Arnold was far from a superhuman. He was simply a man with a dream. He realized early on that in order to reach his desired destination, he would need to become a different being entirely. Over the course of his life, Arnold achieved far more mentally than he did physically.

He had the ability to channel his ambition and correspond it in relation to his work ethic. It is clear that his journey from Austria to the U.S. in the 1960s, was not easy. This man did it all; he was a bodybuilder, entrepreneur, movie star, politician and much more.

 

Here are the 5 takeaways from this book:

 

1) You Won’t Starve: When Arnold was apart of the Austrian military, he was a prankster, a goofball, and far from obedient. This led him to work long hours with little food. Sometimes he would work 24 hours without eating and was still expected to perform at his best. The literal and figurative moral of this story is that you can still operate and succeed through hunger and barriers, it’s all mental.

 

2) Manage Your Time: By the time Arnold was 21, he had calculated every minute of his life. He realized that there were 24 hours in a day, he only needed 6 to sleep, which left him with 18 hours to be as productive as possible. He divided his time into segments. 3 hours a day was dedicated to working out, 3 hours to eating, 3 hours in community college classes, 2 hours in acting classes, 2 hours in driving time and the rest in reading books. The point behind this message is that if we can utilize our time even half as well as Arnold did, our lives would change.

 

3) Commitment: When Arnold was 12 years old in Austria, he made the decision that he wanted to come to America and become the bodybuilding champion of the world and a Hollywood movie star. The whole town laughed at him for having such unrealistic goals. Yet 15 years later, there he was, standing on the podium with a trophy in his hands and signing his first big movie role as Conan the Barbarian. What we can learn from this is that no matter how unrealistic your goals may seem, keep them, and stick to them; take it one day at a time and you will get there. You can smile back at whoever doubted you when it’s all said and done.

4) Your Mindset is Everything: You know how they say that it is harder to defend a championship than to win it? Arnold conquered just that. He consecutively won Mr. Olympia seven times. You’d think that after 2 or 3 flawless victories, he would ease up, but no, Arnold was able to program his mindset to win every competition. A famous quote he once said before winning his 7th consecutive championship was “I didn’t come here to compete, I come to win.” How can we apply this to our own lives? Scratch the ego for everything you do and work like you have never won before. If a young Austrian boy in the ‘50s adopted that mentality and harnessed it, so can we.

 

5) You Can Re-Create Yourself as Many Times as You’d Like: Arnold recreated himself from an ordinary Austrian boy, to a fierce bodybuilder, to a real-estate entrepreneur, to a Hollywood movie star, and to a politician. Did people question him along the way? Of course. He was told repeatedly that his ‘weird’ accent would not cut it in the Hollywood scene. Imagine if he listened, there would be no Terminator! The point being here is that you can be whoever you want to be and nobody can stop you.