#309 Arnold Schwarzenegger (Before He Was Successful)

What I learned from reading Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak by Barbara Outland Baker. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (6:30) He forced his sons to eat with silverware at perfect right angles. They had to keep their elbows to their waists. If the boys did not obey, the back of his hand was quick to strike their cheeks. (7:30) His life began to flourish through the art and science of bodybuilding. Arnold ate it, slept it, worked it, imagined it, thought it, believed it, and trusted it. Bodybuilding became his existence. (8:10) He had no time to waste on naysayers. He aligned only with those who shared his passion. (8:15) He knew that to succeed according to his manic standards he needed to master an individual sport. (8:30) His intelligence did not show on his report cards yet he mastered his goals like a wizard. (If you do everything you will win) (8:50) His singular concentration provided a rock solid belief in his potential. (9:30) Not even his peers could understand the enormity of his lifetime dreams. (11:00) Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Founders #193) (11:15) Gradually a conflict grew up in our relationship. She was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of ordinary life. She had thought I would settle down, that I would reach the top in my field and level off. But that's a concept that has no place in my thinking. For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer. (13:40) If you do everything you will win. (13:45) And I then saw very clearly what I could achieve, and that gave me a tremendous amount of motivation. (13:55) Instead of training two hours a day like most kids did, I would train twice a day, two hours. Totally abnormal. Sometimes three times a day and sometimes four times a day. I would go home during my lunch time, and then do, for an hour straight, just sit-ups to get that extra hour that no one else has gotten in, just to be ahead of everyone else. (16:20) Arnold was not a man of many surprises. He was clear in his focus, firm in his decisions, and egocentric at all costs. (17:55) Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners. — The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. (Founders #106) (21:20) He made it clear that his world was huge and I must learn to accept that other people and activities demanded his attention. (23:30) His family foundation was instrumental in setting up his intense motivation to succeed. This negative motivation pushes him to achieve the maximum potential in every activity. (27:30) No one could restrain his mutinous energy. (27:55) Arnold always felt self-confident, no matter the disparity in sophistication, income or status. (29:30) Francis could sell ice to the Eskimos, Lucas said later. He has charisma beyond logic. I can see now what kind of men the great Caesars of history were, their magnetism. — George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. (Founders #35) (31:30) I’m not so dominant that I can’t listen to creative ideas coming from other people. Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. — Driven From Within by Michael Jordan (Founders #213) (22:40) Problems are just opportunities in work clothes. — Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66) (33:10) Optimism is a moral duty. — Edwin Land A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein. (Founders #134) (33:50) A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune. — The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #283) (35:30) Stay public. You gotta promote, promote, promote, or it all dies. You just gotta be out there all the time. — Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever. (Founders #219) (37:00) He maintained his rigorous training schedule. (38:30) He craved the interaction with each new expert and remembered every tip. Arnold already recognized that he had the ability to learn any content he chose. (38:45) The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets. — The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191) (39:15) Imitation precedes creation. — Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. (Founders #210) (44:35) Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141) Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #193) --- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

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

• 0:00David Senra?

  Arnold mentioned that a particular incident of rejection had influenced his motivation to succeed on his own terms. "I felt cheated," he said. "My parents sent me to a farm and took Minard," that's his brother, "on vacation. I was sent to my godmother's farm 50 miles away when they took my brother to Vienna and Salzburg and all these other places. I was 10. I was left there for two months. I was in denial that they had gone away without me. I knew it had an impact on me. It gave me the will, desire, and drive that normal life doesn't create." They discounted Arnold from the start, with no one encouraging his vast potential until age 15. Arnold's father Gustav returned from the miserable front of World War II defeated.

• 0:44David Senra?

  He was now a 38-year-old man, diminished but domineering. Gustav's militaristic regulations blanketed his sons. Arnold obeyed his father without question. Discipline, consistency, and excellence became his family's motto. Gustav drank. An entire story in two words. He forced his sons to eat with silverware at perfect right angles. They had to keep their elbows to their waist. If the boys did not obey, the back of his hand was quick to strike their face. Arnold's father pitted his two sons against each other. He made them compete in every activity. Because his brother was older, his brother would usually be the one to win. Arnold's gonna turn all of this into fuel and drive.

• 1:29David Senra?

  A swift learner of life, Arnold often uncovered more value from associating with those older than him. Some of the older guys in his town worked out in a makeshift gym. They invited him in. By 15, building a stronger body became all that mattered to Arnold. He found old bodybuilding magazines around the gym. He spotted Reg Park on a magazine page. His eyes opened to the future. Arnold was inspired to learn that Reg had earned a lucrative income through his physique and had made his way into movies. Arnold instantly resonated with Reg Park's path and chose to replicate his professional life. Regg became Arnold's silent mentor. His life began to flourish through the art and science of bodybuilding.

