Arnold Schwarzenegger: Arnold’s House (Part 2)
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That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling. And so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing, cash back. That's right.

Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. I hear my father's voice say, Arnold, what do you think? America was created by people sleeping in? You idiot, you lazy bastard. Get up and be useful.

Welcome back to part two of Arnold Schwarzenegger. So much to get into. We're going to get right at it. But in specific today, can't wait to hear about the new book, which is out now called Be Useful. And it's Arnold's life hacks. And I can't think of anybody better to give them. Here we go. I always found that really moving when you would talk about California gave you everything. Oh, yeah. I mean, and because I feel the same.

Imagine to come over here with a dream to become the greatest bodybuilder of all times and to come here to Muscle Beach and to train in Gold's Gym with all the great, great bodybuilders and then to become the greatest bodybuilder of all time, to win gold.

13 world bodybuilding championships, you know, five times Mr. Universe. Five times Mr. Universe, seven times Mr. Olympia, Mr. World, Mr. International, and the list goes on and on. So I became, let's stop for a second. Paparazzi. So anyway, to come over here and to become the greatest bodybuilder,

And that was only possible because I was training over here in America. It would have never happened in Europe. And then to be in a city that is not only known for Muscle Beach, which is for bodybuilding, but to also have Hollywood. And now it was kind of easy, you know, with the idea that the next thing I want to do is to do movies.

And then my dream was to become a leading man in the movies. I want to be another Clint Eastwood. He was like a big, big idol of mine. And I want to become another Clint Eastwood, another Charles Bronson, Warren Bate. These were kind of like, these were kind of the big players then. And then all of a sudden, we didn't know.

five, seven year period, I was doing Conan the Barbarian and I was doing my first big international movie, you know, the finance by Universal Studios and having great producers like Ed Pressman, who just passed away a few months ago, was a wonderful producer and Dina De Laurentiis.

And then Sid Sheinberg was the head of the studio. And those guys kind of like made this movie, had the faith in me. And then all of a sudden it goes from the Conan number two and to do, you know, the Terminator and Commander and Predator. All of a sudden I worked with Fox studio and all these other studios. It was like unbelievable. This is only in America. And then it would go and to become the biggest box office hit in Terminator 2.

and make more money than any other movie that year. And then year after year make movies that made domestic give $100 million. And then to get into comedy and to do twins and kindergarten cop and junior and on True Lies and all of those things. I mean, it was like there was no end in sight. And then to step off with Terminator 3 in 2003.

promote the hell out of it all over the world and make that movie number one. And then all of a sudden literally step off and step into the other track and run for governor. - That's unbelievable. - And two months later, I'm governor. On October 7th, become governor and I was sworn in on November 17th in Sacramento. You were there. - I was there when you got the concession call. I'll never forget it. - Yeah.

So, I mean, that is, I mean, only in America, I say to people always, and everything that's happened, I mean, let's talk about, you know, the wealth that I've created and the success financially in real estate and in so many other areas. It was, it's just staggering. And so this is why when people didn't understand that I will walk away from show business where I made a minimum of $20 million a movie,

And I made two movies a year, so that's $40 million. And I walked away from that and didn't even take a salary as governor. I gave the money back because like I said, it was petty cash for me. You know, it was like a joke. And you paid your own transportation. Everything, everything myself I paid for. So, you know, they didn't understand why I would do that, why I would sacrifice all of these millions of dollars. And I said to them, I said, look, I gained my wealth because of America.

So for me to give something up for America is a no-brainer. It's a no-brainer. I say I would do it with great pleasure anytime. And that's exactly what I did. For seven years, I worked hard.

and with no salary and, you know, yes, I made my residuals for the movies because my movies kept playing very well, especially after I became governor. They kept selling them, you know, to the airlines and for television and for this and for that. The business went on, but I mean, I didn't do any movies. And as a matter of fact, the only movie that I did during the time I was governor was with Stallone, "Expendables."

And we had to do it on a Saturday because he wanted me to do a cameo. And so we did it on a Saturday when I didn't work as governor. And I went to the scene in the church in Hollywood, secretly. I remember this. I drove down there. We didn't even rehearse or anything like this. I just walked into the church and we just... Bruce Willis came out of the booth there, the...

