Mr. Universe as role model?

On the recommendation of my favorite coach Mike Litman, I picked up a copy of ARNOLD: THE EDUCATION OF A BODYBUILDER and began reading it last night. Expecting it to be fully an autobiography, I was rather surprised to find that half of it is diet and exercise instructions for bodybuilding, with the aim of "becoming huge," something I, a 43-year-old 5'7" woman with a 3-year-old child, don't plan to be doing any time soon.

However, I was really impressed by his instinctive understanding about how to motivate himself to achieve his goals. Learning at an early age that he was able to control some things about the world and himself but not others, he apparently innately understood how to capitalize on that, set goals, and never waiver, no matter how much negative feedback he received.

His focus on staying on the high road, too, was impressive. There's a long (for the book, the autobiographical portion of which is only perhaps 100 pages) story about moving to Munich to take over management of a gym, and the subsequent realization that the man who hired him and brought him there from Austria was intending to make him his lover. Although understanding that it would further his goals faster if he went along with it, Arnold also knew that he would get there with his pride and integrity intact without the assistance, and without sacrificing his values in the process.

He admits to his failings, too -- his use of women as sexual objects only, his tendency to aggressiveness to build up his self-image when he was not yet himself convinced of his own value. But one of my most important take-aways from this book is that each time he reached the realization of a weakness, whether emotional or moral or physical, he immediately took corrective action. His calves were not developed compared to the rest of his body? He brought them up to his standard. It was the obvious next step. And he extended this into other parts of his life, taking the same approach with his mental and emotional development.

The book was published in 1977, and the photos of the exercises show a Conan-era Arnold. I'm eager to find a Governator-era biography that shows how his fundamental understanding of how to achieve his goals has played out in his acting and political careers.

Much as with his approach to bodybuilding, where you bulk up to get the volume, and then refine to get the detail of muscle definition, I feel certain that the mental Arnold in this book is a bulked-up but not refined product. It would be most interesting to see how he refined his mind after 1977.