• 2:12David Senra?

  Arnold ate it, slept it, worked it, imagined it, thought it, believed it, and trusted it. Bodybuilding became his existence. A muscle obsession allowed him to endure his parents' complaints and derision over his bizarre obsession. He sacrificed a routine life. He dispossessed himself of all current norms to become the Regg Park of Europe. He dug in to master self-discipline. Not only did he improve his muscularity, but he also developed a hardened outer shell. He had no time to waste on naysayers. He aligned only with those who shared his passion. He knew that to succeed according to his manic standards, he needed to master an individual sport.

• 2:54David Senra?

  His entire being forged a lifetime plan to build upon his muscles. Build a way out of town, a way out of his country, and a way out of this continent. His intelligence did not show on his report cards, yet he mastered his goals like a wizard. That part reminded me of Lyndon Johnson. LBJ has one of my favorite maxims. He said, "If you do everything, you will win." This sounds exactly like where we are in Arnold's life. His singular concentration provided a rock-solid belief in his own potential. Arnold had a deep-seated need to prove himself. He talked his way into managing a gym in Munich. He never looked back to his tiny country for any further resources towards his climb.

• 3:37David Senra?

  In Munich, he was happy to meet crazy new friends who also practiced a similar resourcefulness to train and eat without financial worries. The results paid off. He won three contests in 1966. No time could be lost in his training. Emotionality had no place. Arnold felt as if he stood alone, unable to relate to anyone. Who could possibly share his excessive drive for both bodybuilding and his business goals? Not even his peers could understand the enormity of his lifetime dreams. His lifestyle remained centered around the gym. He developed an obsessive drive for public acclaim. He became the world's youngest amateur Mr. Universe. After any contest that he would win, he would say, "This is just the next step. You haven't seen anything yet."

• 4:23David Senra?

  He had an inability to experience satisfaction. The 1967 Mr. Universe contest became the turning point in Arnold's bodybuilding career. He was discovered on London's stage by bodybuilder, business tycoon, Joe Weider, who invited him to America to star in Joe's Muscle magazines. Through this new charismatic bodybuilder, Joe could hype his muscle products. Through this brilliant entrepreneur, Arnold could become an icon to cult believers. Okay, so that was a brief overview of Arnold's early life and an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak. And it was written by his former girlfriend, Barbara Outland Baker.

• 5:06David Senra?

  So I stumbled upon this book because I was watching the new documentary on Netflix. It's a three-part series. It's called Arnold. And in one of the episodes, Barbara makes an appearance and it mentions like who she is and the fact that she wrote a book about the six-year relationship that she had with Arnold Schwarzenegger before he was famous. And so I didn't remember her name, but all the way back on episode 193, I read this short, it's like 115-page biography, autobiography of Arnold when he was like 30 years old. It's called The Education of a Bodybuilder. And the book ends with Arnold dumping his girlfriend. And so I'm going to read this quote that I think sets up the fundamental mismatch between Arnold and his girlfriend at the time. And this is what Arnold said. "A conflict grew in our relationship.

• 5:49David Senra?

  She was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of an ordinary life. She thought that I would settle down, that I would reach the top in my field and then level off. But that's a concept that has no place in my thinking. For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but it is to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, and to conquer. I wanted to grow. I wanted to continue on. The life she wanted would not permit that." And so what this podcast is going to be about is this is Arnold before the fame, before the success. Like, this is the person that built the foundation upon which all his future success rests upon.

• 6:31David Senra?

  Okay, so the main theme of the book is that Arnold is the most goal-oriented person that Barbara had ever met. And so I want to go right to where they meet. Arnold's 21 years old at the time. He just got to America. He's living in Southern California, and he's working with Joe Weider. And so we see this list of goals that he makes for himself. So he has five exact goals that he wants to accomplish immediately. He wants to rent a one-bedroom apartment near Gold's Gym. He wants to acquire a motivating training partner. He needs to find a freelance writer to help him write his required articles for Joe's magazines. He needs to get access to a car, and he needs to get a raise for his salary from Joe. And so at the end of every chapter, you see excerpts from this interview that Barbara

• 7:14David Senra?

  does with Arnold when he's the governor of California, this is all the way back in 2004. And so he goes back in time, and he's talking about, like, this is why I had this singular focus. There's like a clarity of purpose, I think. When you find one singular thing that you can focus on, to the exclusion of everything else. Arnold talks about in interviews and in books and everything else, he didn't believe in Plan B. He believed you picked what you want to do, and you burned the boats, and you never doubt yourself. And I think most people never experience that in life. I think a lot of people that have never experienced it actually thinks it's limiting. What I would argue is actually, it's the opposite. It frees you, because you know exactly what your mission is at life. And if you watch the documentary, read any biographies of Arnold, like, your mission can change in

• 7:56David Senra?