- The confessional or whatever. - The confessional came out and it was like all very secretive. And Elvis and Slavos, then he was the director also at the same time, not just the actor. And he directed us and within two hours we did the scene. And then I went back into my car and we took off. - You're like Elvis, you showed up, or Sinatra, show up. Make sure that camera's rolling when I show up. - Exactly.

That's the only movie that I did was just to do a favor for Sly because he was very supportive during my governorship. So I wanted to do him the favor and to do this cameo for him. What's Sly like as a director, by the way? He's very, very clear because he's a visionary. Sly is one of the things that I always tell people is the secret to success is to have a very clear vision of where you want to go.

And when people have that, half of the battle is won because so many people don't know where to go. And Sly had a very clear vision because he wrote the movie.

And so he knew exactly which direction he wanted to go. He knew exactly the way the scene should be shot, what close-ups he needed, what medium shots he needed, what wide shots he needed, master shots and all of that stuff. So when he directed, it was very, very clear and there was not kind of, well, let's try this. There was no trying. Let's do this. Right. This is what we do.

And he always was like that with everything. And I think that's why he's also not only a great director, but he's also a great painter because he is daring and he has a clear vision of what the painting should look like. And he just takes those oil cans and he goes in there with his paintbrush and he starts painting. I mean, he is balls. You know, I paint everything.

But I paint this little, tiny little paintings. Yours are very delicate. Yeah, they're delicate. They're very delicate. Because I'm afraid to go big, you know, because... It's the only place in your life where you go delicate. Yeah, it's like, but I mean, it's like, because there is such a thing as that you get kind of like scared. Like Sly would say, he says, no, no, just take the big paintbrush and just put a canvas up there and start painting. I said, I don't want to ruin a canvas. He says...

"Arnold, the canvas costs $3. What are you talking about? You make millions of dollars. What are you worried about ruining a canvas for Christ's sake?" And he always would say that. And Hiro Yamagata, our friend, who is a great, great artist, he also says the same thing to me. But I can't help it. But I always admire him because he just, he had me come up to his garage where he was painting when he lived here, Beverly Park.

And he just starts painting and all of a sudden he creates this woman face and all these kind of things he writes on it. Very modern, daring blacks and whites and reds and this and that and colorful. And he's very creative. One of his paintings sold for, I think, $280,000 over in Monaco.

And so for a guy that is a boxer actor, but not really a professional painter, and then you have a painting sell for $280,000 and stuff like that. Probably now it sells for more. But every time he painted something for me, for my auctions, for the after school programs, we auction off every year things.

We made a fortune. We made hundreds of thousands of dollars from his paintings because people really put up money for his paintings. It's amazing. He gave me a great piece of advice once. He was like, don't ever shook on working out your forearms. You just put your, you know, you roll your shirt up there and then people see those muscles and they think you're ripped.

Well, he has huge forearms. I know, he's very into his... He has big forearms, yeah. He doesn't have big calves, but he has big forearms. That's it. Yeah, he's really, really good. And he's for a non-bodybuilder, you know, for someone that works out for the movies and to look good on the screen. And he has gotten an extraordinary body. I mean, it's his deltas, his back, his abs and everything. Very, very strong. ♪

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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Do you ever look back at the leading men of the 70s? Like I was watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, two biggest stars in the world, Redford Newman. You watch any of these guys. And back to the Cary Grant story, nobody was particularly fit. They were lean.

But nobody, you guys started it. You started it. You started that whole thing. I mean, now you can't be in a Marvel movie unless you're ginormous. Well, there were some guys that were really in good shape, but not very muscular. But I mean, Charlton Heston was always in good shape. Ewan Brunner was always in good shape. Charles Bronson. Kirk Douglas. Kirk Douglas was in great shape. Right, yeah. And I worked with Kirk Douglas in the movie The Villain with Anne Margaret and Kirk Douglas.

He invited me over to his hotel room. His room was kind of like two floors down from my hotel room. And he says, "I want you to show me exactly how to do it the right way." I said, "Do what the right way?" And he bends down and he rolls out from underneath the bed, dumbbells. Son of a bitch had dumbbells under his bed. He rolls them out and he starts curling.

