Pod Insights The Rich Roll Podcast From “I’ll Be Back” To Giving Back: Arnold Schwarzenegger Is The Influencer We Need About this episode Today Arnold Schwarzenegger shares tales from his extraordinary life, how he reached the pinnacle of success in three different careers, and why his 4th act is leveraging his influence to forge a better world.
The occasion for this conversation is the publication of his new book, Be Useful—a primer on the principles that catapulted him into a generational icon and why service is the path to meaning and purpose.
This conversation covers the vision, work ethic, and salesmanship that Arnold deployed to become the world’s greatest bodybuilder, the top-grossing action star in Hollywood, and the highest elected official in California.
We discuss reinvention, the importance of selling yourself, and how giving back became his paramount focus.
We go deep on how he thinks about the influence he wields—and why usefulness and positivity are the antidotes to unhappiness and apathy.
Arnold also shares thoughts on confidence, ego, and leadership. Why his friendship with James Cameron is so special—and how it led to Arnold’s work as a passionate environmentalist.
Not to be missed, Arnold also tells the amazing story of how a giant bust of Lenin ended up in his office.
Recorded in Arnold’s office—a museum of extraordinary artifacts—this is a must-WATCH episode.
Open and vulnerable, this is the Governator like you’ve never before seen or heard him.
Enjoy!
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Transcript 14,096 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:05 Arnold Schwarzenegger? This is simply to make people better and to make them recognize that they don't have to get stuck where they are, but they can change. Because every day is an opportunity of change.
1:18 Rich Roll? It's a big one today because my guest is Arnold Schwarzenegger.
1:23 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Hasta la vista, baby.
1:26 Rich Roll? This conversation, which Arnold graciously hosted in his office/museum of spectacular artifacts collected over the course of his storied life, covers the principles he leveraged to stratospheric success in three distinct careers: bodybuilding, movie stardom, and politics, all of which are eloquently distilled in his new book, Be Useful. Arnold also shares his thoughts on confidence, ego, and ambition.
1:56 Arnold Schwarzenegger? We need to get stronger. We need to get tougher. We have to be willing to go through hardship. Through suffering, through pain.
2:05 Rich Roll? We talk about his commitment to the environment, his relationship with James Cameron, and also this very interesting fourth act that he now finds himself in, which is all about service, giving back, being a voice of positivity and leveraging his influence for the betterment of others. This one was quite the thrill. So please enjoy Arnold as perhaps you have never before seen or heard him.
2:41 Rich Roll? When I think about your life and your journey, this young person who knew early and often that he belonged in America, had a vision for it, visualized it, architected that vision into goals that you pursued and achieved relentlessly, to the point where you surpassed anybody's expectations of your capabilities and reached the absolute pinnacle of success in three separate prominent sectors of society. And this makes you, on some level, like this iconic generational emblem or example of the American dream. So I'm interested in your relationship
3:24 Rich Roll? with your own ambition and how you've been able to maintain a grounded ego. Because you're very much a person of the people. You like staying connected with people. You're all about people. But for a different version of Arnold, that ego could have run rampant and imploded your life.
3:46 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It could have.
3:48 Rich Roll? Yeah.
3:48 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You're absolutely right. It could have. The only thing is that I think maybe would help me is that I never really felt that I have arrived, to be honest with you. Not in bodybuilding, not in... I mean, I pretend.
4:04 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And I do the big spiel, right? You know, I'm the greatest.
4:07 Rich Roll? The schme?
4:08 Arnold Schwarzenegger? The schme, exactly. I do all of that, yes. But I mean, in reality, I feel like when I work, for instance, on a movie, I really don't feel like it's any different than being a plumber. You know, I go to work, they put all the schmooze on and the makeup, and I'm sitting there like an idiot at five in the morning so that I'm ready at eight o'clock. And then you go out and you do your work, do your scenes, then you go and have your lunch. And it's like the same, it's like going to work and then going back home. I don't see myself as the star. I just see myself as a worker.
4:50 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And so when people then say, "You're so nice, you eat with the crew." I feel like I'm the crew. I'm just one of them, right? We're all trying to make a good movie. And so it's like I never really feel out there. Kind of like, even when I was governor, no matter where, yes, I have my moments where I feel like, oh, man, that just shows how great I am and stuff like that. But the reality settles in right away where I put myself back into place. And even when I remember
5:32 Arnold Schwarzenegger? where I have to make myself kind of feel like I'm the Mr. Olympia. But when I look in the mirror, I see so many flaws.
5:41 Rich Roll? You say that in the documentary, you're very self-critical.
5:45 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So many flaws and it's easy to doubt I'm never the big enough to size. Oh, come on. You know, how am I gonna fake my way through here? You know, that's the way I talk to myself. But then when I go out and says, oh, I'm gonna show them the day and the best body in the world that has ever seen blah blah. And the spiel, right? The schme. But I mean, the reality of it is I just always kind of like felt, you know, fortunate that I'm in this situation. And but I don't get like big-headed because of it.
6:17 Rich Roll? Hmm. Yeah, I don't know if in his private moments, Muhammad Ali thought...
6:24 Rich Roll? Yeah, I'm not as good as I say. Like, I think he really believed that. So it's interesting to hear you say, or to, you know, be honest about vulnerabilities or insecurities. I think that's surprising.
6:39 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Well, I think that even Muhammed Ali, I'm sure that he had his own moments of reality because he lost, you know? And I know that when he lost, he knew why he lost. And, but you know, he was like, he was a showman.
6:57 Rich Roll? Yeah.
6:58 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And Muhammad Ali was just an extraordinary showman that had so much joy in his sport, which is extremely important to find joy in all of the torture and hard training. And, and also to be able to kind of entertain people in that way and to have a mind that can remember all this stuff. I mean, his poetry and all this stuff that he did. He never made a mistake. It's not like he bubbled away and always had a new trip or something like that, you know, none of that. So it was just a great, and he had a great vision. He always saw himself like, you know, that he was done in justice.
7:41 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And I think that motivated him to eventually get the upper hand of all of that. And I hung out with him a lot in the seventies. I traveled around the United States with him. We went to very different TV studios, did interviews there, you know? He was always there first going out there and doing his interview. And all this, we always talked about it, hung out with the same people a lot of times. He invited me to different events. He just was really, really good.
8:11 Rich Roll? When I think about those quiet moments where, when you're questioning yourself or you have those insecurities, you know, where does that come from? I mean, you grew up in challenging circumstances, without running water, without working toilet in your home, a father with PTSD who was abusive and drank too much. These experiences obviously were formative and made you who you are. And I know you have a lot of gratitude for them, but... What's the other side of that?
8:55 Rich Roll? What is the, what is the, the, the pain point? Like, when you look back on that, what is your relationship with that past? When you're not, you know, on a microphone and there's cameras?
9:09 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I, you know, a lot of things we don't choose. I mean, I don't choose how I feel. I happen to be fortunate that I don't have one ounce of negative thinking about my past. Not one ounce. And I don't know why. You know, it's just not there.
9:36 Rich Roll? Yeah.
9:37 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I just, I just have, you know, I remember the, the tough times, but I also remember very clearly the sweet times, the gentle times that my father showed, that my mother showed. You know, how wonderful they were and how supportive they were and the schools and the sports field. We did everything, even though they were not kind of like the American parents. It's so different. My parents have never, ever watched me in a soccer game, never, ever watched me in a basketball game or track and field, shot put championships, javelin throwing championships,
10:19 Arnold Schwarzenegger? anything like this that we did in school, never, ever, because no one did. There was no parent hanging around and saying, oh, let's watch our kids like we do over here.
10:28 Rich Roll? Yeah, in the documentary, there's the one where they actually do show up at that one bodybuilding competition and, and you were confused.