  life. At first, it was bodybuilding. Then it was his movie career. And it was politics. That's why that documentary, Netflix, is a three-part series. But let's go to the fact that, hey, this is my way out. I'm going to reference that LBJ maxim over and over again, because I feel that that is Arnold all day long. If you do everything, you will win. It became clear to me that bodybuilding was the thing for me. This is what I was meant for at that time. And I then saw very clearly what I could achieve, and that gave me a tremendous amount of motivation. Instead of training two hours a day, like most people did, most other bodybuilders, I would train twice a day. Totally abnormal. Sometimes three times a day, and sometimes four times a day. I would go home during my lunchtime, and then, for an hour straight, just do sit-ups to get that extra hour that no one else had

• 8:40David Senra?

  gotten in, just to be ahead of everyone else.

• 8:45David Senra?

  Many people have potential. What separates the champion from the guy that is the second best or the loser is the person who really has the psychological advantage. Everything is in the mind. I had a psychological advantage. And he talks about why. He's like, I grew up, he grew up in a house, there was no television, there was no such thing as television. He didn't see his first movie until he was like 10 years old or 15 years old, something like that. There was no indoor plumbing, there was nothing to do. So he says, I had no other things available, meaning no other distractions. It was easy to have that drive and develop this kind of attitude of this is my only way out. Every thought, every action, everything is directed towards this one goal. I always, and this is why, I always felt that my way out was through bodybuilding.

• 9:29David Senra?

  I could not have figured any other way. And so the singular focus and this clarity of mind about what he wants to do actually makes him really, really easy to understand. If you go through, I probably have, I don't know, 60, 50, 50 or 60 highlights to the book. Most of them are not a paragraph long. Most of them are a sentence or two. It's very easy to understand him. He makes it very easy for people to interface with him because he tells you very clearly what's important to him. And you'll see what I mean in one second. This is the fundamental mismatch between him and Barbara. Remember how he started, how the quote I just read to you, hey, she wanted, you know, a normal life. I hated that very idea. I thought it repulsive. She wanted me to, I'm always going to grow, I always want to continue. She, she wanted a life that would not permit that. She says multiple times in the book, like, why don't you just get a normal job, be a normal person?

• 10:14David Senra?

  And she's constantly trying to change him. And I think the benefit of understanding this is because I think anybody that's trying to do something difficult, like build a business, achieve a goal, must have a supportive spouse. You either have a supportive spouse or you don't have a spouse. All of the greatest founders have high levels of disagreeableness. Arnold is no different. They're eight months into this six-year relationship, right? She's, she writes him a note saying, hey, these are all the things I don't like about you. These are the things that you should change. This is what he does. I gave him my note. He read it, tossed it aside and announced my departure. Boom, we were over. No response, no conversation. Arnold was not a man of many surprises. He was clear in his focus, firm in his decisions and egocentric at all costs.

• 10:59David Senra?

  So this is the fundamental mismatch. He's gonna be rude and sensitive, machine-like, willing to not be in a relationship if you try to change him. Because nothing is going to distract him. She keeps saying, hey, let's get married. Let's have kids. But marriage and kids is not becoming, getting to the top of my profession in bodybuilding. So then I can then use that as a launchpad, right? He told her, I was like, I'm just gonna run Reg Park's blueprint. He was very open and honest with her, which is the frustrating part about reading this book. Cause he's like, no, this is what I'm going to do. And then she's constantly like, no, do this other thing. He's like, I just told you, I'm going to focus like a machine, get to the top of bodybuilding. Then once I get there, I'll use that as a launchpad to get into movies and build my business empire. That is what I'm doing.

• 11:44David Senra?

  That is what I'm obsessed with from the time my eyes open till the time I go to sleep. It is futile to make suggestions that are not that to me. And so what I'm describing to you is the reputation that Arnold has now, right? Everybody knows that. What's fascinating is he had that when he was 20. He had that when he was 21. He had that when he was 15. And I think the best description of this is, there's a book I did a long time ago. It's very popular with entrepreneurs. It's by this guy named Bill Walsh, who was a, maybe one of the greatest coaches of all time. I think it was like maybe episode 106 or something like that of Founders. It's called The Score Takes Care of Itself. And there's a line in there, there's a paragraph in that book. There's really a line that champions behave like champions before they're champions. And we're seeing that with Arnold.

• 12:27David Senra?