He says, you wrote in one of the articles that you're turning the wrist when you curl, that this has more effect on the bicep. He was having biceps and he was trying to do the curl the right way. It was like fantastic to talk bodybuilding talk with Kirk Douglas. And he was as kind as

as I was about giving him tips about bodybuilding and giving me tips about acting. So when I was doing the scenes with him and stuff like that, he would always come over and says, you know, I would just pronounce this more, slow down a little bit here and all that stuff, because I was new. It was kind of my style.

the second or third movie that I've done was with Kirk Douglas. Right away with a big star like that, that I admired when I was like a kid growing up, right? So, I mean, it was like really amazing. But anyway, I had a wonderful working relationship with him. We became very good friends and always, but he was in shape. So there were several guys like that. Clint was always working out, but what happened, what was different then was that those guys were working out secretly, right?

Because I remember Clint saying to me, he says, yeah, I have the universal machine. And, you know, Harold Zinken, who created the universal machines, he gave me the machines and I have it in my house. And so no one knows that I'm working out. I said, is this a secret? He says, you know, it's always better when you say I was born like that.

Really? Yeah, so this is what Robert Mitchum, all those guys, they wanted to look like they were born like that. You know, they had this perfect V-shaped body. And only then when "Pumping Iron" became a huge smash and this international phenomenon and became kind of like the number one documentary in the 70s, only when that kind of made bodybuilding explode

And all of a sudden, you know, bodybuilding became fashionable. Only then those guys all started working out officially. And all of a sudden you saw... Why was there a stigma, do you think? It was just, I think, times change, you know, that the day people want to know

that a star works out. They want to know what the exercises the rock does. They want to know how many times to go to the gym, how many times to work out, what does my workout look like and all this kind of, they want to know the details, how does Slyke get ready for a movie and all of this. So, you know, they get fascinated by that. And so it became kind of very fashionable that you had to look visually like a hero.

So muscles were required. That's when then there was the explosion in the 80s of people like Stallone, myself, Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, you know, all of those guys all of a sudden became big stars and were leading men in the movies. The funny thing about it is that in the 70s, when I said I wanted to get into movies,

All the producers and directors and studio executives and agents were saying to me, it's never going to happen. And one of the three reasons was that my body was too big. They said to me, look at the stars today. De Niro. There's Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, De Niro, Woody Allen. Those are the sex symbols. People don't want to see big muscles. You're 100 pounds too heavy. Forget it.

And sure enough, five years later, all of the things that they said, those naysayers that I never paid attention to, which is one of the rules in my book be used for, is never pay attention to the naysayers. Don't listen to them because they always will say it's impossible. And I believe what Nelson Mandela said that everything is always impossible until someone does it. So it doesn't mean that someone didn't do it before me.

even though there were Hercules movies and there were muscle movies, but they felt kind of those movies are out and they will never come back. And sure enough, they didn't expect that Pumping Iron was such a big smash and that a guy like Bob Rafelson would do a movie

called Stay Hungry, with a leading man being a bodybuilder. I think that's the most important movie in many ways of your career. It's the forgotten movie in that you have Terminator, you have all these ginormous cultural moments. But Stay Hungry really was the one that made you a legitimate actor. Yeah, exactly. Because it was one of those movies where people said,

Well, I guess you can do a movie with someone that is that muscular. Yes, I had to trim down. Yes, I had to lose weight, but I didn't have to go down to 150 pounds like Robert De Niro was. Right. I went down to 210 pounds and still was muscular because it was a competitive bodybuilder that I played. And then with that doubling up with pumping iron and

And then Streets of San Francisco, where I played a bodybuilder. And then in The Villain with Kirk Douglas, I played the handsome stranger. Always a good one. The handsome stranger with the powder blue outfit, Western outfit and all that stuff. But then after that, it was Conan the Babel. Then I did the Jane Mansfield story, where I played Mickey Hagee Day. So they dusted that script off.