10:36 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Well, they, they showed up because my friend Freddie Gerstle, that I met very early on, invited them. And he was a very respected kind of a man in town and.
10:47 Rich Roll? They did it for him.
10:48 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I, I think because, because, you know, because, because he invited them and so they took it seriously. Oh, this must be something special. And then when they saw me up there on the stage, I mean, they're just like, they couldn't believe it. You know? Even though, I have to say, my mother sewed for me my bathing suit.
11:13 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Because I found some bathing suit was just too big. And I wanted to have it cut down. So she was sewing, we just sewing machine. The day before the competition, I told her I'm gonna go into a competition. And I need a small bathing suit. And so she was sewing it and I was trying it on for her. And it was doing the fitting and all of that stuff. So it was very sweet of her. I mean, how many mothers do that? But I mean, so there's that side, but they just, it was not the, the style then to go and to watch kids. The only competition that my parents ever watched was dad won competition in Graz. And then one competition in Essen in Germany when I won Mr. Olympia for the third time.
11:56 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And then right after them, my father passed away. So I was fortunate that he saw that.
12:01 Rich Roll? There's this resistance or just refusal on your part to, to in any way be a victim. And we're in a culture right now where, where victimhood, we have a different relationship with victimhood. I'm sure that drives you insane. And this book is really speaking to that on some level, like positivity as an antidote for
12:29 Rich Roll? the lack of agency that a lot of people feel or the indulgence with an identity around victimhood as, as powerlessness, right? And this is all about calling people to action, to take responsibility for their lives and giving them tools and a roadmap that it's, it's straightforward advice in this book, right? But it's very direct. And because it's from you, it's so palpable. So I guess what I'm asking is, you know, how do you think about the way that our culture now thinks about mental health?
13:10 Rich Roll? And, and our relationship with this idea of, of powerlessness?
13:15 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I think that in general, I think what the book is trying to do is to say to people, you need to work on yourself.
13:31 Arnold Schwarzenegger? If you just try to be pampered and if you're trying to be soft and if you're trying to be the victim and all of that, you're not gonna go anywhere. We need to get stronger. We need to get bossier. We need to get tougher. We need to not be afraid of failure. We gotta go and do the work. We gotta face adversity. Adversity breeds character. The strength and fighting and resistance does not only make the muscle grow, but it makes also your head grow, makes you a stronger person. We have to be willing to go through hardship, through suffering, through pain, through crying periods.
14:16 Arnold Schwarzenegger? All of that stuff, don't shy away from any of that, because it just makes you stronger. And I think today, a lot of times, our youth is so into kind of, "Oh, let's make him feel good." "Oh, no, let's be more sensitive." Well, I totally agree with you to be sensitive about things, but I mean, there's also a sweet spot.
14:37 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Can we go too far? You know, it's like when someone says, "Well, today I just need to sleep in." It's that bullshit. Yeah. You don't need to sleep in. This country was not built on sleeping in. So let's get up in the morning and let's get on that bike and let's do some exercise and don't even think about it. Don't look at your email or anything like this. Let's just get going. Boom, boom, boom, let's get going. Let's start building. And so that's the idea, is just not to be overly soft and overly kind of like sensitive and everyone is in the victim kind of a thing. I just don't buy into that. But you have to understand that every person has to be approached also differently. It's like, the mind is just like the body.
15:21 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I cannot give you exactly the same training routine that I had, because your body is different. You're a much leaner person. You need kind of to do maybe lesser reps and what this, you have to have a different diet if you want to bulk up and all this. So I have to be aware of that, that even within my family, one of my daughters had to be approached differently than my other daughter. One son had to be approached differently than the other son. So you have to be sensitive about those kind of things. But overall, it was discipline in the house. You don't turn out that light, I will unscrew those light bulbs and you will be going into a dark room at the age of three and you will be scared. So you better start learning to turn off those lights.
16:06 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You have someone else make you bed. Okay, I'm gonna take the mattress and throw it down the balcony. And then you carry it upstairs and you make your own bed again. So this is the way that my kids grew up. You know, and there was like, there was crying there. Or when I burned their shoes. When she left, my daughter left her shoes for the three times in front of the fireplace. I said, the third time it goes in the fire. The third time it did go in the fire, right in front of her. She was crying the whole night. Yeah, those things happen. But now, she does the same to her daughter. And now she says, that was great that you did that. You see what I'm saying? So now, now my kids were crying on the ski slopes. I wanna go in, I wanna go hot chocolate, there will be no hot chocolate.
16:50 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You know, the usual kindergarten cop kind of a thing. You know, there will be no hot chocolate. I said, we're gonna ski four runs and then there's a hot chocolate. I said, not after the first run. Yeah, but I'm cold, I said, so am I. So what? So what? So now let's go be cold and then go skiing. I said, the more we ski, the bumps and the more we ski, the powder. The warmer we get and the more we warm up. I said, so let's get going. And so now, today, when they come up to Sun Valley with their friends. They get up after the dinner with their wine glasses. They say, I want to toast daddy. Because he made us good skiers and that's why we are here today.
17:34 Arnold Schwarzenegger? That's why we enjoy skiing with all of you. Resilience. That's the things. Yeah, I understand. You gotta just kind of figure it out. You know, how to do that and all this. But you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not easy. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not an expert in this, but one thing I know for sure. I can help anyone to go and be a little bit better. Right. And I think that's what we want to ask. We cannot ask everyone to be a genius. They ask everyone to be the world's strongest man and all this stuff. But to be better. Because when you're better, when you get better, then you feel good. When we improve, we feel good. When we have accomplished something, we feel good. And that then rubs off on everything.
18:17 Rich Roll? That was beautifully put, and it's sort of an example of this new role that you've matured into as this social media influencer. And when I think about the other three chapters of your life, they're very much a product of having this vision, adhering to it, blinding out everything as you worked your way towards actualizing that vision. But this feels a little bit different. It doesn't feel as much a product of a goal that you've set
18:51 Rich Roll? for yourself as much as this thing that occurred, or is a byproduct of who you are and all of the things that you've done over the course of your life. You find yourself with this enormous platform, and you think to yourself, how can I utilize this, leverage this for good, to be useful, to be of service? As governor, you're doing that as an elected representative of the citizens of California. But this presents a new opportunity to connect with people directly. So I'm curious around your relationship to social media and this
19:36 Rich Roll? new kind of role that you've shouldered around being a voice of actionable, positive things that people can do to improve their lives.
19:50 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I have really no goal in the
19:55 Rich Roll? How does that feel? How does that feel, though? Like you're doing it for the act of doing it for other people as opposed to being goal-driven?
20:06 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It's just, sometimes there's something in us that is so powerful that you have to communicate it. You know, I remember when January 6th happened.
20:23 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It just stayed on me, stayed with me. The thought, and the thought, and the thought. And it didn't go away. Then I started writing things down, what was going through my mind. And I was writing and writing and then sitting in a jacuzzi and some other idea came into my mind. Then I wrote it down when I got out. And then I was sitting there. So it was just, it was just, you know, there. Then I finally, you know, told my guys, I said, look, I think that we, I feel like I should speak up about that. I said, maybe it's my responsibility, maybe not.
21:08 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I said, but I feel like it is. I said, because I'm a Republican. And I think it is important for people to know that my president is Biden. There were no shenanigans with this election. There was no corruption with this election. There was no one stealing and walking out with suitcases of votes in this election. None of this is true. These are lies. And, and so the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I should say something. And so we put together a speech.
21:50 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It was not thinking more about like being an influencer or any of those kind of things. And I was just saying, I want to talk to the American people. That it became what it became, I had no idea. That it was covered live for the whole speech on CNN. I had no idea they're gonna do that. That it was covered all over the world, like that, that even the world cared about January 6th. I did not know. You know, so that those things we don't know. That always said, you know, five and a half, six billion people have become aware of this speech. I said to myself, oh my god, this is like wild.