  And Bill Walsh says, like, the culture precedes positive results. It doesn't get tacked on as an afterthought on your way to the victory stand. Champions behave like champions before they're champions. They have a winning standard of performance before they are winners. Arnold had a winning standard of performance before he was a winner. And the great thing about this perspective is we have a normal person by her own. She'll repeat that over and over again. I just, I'm a normal person. I just want to have a normal life. And yet she's in this intense relationship with an absolute maniac. And she is shocked at his level of focus and discipline. This is why I always say that if you think about the people that you and I said on the podcast, they are much more similar to each other than they are to like the random person on the street. To the average person, Arnold and people like him,

• 13:12David Senra?

  most of the people that you and I said in the podcast, they have a ruthless competitive drive that is terrifying to an ordinary person. Terrifying. And so Barbara sees that, I think Arnold's like, what, 22, 23, we were in the story. They hadn't seen each other for like, three months. I think he's in, or she might have been in Europe, or he's in Europe or something. And because he's getting ready for a contest, right? And he's got blinders on focus. So she's like, oh my God, we haven't seen each other in a bunch of, a few months. It's gonna be like, we're gonna get away, we're gonna have this romantic time. And she gets there and Arnold's like, no, I'm gonna be working and I'm gonna be focused. Arnold had endured a labor-intensive summer dedicated to the art of his body. Grueling training, weight-conscious eating, restricted socializing, and scientific sleeping. He stalked through the season with impeccable discipline.

• 13:57David Senra?

  "The man I beheld was more competitor than boyfriend." This is, she's showing up right before a competition and expecting, this is so crazy to me. And expecting him to like, jut off for the weekend, right? "His unenthusiastic response to a passionate weekend caught me off guard. I tried to reassure myself that I would be Arnold's top priority after the contest was over." Wrong. You're asking him not to be Arnold. And then she goes into all the additional things that he was willing to do that his competitors were not. This, this is on the exact same page, goes back to that LBJ maxim, "If you do everything, you will win." "I had heard him dissect the aspects of a bodybuilding contest. He had talked about his posing routine and that he had taken private ballet classes to protect the flow of his, to perfect the flow of his muscular poses.

• 14:42David Senra?

  He had mentioned the mind games that he would play to psych out his fellow competitors." And this is here, her response to watching how he approached his work, hearing him speak about it. "I feared the consequences of merging with a boyfriend so addicted to discipline, goals, and acclaim." And what's fascinating is that sentence is on one page, on the left side of the book. On the right page of the book, goes into the environment in which he grew up. The fact that his family had no indoor plumbing, no shower, no flushing toilet. Think about the contrast, think about the juxtaposition there. I'm shocked. I'm kind of scared that this guy is so addicted to discipline, goals, and acclaim. He grew up without running water.

• 15:25David Senra?

  Now he has the ability to channel his focus into an activity that will make him and his unborn grandchildren wealthy? And you find it surprising. My response to this is, of course, he's like this. And Arnold does exactly what I think if you're this driven, monomaniacal maniac, what you should do. Clear communication with the people in your life about what is important to you. He made it clear that his world was huge and I must learn to accept that other people and activities demanded his attention. He discussed his psyching up before a contest, his egotistical drive for success, his compulsion to postpone alternatives, and the letdown that he felt after each one of his bodybuilding goals were met.

• 16:10David Senra?

  I found him incredibly insensitive to others. Again, there goes this fundamental mismatch. He is focused. There's a bunch of time in the book, she's just like, hey, why don't you? She's a teacher. She's like, why don't you come and like hang out with me and my teacher friends? And he's like, why would I do that? Like hanging out with your teacher friends is not chasing after my goals. And so therefore she misinterprets this as though he's insensitive. I found him incredibly insensitive of others. He was not one to take responsibility for hurting other people's feelings. He said that they should, that other people should toughen up. Again, I don't think that should be surprising. He grew up with a militaristic father who felt like a loser. He talks about this in other books where, you know, the Austrians, they wound up getting, they wound up losing the war, then they come back. There was alcoholism all in his, most of the soldiers were drunk all the time. They were depressed, they felt like losers.

• 16:55David Senra?

  They wound up beating on their kids, beating on their wives. He grows up with no access to media, no access to running water. He comes to America and he finds people like, you know, calls them, in one other book I read, calls them lazy bastards. You know, they don't know how good they have it. So again, I don't think that's, that that response would be surprising if you put it into context of his early life. To him, life was something you directed. To me, life was something that happened. Again, there's the fundamental mismatch. Arnold is a high agency person. The world does not happen to high agency individuals. High agency individuals happen to the world. To him, life was something you directed. And so you have all these other people. There's older mentors around Arnold and Barbara. They wind up knowing both Arnold and Barbara, and they're trying to explain to Barbara

• 17:40David Senra?

  how Arnold is. Here's one of them. He becomes this burgeoning father figure in America to Arnold. And he says, "He offered his interpretation about Arnold's extreme drive. His family foundation was instrumental in setting up his intense motivation to succeed. Arnold's sensitivities to his father's remarks left him with a 'I am going to prove you wrong' attitude." This is one of my favorite lines in the book, is a great way to think about Arnold. This negative motivation pushes him to achieve the maximum potential in every activity, which he did. He got to the highest level in bodybuilding. He became the highest-paid actor in movies. And then he gets to the highest political office that he was actually eligible for.

