Explaining Arnold Schwarzenegger - What Makes Him Tick?
Explaining Arnold - What Makes Him Tick?
With the Arnold Sports Festivals in Columbus, Ohio, and Melbourne, Australia, now in the record books slated for March 3-6 it’s somewhat timely to take stock of the mindset of Arnold Schwarzenegger as he continues to break new frontiers and why always at the heart of everything he does he is driven by his philosophy of bodybuilding.
How did he become a worldwide icon in three careers -- bodybuilding, movies and politics? Where did he find the tools and wherewithal to do what he has done? By his own many times admittance his character, his being, his success was forged by bodybuilding and its disciplines. For Arnold Schwarzenegger the road he has traveled always led back to bodybuilding.
THE JOY OF SETS
I once asked legendary photojournalist Albert Busek, who has been a close friend of Arnold ever since the youngster moved to Munich in 1966, to describe Arnold in one word. He replied, “The word would be, Joy"
Jim Lorimer, co-promoter of the Arnold Sports Festival and Arnold's close friend since 1970, says the characteristic that that sets Arnold apart from anybody else he's ever met is, "His capacity for enjoyment. He enjoys everything he does."
Where did that capacity to achieve joy in everything he does come from? Karl Gerstl may help us out. Dr. Karl Gerstl was 28 and a prominent member of Graz's Athletic Union Gym when a 14-year-old Schwarzenegger first visited the gym in 1962. Gerstl became Arnold's training partner, and would translate the English text of muscle magazines into German for the newcomer. As Gerstl remembers it, his charge initially exhibited, "a low pain tolerance." That being said, Arnold persevered and his physique responded quickly which says Gerstl, "was a great stimulus, and Arnold started to work harder. He substituted the feeling of pain with a feeling of joy."
It is not over dramatizing matters to promote the theory that Arnold's three cornerstones for lifelong success, hard work, self confidence, and positive thinking, were molded in the bleak environment of his first gym in Graz, as like some sensory alchemist he synthesized pain into joy. And let’s not forget how far Arnold’s morphing of pain-into-joy would extend. Exhibit A: His "The pump is like coming" statement in Pumping Iron. No wonder he was always a proponent of high reps and sets volume training. Hell, it’s a wonder they could ever get him out of the gym.
The viewpoint that Arnold’s success was generated, in part, by his ability to bring a sense of joy to every project he aimed for may seem simplistic, but anyone who has ever had even the merest personal contact (and even those whose only contact is through TV or cinema screen) speak of his fun loving nature, and his joy in whatever he is doing. Have you ever heard anyone accuse Arnold Schwarzenegger of being a miserable bugger and lacking in a sense of humor?
A final closing argument word on the joy component; the man himself once told me, "Before I ever competed I visualized every rep taking me a step closer to fulfilling my goal of being the best bodybuilder in the world. That’s where my joy of training came from. The joy is what spurred me on."
WHEN LUCK COMES CALLING
Bill Shankly, revered former manager of English soccer giants Liverpool, would when considering signing a new player ask him, “Aye, I know you’re good son, but are you lucky?” The canny manager knew that some gifted individuals just have an ability to attract luck as an adjunct to their talent. This scribe is not saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career was a luckfest. Far from it, but things did happen at opportune times for him, which prompts thoughts of you make your own luck. Or as renowned business writer George S. Clason put it, “Men of action are favored by the Goddess of luck.”
Throughout Arnold’s career it did seem that that some things happened because they were just meant to be. Consider this: In 1968 Joe Weider was making grandiose plans to extend his publishing empire and sphere of influence. Weider was a visionary who knew he needed a charismatic competing figurehead to be in the vanguard of spreading the bodybuilding word. Viola, along comes Arnold who was perfect for that role. Indeed Weider and Schwarzenegger were perfect for each other and together they spearheaded the bodybuilding and fitness explosion of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and built a father-son type relationship (complete with tensions along the way) that endured until Joe’s death in 2013.