22:31 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So then I realized also at the same time that there was a need for that, obviously, to say that. And so, you know, so then those things come up every so often and I see, you know, a certain prejudice growing and people walking around with Nazi flags and stuff like that. And maybe I should, you know, say something about that because... So it also has to be tied together organically with me.
23:01 Rich Roll? Mm-hmm.
23:02 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And so with that, I said to myself, okay, I think my dad went through that with the Nazi period. I can, I can speak with authority here of where did they take him? What misery did he go through because of that? How there are no winners ever amongst the haters? And there's always just losers.
23:24 Rich Roll? And also just the pernicious nature of bad information and what that can reap.
23:30 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah, so anyway, so then I was motivated about that. And then in the Ukrainian war, the Russians unprovoked attacked Ukraine. I felt like, you know, I should speak up because I love Russia. And I've been there many times and I really care for the Russian people.
23:50 Rich Roll? Gorbachev was a close friend, right?
23:54 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I met Gorbachev, wonderful man, and he has realized that they have gone in the wrong direction there and wanted to straighten it out, couldn't do it. But in any case, so I felt kind of like, you know, the weightlifters that I met from Russia and the people that I met when we opened up Planet Hollywood in Moscow with wonderful people and partners we had there, all of this kind of sense of, you know, this is not Russia, I mean, this is Putin. And so let's just talk about that here, you know? So that is, it's what I was trying to accomplish.
24:32 Rich Roll? There's a bust of Lenin over here in the corner of your office. Can you tell the story of how that ended up here?
24:41 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yes. In the early 90s, when communism fell.
24:49 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I saw a piece in the New York Times
24:53 Arnold Schwarzenegger? where they ripped down
24:56 Arnold Schwarzenegger? a statue of Lenin.
24:59 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And, uh, and it was going on all over the country. In government buildings where they ripped down Stalin and Lenin and this and that and various different leaders. And kind of saying, okay, this past didn't work for us. Look what happened. And we want to, you know, kind of reorganize here. And so there was this piece in the New York Times, how they tear down the statues. So I said to myself, I would like to have one of those. This is history. Of them, this is a revolution kind of, and them tearing down statues. And Korbachev saying, you know, this is the time now for change. And so I got in touch with my
25:43 Arnold Schwarzenegger? weightlifting friends in Russia, in Moscow. And I said, guys, you're tearing down all the sculptures. He says, yeah, yeah, we must, you know, this is a different, we have to go in a different direction. Yeah, I said, but I mean, what are you gonna do with the sculptures?
26:02 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Well, we're gonna go them and throw them in a dump somewhere. You know, and just melt them. I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, don't melt them. I said, you know, save one for me. You want one? Yeah. So I said, I think this would be, it's an unbelievable history. To have a sculpture that you guys tore down for me to keep that. I, I, it's unbelievable. I think it would be fantastic. I would like to have it. Okay, let me look into it. So
26:35 Arnold Schwarzenegger? a half year later is the Arnold Classic Bodybuilding Championships in Columbus, Ohio. The Russians come every year with their weightlifting team and the bodybuilders and so on. And the next thing I know is that we are having now to set up the after party, the after competition party. Big celebration with thousands of people in the hall. And they roll out this table that was on wheels with a covered sculpture.
27:09 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I didn't even know what was in it. I didn't even know it was a sculpture. Covered. Could have been a cake from, from somewhere.
27:15 Rich Roll? You'd forgotten about the sculpture thing.
27:16 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I didn't connect the dots at all at that point. So the next thing I noticed, they pulled it, the guy goes up there, gives a speech and pulls this off.
27:27 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And there's Lenin.
27:29 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And I was like so shocked.
27:32 Rich Roll? It's pretty unbelievable. Where, what was the statue? Where was it?
27:36 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It was in St. Petersburg at the Department of Agriculture, I think I was told. And so, anyway, so we then shipped it home to Los Angeles. And there was, out by my swimming pool was now the sculpture of Lenin. And my wife says, why are we having Lenin here? I say, I love it. I think it's funny. I did have Lenin here. And so I had it there for a while. And then the following year, the same guy now rolls out the same table again. And now he pulls off this cover. Uh, and it was Stalin.
28:20 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So now it's a little smaller. It was not exactly the same size, but a little smaller. But now I have Stalin.
28:25 Rich Roll? Not in here though.
28:26 Arnold Schwarzenegger? No, no. The, the, the story goes on. The following year after that, it was Khrushchev. And then it was Andropov.
28:33 Rich Roll? You're just gonna get them all.
28:34 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Brezhnev, and then it was Kosegin. And it went on and on and on like that, uh, until Putin. I have a sculpture of Putin. That's part of my Russian collection.
28:48 Rich Roll? Where do you keep all of these?
28:49 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Every single leader that was leading the Soviet Union. I have in my collection. So I had them all over the swimming pool. And every one of my, kind of like natural things where the fence was, there was a column. So I put them on top of the column. So then eventually my wife went nuts. And I have all this, this is people, especially with style and it was a little bit over the, but now I have it in storage.
29:16 Rich Roll? Uh huh.
29:16 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And but in any case, so then I decided, okay, I'm gonna bring this one in here. Uh, because it's really great. Uh, to have him in the office and to remember him. Uh, then I then I found this great painting that's in the background of Lenin.
29:33 Rich Roll? Yeah.
29:33 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Uh, there was, I think in Vienna or somewhere like that. Um, so anyway, so I thought it was good to have.
29:39 Rich Roll? Great story. But in in addition, so you you you you talked about um, using your social media platform to talk about January 6th and and Ukraine, et cetera. But you also use it to speak to ordinary people and to empower them and talk about the things that you talk about in this book. And what's interesting about this this role that you have as as sort of a motivational, uh, you know, self-help guru, for lack of a, I hate that word, but on some level, like a a source of inspiration for people, is that on on paper, you're very unrelatable. Like you've achieved things that are very difficult for the average person to understand or connect with emotionally.
30:23 Rich Roll? And yet, what you're sharing and the way that you're sharing it is so authentic, it really resonates and has connected with people all over the world. Like, it's really powerful what you're doing. Um, so I guess that gets to what we were talking about earlier about the fact that that you really are some, you you know, you you ride your bike around this neighborhood, you go to Gold's, you're happy to talk to everyone. You could easily retreat to your home and live a quiet, private life or insulate yourself, you know, with, um, you know, the the fancy people that you know and the resources that you have, et cetera.
31:03 Rich Roll? But you've made a very different choice to how to use your energy, your experience, your wisdom in a way where you're sharing it freely with people, people are responding to it. And there's something really beautiful about that.
31:19 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah, there's a lot of things that we can take responsibility for, and there's a lot of things we can't. I mean, I don't make that choice. It's just, it makes me happy. To be with people. I'm a people person, so I don't say, you know, I should go to the public gym. I think it's cooler than staying at home and yeah, during covid, I stayed at home and I trained in my gym at home. But I was in pain. I was in agony. I need people. I need to be out with the people. I like to train with the people. I'm a company queen. Yeah.
32:01 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You know, that's what I call myself because I just love being with company. I don't like to go to football games by myself. I don't like to go for dinner by myself. I don't like to work by myself. I don't like to go to the gym and work out by myself. I just love people, doing it with people and having a good time. So that's just me. Yeah. So what you see is me is totally organic, nothing is programmed or anything like that. I just, I, I just, I'm really happy that I can live the life that I really want to live. You know, that I go to the gym and I want to go to the gym, I ride my bike when I want to ride it, I ride it to the beach.