• 18:24David Senra?

  So that's a great way to think about this. He had negative motivation that pushed him to achieve the maximum potential in every activity. Frank Zane was also a competitor and a friend of theirs, and he would give his breakdown of Arnold's extreme drive. He believed that Arnold's self-discipline was what allowed him to accomplish his overreaching goals and that he was motivated to succeed at any cost, which would include his relationship with Barbara. Frank Zane also studied Carl Jung and I think this form of Buddhism. So he actually gives us another mental model of Arnold as the trickster titan. And it says Frank would study Carl Jung's stereofarchetypes. Frank saw that Arnold fit the trickster archetype, the one who was humorous and perhaps merciless

• 19:08David Senra?

  cunning could outsmart others. Frank also expounded upon what he learned in Tibetan Buddhism, the Six Realms of Being. Frank believed that Arnold lived in the Titan realm, where he was the consummate leader and he was filled with passion to achieve something better. This leader is able to master his sphere of influence to effect change. And so Barbara saying, you know, having these conversations with people to know him, it helped give her a better understanding of why Arnold had such single-minded motivation. And then here's the problem, she's not, I always say like, learning is not memorizing information. Learning is changing behaviors. She's like, oh, this makes me feel better. And then she's like, oh, I just wish that it hadn't made him so monomaniacal. If he wasn't so monomaniacal, he wouldn't have been Arnold.

• 19:52David Senra?

  And so another thing about Arnold is he had this like superhuman levels of charisma. There's many stories in the book where like her family at first was like, why are you dating? You know, they looked at bodybuilders like freaks. It was a very unusual thing to do at this point in history. And yet he was so like unpredictable and boisterous. And he would say things that, you know, essentially if you had manners, you wouldn't say like, I'm about to redo something here that just made me laugh. But people found him enduring, so much so that like Barbara's mom, decades, like 15 years after they broke up, would be inviting Arnold to like family celebrations or having lunch with him or talking to him on the phone. And you know, he didn't know any better. So he would just say, or maybe he did know better.

• 20:36David Senra?

  He just would say outlandish things. He wanted people to laugh, even though most people would say, hey, if you're having dinner with like your girlfriend's family and her sister and stuff, don't accuse her of like farting and stuff, which is about to happen. He carried his boisterous manner everywhere, even into my family's home. But he was such a novelty that most family members became captivated by his blast of personality. Everyone in the family soon learned that the more he poked fun at you, the more he liked you. He might ask, who farted here now? Come on, tell me. It was you, wasn't it, Mary Ann? Mary Ann is Barbara's sister. Just imagine being at the dinner table and some 240-pound Austrian bodybuilder is like, all right, who's stinking up the place? And her mom loved it. She called him her little devil.

• 21:20David Senra?

  She says, mom's little devil managed to become the silliest but most desired guest at each frequent family gathering.

• 21:28David Senra?

  And this is another important part, I think, of Arnold's story is this ability to build a network of allies, to get people, they were attracted to him and they'd want to build relationships with him. Such attention to detail marked a difference between Arnold and all other bodybuilders. His mind was focused on his body, yet he never lacked the vision and foresight to establish public relations with those who could profit him. He had unlimited imagination and ambition, and he believed in strategically setting up a firm network through written correspondence. That's another smart move. There's a line in the documentary, I forgot who said it, but they said that Arnold was the most calculating person that they had ever met. There's a bunch of great one-liners in the book. This is just fantastic. No one could restrain his mutinous energy. Arnold is about 24

• 22:12David Senra?

  years old at this point in the story. More insight from his live-in girlfriend. He possessed unfathomable dedication. Arnold spent 364 days a year on his own terms. Arnold always felt self-confident, no matter the disparity in sophistication, income, or status. Arnold awoke in the mornings on an edgy high and left to work out his competitive nerves through barbells. I thought about Arnold's route to power. He had fulfilled his childhood dream to capitalize on being a unique revered winner. He had stacked on muscles quite intentionally for the past 11 of his 26 years, and now they separated him from his rivals. Arnold

• 22:53David Senra?

  evoked not only respect, but godlike wonder. There's a bunch of things going on in this page. These are not, like, what I'm reading to you is not coming one right after another. These are just random sentences, I feel, tell entire stories about who he is. Excessively high energy, a power law type of person, unfathomable levels of dedication and discipline, a singular focus, and then you package that with like Steve Jobs level of charisma. Arnold evoked not only respect, but godlike wonder. To be in his presence was to fall under the spell. This is exactly how they talked about the great leaders in history. I've read that, almost that exact same line in a bunch of biographies of Steve Jobs. There's a line in George Lucas's biography where he meets his lifelong friend, but also at

• 23:38David Senra?

  this point was like this kind of older mentor to him, Francis Ford Coppola. And George Lucas had spent a lot of his early life reading a bunch of biography in history. And when he meets- Coppola, he's like, oh, so this is what these books meant. He says, there's a line that we pull up real quick. Lucas is talking about Francis Ford Coppola. Francis could sell ice to Eskimos. He has charisma beyond logic. I can see now what kind of men the great Caesars of history were. They were magnetic. Is exactly the same description that we're reading about a young Arnold. To be in his presence was to fall under his spell. He had that uncanny ability to connect immediately with anyone he chose. And so that part reminded me of Steve Jobs.