In addition was it just meant to be that Sports Illustrated in 1972 assigned Charles Gaines to write a story on bodybuilding as part of their policy of covering a minority sport, and giving it once in a lifetime exposure? The assignment could have been for tiddlywinks or ferret racing. And was it just meant to be that Gaines asked George Butler to come along as photographer to shoot the 1972 East Coast Championships in Holyoke, Massachusetts? And was it just meant to be that Arnold was there as a guest poser and Butler immediately identified the then Mr. Olympia’s star appeal, with the ensuing result of Pumping Iron the book and the movie? A less astute personage than Butler would not have spotted Arnold’s potential, and Pumping Iron may never have happened.
Another instance when some cosmic power seemed to align the stars for Arnold’s benefit was the road that he took to become Governor of California. Since the late ‘90s the scuttlebutt was that Arnold would run for the Governorship but when the 2002 election came around he couldn’t stand for election due to being committed to make T3, and he eyed 2006 as his next window to run for public office. Then in 2003, incumbent Governor Gary Davis was recalled (only the second time that has happened in US history) and on August 6, 2003, on the Jay Leno show Arnold declared he would run. Shortly thereafter he told me, “It was like it was meant to be. I mean I had resigned myself to wait until ’06 but the opportunity just opened up right before me. It was like, Come and get it. What do you want a written invitation?”
And come and get it he did winning the election and becoming the 38th Governor of the state. It shouldn’t be underestimated how fortuitous the recall was. Many politicos insist that the recall allowed Arnold to win because it shortened the election process and his candidacy would not have been able to prevail in the primary system that takes place in a normal election.
COUCH TIME
For more years than perhaps I now care to remember, I have watched Arnold Schwarzenegger's star soar ever higher. For me I’ve always seen a childlike (not childish) quality in out subject. Like a child, Arnold never doubts himself. Unlike others in his boyhood village, he never doubted that his future lay in America. Unlike others, he never doubted himself when it was said that Sergio Oliva was unbeatable. Unlike others, he never doubted that he could capitalize on the filming of Pumping Iron to launch a movie career.
Unlike others, he never doubted that he could parlay his looks, accent and multi-syllable tongue-twisting name into Hollywood superstardom. Unlike others, he never doubted that he -- from the other side of the tracks -- could win the fair hand of Maria Shriver, a member of America's royal family. Unlike others, he never doubted he would be a model and doting father to four children. Unlike others, he never doubted that his future lay in politics. Unlike others, he never doubted he could win California's recall election.
That childlike persona is not innocence or naïveté. It is a countenance and psyche like that of a child--unburdened by a sense of being weary with the world and its disappointments. Oh, he's had disappointments--he just doesn't dwell on them, doesn't let them gnaw away at him, doesn't let them become part of him. He doesn't invite or entertain negativity. He sees the world through the positive can-do eyes of a child. For him, the glass is not half-empty; it's not even half-full; it's an opportunity to open a friggin' bottling plant.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a force of nature. Come on, things have gone his way far too often--against all odds--for it to be coincidence. Somewhere along the way, we all doubted Arnold Schwarzenegger; he never did. As he overachieved in one arena after another, he surprised us all. The one person Arnold Schwarzenegger never surprised was Arnold Schwarzenegger. And that is why he's the singularly unique one and only--there'll never be another--Arnold Schwarzenegger.
TAKEN WITH A PINCH
I once asked Arnold if he ever felt the need to pinch himself in reviewing the life he’d had. He replied, “I don't want to pinch myself too hard, because I don't want to wake up and find the whole thing was really a dream. Can you imagine? I wake up and someone is shaking me saying, ‘Come on, Arnold, it's 5 AM, time to get up and go to the factory.’ Nowhere else but in America could my story have happened. Not just because opportunities present themselves here, but this country, in general, encourages you and inspires you to go beyond your limit.”