32:40 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It's through all of the thousands and thousands of people on the portwalk in Venice with all the tourists there. And I drive my bike through it, down to Venice Beach where the weightlifting platform is and all that stuff. So I, I just go, I go to the regular restaurants, I eat with all the people there at the, at the restaurant where I always eat every morning. And, um, you know, that I just, I just love that. Yeah. I hate when someone makes a reservation for me and they go, let's say to the Palm Restaurant. They walk in and they say, we have a table in the corner. Yeah. We have a table for you, reserved in the corner.
33:24 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I say, I don't want to be in a corner. I say, I was sent in the corner when I was in school. And you go in the corner, you kneel in the corner. I say, for punishment, I said, I don't want to be punished, I feel like I'm being punished. Going in the corner, I say, I want to sit right there in the middle of it, all these people sit, what's wrong with that table right over there? If you want to sit right there, and I said, yeah, I said, well, there's a lot of people walking in here and so I said, it's okay. I can handle it when someone comes over to my table and talk to them. So it's, that's, I just, it makes me happy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
34:00 Rich Roll? A lot has been said and has been written about the three acts. You have these three acts of your career. You're now in this fourth act, which is super interesting and I want to talk to you about. But I have a different sort of perspective on it, particularly after reading the book and watching the Netflix series, which is, to me, it feels less like three separate acts now in a fourth and more like this evolution, a gradual evolution over time of this person who went from a very kind of, through sheer force of will and discipline and hard work and all these things that you, all these principles that you elucidate in the book,
34:43 Rich Roll? of being very self-oriented and sort of self, you know. It's a selfish pursuit, you know, to pursue goals at that level, right? On some level, it's sort of self-reflective. Your mirror was your thing. To then kind of grow into this person who's really all about service, like breaking the mirror, going from like me to we. It's all one, to me, it's all one big arc. And the book is called Be Useful, but really it's a call to service. You're basically saying the best way to improve your life, to feel good about who you are and to find purpose, meaning and fulfillment, is to find ways to give back.
35:26 Rich Roll? So it's not a question, it's more just a reflection that, I don't know, how does that land for you?
35:34 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, but one should not forget that when you start out, you don't have much to give back. So you first have to build yourself. And it became clear to me that the more I build myself and the bigger I become, the more I can give back. So when I became Mr. Olympia seven, six times...
36:02 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And Special Olympics called me and said, could you come and train our Special Olympians, you know, kids that intellectually challenged. They don't have the best coordination. They have problems doing sports a lot of times. And we like to do a study on what effect weight training would have. Well, I was called to do that because I was Mr. Olympia. I was somebody. I was the number one authority in bodybuilding. That's why I was called. And so if I wouldn't have had that, I wouldn't have been able to inspire those young kids.
36:43 Arnold Schwarzenegger? There was 10 kids there and we did this study for three days and I trained them. And all kinds of great things happened. They got motivated and that's what launched then with the International Special Olympic Committee. The idea, when I then eventually met my mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Schreiber, who created Special Olympics. I told her about that experience that happened before I met her. And I told her, I said, I trained this 10 kids and they were really into this powerlifting and they loved it, especially when I gave them the confidence that they can do it. First, there were some of them that were scared and they were screaming and they were kind of really worried about the weight over their head and all this stuff.
37:28 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I said, but then eventually we stripped away that fear and we could see the breakthrough in all this. I think it could be very popular. She says, why don't you do it in Baltimore? Let's, we have a meet coming up. Let's try it in Baltimore. So we did it and it was a huge success. We did it in Washington, huge success. We did it in Miami, huge success. Then they adopted it in the next meeting internationally. Then it became an international phenomenon. So I always said, and became now, not something that I was bargaining for or, or, or shooting for, or that was not, never my goal, became the national coach, the world coach for Special Olympics strength training. Well, that For me to go around now, the country and the world, to promote Special Olympics,
38:12 Arnold Schwarzenegger? not just powerlifting, but of course, you know, being a celebrity, eventually every day started doing movies, notice, I started traveling around to just start talking about equal opportunities. I started talking about issues about we got to get the Special Olympians also the right to have a job, the right to have healthcare, the right to have a place to stay and to live, and there's equal rights, basic equal rights that they don't have, people are prejudiced. So I started talking about those issues, not even my wildest dreams did I ever think about, that's what I would do in my life. But I was able to do that because I was a star in movies then and in bodybuilding and so on. So I think the more I gained of, you know, building myself,
38:56 Arnold Schwarzenegger? the more I was able to give back in a bigger way. Right. By the time I was, I campaigned for President Bush in 1988, you know, and I talked to him in Air Force Two about training and about the President's Council of Fitness and about we got to get our kids again back in the schools, back to training, exercising every day. He appointed me to be the Chairman of the President's Council of Fitness. So now I'm going around to all 50 states promoting health and fitness in our public schools. So this is like one thing to the next happen, and that's why I mentioned in my book that everything that I've done up until that point,
39:38 Arnold Schwarzenegger? and I heard Sergeant Schreiber, my father-in-law, talk at Yale University at a commencement speech. He said to the students, "Break that mirror that you always look at. Break that mirror that makes you always look at yourself, and you will be able to look beyond that mirror and to see the millions of people that need your help." You heard me right, that need your help. Have you ever thought about going out and helping? And I said to myself, "That's exactly what's happening to me." So this was a long answer, but you were right when you said it was an evolution.
40:18 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So it starts out with me, me, me, and then slowly it becomes not just me, me, me, but we, we, we. Right. And so this is what happened to me, and then... As with everything, I have an addictive personality. I started getting addicted to it, to give something back, and it made me feel good. And I felt so rich and so good about myself that I was able to have this impact and to help kids to get, you know, in schools to do exercise, special Olympians to train and to do powerlifting, to lift 500 pounds, which they never dreamt of lifting, and to go around and start after-school programs, then eventually run for governor.
41:01 Rich Roll? Yeah, the seeds were there all along, though, because it was your dad who said, "Be useful," way back in the beginning.
41:08 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It was my dad that said, "Be useful," and it was a guy that I grew up with,
41:15 Arnold Schwarzenegger? that later on, when I was 15 years old, we met, that helped us with bodybuilding and with weightlifting, Freddie Gerstl, that I talked about, who became then a very famous politician in Austria, and he happened to love kids.
41:31 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And to him, this was the greatest investment. So even in his political career, he specialized in building, you know, sports facilities for kids and everything for kids, kids, kids. And he paid a lot of attention to us. He had a son also, and he invited me over to his house for training. And he always talked about, you know, giving back. He talked about getting smart, just remember, Arnold, don't just train your body, but train also your mind. Remember what Plato said, you know, "Mind, sound, body," and always talked about that. I wanted to run around with books underneath your arms and just dumbbells and barbells and all of this stuff.
42:10 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And so all of this influence that I had as a young kid was helpful, but especially my father always saying, "Be useful."
42:21 Rich Roll? Mm-hmm. But that gentleman, I mean, he was an incredible mentor to you. And he was the guy who impressed upon you the importance of developing your mindset, of cultivating curiosity, of asking questions and listening, which bring, you know, that brings me back to this whole podcasting thing, right? Like, for me, I've been doing this 11 years. It is an expression of everything you talk about in the latter part of the book, about making the world your classroom, about seeking out and spending time with people who inspire you, that you can learn from, and learning the practice of not just engaging with them, but listening, learning.
43:04 Rich Roll? So, this has been an incredible experience for me to continue that curiosity and that education into my life. And it's really how you approach everything that you do. Like, the fact that you actively sought out so many interesting, compelling people that you could learn from, and treated the world as your classroom, and you continue to do that. And when we're in your office, you look around, there's pictures of you with like, all these people, we were hearing stories, you know, about, you know, what you've learned from this person, and you're this sort of Forrest Gump character that always finds himself, you know, at the right place at the right time with the most fascinating individual and a great story to boot from that.