• 24:18David Senra?

  Steve Jobs was known to have undeniable charisma and to have an intense presence. Arnold had that too. And the amazing thing is as you go through the years and through the pages and as you turn the pages, Arnold gets older and yet he remains remarkably consistent. He is smarter than he looks. He understands the world runs on relationships, so he cultivates them. He's constantly using the way he grew up as fuel. I love that quote by the investor Josh Wolfe, that chips on shoulders put chips in pockets. And he's always learning. An impression that our friend John offered of Arnold is that Arnold's mind is like a steel trap. Arnold had a knack for meeting unusual people. Arnold always rooted for the underdog's success. The underdog had to fight for himself, just like Arnold had to fight for himself to get

• 25:03David Senra?

  out of Austria. And so even though Arnold's working in real estate, he's got a construction company, like this bricklayer company, he's working out five hours a day, he's doing a bunch of media work for Joe Weider, he's continuing to train, he's creating his own products, he's doing seminars, he's also constantly taking classes, he's always learning. He had steadily accrued undergraduate credits from Santa Monica College. His vocabulary expanded by several thousand more words and he worked to make his accent less guttural. He enrolled in an adult education program at UCLA and took classes on philosophy and business. He acquired the bulk of his information from listening. He admired anyone who could contribute knowledge into his mental storage tank.

• 25:47David Senra?

  He was always observant. He grew more refined every day. These sentences, again, are not next to each other. This is appearing over multiple pages. He was utterly consistent in this. This reminded me of what Michael Jordan said in his autobiography back on episode 213. I'm not so dominant that I can't listen to ideas coming from other people. Successful people listen. Those that don't listen, don't survive long. So at this point in the story, his father is dead. His older brother, who didn't really have a good relationship with winds up dying rather young. I think he was like 25 or 26 maybe from driving drunk. Arnold has been stacking one accomplishment on another. And so his mom comes to America and visits him, spends time with both Barbara and Arnold.

• 26:29David Senra?

  And then when he drops her back off at the airport, this was fascinating. What do you think that she thinks of me? It still matters to him. It's still motivating him to prove his parents wrong. And it had to be incredibly satisfying because it was obvious that she was extremely proud of who he became and what he accomplished. And unlike his father and unlike his brother, she lived long enough to see it.

• 26:57David Senra?

  Okay, so another good idea from Arnold is the fact that he always spun everything for the positive. He was constantly like Barbara would run into like a problem. We talked about this over and over again. It's a famous quote from Henry Kaiser that opportunities, problems are just opportunities and we're close. I think a lot of normal people, they let themselves get down or they get upset about something. And Arnold would like laugh it off. He'd be like, you have nothing to worry about. He'd repeat, like, there's always a solution to every problem. There's always a way out. Just keep going forward. And so when it just got to this one line, it just says, he always spun things for the positive. I thought of two quotes that I absolutely love. One from my personal hero Edwin Land. He says optimism is a moral duty. That is such a great line.

• 27:40David Senra?

  Optimism is a moral duty. Edwin Land repeated it so much that when you read biographies of him, he has these statements like a lot of founders, they identify a handful of principles or maxims that they repeat over and over again. And they repeat them so frequently that they become Jeffisms. In the case of like Jeff Bezos, inside Amazon, there's a bunch of these. And inside Polaroid, there was Landisms. And optimism is a moral duty was one of the Landisms. There's another quote. That I thought of from, actually it comes from Andrew Carnegie's autobiography. When I got to this part, and he says that a sunny disposition is worth more than a fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated, that the mind, like the body, can be moved from shade into sunshine. Let us move it then.

• 28:24David Senra?

  Laugh trouble away if possible, and one usually can. And so I think this idea of like optimism, looking at the, for the bright side, changing your mind, just like you can, I love that idea of like, oh, I can get out from the shade into the sunshine, I can physically move my body, I can do the same thing with my mind. I think it's something that Edwin Land, Carnegie, and Arnold all had in common. Another smart thing that Arnold understood, he understood from the very beginning, the power of media. Whether that's magazines, when he first saw the Reg Park and realized, hey, this is my blueprint, this is my, my escape out of Austria. Something that he says in the documentary, this is why I was thinking about this, is, he's like, sometimes you hear a line that you didn't come up with, but it, it perfectly just like, you could have come up with it, because it perfectly describes how you feel.

