Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life

by Arnold Schwarzenegger

I then took that philosophy into politics. During my campaign in 2003, I devoured briefing books on every issue that was important in the state of California. Each one was filled with detailed memos written by top experts about obscure topics I never imagined I would need to think about, let alone care about or potentially make decisions about. Things like microstamping on gun ammunition and nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in county hospitals. After my morning workouts down the hill in Venice, I opened the doors of my home to anyone who was willing to teach me about governing, about policy, about the things that mattered to Californians. I was committed to living up to and following through on the promise I’d made to voters during my campaign to be a different kind of politician. So I took those five training hours that I’d previously dedicated to bodybuilding, and then to the craft of acting, and I turned them into a kind of immersion program for the language of politics and government. Every day, I studied and practiced like a foreign exchange student trying to learn the local language, reviewing my notes over and over again, and then speaking from memory until the words came naturally.