43:48 Rich Roll? So maybe talk a little bit about how you, how you, you know, really made that a priority and a fundamental part of who you are.
43:56 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I think that one of the things that you learn in sports is that if you just get stuck in your own training routine and not learn from other people, that you will never become a champion. And so, open-mindedness was very important to me. And so, I think, like I said in my book, I learned a lot of my lessons from sports. And to me, that kind of like, and having people like Afraidy Gerstle, that mentor, that talked about open-mindedness and learning from others, and where you start, as you get older, you start thinking about all of those things, because you become wiser. First, it doesn't mean anything.
44:41 Arnold Schwarzenegger? When he told me that...
44:44 Arnold Schwarzenegger? This is what the Nazis did, Arnold. They took my brother's head and they smashed it in with a stone. They stoned him to death. And I was lucky to be able to escape and blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. So you hear that that that didn't mean anything, you know. Uh, I said, that's really sad. But then it that it's those those kind of stories. As you grow up. Yeah. And as you get older, they mean something to you. And all of a sudden, you find yourself fighting for inclusion and against prejudice. And you ask yourself, where does that come from, the desire of it? It comes from stories like that.
45:29 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You know, that you remember from way back when people tell you those kind of things. So to me, it was always kind of like learning new things and being able to, uh, the more you become a celebrity, to be able to use that celebrity power for something positive, for something good. And so to me, it was, I I learned, the more I opened up my mind, the better it was. There was a guy by the name of Vince Geronda. You maybe have heard of him since you're a fitness fanatic yourself. Uh, that it's, he had a gym over in the in the valley, Vince's Gym. And I saw him doing an exercise, a triceps exercise. And I I I looked at him, I said, what are you doing there?
46:13 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I said, this is for the outside tricep that splits the one head from the other and all this. And I said, this looks like a kind of a Mickey Mouse exercise. Jesus Christ, and it doesn't look like some heavy lift of some sort. And he says, well, just try it. So I said to myself, well, the way you try it, the way I tried it in those days was, I would do an exercise, forty sets of twenty reps.
46:38 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So I was lying there on the bench on my back, taking this dumbbell and going like this 20 times, then take it over to this side, do the same thing over here, same to this arm, back and forth, back and forth like this. The next day, this muscle here was just jumping all over the place. So I realized, he was absolutely correct. I never, ever thought of that. There's actually a specific muscle, we always know about sculpting your body that you add more chest, or more serratus muscles, or some obliques, or some biceps, or some more thighs, but that you can actually dissect it to a specific part of the three muscles, that's why it's called triceps, the three muscles there.
47:20 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And one separates the bicep from the tricep and makes it appear, not that measurement-wise it's bigger, but makes it appear much larger. So I was doing that, and that exists from that point on. And it just, it was, I said to myself, if I wouldn't have listened to him, I would have never learned that exercise. But I listened to him, I first said to myself, brushed it off, I said, this Mickey Mouse exercise, then I said, no, no, no, let's just try it before we kind of like come to the conclusion. And sure enough, so you learn from those kind of experiences, and you then apply this rule with everything. And so that's why I was always rather more hungry for more information, more hungry
48:04 Arnold Schwarzenegger? for listening rather than talking.
48:06 Rich Roll? Setting aside bias and judgment and replacing it with curiosity and basically trying it yourself, right? Like being an experimenter, being open.
48:19 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah, exactly. And so imagine, I talk at great lengths also in the book about how the capital, Sacramento, even though it was a place that I thought...
48:35 Arnold Schwarzenegger? The people that worked there had no quality. Because they ran, they stayed into the ground by 2003. And we were bankrupt and there was a huge deficit, thirty, forty billion dollar deficit. And all of that stuff and everything, there were blackouts and everyone was unhappy. But when I got there, I realized that there's a lot of things that I can learn. Because there's so many issues, policy issues that I'm not aware of. And so it actually became kind of the greatest university for me. Every day, I was learning. Imagine you're sitting there and all of a sudden the nurses come in. The nurses' union.
49:20 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And they talk about the patient nurses' ratio. I've never even heard of that. I said, what are they talking about? So they were explaining that it's right now six to one. But you know, one nurse cannot take care of six patients. Especially if you have to lift a patient because they just had surgery. And you have to lift them and help them up to get to the bathroom and all this. One nurse alone cannot do that. Except if you have a powerlifting champion, he's a nurse or something like that. That's not the case in every hospital. So they were explaining that and it... All of a sudden, they said, oh my God, this is like, I never thought about that. That is really interesting and fascinating things. So if we have the budget, we should actually do something about that.
50:05 Arnold Schwarzenegger? The next meeting an hour later, the prison guards come in. And they talk about the overtime, that they're tired because they don't have enough, you know, people working in those prisons. And that the system is meant for a hundred thousand prisons. But at that point, we had a hundred and seventy thousand prisoners.
50:28 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So we are overcrowded, overloaded. I had no idea about that. So I learned and then after the meeting, I got my briefings of what could do, what are the options that we can do about it? And then the teachers came and then then law enforcement came and said, all day long, every day was a learning experience. So to me, the things that I learned in Sacramento was just staggering. And so I just felt like not only was I happy that I was able to serve 40 million people and be a public servant, be the governor, but also I became aware of how complicated issues are and how complicated they can be and how much thinking it takes and how much listening that it takes
51:13 Arnold Schwarzenegger? to bring all of the different ideas together to come up with a good conclusion to those kind of issues and problems.
51:21 Rich Roll? Yeah, I mean, I think that was surprising for a lot of people. There was a sensibility that you're great in front of the camera. You know how to, you know, get out in front and shake hands and smile and do all of that kind of upfront stuff to win the governorship. But governing is a different job altogether. What happens when Arnold's sitting in the chair behind the desk and actually has to do the work and get wonky with the policy stuff? How does that, you know, how's that going to work with this action star who's an adrenaline junkie, et cetera? And the fact that you actually embrace that and were enthusiastic about what you were learning every single day, about how things actually work and then trying to identify solutions was unexpected for a lot of people.
52:06 Rich Roll? And I think kind of reflecting on that, thinking about like, what is it that makes Arnold different, special? There's lots of answers to that questions, to that question. But I think one.
52:19 Rich Roll? One kind of frame that makes sense to me is this interesting combination of two different Arnolds. On the one hand, you are, and you say this in the book, like, very much like Julius and twins. You have this wide-eyed, almost childlike sense of awe and wonder, where the world is just overflowing with possibility, and people are good, and anything is possible. But you pair that, I think the talent is where you pair that with this doer who understands having a vision, understands setting goals, work ethic, discipline, reps, like all the practical aspects of translating the dream into reality.
53:04 Rich Roll? And most people fall, it's on a spectrum, but most people kind of fall, you know, far on one side of either of those two things. And somehow you find, you found a way to like marry those. And I think that's what is so potent and, and unique.
53:18 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Well, interestingly enough, even my wife, and she knew me really well, she said after I won, she says, now I'm starting to get concerned.
53:33 Rich Roll? Yeah, because you would come home and say, I can't believe what I learned.
53:38 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah, but I mean, it's like, I said, what are you concerned about? We won. She says, well, it's, it's, it's, that, that seems to me is more up your alley. You found an enemy, you go after him with vengeance, like you're doing bodybuilding and then acting and all this kind of stuff. I said, and you go after them and it's like a competition. So I get that. So you were really good at that, and you could shift gears and into politics, and you could paint this perfect picture of California when you run it and all that stuff. So I said, but now. You have to do policy. Politics is now being put aside and you have to do policy.
