Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life

Arnold Schwarzenegger, renowned for his unparalleled achievements in bodybuilding, Hollywood stardom, and political leadership, distills his life's lessons into seven rules for realizing one's true purpose. From humble beginnings in Austria to scaling the heights of success, Schwarzenegger's journey embodies the power of vision, hard work, clear communication, resilience, curiosity, and giving back, all rooted in his father's timeless advice: "BE USEFUL."

In this book, Arnold shares his wisdom and experience distilled in seven tools, providing practical advice through personal anecdotes of triumphs and setbacks, and he illustrates how to apply these tools to forge a fulfilling future. Drawing from his own experiences, he emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, urging readers to embrace their potential and take charge of their destiny.

Below, you'll find some excerpts from the book that I found valuable:

Look in the Mirror!

As uncomfortable as it can be, you have to look at yourself in the mirror every day to know where you stand. You have to check in with yourself if you want to be sure that you’re moving in the right direction. You have to make sure that the person looking back at you is you.

No Plan Bs

Nothing good has ever come from having a plan B. Nothing important or life-changing anyway. Plan B is dangerous to every big dream. It’s a plan for failure. The second you create a backup plan, not only are you giving a voice to all the naysayers, but you are shrinking your own dream by acknowledging the validity of their doubts. Worse, you become your own naysayer.

Break Records and Blaze Trails

Fulfilling a dream gives you the power to see further and deeper – further out into the world toward what is possible, and deeper into yourself to what you are capable of.

Why aim for the middle? Why settle for “good enough” before you’ve even done the work to see what you are capable of? What do you have to lose? It’s not like dreaming up a big vision takes more energy than dreaming up a small one. Try it. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil. Write down your vision. Now cross that out and write again, only bigger. See, the same amount of energy.? It’s no harder to think big than it is to think small. The only hard part is giving yourself permission to think that way.

Reframe Failure

If anything, when you look at it with the right perspective, failure is actually the beginning of measurable success, because failure is only possible in situations where you’ve tried to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. You can’t fail when you don’t try. In that sense, failure is kind of like a progress report on your path to purpose. It shows you how far you‘ve come, and it reminds you how, far you still have to go and what you have to work on to get there.

In the gym, failure doesn’t equal defeat, it equals success. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always been comfortable pushing the limits in everything I do. When failure is a positive part of the game you play, it’s much less scary to search for the limits of your ability and then once you’ve found those limits, to grow beyond them. The only way to do that, though, is to constantly test yourself in a manner that risks repeated failure.

But when it comes to achieving your vision, it isn’t failure you have to worry about, it’s giving up. Failure has never killed a dream; quitting kills every dream it touches.

Risk is Relative

If you’re afraid of risk it might help to reframe risk the way we have reframed failure. Risk, in my opinion, isn’t real. It’s not something you can hold on to or count on. No two people have the same definition for it. It’s a moving target. It’s made up. A perception.