And they said, wait a minute, Schnitzel is around. He has muscles. We can have him play Mickey Hageday because Mickey Hageday was Mr. Universe. He was this Hungarian bodybuilder. So he had an accent. So I was perfect for that. So the bottom line is that when they said it's not going to work, you're getting in the movies and especially not being a leading man. They said it was because of your accent.

They said that the German accent is scary for most Americans. It reminds them of the Nazis. So yes, you could play a Nazi officer or something like that. That would be fine. But other than that, you would not get away with it. And then they said the body was too big.

And then they said that no one would be able to pronounce Schwarzenegger or something like that. So they were laughing at my name. And as I said, there's three things why it would not work. And then sure enough, I come out with Conan the Barbarian and John Milius, the director, famous director, right? Amazing writer. Amazing writer. So he said to the press, if we wouldn't have had Schwarzenegger, we would have had to build one.

So now he establishes, I wouldn't have had that body. He couldn't have done the movie and he would have never been able to direct a movie like that. So think about that. So then I come out with Terminator, you know, literally like two and a half years later, I come out with Terminator and Jim Cameron says, what really made this work is that Schwarzenegger talked like a machine. Yeah.

I don't know if it was a compliment or not, but he made it sound like a compliment because he said to me, if he wouldn't have, that's what made it, made the machine totally believable because he did not only just look different with his enormous body and with the way he walked and acted.

But he talked like a machine. 100, listen, I remember. So that's what really made it. So now I said to myself, here's the second one now that they said would never work because of my accent. And now this is a big plus for Terminator.

One of the most historic characters. I remember seeing Terminator in the theater. I went and saw it with all the guys from the Brat Pack. We were shooting St. Elmo's Fire and it came out and we all went, all the boys, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, and Emilio Estevez and I, we went and saw Terminator on a Friday night and then it came back on a Saturday night. And it's when you say, I'll be back.

And with anybody else saying that line, anybody else, it's the accent makes it. Jim's right. It isn't the line. Line's great. Line's perfectly fine. It's you saying it. And then it didn't take much longer than that. In the 80s, all of a sudden, articles started coming out how actors in Hollywood are not anymore changing their names.

Oh, interesting. Because they figured out that a name that is hard to pronounce and hard to remember is also hard to forget. So there was the new idea. President Ramaswamy. Exactly. There you have it.

I think we've cracked it. But all of a sudden, Gina Lola Brigida, the actress, well, that didn't change her name. All of a sudden, the more complicated names became in and they mentioned, as a matter of fact, my name as an example. And it says, I wouldn't tell Schwarzenegger anymore to change his name. It just says, exactly what my vision was is to have the posters say on top, Schwarzenegger,

And then the title below, Schwarzenegger Terminator, Schwarzenegger Predator, Schwarzenegger Kindergarten Cop. And this is how it went. Exactly the way I dreamt. But again, it goes back to one thing, and that is don't listen to naysayers and be in America because here those things are possible. And overseas, and I've never had anyone come up to me anywhere whenever I travel around the world and say,

Can you help me get a visa to go to Russia? Or can you help me? I want to move to China. Or can you help me? Do you have some connections with India? Because I want to go and work in India. I want to become a big star in India. Yes, you can become a big star in India. Of course you can. But what everyone says is, can you please, Arnold, help me and write something for the immigration service, a letter or something like that, so I can come to America.

anywhere in the world, if you're in Australia, if you're in China, if you're in Russia, if you're in Africa, if you're in the Middle East, it doesn't matter where you are, all over Europe, people ask me if I can help them to come to America. - Then why is it that most Americans feel so bad about America? I mean, maybe they don't. I don't mean to say that. I don't want to use that as a blanket statement because I don't believe that actually. In fact, I don't believe it at all. Why is it that a very specific group of Americans

feel so badly about America or ambivalent. They don't feel, let's say ambivalent. Well, you will always have people complaining about things and it doesn't matter if you go to France, the French will complain about France. There's British that complain about Great Britain. There's Germans that complain about Germany and all of that stuff. So I think that the bottom line is,

You hit the nail on the head when you said that Americans don't appreciate as much. That's what you really said. They don't really appreciate as much the country as an immigrant would. And that's natural. It's totally natural that if you grow up in a certain house,

where your parents have wealth and you grow up in the house, you don't appreciate the house the same way as if you bring a guest in and they look around and says, oh my God, look at this place, look at the marble floor, look at this fireplace, look at the chandelier, look at those paintings. You say, oh, gee, I see this stuff every day from the time I was born. I don't even pay attention to it anymore. So that's what happens. So I think that someone like me, I see...

firsthand how great this country works, how great, how, you know, you can do things here that no one has ever done before. And it's just that the people in America are also not so jealous than the Europeans are. If in Austria, someone drives a better car than you drive, then you'll be jealous.