• 29:09David Senra?

  And so he heard this line from Ted Turner that says, "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise." And then he's like, I love that, that's exactly how, like, how I try to approach my work. And so Arnold's saying that as an older man, but even when he was younger, he would do this. And so they called him a German Pied Piper, which was hilarious. He was a German Pied Piper who would lead his supporters. Arnold kept visualizing in an interior space where his leadership skills would constantly promote him to higher levels of fame and power. In the early seventies, each new medium, form of like mass media, was expanding. And Arnold was able to navigate through every medium with remarkable dexterity. A cover story here, a documentary here, an interview after that.

• 29:52David Senra?

  This importance and emphasis on promoting your work is something he talked about when he was in his early twenties, something he still believed in when he was in his early, in his seventies. There's a line when I got to this part of the book that came to mind, that when I was reading Anthony Bourdain's biography, where he said that you have to promote, promote, promote, or it all goes away. I think Arnold would agree with that sentiment. And so something else that's talked about in the documentary that I think a lot of people need to know is the fact that Arnold became a millionaire in real estate. Making his first fortune in real estate actually gave him the independence to let him pick the movie roles because he was so big and unusual looking at the time. They tried to get him to play all these roles. He's like, listen, I'm not. There's actually a fantastic line when he meets James Cameron to be interested in doing the Terminator.

• 30:37David Senra?

  And he's like, so tell me about, like, do you want to be an actor? He's like, no, I don't want to be an actor. I want to be a star. And so he was very selective onto what roles that he wanted to play because that was his goal. And so for most of their early relationship, they're just living in like this small apartment together until Arnold starts buying these like multifamily like apartments and then just living in one. We lived in a frugal apartment for five years so Arnold could accrue a critical mask of liquid capital. And he's making that money because he's on salary for Joe for his magazines. He has like these mail order programs that he's selling. He earns a bunch of money like traveling the country, doing like bodybuilding exhibitions and everything else. And so again, he winds up, he's just got, he's masterful at building relationships. This is in Santa Monica at the time.

• 31:18David Senra?

  So he says, Arnold had an uncanny knack for networking and uncovered a wise old realtor named Olga. Together, they would buy a bunch of apartments on the west side. So they wind up buying one and then it says, we lived in the manager's front quarters while he rented out the rest of the units. At 26 years old, he now owned income-bearing real estate. And so even though now he has, he added real estate to his job, it says, he maintained his rigorous training schedule. And so they start having these fights again because he refuses to slow down. He refuses to not keep taking on more projects, not keep expanding his empire. After five years with him, I'd become conditioned to endure an emotionless, increasingly self-centered robot. I dreaded competing for his time. And she would describe his behavior when he's concentrating on a goal.

• 32:02David Senra?

  He would turn off his sensitivities to concentrate. He would grow distant and he would become unfeeling to anyone other than himself. Arnold was never satisfied. This man was masterful in plotting the necessary actions to carry out great feats. Through goal-setting, he fulfilled almost every competitive and financial craving. He was the most goal-oriented man I have ever met. And this is a crazy line. If you erased his motivation to succeed, he would rather die. And as the book goes on, she gets more and more desperate because she realizes, oh my God, he's gonna, the exact same way he was with bodybuilding, he is with business and now he is with movies. This is never going to stop. And really, for our purposes, is

• 32:45David Senra?

  like Arnold operated with the belief that he could learn every, anything, anything that he wanted to. If he put his mind to it and invested the time, he could learn it. He immersed himself in accent removal sessions, acting classes, and fiddling lessons. So he, this actually for a role that he's about to play. He craved the interaction with each new expert and remembered every tip. Arnold already recognized that he had the ability to learn any content he chose. Now he was eager to take that same drive and learn everything he could about the movie making world. I'm not sure, but when I got to that paragraph, made me think of one of my favorite quotes from Naval Ravikant. He said, "The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions

• 33:25David Senra?

  of continuous learners in free markets." Creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets is a great description of what Arnold is doing right now. And we see that he's learning from past examples of people that already accomplished what he's trying to do. It's what Stephen King said, that imitation precedes creation. He kept focus on past crossovers like Steve Reeves, Gordon Mitchell, and Reg Park. They had all forged successful, successful makeovers from muscles to movies. What also helped Arnold is that he held, Arnold held a PhD in charisma. And so if you happen to pick up this book and read it, you're gonna notice some differences between what you and I've talked about so far in the book. There is a lot of sex in the book and also her inner,

• 34:10David Senra?

