Arnold Schwarzenegger — 7x Mr. Olympia, Terminator, 38th Governor of California, Be Useful | Self Growth Videos

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born July 30, 1947 in Thal, Austria — a small village outside Graz — to Gustav Schwarzenegger (a local police chief and former soldier) and Aurelia Jadrny. His childhood was marked by post-war poverty, a strict military-style household, and — from age 14 — an obsessive commitment to bodybuilding after seeing a photograph of Reg Park, a British Mr. Universe. Arnold has told the story hundreds of times: he saw the photograph, he knew in that moment what he wanted, and he never once since has questioned the vision.

He won his first Mr. Universe title at age 20. At 21 he arrived in the United States speaking broken English, carrying a gym bag and, by his own account, roughly $20 in American cash. He won the Mr. Olympia title for the first time in 1970 at age 23. He won it six more times — seven total, a record that stood for decades. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Superior through correspondence courses while competing full-time, and he made his first million dollars in real estate before he made it as an actor.

The film career that followed is one of the most commercially successful in American cinema history. Pumping Iron (1977) — the bodybuilding documentary — launched him. Conan the Barbarian (1982) made him a movie star. The Terminator (1984) made him an icon. Predator, Commando, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, True Lies, Terminator 2, Eraser, Last Action Hero — a fifteen-year string of films that grossed billions of dollars and put his face on posters in every country on earth. By his forties he had accomplished in filmmaking what most actors never come close to.

In 2003, riding the wave of California’s gubernatorial recall election, Schwarzenegger ran for and won the office of Governor of California as a Republican — becoming the 38th governor of the most populous state in the union. He served two terms, from 2003 to 2011, through the 2008 financial crisis and a series of California budget emergencies that tested every skill he had. He took on positions unusual for his party, especially on climate change (signing the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, still one of the most aggressive state-level climate laws in American history) and stem-cell research.

After leaving office in 2011 he returned to filmmaking and added a new late-career focus: climate activism, political commentary, and direct engagement with a younger generation through his Arnold’s Pump Club newsletter and YouTube channel, both of which have accumulated massive audiences. In 2023 he published Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life — his first book-length statement of the rules he has lived by since his teens: have a vision, think big, work your ass off, sell it, shift gears (adapt), shut your mouth and open your mind, break your mirrors (stop thinking about yourself and be useful to others).

His central teaching, compressed: the reps are the point. Vision is free, but vision without reps is fantasy. He shows up. He has shown up every day since he was 14 years old. The difference between an Austrian bodybuilder with twenty dollars and a two-term governor of California is not talent or luck. It is reps, over decades, in service of a vision that was clear enough to keep him getting up at 4 AM every day for fifty years. Be useful. Don’t be interesting, don’t be famous, don’t be liked — be useful. Everything else follows.