And here, no. Here they go, they're up to you. And no matter what car I have, I had Rolls Royces, I had Bentleys, I had Hummers, I had Oshkosh, Unimogs, whatever it is, people would just come over and say, wow, where did you get this car? Oh, this is an amazing car. I love this car. I love the color. They will always give you a compliment. Or if you say to somebody, I want to get rich and famous, and they say, it's good for you.

Over there, I say, yeah, sure, they will be waiting for you. You know, when I said in Austria, I want to go to America. Yeah, absolutely. They will be waiting for you over there. I mean, they can't wait for the Schwarzenegger to come over to America. Yeah, sure, they need you over there. It's always kind of this negative stuff. And then when you have to be very careful not to drive around with a flashy car over there because people say, oh, it's a show off. And it will be something negative. Here, it doesn't matter.

He can drive any car you want. No one says he's a show off. He's doing well. I'm happy for him. You know, I mean, if you show, if you say to people, I just bought a new house.

No one says, oh yeah, he wants to be one of the stars, live up in Santa Barbara and stuff like that. No. People are just appreciative. They just love it. They say, oh, this is what I want to do one day. I want to make movies like Rob Lowe and Jennifer House and Santa Barbara. They get inspired by that. I was always inspired by, you know, I'm from Ohio. I didn't know anybody in entertainment. I love seeing people do well. And I...

Because you have to have something to aspire to. Right. You have to. Yeah. You have to have something to motivate you, to keep you going. So anyway, so this is, I just think that we're in the right place. Yes, we're going through some difficult moments, but always remind people when they say we have never, ever gone through this kind of a hell before. I say, well, wait a minute. I said, when I came over here in 1968, I say Martin Luther King was killed. Bobby Kennedy was killed.

did the riots at the democratic convention where people got killed and clubbed and attacked by dogs and everything like this. We had the Vietnam war with the hippies running around all over the place getting stoned out of their minds. I was one of them in Ashbury. What is it? The park?

I hate Ashbury. My friends took me up there and they were sleeping out there in the park, getting stoned out of my mind. It was like all this was going on. Then there was Watergate. I mean, then it was the president resigning. And it just went on and on and on. The madness didn't stop. People said, oh, my God, what is going on here? Then we gave up the Vietnam War.

Then we realized that we were in the wrong war in the first place, that we should have never been in Vietnam. And 58,000 people were killed for nothing. I mean, this is like people coming home in body bags every day. So this is the kind of America that I came to in the beginning. And we weathered through it and we got through it. But it took one great leader, Ronald Reagan. You know, he pulled us through the 70s. I mean, Carter tried it.

But the one that was really the star was Reagan. And he pulled us out of this mess. Did you know him at all? Yeah, of course. Yeah. What was he like as a person? Very entertaining. Reagan was an expert storyteller. Really? Oh, yeah. Within no time. He would go into a house. I remember when he used to go to Marvin Davis's house in Beverly Hills.

and they will have a fundraiser, they will have just some event, some dinner. Reagan will walk in, then within no time, not because he was president, but within no time, he had 50 people standing around him. It was all because he was telling stories. He would walk in, then he would start telling a story. He was just the most unbelievable storyteller and smooth and funny, great, great kind of jokes he had and loved telling jokes.

and speeches, always starts his speech with a joke and all that stuff. And so he was just really good. And he was kind of also very casual in some ways, but in some ways very buttoned up. And he could play the part of, I never really, to be honest with you, I never knew exactly was it him that was that buttoned up, because he was in suits so many times, black tie and all of that, great looking suits.

