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When you grow up in that kind of harsh environment, you never forget how to withstand physical punishment, even long after the hard times end.
after making a hostile demand, Khrushchev said, “It’s up to the US to decide whether there will be war or peace,” and Kennedy answered ominously, “Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be a war. It will be a cold, long winter.”
A lot of our fathers had never had this conversation with us. We realized that if you wanted a girl, you had to make an effort to have a conversation, not just drool like a horny dog.
I came away fascinated that a man could be both smart and powerful.
you work, you make the money, and then you can afford this car; you train and then you win championships. There was no shortcut; you earned it.
Instead of existing, I started to live.
Now all of a sudden there was joy, there was struggle, there was pain, there was happiness, there were pleasures, there were women, there was drama.
The applause had an effect like I’d never imagined.
The audience gave me strength and motivation, and my ego kicked in more. I discovered that I performed much, much better in front of others.
If you let your ego show through, they’d put you in your place. Age eighteen or nineteen is when the mind is ready to absorb this lesson; if you wait till thirty, it’s too late.
It was the kind of place where a nineteen-year-old kid from the provinces had to get streetwise very fast.
exercises that would single out muscles, add definition, and refine my body in ways that are impossible to achieve with free weights alone.
I’d isolate a body part that I thought was weak and give it thirty or forty minutes of my full attention,
It always seemed to me that the biggest obstacle to successful training is that the body adjusts so quickly.
If a guy looked at me in a weird way or challenged me for whatever reason, I’d be in his face. I’d give him the shock treatment: I’d rip off my shirt to reveal my tank top underneath and then I’d punch him out. Or sometimes when he saw me he’d just say, “Oh, what the hell. Why don’t we just get a beer?”
For the first few months in Munich, I let myself get carried away by nightlife and fun. But then I realized I was losing focus, and I started disciplining myself. The goal was not to have fun but to become the world champion in bodybuilding. If I was going to get my seven hours of sleep, I had to be in bed by eleven. There was always time to have fun, and we always had fun anyway.
Being on that pedestal was always my vision of where I would end up. It was very clear: I knew what it was going to feel like and look like.
By showtime, word had gotten around that this monster teenager had shown up from out of nowhere with an unpronounceable name, and he was a goddamn giant.
After that, I never went to a competition to compete. I went to win. Even though I didn’t win every time, that was my mind-set. I became a total animal. If you tuned into my thoughts before a competition, you would hear something like: “I deserve that pedestal, I own it, and the sea ought to part for me. Just get out of the fucking way, I’m on a mission. So just step aside and gimme the trophy.” I pictured myself high up on the pedestal, trophy in hand. Everyone else would be standing below. And I would look down.
They spent their money, and some of them traveled a long way. You can take a few minutes and give them your autograph.” That scolding changed my life. I’d never thought about the fans, only about my competitors.
the bodybuilders would pile into our old cars and head for the countryside and do the gladiator thing—grill fresh meat and drink wine and occupy ourselves with girls. At night I was hanging out with an international crowd of bar owners, musicians, bar girls—one of my girlfriends was a stripper and one was a gypsy. But I was wild only when I was wild. When it was time to train, I never missed a session.
Reg would wake me up at five o’clock each morning; by five thirty we’d be at his gym at 42 Kirk Street working out. I never even got up at that hour, but now I learned the advantage of training early, before the day starts, when there are no other responsibilities and nobody else is asking anything of you.
The limit I thought existed was purely psychological. Now that I’d seen someone doing a thousand pounds, I started making leaps in my training.
how to use being Mr. Universe to attract more customers to our gym. Bodybuilding was still so obscure and considered so weird that winning the championship made no splash at all outside the gyms. I’d gotten more celebrity from lifting the heavy stone in the beer hall.
This was the first time that a man had ever been that nurturing with me. I knew that women were nurturing: my mother was nurturing, other women were nurturing. But to get real empathy from a guy was overwhelming. Up till then, I’d thought that only girls cry, but I ended up crying quietly in the dark for hours. It was a great relief.
Never mind the judging; I hadn’t done everything in my power to prepare. Instead, I’d thought my momentum from winning in London would carry me. I’d told myself I’d just won Mr. Universe and I could let go. That was nonsense.
But I had the big advantage over most newcomers: when you are part of an international sport, you’re never totally alone.
Artie fascinated me. He was very, very smart, yet he had absolutely no ambition. He didn’t like stress, and he didn’t like risk. He worked behind the window in the post office.
Artie snorted, which he often did both because he had bad sinuses and because he found a lot in life to snort about.
I was amazed by how readily people invited me to their homes and by how much Americans liked to celebrate.
Building a totally world-class body typically takes ten years at least,
You sculpt your body the way an artist chisels stone. Say you need to add bulk and definition to your rear deltoid. You have to choose from an inventory of exercises for that muscle. The weight, the bench, or the machine becomes your chisel, and the sculpting could take a year.
The challenge was to take the curse off all those weak points. It’s human nature to work on the things that we are good at.
To be successful, however, you must be brutal with yourself and focus on the flaws.
Bodybuilders who are blind to themselves or deaf to others usually fall behind.
Discovering the hype didn’t bother me, though. Enough of it was true.
My own father gave me advice about being disciplined, tough, and brave, but not advice on how to succeed in business. I was always searching for mentors who could pick up where my father left off.
You practice every pose and every transition because that extra step is the very thing that could make you lose in front of the judges.
Knowing exactly where I wanted to end up freed me totally to improvise how to get there.
College appealed to my sense of discipline. I enjoyed studying. There was something really nice about having to read books in order to write reports and participate in class.
staying on top of the hill is harder than climbing it.
Often it’s easier to make a decision when you don’t know as much, because then you can’t overthink.
I was right in the middle. I could see both sides,
Lucy gave me advice about Hollywood. “Just remember, when they say, ‘No,’ you hear ‘Yes,’ and act accordingly. Someone says to you, ‘We can’t do this movie,’ you hug him and say, ‘Thank you for believing in me.’ ”
He probed and probed. When did I feel in love? When did I feel excluded? How did I feel when I left home? How did I feel when my parents told me it was time to start paying them Kostgeld—food money—if I wanted to keep living in their house? Americans don’t usually do that, so how did it feel? He would latch onto different things until he found the emotion.
To live your life as an actor, you can’t be afraid of someone stirring up your emotions. You have to take the risk. Sometimes you’ll be confused, sometimes you’ll cry, but that will make you a better actor.
But I believed that the only way you become a leading man is by treating yourself like a leading man and working your ass off. If you don’t believe in yourself, then how will anyone else believe in you?
Sometimes being spontaneous and jumping on an opportunity is the only way you can see art being made.
But in 1977 I just happened to be there, and he let me in.
One observation that emerged was that weight training was a better confidence builder than, say, soccer. In soccer, sometimes you make a good kick and sometimes not, but in weight training, you know when you lift four plates that the next time you will be able to lift four plates. This predictability helped the kids gain confidence quickly.
