveling, kettlebells, battle ropes, maces, steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it kind of is. It's a torture chamber for self-improvement. And you can see all of my favorite gear at onnit.com/tim. That's O-N-N-I-T.com/tim. And you can also get a discount on any supplements, food products. I like Hemp Force. I like AlphaBrain. Check it all out, onnit.com/tim.

• 1:16:39Tim Ferriss?

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