37 pages • 1 hour read
Arnold SchwarzeneggerBe Useful: Seven Tools for Life
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Work Your Ass Off”
Chapter 3 stresses the importance of hard work, stating that there is no substitute for working hard in the pursuit of a goal. For Schwarzenegger, it is not only the very thing that makes success possible but also makes the eventual outcome more satisfying. He cites his own hard work throughout his career as a bodybuilder, actor, and politician, outlining how his intense work ethic propelled him to success. His story illustrates the importance of not only repetition and practice but also giving one’s full attention and focus during every “rep.” The practice of fundamentals, often tedious and monotonous, is what leads to remarkable performance in any realm: sports, music, delivering a speech, etc. It is important to embrace boring, routine practice to build muscle memory and perform well.
Along with hard work is the ability to withstand pain. Pain, Schwarzenegger says, is temporary, and the pursuit of a worthy goal should involve some measure of pain, sacrifice, or discomfort. It is also an indicator of growth; he says, “Nothing builds character like resilience or perseverance through pain. Nothing destroys character like succumbing to pain and quitting” (89). He draws a distinction, however, between pain with no purpose and “productive pain” that gets a person closer to their vision.
Hard work also involves follow-through. Schwarzenegger cites the example of the California fires during his time as governor to illustrate the importance of taking care of one’s responsibilities and doing an intensely thorough job. He notes that “so many people are content to depend entirely on plans and systems, or to do the bare minimum asked of them, and then think to themselves, This is all set, I took care of it” (97). A lack of follow-through, he says, is a signal that a person is not going all-out in the fulfillment of their goal and can point to a lack in other areas of life as well. For example, he states that settling for a “half-assed” workout means a person is more likely to underperform at work or in their duties as a parent. Schwarzenegger challenges the reader to do what they say they will do and to complete every job or task thoroughly, which will set them apart from others.
Next, Schwarzenegger prompts the reader to consider how they manage their time and ask themselves how much time they might be wasting. He includes an exercise called “The 24-Hour Countdown,” breaking down a 24-hour day to demonstrate how the average person can dedicate at least an hour to a particular goal.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Sell, Sell, Sell”
Chapter 4 is about the importance of self-promotion and effectively communicating a vision to others. Having an amazing idea, Schwarzenegger says, is a waste of effort if no one knows it exists—without the tools and skills needed to communicate a vision, it will never reach its full potential. This consists firstly of knowing whom to sell the idea to and understanding one’s “customer” or environment by paying attention to people and tuning in to them.
Schwarzenegger asserts that it is vital to publicly commit to a big dream or goal and act as if it has already come true—essentially, overselling. He gives the example of his mission in the 1970s to sell the then-obscure sport of bodybuilding to the world and bring weight training into the mainstream. The idea is to sell a large vision even before it has fully manifested, then “turn[ing] those marketing promises into reality” (134).
He also touches on a key aspect of selling: giving a customer more than they expected. In the case of communicating a vision, this means allowing others to underestimate you or have low expectations, which makes it easier to impress and surprise them later. He goes on to discuss a communication technique called “bridging,” which he has used to take control of hostile discussions and shift the conversation toward a topic in his favor. He shares an example of how he used this technique to his advantage during his campaign for governor in 2003.
Selling yourself and your vision also involves owning your story and being truthful. Schwarzenegger attributes his success in the polls to his authenticity rather than presenting a “phony flawless exterior” (145), owning up to his mistakes and his past. He highlights the importance of telling a genuine story and not allowing others to tell one’s story for them.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Shift Gears”
The main idea of Chapter 5 is to focus on the positive instead of the negative. Schwarzenegger begins with an anecdote about the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the state of California did not have enough ventilators and masks, and how he switched gears from feeling frustrated to acting to fix the problem. He presents a rule—“[N]o complaining about a situation unless you’re prepared to do something to make it better” (156)—and he stresses the importance of confronting problems head-on rather than complaining about them.
Social scientists are coming to understand why people apparently respond more strongly to negative situations and events than positive ones—a phenomenon called “negativity bias,” likely a sort of survival mechanism. However, Schwarzenegger suggests that to thrive rather than just survive, it is important not to focus on negativity. Rather, one should embrace their circumstances and work toward finding solutions and thinking positively. Positivity, he claims, makes life vastly better and even results in better health outcomes. According to oncologists, patients with positive outlooks regarding cancer diagnoses tend to have better prognoses.
Schwarzenegger reflects on some of his childhood hardships and remarks that rather than let them break his spirit, he shifted his attention toward the positive. He looks back on his past positively, recognizing even the hardships as factors that drove him to success. He references the Stoic concept of amor fati—“love of fate”—or appreciating the things that happen to you, adversity included.
He then recounts the story of his heart surgery in 2018, which, as a result of major complications, incapacitated him just as he was set to film Terminator: Dark Fate. Rather than focus on the negative, he focused on his goal of recovering and getting out of the hospital. He cites this commitment to his health as the reason he recovered earlier than anticipated.
