Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life

“If you read anything about me, though, you probably already know that I didn’t give up. In fact, I relish the challenge of having to climb back up. It’s the struggle that makes the success, when you achieve it, taste so sweet.”

Here in the introduction, Arnold Schwarzenegger introduces a key theme: Resilience in the Face of Failure and Adversity. As he explores in later chapters, the hard work required to accomplish a goal makes its fulfillment so satisfying. In this introductory chapter, Schwarzenegger opens on a vulnerable note by discussing his personal and professional failures and building rapport with his reader. These confessions and Schwarzenegger’s reputation as a bodybuilder, actor, and politician create ethos in the text, situating him as a reliable advice-giver. This quote shows his tenacity in the face of his failures and his willingness to take accountability for them.

“[T]here are groups out there […] that are taking advantage of people’s misery and selling them nonsense, feeding them lies, and inflaming their grievances. All for profit or political gain. These forces are incentivized to keep people miserable and helpless, and to obscure how simple it should be for them to engage with the tools of usefulness and self-sufficiency that are the primary weapons in the fight against unhappiness and apathy.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger touches on an uncomfortable truth here, claiming that industries and institutions, whether for capitalistic or political gain, benefit from a population that feels too defeated and helpless to improve their circumstances. He decries the negativity in today’s culture and aims to encourage an apathetic audience to uncover their potential and understand their power to change their lives. Schwarzenegger is affluent and a politician, so he builds ethos by evoking his insider status when referencing others who seek “profit or political gain” by preying on others.