He might be an incredibly rich and even more famous icon that’s comfortably among pop culture’s most recognizable figures of the last 50 years, but it took Arnold Schwarzenegger an awful lot of hard work to get there.
The scrawny kid from a small Austrian village decided that he was going to conquer the world, which he did several times over after emerging at the top of the field in bodybuilding, cinematic superstardom, politics, and even real estate. He’s had a hell of a life and even more remarkable career, so hearing him pass judgement on the current state of the world has a lot more weight to it than simply the latest installment of “Old Man Yells at Cloud.”
Appearing on The Howard Stern Show, the Austrian Oak shared his thoughts on the necessity of facing up to hardships, challenges, and discomfort of both a physical and mental nature in order to succeed and thrive.
“There’s no shortcut, you have to put the work in… The human mind can only grow through resistance. You can only strengthen your character, become a really strong person, if you have resistance, if you fail, if you get up again. The more you struggle, the further you’re going to go and the stronger you’re going to get. That’s just the way the world works.
Anyone who tries to baby themselves and pamper themselves, and try to protect themselves… it’s over. You’re never gonna get there. You have to be able to accept pain, misery and discomfort, all the things that you don’t like. Because the more you experience the things you really don’t like, the more you can go and the tougher you get and the more you can handle. It’s that simple.”
Casting his gaze towards the youth, Schwarzenegger opined that people shouldn’t be coddled, with pain often a pathway to bigger and better things.
“So many young kids these days shy away from that, but you have to be attracted to that. Don’t start creating a generation of wimps and weak people… Let’s not over-baby people. Let’s go and teach kids to be tough, to do sports, to study and struggle and go through these kind of painful moments sometimes.”
Whether you agree or not, you can’t argue that the methodology worked wonders for the former Governor of California as he applied it to his own life, so maybe his wise words are well worth listening to.