  like monologue and struggle. There's just one thing I want to pull out because she's like, you know, you do feel sorry for her. They're just so fundamentally mismatched. Yet she is addicted to Arnold. She cannot, she tries to keep pulling herself away. She just cannot. And so you see this inner monologue here. She's like, five years and nine months' time is enough to know that this man will never marry you. He does not even believe in the kind of love that you do. And so it's finally clicking towards the end of their relationship. Arnold needed time for his personal expansion. Bodybuilding had only been its beginning. He now needed just as many powers of concentration for future development. He was not motivated to merge our separate dreams. She would ask him over and over again, "Why won't you marry me? Why haven't you asked me to marry you? Please

• 34:52David Senra?

  marry me. Why don't you want to get married?" And what makes matters even worse is that as they're- Relationship is declining. He's starting this rapid ascent. And she's saying, I would never be the wife who'd enjoy the delights of his career. I was just a girlfriend who supported his ascent. I knew I was destined for relative normalcy. And as a result, she's starting to resent him. And so she talks about the fact that their old friends, including her, are now resenting him because he's like, why are you changing? And Jay-Z has this great line. He's like, you think I'm doing all this work to stay the same? And so I need to include this part because this is just an aspect of human nature. If you're constantly putting your time and effort into your own personal development and those around you are not, they're going to resent you. This is inevitable.

• 35:36David Senra?

  So he says, "We of the leftover friends became annoyed watching him act as if his stardom had been a certain fate. His increasing arrogance caused speculation among his old friends and our former entourage. Our frequent phone calls," meaning people that are no longer in Arnold's life or no longer on the same path as him, "traded nasty gossip. Friends reveled in stories that placed Arnold in a shabby light. We reveled in badmouthing Arnold. Each friend was losing him to agents, directors, actors, managers, businessmen, and politicians. However, despite our jealous anger, each accommodated our schedules to meet for lunch or accept an invitation at a last-minute Arnold-sponsored party."

• 36:20David Senra?

  This is an ugly and pathetic part of human nature. I just wrote a little note to myself, "Keep these people out of your life." And this continues over several pages. "A mixed group of friends would share sarcastic remarks about Arnold's rise to fame. He can't even act. He's such a country bumpkin. We all kept slinging lines meant to degrade the man who had moved beyond our familiar world into the stratosphere. Yes, let's tear down this idol." And so there's two things that are amazing here. One, this is not the behavior of a friend. Like, if you find yourself talking crap about people or jealous of their success, then you're not actually friends. And if people do that to you, that's the surest sign that you should probably eliminate them from your life. But what's so fascinating is like, they've, these people knew Arnold. They saw him for year after year after year after year to be completely committed to

• 37:05David Senra?

  what he wanted to do, to talk about this. It's not like he hid it. He was very clear upfront about what he was gonna do. He made it very easy for you to interface with him. And yet, they still were surprised by his success and continued to underestimate him year after year after year. And even his live-in girlfriend, who had the closest, the front row seat to everything that's going on, is still surprised. This is many years after they break up, or maybe two or three years after. So it says, "My sister, Mary Ann," this is the one that Arnold made fun of at the table for farting. Says, "My sister, Mary Ann, called me." She had read an article about an unusual coupling. Mr. Olympia, and star of Pumping Iron, and Joseph Kennedy's granddaughter, Maria Shriver, were an item. And this is Barbara's response.

• 37:47David Senra?

  "Okay, I had to sit down to understand the nature of his colossal climb. He had now marked new territory in Hyannis Point. His girlfriend laid claim to Kennedy royalty." And so this mistake, this mistake of continually underestimating, and therefore being surprised of a formidable individual like Arnold continues. "As I watched," this is many decades, this is like a decade, maybe a decade and a half after they broke up. "As I watched Arnold's film credits mount throughout the 80s, I became stupefied over his success in Hollywood. I found it steadily strange to realize I had known him prior to such staggering fame, and wondered if I should have been smarter or wiser

• 38:30David Senra?

  in being able to predict his legendary outcome. I knew that he would become an outstanding businessman, but this?" And I think that is one of the greatest things about reading biographies of great people. Hopefully, one of the things that you're getting out of listening to this podcast is not only can we know that we know a lot can change in one lifetime, that we can turn ourselves, we can build ourselves into formidable individuals for the benefit of our own life, but you'll also be able to spot it and therefore not be surprised when you see it in other people, too. And so if you want to buy the book, actually, I'll leave a link to this book and the other two books. He's written two autobiographies, one when he was 30, and I think one when he was 70. I will leave a link to all three books down below. And if you buy the book, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time.

• 39:15David Senra?

  If you want to go deeper on the lessons that we're learning in the podcast and support the podcast at the same time, make sure you sign up for Founder's AMA. Once you sign up, you get access to a private email. I read every single one of those emails personally. You can ask me questions, and I answer those questions in AMA Ask Me Anything episodes. If that sounds interesting to you, the link is down below and available at founderspodcast.com. That is 309 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.