Not the typical Washington stuff with the blazer, the blue blazer and the red tie and the white shirt. But no, you had brown, you know, kind of suits and he had beige, light beige suits and black suits and in a different color, he just mixed it up. And it just, I don't know, did he, because he was an actor, right?

did he act out the part as president when it comes to clothes or was that his style? Right. Because even when he was governor, he always had dark, dark suit on, black suit and all that stuff. So I think that maybe it was his style. I don't know. But I mean, he had this casual side to him.

He was in jeans and rolled up the sleeves and chopped wood up there. Yeah, Santa Barbara. And then he had the other side, which was kind of like very elegant and very sophisticated. And he also was a person that was able to rely on his team. And there's something very comforting that you have to trust in your team.

Because so many people today, they go in the White House and they don't really trust their team. You know, are they leaking or not leaking? Are they really in there for themselves? Or are they really there to represent you and all of that stuff? But Reagan was here, this Ed Meese there and this Baker and all those guys, this gang around that he trusted fully and he let them operate. They've been with him forever. Yeah, forever. And he created direction. He created the vision.

And George Shultz, remember? God bless him. God bless him, exactly, yeah.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Tell me about the book. How long did it take you to, by the way, I have to say your autobiography, which I love, loved it when it came out. For sure, the best title you could have possibly come up with. Total Recall. I mean, come on.

What a slam dunk. Well, thank you. Slam dunk title. Thank you. And this, this is going to be amazing. This is amazing. This is, you know, I never ever thought that I will be kind of like in a field of motivational material. Seems to me, it seems like the perfect title.

It's natural. Yes. It's organic because, you know, I recognize the fact that all my life

I've always motivated people. You know, I always had people train with me and that trained them and I did seminars all over the world in bodybuilding and in fitness and all that stuff. So it's a natural thing to say. I think my personality, I love to inspire people and to get them going and to tell them everything is possible and all that stuff. But I didn't realize that when I do, you know, a speech at the university, a commencement speech,

And I give people the rules to success because they are now going out there into the world. Here's some rules for success, some tools that you can use. I didn't realize that that would become such a big hit. And so many people always ask me from then on that all my public speeches were

became kind of motivational speeches. You know, usually... So the genesis of it was the response to your organic rules for kids coming out to the... Exactly. I gave at USC a commencement speech, I think when Patrick, my son, graduated or something like that. But in any case, it was like such a huge hit that I did another one commencement speech and did something similar.

huge hit again then people said why don't you write a book about that so i had no you know interest in writing a book about it i said i just gonna use that theme and so from that point on instead of people asking me to talk about the environment or to talk about the governorship or about politics versus entertainment versus bodybuilding and all this they just wanted to have me pump up their audience right so you know if it is was uh a convention uh

for real estate agents or for car dealers or whatever insurance company, whatever it was anywhere in the world, I will always be asked to do a motivational speech. And so I would give them the rules to success. And, you know, it became kind of like so.

I did it so many times that I didn't even have to look at paper anymore. I just gave an hour speech about success. And then gave them the rules to success and what to pay attention to and all that stuff. And then one thing led to the next that actually my book agent, well actually I didn't even know who the hell he was.

but he was the book agent for the agency that handles me for my movies, UTA. So he came to me one day and he said, "Can I have a meeting with you?" And I said, "Sure." He says, "I have an idea for a book for you." You know, I do this all the time. This is my profession. And he said, "You should do a book about how to be successful. And, you know, I find you a writer,

that can help you with that, someone that is an expert in writing this kind of material. And I would like to set up some meetings over the phone or FaceTime with the publishers from all over the world. And I said, well, you know, I have to tell you one thing about me. I have no patience. I said, because I did a book and self-published it called Seven Years.

When I was finished with the governorship, I did this book called Seven Years. It was a thick, hardcover book and a coffee table book. I have it, yeah. So I said, I did this book in six weeks. I said, so I know what is possible. I said, so when a publisher comes to me and I talk to them now and they say to me that, yeah, by next year we can do this book, we can publish it. I said, I'm out.

