What You Can Learn From Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall

Arnold Schwarzenegger the man famous for his movies and one liners. You might recognize him from  such films and clips like:

Arnold Schwarzenegger: One of the Greatest Success Stories Ever

“For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive,…

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But Arnold was not always a movie star. To me his journey to becoming the movie star is a lot more interesting and inspirational. This article will look at the famous stars journey to becoming one of the most famous actors ever.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s story is truly an inspiration for all. A man who came from a small village in Austria called Thal. He overcame adversity and hardships to become an ultra-successful bodybuilder, businessman, actor and mayor of California. Arnold is most famous for films like Predator, The Terminator franchise and The Expendables.

During his bodybuilding career he won the Mr Olympia contest seven times. He initially won the Mr Universe contest at 20 years of age and since then has written many books, articles and made movies about bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger also has a contest named after him called, the Arnold Classic.

Schwarzenegger was born in the small village of Thal in Austria in 1947 to police chef Gustav Schwarzenegger and housewife Aurelia. He also had a brother called Meinhard. So he was born to pretty much average parents and was born in a poor household.

Growing up Arnold never had much, but what he did have was tremendous focus, unbelievable determination and unstoppable drive.

He was so committed to becoming the world bodybuilding champion that when he  at a young age he went to his gym at night when it was closed, keep in mind it was freezing temperatures and Arnold went out to train. It was that cold that his hands would stick to the barbell.

This shows incredible determination and will from Arnold Schwarzenegger to achieve his goals.

One day in his beloved Austria, Arnold watched the movie Hercules starring British bodybuilder Reg Park. He got inspired to enter bodybuilding and acting in movies from watching Reg Park on the big screen.

He gave Arnold Schwarzenegger some great advice on bodybuilding and other aspects of life and would go on to be a lifelong mentor of his.

 

Total Recall

The book, Total Recall is more of a personal memoir of Arnold Schwarzenegger and he details all his ups and downs in this book. Arnold talks about his encounters with different people throughout his life and how much of an influence various people were on his life.

Arnold always wanted to go America and become like his idol Reg Park. He wanted to do anything he could to get there and he finally got there through bodybuilding.

However at around age 18 he had to join the Austrian Army. It was obligatory for men to serve in the army. This would not deter young Arnold from his goal of becoming a bodybuilding champion.

Even after the grueling army schedule and training, Schwarzenegger would still lift weights for a couple of hours a day. He was extremely dedicated.

As bodybuilding and weight-lifting wasn’t as big back then not many people understood bodybuilding and why someone would do it.

He convinced his superiors to make make-shifts weights. Because it helped make people stronger and fitter, his superiors obliged straight away and Arnold and his buddies would train even after their normal army training had finished.

It was here that he won his very first bodybuilding title. This would be the start of something truly special. He won the Junior Mr Europe contest at 18 while still at his training camp. He was punished and spent a week in military prison for deserting the army.

That was way back in 1965. He went on to win several bodybuilding titles in the coming years. He was the main protagonist of the bodybuilding film Pumping Iron. The film documents his journey to winning and beating Lou Ferrigno to the 1975 Mr Olympia title. This hugely increased his popularity.

 

Business Savvy

Before Arnold Schwarzenegger had even begun starring in movies he had become a millionaire from his business ventures. Schwarzenegger had become a millionaire before he reached 30. His first real business was a brick laying business that he started with his close friend and fellow bodybuilder Franco Columbu.

There business thrived due to excellent marketing from the pair and a high increase due to a earthquake in Southern California.

From there he invested his profits into creating a mail order business that would sell signed Arnold Schwarzenegger photos and memorabilia, fitness tapes and instructional videos and fitness equipment. His business was booming and to keep up with demand he had to hire further employees.

He also went into the real estate market and throughout the years bought several buildings that he would go on and sell as investments. Schwarzenegger was  a millionaire way before he even got into acting and was a millionaire before he turned 30.

After his success in business, Arnold saw proper success as an actor when he made Conan the Barbarian. Conan the Barbarian was a commercial success and got Schwarzenegger noticed. After which he made blockbusters such as Terminator, Predator, Twins and Terminator 2.