54:18 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So I don't know how many hours you can actually sit there and listen to this most boring stuff. That is really subtle stuff that you maybe it's not your personality. And so she was questioning it. And so as time went on, she said to me, she said, I can't believe that you actually like this stuff. Because I don't even like it. She said to me, I don't even like it. She says, but there you sit there for hours and hours and then you have follow up questions. Then you meet people at night after hours, still to learn more about it. She says, I don't understand it. I said, I somehow, you know, I just love the idea of solving those problems and trying
54:57 Arnold Schwarzenegger? to figure out, why is it that in Austria, everyone is insured? And in California, the richest state in the union, not everyone is insured. What's going on here? I mean, can we not create a system that is similar to the one in Austria, but with the private sector involved and not government running the whole thing? There must be a way. So we started going on and started tackling this very complicated issue. Out of nowhere, no one asked me to do that, just trying to figure out how do we create healthcare in California for everyone and be the first state, kind of like along with
55:42 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Massachusetts, that has healthcare reform and where everyone is insured. And so it's just, my curiosity was just there. And I asked myself questions about education. Why is it that our education is slipping? Why are our kids not testing as well? Why is their reading ability less than it was 10 years ago and all of that? So you get interested in it because only when you understand it. And only when you hear the various different opinions, something from the way right to the way left. You need to hear all this. That's why I never looked at anyone as the enemy when I was governor. I looked at the Democrats just as like partners as I did with the Republicans.
56:24 Arnold Schwarzenegger? That they agree with sometimes, they disagree with other times and stuff like that. But I always felt kind of you have to all work together because together we can figure out the sweet spot. And then he says this, he says this. Let's figure out the sweet spot where we can, you know, have something of both of those sides come together here. And so that's the way I try to solve the problems. And I got fascinated by all these details.
56:47 Rich Roll? Your governorship was really defined by your ability to reach across the aisle and consensus build with both parties. This, this, you know, sort of allergy to being a, a party hack. And instead, you know, hiring a chief of staff who was a Democrat and appointing a diversity of judges and, and doing all the things that you did leads me to wonder, I mean, it's really, it's really a question around leadership and problem solving. Because right now in 2023, feels pretty divided. People are more interested in, in bickering with each other than solving problems.
57:30 Rich Roll? Reaching across the aisle is seen as a weakness. And as a result, problems don't get solved. So when you look out upon the world, California, the nation, what are you seeing right now in terms of the leadership that we have, the leadership that we deserve, that perhaps we're lacking?
57:56 Arnold Schwarzenegger? First of all, let me tell you that I did not experience any of that whenever I went to Washington. I mean, they all talk about it. But every president after Clinton, Clinton put 1.3 billion dollars into the 21st century money, which is for after school programs. And after that, every president wanted to take it out of the budget. So since I was like the
58:31 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Kind of the big deal in the after-school program movement.
58:38 Arnold Schwarzenegger? They asked me, the National After-School Program Association, asked me to go and help them lobby in Washington. So we went back there to lobby the Bush administration. And everyone's talking about, you're gonna bring them together. They fight over that, you know, the Republicans want to take it out and the Democrats want to keep it in and blah, blah, blah. All this stuff. And I asked them, I said, I found friends and Californians, and I said, can you help me bring three senators together from the Democrats and three from the Republicans? And to talk about after-school programs, I want to just talk to them, have a meeting. And they did.
59:18 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And the same was in the House. They got the, from, you know, congresspeople, men and women, they got together. A whole bunch of them, Democrats and Republicans, and I met with them. I presented my case, told them what it is to keep these after-school programs, why it was wise. Showed them the statistics and the studies that, where they said for every dollar we spend on an after-school program, we save three to six dollars down the line, and blah, blah, blah.
59:49 Arnold Schwarzenegger? They all shook hands, that when the bill comes up, and when the debate comes up, that they will fight, and they will tell their colleagues to also fight, to keep it in the budget.
1:00:05 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I walked away and I said, for a place that is supposed to be so split, and they're fighting all the time, I didn't see that fight. Not in the Senate, not in the House.
1:00:17 Arnold Schwarzenegger? We then went back, in the Obama administration, he wanted to take out the money.
1:00:23 Arnold Schwarzenegger? We went back again, got a team together, totally different people now. Again, Democrats and Republicans worked together and we kept it in. So every single time a president took it out, every time I went back there, I did not see that the Democrats and the Republicans didn't want to work together. I begged them to work together for the sake of the kids. I said, "I'm a Republican." I said, "But this has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. There are Democratic kids and Republican kids." I said, "Yes, the Republicans say that the government is babysitting and all that stuff." I understand that, I totally agree with you.
1:01:05 Arnold Schwarzenegger? But when it comes to being out on the streets and being in reality, it doesn't work that way because 80% of the kids come from homes where both parents are working. So therefore, there couldn't be anyone at home. I said, "So let's do..." And they both, wide eyes, the first time they really heard about someone talking passionately about it. And they voted for it and it kept it in the budget. And even still today, it's in the budget. Hmm, so all is well in Washington? So no, I'm just saying it needs an approach where you don't villainize. I didn't go in there to villainize the Democrats as a Republican. I says, "We Republicans here, there's sitting, we have the answer to that,
1:01:50 Arnold Schwarzenegger? but you guys are always voting no on this shit." So, no, it was not that approach. So it's the approach that you have to take. And I'm talking about, and you ask about leadership, it needs the kind of leadership that has the energy to not worry so much about a specific policy, but to first bring the team together. This is what someone has to do in Washington. To those members, rally them together. Yes, there will be different ways of thinking and all this stuff, but you got to rally them together and say, here's why, and make the case of where America needs to go and what we need to accomplish, from immigration reform to healthcare reform,
1:02:34 Arnold Schwarzenegger? to getting rid of the debt, getting rid of the debt deficit that we have, and to solve and to build infrastructure in order to talk about this, and to have a strong military that can stand up to the Chinese and to the Russians and to the whole world. And that, that you only can do with Democrats and Republicans together. We cannot do it alone. Republicans cannot do it alone. Then you have a total fuck up, where this is some executive order, like they've done, and then Biden runs off with his executive orders, which the next president wipes out again. It's bogus. The only thing that sticks is if Democrats and Republicans come together and they meet in the middle, and that they answer to the people rather than the special interests.
1:03:18 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And so you need someone that rallies them up, and that's what I'm talking about. That's what it needs, because I was back there with my friend Kevin McCarthy. He asked me to talk to his environmentalists. Now, of course, you will laugh because they're Republicans. You say, where are the environmentalists? Well, they are. They maybe don't buy into this climate change. So you don't talk about climate change to those guys. You talk to them about pollution. Because no one can deny pollution. Every Republican I've talked to, I said, you love pollution? And they said, no, are you kidding me? I said, you want to fight pollution? Of course. We want to get rid of pollution.
1:04:02 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I said, but then we have to get rid of oil and all of this stuff and just build more nuclear plants and more renewable energies? Yeah, I'm on board with that. So it's the way you approach it.
1:04:13 Rich Roll? You have to find a way in, you have to communicate effectively, you have to understand the needs and desires of the people that you're trying to build consensus with. In the after-school program context, it meant approaching Republicans with an economic argument that this is going to save money, and the Democrats with the idea that it's important, you know, from a democratic sensibility to have government involved in supporting these use. In the environmental context, what you're saying is you can't go with some muddled trope that is not going to connect with those people. You have to find something that they're, that they care about, address that, and craft your narrative and your argument
1:04:56 Rich Roll? around that strategically so that you can build that consensus and that team comes together to actually solve a problem. That's what you're saying.
1:05:05 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Absolutely. And these people that are supposed to be the smart people, they don't get it. They keep asking.
1:05:13 Rich Roll? It goes back to sell, sell, sell.
1:05:15 Arnold Schwarzenegger? It's.
1:05:15 Rich Roll? How are you telling this story?