I said, I just publish it myself. I said, you know, fuck that. I just can't handle it. He says, no, no. I said, let's just, why don't we just have to talk with those publishers? So he would set up, you know, conversations and meetings on FaceTime. And I would talk to them. And I would start talking to these publishers. And I see their enthusiasm.

And they would say, can you write up 20 pages of an idea of what the book would be like? So I write up the 20 pages and we give it to each one of them. There was like six or seven publishers that we talked to. And they immediately started a bidding war. And, you know, and...

we ended up with much more money than I expected. And it was like wonderful, you know. So now here we are that they promised to me, each one of the publishers promised me that they will have a three months period where I write the chapters. And then there will be a three months period where they will edit and layout and that by the fall,

the book will come out. And Penguin, you know, won the bid. So there was also Penguin in England, right? And Penguin in America. Okay, got it. So anyway, so there was two that were bidding. And so for England, we sold it to one and for Penguin in America. And so we went to work.

with the writer and started working on it for the three months. Exactly the first week in April, we were finished, handed it in, and they were absolutely ecstatic with the material. There's a few little changes here and there which we made.

And then, of course, you have to do the most difficult thing, which is sending out the book all printed up. And now you have to read it out loud. Yeah. You have to do the oral kind of presentation of the book. But I mean, listen, who doesn't want to hear your voice, though? I have to say, I'm not the best reader. So I kind of like, so they said to me, look, most people do those things.

in four days and eight hours a day. I said, well, first of all, I would never ever do anything eight hours a day. It's not going to happen. I said, so I'm going to go into two, three hours a day and let's just take more time. And that's what we did. We did two weeks. We worked on it and did, you know, reading out loud the book. Everyone was very happy about that. And so now it's coming out on October 10th.

And it's basically the tools that will help people become more successful. And it's kind of all the stuff that I've learned. So this is not stuff that I have done research on or that I'm taking someone else's ideas. None of that. As a matter of fact, I have to say, honestly, I've never ever read a self-help book. Never. Because I have really no interest in any of it. I know what works for me.

And I know that this very same tools that I used and that I learned over the years have helped so many others around me. And so I basically put that down, those tools, and the word be useful is just something that my father said to me all the time. You know, he just says, whatever you do, son, be useful.

And it had such an impact on me because it brought actually guilt. So that when I sleep in past six o'clock, I hear my father's voice say, "Arnold, what do you think America was created by people sleeping in? You idiot, you lazy bastard, get up and be useful." So I heard this voice.

And I said to myself, I think it would be really cool to use this as a title, Be Useful, you know, and because it means so many different things. And so this is what we did. We used it as a title. People loved it. And, you know, that's it now. And I'm really looking forward to going on the promotion tour. And in the meantime, I'm doing a few podcasts and a bunch of interviews. And I can do talk shows because we are on strike.

So I do other things, other interviews. But I will be traveling all over the world because as you know,

I always feel like the world is the marketplace. For sure. It's not just America, it's not just Germany or Europe, it's like the whole world. And I will make sure that everyone in the world knows about this book and that the mothers and fathers can buy it for their kids for Christmas, or you can just buy it as a gift to motivate people. And Rob, the interesting thing is that we have

help for everything that we do.

As you know, when you go up skiing, we hire a ski instructor. Yeah. To take us skiing, right? Sure. To teach us the bumps and the this and that. That's right. Cut the lines also. Yeah, yeah. To get up and down faster and all those kind of things. But you have a ski instructor. If you want to learn English, like I did, I had a speech coach and I had a voice coach and a dialect removal coach and all of those kind of things. So you have a coach for everything that you want to do. But there's really no coach out there that you can go to

That if you say, I want to be more successful, there's no one there that you call like a dentist or something like this. Can I talk to you? And can you make me more successful? Right. So this is why I think it's important that this kind of material is out there and that people have an opportunity to just go and go through it. And I think they will pick up a lot of really great stories and great anecdotes and also how I came about learning those stories.

very important tools to make him more successful. Well, the thing I, the thing I like so many things about you, Arnold, but one of the things is how you never sort of rest on your laurels. You could have just quit after being the successful bodybuilder. You could have just said, okay, I'm the biggest movie star in the world. You know, you could have. The other thing is amazingly after the political achievement,

You went where you go, well, now what do I do? You're like, I'm going to go back and do what I did. I'm going to do movies again. Really? After being the governor, you're going to go like, you don't give a fuck. No. I mean, you, there are two things that I think Arnold is the embodiment. Well, there's a lot of them, but tell you about giving no fucks. I mean, if you ever had your face on a coin, it wouldn't say E Pluribus Unum. It would say, I give no fucks.

