Motivational Success Story Of Arnold Schwarzenegger -From Poor and Rejected To Successful World Icon

Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in a small town in Austria. His family was very poor and money were always a problem. He had a very difficult childhood. His alcoholic father, who was a police officer and a part of the Nazi party, was always very strict and abusive towards him. His goal was to make him more submissive, obedient and afraid of him. But that had an opposite effect on Arnold. They didn't want to create an individual. It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform and whose will could not be broken. Therefore, I became a rebel. Every time I got hit and every time someone said, you can't do this, I said, this is not going to be for much longer because I'm going to move out of here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody. Every time he hit me, every time he said weight training was garbage, that I should do something useful and go out and chop wood. Every time he disapproved of me or embarrassed me, it put fuel on the fire in my belly. It drove me and motivated me. His father started forbidding Arnold to go to the gym with the intention to discourage him, so he would give up on his ridiculous dream. But that didn't stop Arnold. He turned everything he could find in his home into improvised weights and continued to exercise. He was even working out outside in freezing temperatures. When Arnold told his friends about his dream to become the world's greatest bodybuilder, they all laughed and didn't believe in him. But he didn't care. He found his life purpose and nothing could stop him. He trained very hard and started going on competitions. While he was serving one year in the Austrian army, he escaped from there so he can be a part of a competition. He came back with a trophy, but spent a week in a military prison as a punishment. But he trained hard because he knew that bodybuilding was his way out of that small town and out of all the hardships he faced there. At the age of 21, with little money, barely speaking English, he moved to America to fulfill his dream. But his path to success was filled with struggles. In 1969, Arnold got his first role in Hercules in New York. He also continued to focus on his bodybuilding career. And because his education was very important to him, he enrolled in college. In 1970, he won his first of seven Mr. Olympia titles. I went to college. I went and worked out five hours a day. And I was working in construction because in those days, in bodybuilding, there was no money. I didn't have the money for food supplements or anything. So, I had to go to work. So, I worked in construction. I went to college. I worked out in the gym. And at night, from 8 o'clock at night to 12 midnight, I went to acting class four times a week. As I did all that, there was not one single minute that I wasted. You see, if you don't have a vision of where you're going, if you don't have a goal where you go, you drift around and you never end up anywhere. In front of me is the Mr. Universe title. So, every rep that I do gets me closer to accomplishing that goal, to make this goal, this vision into reality. Every single set that I do, every repetition, every weight that I lift will get me a step closer to turn this goal into a reality. So, I couldn't wait to do another 500-pound squat. I couldn't wait to do another 500-pound bench press. I couldn't wait to do another 2,000 reps of sit-ups. I couldn't wait for the next exercise. So, let me tell you something. Visualizing your goal and going after it makes it fun. You got to have a purpose no matter what you do in life. You got to have a purpose. Arnold gained worldwide fame in Hollywood as an action film icon. His breakthrough movie was Conan the Barbarian. Also, he got the lead role in the iconic movie Terminator. But many incredible roles followed and he became one of the most popular actors in the world. Today, he is a bodybuilding icon, an accomplished actor, 38th governor of California. His net worth is 400 million dollars. But that didn't happen overnight. He overcame many struggles to be where he is today. The agents told him that with his body and his accent, he would never make it to Hollywood. They told him to forget about his dream to become a big movie star. I remember that after I was finished with my bodybuilding career, I wanted to get into acting and I wanted to be a star in films. You can imagine what the agents said when I went to meet all those agents. Everyone had the same line that it can't be done. The rules are different here. They said, Look at your body. You have this huge monstrous body, overly developed, that doesn't fit into the movies. And the agents also complained about my accent. They said no one ever became a star with an accent like that, especially not with a German accent. But I didn't listen to all this. Those were their rules, not my rules. I was convinced I could do it if I worked as hard as I did in bodybuilding, five hours a day. And I started getting to work. I started taking acting classes. I took English classes, took speech classes, dialogue classes. I even took accent removal classes. But let me tell you something. I had a good time doing these things and it really helped me. And finally, I broke through. I broke through and I started getting the first parts in TV. And how did he accomplish all of that? By working hard and believing in what he was doing. He always had a clear vision and nothing could stop him. You can't get around the hard work. It doesn't matter who it is. Work your ass off. There is no magic pill. There is no magic out there. You cannot get around. You have to work and work and work. And it drives me crazy when people say they don't have enough time to go to the gym for 45 minutes a day and work out or to do something for 45 minutes to an hour a day to improve. If it is physically improve or if it is mentally to improve. Imagine you read one hour a day about history. How much you will learn after 365 hours in one year. Think about if you study about the history of musicians, of composers. How much you would know. Imagine if we would work on the business and some business that you wanted to develop every day for an hour. Imagine how further along you will go and get. So it drives me nuts when people say we don't have time. We have 24 hours a day. We sleep 6 hours a day. So it gives you still 18 hours. There is someone shaking their head out here to say probably I don't sleep 6 hours. I sleep 8 hours. Well, just sleep faster. So we have 18 hours a day. The average person works around 8 to 10 hours. So let's assume it's 10 hours. So we have 8 hours left. Then you travel around an hour a day, maybe 2 hours a day. So now you have still 6 hours left. What do you do with these 6 hours? So you got to work hard. His incredible success story showed us that he was never afraid to fail. Ever. Even when the odds were against him. Even when nobody believed in him. Failure didn't stop him. He failed so much in his career. But after every failure, he became even more determined and more dedicated to his goals. Well, let me tell you something. Don't be afraid of failing because there is nothing wrong with failing. You have to fail in order to climb that ladder. There is no one that doesn't fail. We all fail. It's okay. What is not okay is that when you fail and you stay down. Whoever stays down is a loser. And winners will fail and get up. Fail and get up. You always get up. That is a winner. I failed in bodybuilding. I lost bodybuilding competitions. I lost powerlifting competitions. I lost weightlifting competitions. I had movies that went into the toilet and that were terrible and got the worst reviews. Hey, we all lose. We all have losses and it's okay. That's why I say don't be worried about losing. Because when you're afraid of losing, then you get frozen. You get stiff. You're not relaxed. You got to be in order to perform well in anything. If it is boxing or if it is on your job or when you're thinking, it's only happening when you relax. So relax. It's okay to fail. Let's just go all out and give it everything that you've got. That's what it is all about. So don't be afraid to fail. So, what's your story?