1:05:17 Arnold Schwarzenegger? That's what it is. It's communicating because we in California, we accomplished all of those environmental laws because we communicated with the people the right way. When we said to the people, when it's a hot day, don't put the thermostat at 68, put it on 74. And they were helpful. In my administration, there was no blackout. The blackouts were in the previous administration, or the blackouts. So we communicated with the people. They were on our side. And we said to them, and we have to build renewable. We have now 19% renewable. By the time I'm finished, I'm going to have 50% renewable. There was no one saying no or anything like this because they realized that's where we need to go. And when the oil companies and the core companies tried to derail us,
1:06:02 Arnold Schwarzenegger? we fought them with the help of the American Lung Association to show to the people of California, what happens if we keep using oil? That the kids in the Central Valley and all over California are getting asthma at the age of three. And they're very, very sick and they're dying. Is that what we want to do with our kids? And they said, oh, my God, I didn't know that. Instead of talking about climate change 20 years from now, something like that. You and I believe in it, but the majority of people don't understand what it means. So therefore, let's talk about pollution like Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan established the Air Resources Board in California that actually makes every
1:06:47 Arnold Schwarzenegger? law that we pass become a reality. So if I say there is a law that is 50% reduction of fossil fuels, they make it happen. So we said 25% in 10 years, they made it happen. So this is what Ronald Reagan established under the auspices of we got to fight pollution. He didn't talk about climate change. You know, so this is why I say that it's just that we have to sell, we have to communicate, we have to include people, we have to bring them in, we have to explain it to them and all that's it and not everyone talking in a different direction. And, and, you know, Biden starts his speeches, he said, today I want to talk to you about climate. I said, but what?
1:07:27 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Wouldn't it be much better today I want to talk to you about how we can get rid of pollution? Hit the nail on the head. You know, so this is what I'm talking about. I think that's what when we talk about leadership, that's what we need in Washington now is just to bring people together, communicate the right way, not step on someone's toe and make them scream. No, just let's, let's figure out things that we can do together. When I went to Sacramento, the first thing we did was we tried to figure out what we can do together. And then we worried about the more difficult stuff that we are in different directions and stuff like that.
1:08:09 Rich Roll? I want to talk a little bit about your passion for the environment. I imagine that Jim Cameron has been a part of that journey for you. And one of the things that is interesting about an aspect of this journey that you're on with this is that you have come out and advocated for people to eat less meat, to have a more plant-based oriented lifestyle. You were involved with the Game Changers movie. So I'm curious, and I'm sure the bodybuilding community had an interesting reaction to that.
1:08:50 Rich Roll? I've been plant-based for 16 years at this point and am friends with a lot of the people in that movie and very much a part of that movement. So I'm curious around how you got involved in that film and what your diet looks like now.
1:09:08 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Well, I got involved because of Jim Cameron and the other people that were involved. And they asked me if I wanted to talk about it because they knew that I have mentioned it to Jim Cameron in the past, that I have cut back on my meat intake because of, in the medical profession, it's very clear that you get away with this shit for so long and then eventually it starts backfiring. And so they thought that I'm at an age now where I should just cut back because my cholesterol level should come down a little bit and blood pressure and all that. And that's exactly what I did.
1:09:50 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You know, so I started cutting out, so my diet is pretty much, I would, if I put a percentage on it, then I'm pretty good at that. I would say around 70% I cut down my meat intake. And the other 30% is on it because of my, every so often, I, once a month, maybe I make a steak at home when we watch the UFC fights that somehow fits together. With all the meat up tennis green.
1:10:19 Rich Roll? Yeah.
1:10:21 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Even though there is a lot of UFC fighters now that are also vegetable based. But in any case, it's how much fits together. They like to do it. It's just the process also to actually barbecue. So this is why I said thirty percent not and seventy percent cut down.
1:10:38 Rich Roll? Yeah, yeah. But Jim had a big impact on you.
1:10:43 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Jim had a big impact.
1:10:44 Rich Roll? In many ways, but.
1:10:45 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Jim had a big impact on me because he not only confirmed what I told him about health wise, how much better it is health wise. But he confirmed that. But he also said that, and don't forget Arnold, that twenty five or twenty eight percent of all the pollution comes from raising livestock. And he says, if we just would cut that out, we would have much less pollution. So from an environmental point of view, it's better. And from a, you know, personal point of view, health wise. So it's healthier for your body and it's healthier for your, for our earth.
1:11:29 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And so that was his message. And so Jim has never, that I'm aware of, ever said anything to me about anything that wasn't true.
1:11:43 Arnold Schwarzenegger? When I was governor and I went on, as we usually go on our motorcycle rides. And we were sitting over there at the rock store. And he said, he says, um, do you want to bring out the reverse metering? He says, pay attention to that. I found out when I went to Sacramento, yes, sure enough, that if someone. Put solar on their building, let's say if a huge warehouse, and you produce so much electricity because of all this solar that you cover the whole top of the warehouse, that you have spare electricity that you want to send it back to the grid so other people can use it.
1:12:27 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And you get paid for it, or get credit for it from the power companies. That the power company just doesn't want that. They don't like that. No. They want to produce their own, which means more fossil fuels and more damage to our earth. So I then started fighting and started really working in that direction so that they do accept reverse metering. So it's things like that, that no one would even know what Jim Cameron is talking about. And I've immediately picked up on it, but it just shows you also how smart he is.
1:13:09 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I mean, especially with technological things and technology and with little details, and he reads a lot and all that stuff. Just so experienced, so you know, he was always a great guy to talk to and I always learned from him a lot. I mean, the other day he came to me, oh, what, the other day, the other month? He came to me and he said, you know, I had this stomach problem and the doctor says just don't eat for a few days. And I said, okay. So he said, then eat for a few days. So, you know, the normal wisdom would tell us we run out of energy. He says, would you believe that I had more energy on the set?
1:13:53 Arnold Schwarzenegger? He says, and as soon as I ate my first meal, he says, my energy dropped. He says, of course, eventually we have to eat. We can't live without food. He says, but the bottom line is that...
1:14:08 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Eating lunch when you're on a set does not make you become more energetic. It robs you of energy. Because the blood rushes in there.
1:14:20 Rich Roll? All the blood goes to your digestion.
1:14:21 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And you get tired. And he says, so that's why we have French hours on a set, which means you can eat throughout the day, but there was no more lunch break. Because he says it's a waste of two hours of people's performance. And he's right. He's absolutely right. When I don't eat in the morning, I go to the gym, I work out, and I don't have breakfast, and everything like this. Comes 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock when I do something, I'm so energetic. But as soon as you eat at 9 o'clock after my workout and after my bike ride, I go home and I sit down and I start reading something like this, I kind of like doze off, right? It's amazing. So again, he was right.
1:15:03 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So I just think that so many things that he has taught me and told me, Jim was always right.
1:15:10 Rich Roll? Well, to say he's a detail-oriented person is to understate it dramatically.
1:15:15 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah, that's for sure, yeah.
1:15:16 Rich Roll? He's somebody who meets you in that place where nothing is going to get in the way of basically achieving your goal at the level that you aspire to achieve it, right?
1:15:29 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Right.
1:15:30 Rich Roll? But most people are not wired that way.
1:15:32 Arnold Schwarzenegger? No.
1:15:33 Rich Roll? You know, you're walking the earth with a certain, like, sort of default operating system that other people lack, which maybe makes it easier for you to accomplish your goals, but also perhaps might be frustrating because it's hard not to, like, want people to kind of be operating on your level. And now you have this book where you're sharing, like, here's how I did it. Here's what you can learn from my experience. Here are the principles that kind of created the playing field for me to do all of these things. What is the process, from your perspective, of trying to get people to grab onto these things and take responsibility? Because you can't, willingness, you can't engender willingness in another person, right?