And the other thing is... We should put that on another kind of coin. You should. Can we make this coin the Arnold coin? Because you know the coin challenge everybody does? I'm sure you have to have your own coin, right? Yeah. We need to do... We have the governor coin. We have the Arnold Classic coin. We need the I give no fucks coin. Yeah. You give to very specific people. Exactly. Right? Exactly. But I tell you, it's an interesting thing you say that because...

What's interesting about not giving a fuck is the very thing why I was never scared of failure. Because I don't give a shit. I look at it in the same way, how far can I fall? The ground is six feet down. Okay, I fall. That's how far I can fall. And so...

I think I learned very early on, and this is one of the things I talk about in the book is that you learn in weightlifting that you, when you, if you want to go to the limit and find out how much you can lift, you have to be willing to fail because this is the only way you find out how much you can lift. Right. So of course I had to, I failed 10 times to bench press 500 pounds.

but the 11th time I did it. And so I don't shy away from failure. I never did. You know, of course you fail. I mean, my movies, there were movies that went right into the toilet. I mean, there were bodybuilding championships that I lost.

There were powerlifting championships that I lost, weightlifting championships I lost. In Sacramento, the initiatives in 2005 that I've lost. Yeah, there's the things that have failed and fallen over. But I always got up right away, dusted myself off and kept going. I'm not afraid of failure because too many people are scared of failure and it makes them frozen. It freezes them and they cannot make a move in life.

But if you're free, it's like, what did they, again, it goes back to sports where I learned my lessons. What did they tell you?

You know, just be free. You know, just do the full swing golf. Be free. Don't choke. Don't be scared because the people sometimes overthink the whole thing. They're worried about failing and that the ball goes off to the bushes or something. You're describing my golf game right now perfectly, by the way. No, but I mean, this is the frustrating thing. So it's all about that something sets in their mind that makes you scared to screw up. But the more you're free, the more you get rid of those fears.

and not give a shit. Yes, I can fail. But let's always remember what Michael Jordan said. I mean, it's like, I missed 5,000 balls, baskets. At 280 games, I screwed up. But that's what made me the greatest. You know, so this is what it is. The lesson is...

with failure, not with success. We don't learn as much by success, through success. We learn our most important lessons through failure. And so this is why I say this is one of the rules that I have in there. And so it's very interesting that you bring that up. You don't give a shit, Arnold. It's true. I don't care about any of that because the same as if what's the worst that can happen? What are you going to do to me? What's the worst?

Right. So that's it. So this is why I'm not afraid of failure or falling, falling down. I know how to get up. Well, this is the this is the greatest. Thank you for coming on the show. And this is a great it was a great opportunity to come back and hang with you and meet the animals. And I mean, this is I'm glad that we filmed this because just the notion of hearing Arnold talk with a pig walking by, you can't make it up.

It's the greatest. Exactly. They were supposed to bring Lulu and whiskey over, but I mean, they haven't found the cookies yet. We used up all the cookies and now today is cookie day. Well, there you have it. That was the Sermon on the Mount. That was...

That was the real deal. By the way, there are video clips of our interview available on YouTube. And just to see Arnold's outfit alone, I think you need to do it. You want to talk about somebody who gives no Fs? It's Arnold. He's made a career on giving no Fs.

And when you see the outfit, you'll really know. He's the best and I love him. I really, truly love the man. And Arnold, thank you for being on. And thank you guys for listening. And now it's time to go to YouTube and feast your eyes on the extravaganza at Arnold's house.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Nick Liao. With help from associate producer Sarah Begar. Research by Alyssa Grawl. Editing by Jerron Ferguson. Engineering and mixing by Rich Garcia. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant. Special thanks to Hidden City Studios.

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