Be Useful
2023 • 283 pages
Ratings9
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings9
Average rating4.3
The seven rules to follow to realize your true purpose in life—distilled by Arnold Schwarzenegger from his own journey of ceaseless reinvention and extraordinary achievement, and available for absolutely anyone. The world's greatest bodybuilder. The world's highest paid movie star. The leader of the world's sixth largest economy. That these are the same person sounds like the setup to a joke. But this is no joke. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And this did not happen by accident. Arnold’s stratospheric success happened as part of a process. As the result of clear vision, big thinking, hard work, direct communication, resilient problem-solving, open-minded curiosity, and a commitment to giving back. All of it guided by the one lesson Arnold’s father hammered into him above all: be useful. As Arnold conquered every realm he entered, he kept his father’s adage close to his heart. Written with his uniquely earnest, blunt, powerful voice, Be Useful takes readers on an inspirational tour through Arnold's toolkit for a meaningful life. Arnold shows us how to put those tools to work, in service of whatever fulfilling future we can dream up for ourselves. He brings his insights to vivid life with compelling personal stories, life-changing successes and life-threatening failures alike—some of them famous, some told here for the first time ever. Too many of us struggle to disconnect from our self-pity and connect to our purpose. At an early age, Arnold forged the mental tools to build the ladder out of the poverty and narrow-mindedness of his rural Austrian hometown, tools he used to add rung after rung from there. Now he has shared that wisdom with all of us. As he puts it, no one is going to come rescue you—you only have yourself. The good news, it turns out, is that you are all you need.
Reviews with the most likes.
Part autobiography, part motivational self-help – basically the script to a commencement speech. Arnold is definitely a legend and he knows it. His advice is reasonable, if a bit (ok, maybe more than a bit) driven by boomer-era masculinity and self-reliance. Overall it works for me: His candor, wit, and charm (“I still want my money back for those accent-removal classes”, lmao) make it hard to not feel a little inspired.
Simplistic, Perhaps A Touch Naive And Even Self-Centered, But Nothing Technically Wrong. This is one of those self-help/ memoir combinations that perhaps would work best for someone who is truly at rock bottom and can't think of any way out of their current life or any way to better their current situation. Particularly if such a person had never had a parent or elder in their life to teach them these very basic lessons that many parents teach early on. So that is actually another way of looking at this: as a grandfather stares at his own mortality, these are the lessons he hopes to impart to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Yes, there is a lot of "I did this, so you can do a version of it too" - and, at the end of the day, a LOT of advice tends to be based around that idea, not just in this book. There actually weren't as many specifics of Arnold's life as one might think in here, as he actively states at the beginning of the book that he knows he made some mistakes and destroyed his family, but this book isn't about that.
Yes, there is also quite a bit of repetition of the basic, simplistic, perhaps a touch naive points. Here again, as many any educator will tell you, the primary way to teach is to repeat. Over and over and over. Yes, there is also quite a bit of repetition of the basic, simplistic, perhaps a touch naive points. Here again, as many any educator will tell you, the primary way to teach is to repeat. Over and over and over. Yes, there is also quite a bit of repetition of the basic, simplistic, perhaps a touch naive points. Here again, as many any educator will tell you, the primary way to teach is to repeat. Over and over and over. Yes, there is also quite a bit of repetition of the basic, simplistic, perhaps a touch naive points. Here again, as many any educator will tell you, the primary way to teach is to repeat. Over and over and over. (See what I did there? Arnold wasn't anywhere *near* as blatant in the book, though he did in fact repeat his key points often, particularly referring back to earlier "lessons" in later chapters.)
Overall this truly was an interesting look at a clearly intelligent man who has lived a life many of us could only wish for, and the lessons he has picked up along the way. Perhaps a touch simplistic and naive, but if viewed from the perspective of a grandfather staring down his mortality and expressing the values he wishes to teach to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it makes a bit more sense. Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
