Starts a little slow, but really picks up after the first 4 chapters.

Arnold has an incredible back story and has done all the things (and then some).

From being in Austria, to coming to Cali, to becoming a body builder, a movie star, and then straight to Governor. He's done the work, and then wrote a couple books along the way too.

This was an intense long read, but was so enjoyable, and interesting.

Definitely recommend.

3.5/5

I read this years ago and thought it was brilliant very inspiring I suppose. It’s not really relatable but it’s kind of just mad how his life has been. The first half is better I think it can get a bit samey once he is making mega bucks and all the big movies getting into politics ect but the early days are great.

I listened and o the audible version recently assuming it would be read by him but it isn’t…. Only the first chapter which is why I am giving this 4 not 5 stars.

I listened to this on a long drive. It is pretty amazing all the things this man has accomplished!

This book was wildly uneven. The childhood and bodybuilding parts were great--passionate, exciting, funny, and full of the inspirational anecdotes that constitute the mythology that is Arnold. Then the book shifted into his movie career and quickly devolved into tedious plot summaries. I am tempted to locate a copy of his 1970s memoir, "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder" to see if the entire first section was lifted from that book and expanded into this boring, bloated beast. The chapters on his run for governor show a little of that earlier spirit of determination and goal-reaching, but as soon as he's in office, it goes right back to being a tedious chronicling of seemingly every political issue and day in office. He was definitely in need of a much stronger editor. This book could have been 2/3 the size and been much more enjoyable.

This was a great book. You really get an idea of who Arnie is. What a crazy life. Highly recommend

K some more rants - I forgot to mention last time about how annoyed I was about him being so harsh on worker's comp claims. He gave out two anecdotal stories about people he knew who were cheating the system - and basically implied from that knowledge that everyone was scamming the system. So annoying.

Next, was him hurting Maria even more. When he decided he was going to run for re-election, she had to find out through the newspapers. Then he bragged that at the end of his governorship that Maria gave a speech that was like 'oh at first I didn't want him to get into politics, but now I'm glad he did. I was wrong and he was right'. To me it come off as him like rubbing it in her face that he was always right. And again, he was basically super proud that she was being subservient to him. Then, when he finally admits to having a kid with the nanny - we find out that she'd asked him about it previously and he lied about it. Why am I not surprised? F--k you Arnold.

K, next rant comes from his 10 rules chapter. As he's talking about never following the crowd, he says this: "When every immigrant I knew was saving up to buy a house, I bought an apartment building instead." Sigh - he's so fucking wrapped up in how amazing he is, he doesn't see how stupid this is. The other immigrants didn't even have enough money for a house, how the fuck were they supposed to buy a fucking apartment building???

At the same time that I'm reading this, I'm also reading Malcolm Blackwell's Outliers. Arnold would have been such a good case for Gladwell - he got so many advantages that helped him get to where he's at -- but I feel like he still believes he did it 100% on his own.

Also, I was annoyed that Arnold only sleeps 6 hours a night and expects that everyone else is the same way...Ok, ok, now I'm just getting nit-picky because I'm so annoyed by him!!!

I'd say I pretty much was enjoying the book, but once he started on about the political shit, the tone was totally different and I just... hated him. By that point, all this stuff that was bothering me from earlier in the book just kept compounding. UGH.