He challenges the reader to consider how often they spend time complaining, worrying about things that they cannot predict or control, and carrying around negative emotions. Referencing the previous chapter, in which he discusses managing time effectively to reach one’s goals, he notes that giving into negativity robs a person of time that could be dedicated to pursuing their vision.
Next, Schwarzenegger talks about how to reframe failure, noting that all successful people “will tell you that they learned more from their failures than from their successes” (171). He frames failure as a way of measuring progress, a way to show how far you’ve come toward accomplishing your goal. It tests a person’s limits and allows them to expand beyond them. He tells the reader that it is not their job to avoid or seek out failure, but they should embrace it as inevitable.
He speaks next about doing things differently than they have typically been done, breaking rules, and taking risks. He notes that risk is relative and asks the reader to consider what they have to lose in the pursuit of their goal.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
In this section, Arnold Schwarzenegger shifts focus from dreaming and planning to taking action toward the goal that readers specified in Chapter 1. His tone is stern and blunt without being abrasive; he pushes readers to follow through with their plans while managing to remain empathetic and encouraging. At the start of Chapter 3, he cultivates solidarity with the reader through first-person plural statements, saying:
I bet you and I have a lot in common. We’re not the strongest, smartest, or richest people we know. We’re not the fastest or the most connected. We’re not the best looking or the most talented. We don’t have the best genetics. But what we do have is something a lot of those other people will never have: the will to work (75).
This passage highlights the idea that hard work is the determining factor in one’s success rather than circumstances outside of one’s control. He draws comparisons between himself and the reader to suggest that they, too, can adopt a strong work ethic that will propel them toward their goals. Schwarzenegger’s intense work ethic speaks for itself—he gives examples of his five-hour weight training sessions and the intense dedication he gave to every film he starred in—but he scales this down for the average person who may only have an hour or two per day to spend on their goals. He gives examples and illustrations of how impactful just one hour a day can be toward a goal, translating his success into the sorts of goals the average person might set for themselves.
Schwarzenegger develops the theme of Resilience in the Face of Failure and Adversity by telling readers to expect and even embrace pain and discomfort in the pursuit of their vision. He draws on famous examples like John Coltrane to emphasize the importance of consistent “reps”—in other words, the boring, repetitive steps that achieving a large goal often requires. Coltrane’s vibrant, remarkable saxophone playing was “fueled by countless reps of the most lifeless, boring stuff possible” (85), demonstrating that tedious work is part of the process of achieving greatness in any field. Through tedium and hard work, a person builds character—and through quitting, Schwarzenegger states, they destroy their character and veer further away from their purpose and vision. In this section, Schwarzenegger alludes to his bodybuilding career by using “reps” as a metaphor—a rep is a single exercise in a set, such as one bicep curl in a set of 10. Through this metaphor, Schwarzenegger advises breaking a task down to its simplest, smallest steps and repeating them. He expands his lens beyond his bodybuilding experience through the aforementioned Coltrane example, asserting that his advice is applicable beyond his specific field.
Persisting through adversity also involves learning to sell a vision to those who may doubt it and using that underestimation to one’s advantage. This includes selling it to one’s self. In Chapter 5, Schwarzenegger discusses how to reframe failure as a learning opportunity and to “shift gears” from complaining to focusing on the positive. He states, “Anytime I find myself in a shitty situation and I feel that urge to bitch and moan rising up within me, I stop, take a breath, and tell myself it’s time to switch gears” (163). Though he claims he has always had a talent for finding the positive in bad situations, this statement again cultivates ethos by revealing that he, like anyone else, struggles with negative thoughts as well. His use of swear words here likewise creates an “everyman” tone, mimicking the sort of language people use when they’re frustrated or feel defeated. By citing the psychological concept of the “negativity bias,” Schwarzenegger builds logos in this section, backing up his personal experiences with scientific ideas. He acknowledges that the tendency to focus on the negative is actually a natural urge, but it can be overcome with positive thinking. Consciously reframing negative thoughts allows him to not only accomplish his professional goals but also find more joy and fulfillment in his life. Thus, resilience is about more than personal ambition toward an external goal—it is a key to real happiness in a world where hardship and adversity are inevitable.
In this section, Schwarzenegger underscores The Importance of Having a Clear Vision by encouraging readers to actively share that vision with others. In Chapter 4, he touches on the importance of relationships and collaboration in the pursuit of a goal. It is not enough for someone to believe in their own vision, Schwarzenegger suggests—others need to believe in it for it to be successful. In an extension of positive thinking, Schwarzenegger encourages the reader to sell their dream as bigger than it actually is and then take concrete steps to deliver on that promise. He uses a personal anecdote as a proof-of-concept, recounting how his efforts gave rise to bodybuilding’s mainstream success in the US. In short, he believes that portraying a vision as larger-than-life will inspire others to take part in its manifestation.