1:16:18 Rich Roll? They either, like, want to achieve a goal or they don't. And you can give them all the tools and say, do this. But what you can't do is actually instigate them into action. Or maybe you can. How do you think about that?
1:16:30 Arnold Schwarzenegger? No, no, you can.
1:16:33 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I know what you're saying, but it is interesting how sometimes people listen to you in an interview, or they talk to you in person. And there's something you say, maybe not even intentional, where they say, "That's what did it. That's what triggered something in me, that I want to go now and set a goal for myself and do X, Y, and Z." So it can be the hardest thing. I myself get motivated a lot of times when I watch something by coincidence, or watch a documentary, or I hear something. It triggers something and then it motivates you to go in a certain direction.
1:17:16 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So I think to disregard that would be a mistake. I think that we have to do everything that we can. And since I, by accident, fell into this thing here, becoming a motivational speaker, because ten years ago...
1:17:34 Rich Roll? So it is an accident.
1:17:35 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah, totally accident. Ten years ago, when I was doing, or more than that, fifteen years ago, when I was doing a commencement speech at USC and I talked about here my, just to motivate the kids when they graduate, here's my six inner points, my six rules to success. From that point on, people kept asking me, "Why don't you do a book? Why don't you do a book? Why don't you do a book?" And I just said, "That is not the business I'm in." But then all of a sudden, people that I got in the speaker's circuit,
1:18:18 Arnold Schwarzenegger? you know, the presidents usually on, or ex-presidents, I should say. And all of a sudden, I'm traveling around and doing speeches with Clinton, somewhere in Africa and there, and with various different leaders. And everyone is asking me to do a motivational speech, not to talk about policy, not about the environment, not about my governorship or anything, or about bodybuilding. No, a motivational speech. They want to have the six rules, or the seven rules, or the ten rules. Whatever it takes, they want to know that. And they always say, look, we're having 5,000 people from real estate there. Pump them up. We got to get more sales and blah blah.
1:19:02 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And so that's always that I fell into this groove of kind of where people say, you know, this is so motivational, what you're saying. This is so great. This is exactly what we needed. Do a book. And then they finally did the book.
1:19:14 Rich Roll? Hmm. What is your relationship with it? Like in terms of how it makes you feel like compared to being the biggest movie star in the world, compared to being governor, compared to, you know, winning all those titles as a bodybuilder. You spoke earlier about how you can become addicted to that feeling that you get when you're helping somebody else, right? And this is, this is a very palpable, powerful way of you reaching out to people directly and having that impact on them. Does it feel different than what it felt like when you were governor? Or when you were, you know, doing the big movies? Is it the same?
1:19:56 Rich Roll? Like the gratification that you get from, from it all?
1:20:01 Arnold Schwarzenegger? I think it all feels good.
1:20:03 Rich Roll? Yeah.
1:20:03 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You know, but I mean, it's also we change. I'm a different person sitting here today than I was when I was 20 years old. I won my first Mr. Universe contest. Can imagine. So to me, that was the most important thing in my life. This was like unbelievable. But then came a day where I stood on that stage and I won Mr. Olympia, even a bigger title than Mr. Universe. It didn't mean anything. I said, these guys that I just beat, they will be much happier with that title than I am. So I'm out of here. And that was it. I quit and I went into acting.
1:20:46 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So then all of a sudden, that becomes the most important thing. To go in the ring up big box office, to have a successful movie, to go from action to comedy, and from comedy to action, and this and that, and to do all those kind of things. That becomes the most important thing. But then in 2003, when I finished my promotion for Terminator 3.
1:21:09 Arnold Schwarzenegger? And they had the recall election here. I said to myself, this is what I should do. I should run for governor. What the hell is this? This is the same thing. Am I gonna go now for to terminate a, you know, four and sixteen and twenty and Conan fourteen or something? Is that what life is about? There must be more than that. So all of a sudden, he started looking for the, you know, to that called the BBD, right? The bigger and better deal. And he said, I started looking for something more spicy, that's more risky and that it is bigger for me. And to me, I said, well, that's, that's something that is a new challenge. That could be really great. And I stepped into that arena.
1:21:53 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So it's, we change and we change. And so what was one time to me, the most important thing and the most exciting thing, you know, today is not. And so this is now exciting, to be able to motivate people to be better and to go and to fight for the environment and to, you know, promote democracy and to terminate cherry mentoring and all this kind of issues and to run the Schwarzenegger Institute and to make students, you know, kind of learn firsthand of what it's about to become a leader and all that stuff at the university.
1:22:36 Arnold Schwarzenegger? So those are the kind of things, the day that means something to me. So it's, it's an evolution. As I get older and as I get wiser and as I get better and smarter and all of that stuff, things change.
1:22:50 Rich Roll? I want to be conscious of your time. I gotta let you go, but perhaps.
1:22:54 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Thank God.
1:22:55 Rich Roll? Yeah, I'm gonna get you out of here. Are you bored?
1:22:58 Arnold Schwarzenegger? No, no.
1:22:59 Rich Roll? I want to give you a little, like, last. Last opportunity for a little schmei. You know, like, what is it that you want people to get out of this book? What do you think is holding people back the most? How are you messaging these people, lighting a fire under their ass, trying to get them pumped up and on a new, better trajectory?
1:23:21 Arnold Schwarzenegger? You know, this is simply to make people better and to make them recognize that they don't have to get stuck where they are, but they can change. Because every, every day is an opportunity of change. And so I want them to look at this book and to just say, maybe there's something in there that will motivate me to change and to get better, to improve myself. I don't have to get stuck in this. I can shoot for big goals. I want people to be aware of it, that you don't have to shoot for little goals, but you can shoot for big goals, that it is just as difficult to shoot for a little goal than to shoot for a big goal. And I want them to know that they shouldn't be afraid of failure, that this comes naturally in life. There will be failure and there will be successes.
1:24:05 Arnold Schwarzenegger? The important thing is that we learn from that, but not to be frozen and to be, to fear that. I want them to know that they have to create a vision of where they want to go. Without a vision, there is just nowhere to go. You, it's just the way it is in life. You would just wander around without a mission, without the joy of chasing something, how much fun it is to chase something. So I want them to learn those basic lessons that makes you just more successful and better.
1:24:37 Rich Roll? You're speaking my language. Thank you for that. That was beautifully put. You're an international treasure. It meant a lot to me for you to spend time today. So I thank you for that.
1:24:49 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Thank you.
1:24:49 Rich Roll? Appreciate it.
1:24:50 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Keep up all your athletic activities.
1:24:52 Rich Roll? I'm trying, dude.
1:24:53 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Jesus, I mean, it's like amazing.
1:24:54 Rich Roll? The lower back.
1:24:56 Arnold Schwarzenegger? The city of the guy that can at any given time, walk from my office over to the beach and swim to Hawaii.
1:25:03 Rich Roll? No, I wish.
1:25:04 Arnold Schwarzenegger? How many people can, how many people can do that?
1:25:07 Rich Roll? I wish, my friend.
1:25:08 Arnold Schwarzenegger? That's unbelievable. Anyway, you did a great job.
1:25:11 Rich Roll? Yeah, thanks, man.
1:25:11 Arnold Schwarzenegger? Keep up the good work, okay?
1:25:12 Rich Roll? Appreciate it. Be useful, available everywhere. It's going to be impossible to avoid you, I think, probably in coming weeks.
1:25:21 Rich Roll? So it's going to be, the book is going to be everywhere. It's going to be a big success. Thank you. I loved it and appreciate you. Thank you. Cheers. It was fun writing it. Thanks. Thank you.
1:25:35 Rich Roll? That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as The Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment.
1:26:19 Rich Roll? Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, The Meal Planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis.
1:27:03 Rich Roll? Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.
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