When trying to breakthrough to acting, Arnold found it difficult to land an acting gig. Movie producers were saying his accent would be hard to understand, his body was to big for the screens or that his surname was weird and hard to pronounce.

He actually turned them into his strengths from what was  actually known for at one stage as his ‘weaknesses’. He would work on his craft. He took acting classes to improve his acting skills and he took English lessons to improve his pronunciation. He was always looking to improve and become better.

Failures

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successes have not come without his failures. He has had many failures over the years but it’s about how he has overcome those failures and turned them around.

Arnold and his close friend Franco Columbu had put their winnings from Mr Olympia and the money they made from their bricklaying business towards to what they thought would be a good investment. They bought a plot of land near an airport for $10,000. They thought they would get back their investment really quickly. Little did they know, their investment would fail and they would end up losing their money.

However even after this they carried on and didn’t look back at their failures.

When Arnold was competing professionally for Mr Olympia he was beaten to the bodybuilding title a number of times. His arch-rival in bodybuilding was Sergio Olivia, a Cuban bodybuilder. He did lose to him.

However this just gave Arnold more motivation to train harder and work even harder. Eventually he was winning the title year in, year out.

There was a number of movies that Arnold starred in that were not commercially successful and were actually considered ‘flops’. In 1985 he starred in Red Sonja which carries on from the Conan movie series. Arnold considers it as one of the biggest flops of his career and actually regrets working in it.

Later on that year he released Commando which turned out to be the 7th highest grossing R-Rated movie of 1985.

Another one of his failures includes Planet Hollywood which launched in 1991. Planet Hollywood was a Hollywood themed restaurant with many investors from Hollywood. PH Restaurants would feature memorabilia from famous Hollywood movies.  Other than Schwarzenegger investors included Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis.

The restaurant ended up going bankrupt twice and Schwarzenegger severed his ties with the company and got out. He claimed that it was not  as successful as he had hoped.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has faced many difficulties and failures in his life but he has learned to overcome them and improve. From each failure he learns something and improves upon himself. He would note where he went wrong and would work on improving that certain aspect.

That is what you should do as well. From each failure or difficulty faced, you should learn from it so next time you will be better.

Rules to Success

In his book, Total Recall he goes on and details his principles for success. These principles actually helped Arnold get to where he is now. He gets some of the principles from great people he has met over the years.

When he does meet a great person, Arnold used to pick their brain and find out what actually makes them successful.

There may be thousands of different keys to success as everyone has a different way of doing something. However these are ten principles of Arnold that lead him to his success.

1. Never let pride get in your way.
2. Don’t Over think.
3. Forget Plan B.
4. You can use outrageous humor to  settle a score.
5. The day has 24 hours.
6. Reps, reps, reps.
7. Don’t blame your parents.
8. Change takes big balls
9. Take care of your body and your mind.
10. Stay Hungry

These are all some very key and important rules to success. He says you should make use of everyday. Back in his student days in the 70’s, he would train for 5 hours a day, go to acting class for 4 hours a day, worked in a construction job for several hours a day and also go to college and complete his homework.

You should make use of every hour of everyday. Try to be as efficient as possible.

The 6th point is all about putting the practice in. Practice makes perfect after all. You just have to keep on doing the reps until it comes natural to you.

You should not only take care of your body but your mind as well. Your mind is one of the most important assets you have. Therefore you should not only train your body, you should also train your mind. You can do this by reading, learning and continually seeking knowledge.

The last point of maybe the most important point is to Stay Hungry. You should always Stay Hungry for more. You should always want more and never be satisfied. You should be hungry for success, be hungry for more and more importantly leaving your mark on the world.

We should all stay hungry!

 

Thanks for reading this article and I hope you have learned a lot from this article. If you found this article helpful, I would appreciate it if you could share this article.

If you would like to learn more about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his story from a young Austrian boy to champion bodybuilder and movie star; then you should buy his book, Total Recall.

Has the article inspired you? Let me know what you think of the article below!