Be Useful

Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger loomed large in my teen years. On the wall of every gym, I worked out in, invariably there he was flexing his gigantic muscles as a reminder of the possibility of the perfection of the male form. His physique was intimidating and not only as the bodybuilder but as the action hero movie star in films such as Conan, Terminator and Commando. In the 1980s, aspiring gym junkies pumped iron in the shadow of pics in every gym of the 7-time Mr Olympia. Schwarzenegger, more than anyone, transformed bodybuilding and brought lifting weights into the mainstream.

Reading Schwarzenegger’s new book Be Useful , alongside watching the biopic, I learned that it is not the bodybuilding Arnold or Arnold the movie star or even Arnold the politician that emerges as the hero. Instead, the hero of the Schwarzenegger story is this person who embodies hardwork, determination and discipline.  The importance of this message has been on my mind for some time,  especially because we seem to live in an age when, young people in particular, expect instantaneous success. Where YouTubers or Instagramers appear to become overnight sensations with little effort. This seems to be one of the themes of the social media age. This era of capitalism is the era of instantaneousness/immediacy Everything, all the time, whenever you want it. However, life is not like this, and that is Schwarzenegger’s message. It is a timely message and one that comes through pretty much every page of this book. I think the book has a lot of wisdom in it. I respect Schwarzenegger a lot but I’d have called it 2 tools for life and 5 other ideas that will help you.

His other tools are; have a clear vision, big thinking, direct communication, resilient problem-solving, open-minded curiosity and a commitment to giving back.

Giving back is one that is another valuable one. My only criticism of the book is that Schwarzenegger puts it last, and in his life, it is placed as the thing he can do because he has achieved what he has achieved. To be fair to him, I don’t think this is necessarily how he meant it, but given where it is located in the book and the chronology of events that he uses to illustrate

Schwarzenegger claims that he learned from his father the idea of being useful. Putting aside the complexity of that relationship and possibly hundreds of hours of therapy that Schwarzenegger needed to reconcile himself to his upbringing, it is a lesson that many of us can learn from.

Being useful is a fabulous approach to living life. Seeing life through this lens can provide purpose and, from my own experience, joy.  But what does Schwarzenegger mean by being useful. In essence, Schwarzenegger is pleading with all of us, and he does plead, to live a life that is meaningful and one that is dedicated to serving others. This is a good message and one that is well timed in a time where the idea of “me-ism” is all around us. That said, in essence the book is most compelling when it leads up to the benefits of hard work. On page 75, Schwarzenegger says:

“If there is one unavoidable truth in this world, it’s that there is no substitute for putting in the work. There is no shortcut or growth hack or magic pill that can get you around the hard work of doing your job well, of winning something you care about, or of making your dreams come true.”

He is absolutely right. But it is not just greatness that requires hard work. It’s the mundane, the daily stuff that we often take for granted that might be the hardest work of all. Our intimate relationships, our parenting, caring for our health, and so on. This is the message I’d like to take from Schwarzenegger’s book more than any other. That in life, good things take effort, and the effort is worth it.

But that said, this is not a book about being a work-alcoholic or one that fetishes climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, this is a book about a life predicated on determination and discipline. Discipline is the building block of Schwarzenegger’s success. As I said above, the hard work ethic is not something it appears that Schwarzenegger reserves for paid employment. There is “work” and there is work and I suspect that for Schwarzenegger the two are often indistinguishable and I don’t mean in the way that many of us felt it during Covid when our dining tables functioned as office, school, and home simultaneously. Rather for Schwarzenegger, work is not what one does. It is what one is. Thus, if we take this equation seriously, instead of focusing on what we do, the most important aspect of work becomes how we do it. This is the underlying message about work from Be Useful.

While I have little doubt that Arnold Schwarzenegger and I would disagree on some key political issues, we agree on some fundamental axioms of life. Work hard, be useful and find joy in labour. As with almost of the modern wisdom that this site will engage, it has been said before. Schwarzenegger’s book quotes from ancient and modern wisdom. The quote that most closely summarises what I believe is Schwarzenegger’s central motif is from Aristotle, who says “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Schwarzenegger’s life, like every life ever lived, has it’s faults, regrets, etc, and he admits to this himself, but those moments aside, excellence has been a habit for Arnold Schwarzenegger through his entire life.

Schwarzenegger’s message is an important reminder  of what really matters in these times of excess, glamour, instantaneous gratification and pleasure. At a time when many, many people spend hours hunched over little devices they carry with them wherever they go, consuming endless entertainment and infotainment, there is much more meaning and enjoyment to be gained from working hard. It’s a simple idea, but maybe it is one of the challenging to achieve.