Arnold Schwarzenegger

I started to be a weightlifter a long time ago. From the moment I clenched the barbell and lifted it above my head, I felt it was exciting, and then I knew that this was what I was going to do.

I remember my first real exercise. There is a gymnasium eight miles from my hometown in Austria. I went to the gymnasium by bike. I trained there for half an hour; They say you should stop after half an hour, or your body will be very sore. But half an hour later, I looked at my body and nothing happened. So I said, "I'd better exercise for another half an hour." So I took some more. My strength didn't improve. I didn't see any muscle protrusion or anything like that, so I trained for another half an hour. After another half an hour, I trained for another half an hour, a total of two and a half hours.

After that, I went home by bike. After the first mile, I was numb. I couldn't feel the handle of my bike anymore. I fell off my bike and fell into a ditch on the side of the road. When I got up the next morning, I was so sore that I couldn't even lift my arm to comb my hair. I had to ask my mother to help me comb my hair. You know how embarrassing that is. But you know what? I learned a very important lesson that pain means progress. Pain is progress.

After two or three years of training, determination and hard work, I really changed my body and my strength. This tells me something. If I can change my body so much, then I can change anything else. I can change my habits, my intelligence, my attitude, my thoughts, my future and my life. That's exactly what I did. I think this lesson applies to people as well as countries. You can change, China can change, and everyone in the world can change.

I remember the first time I went to America, I was participating in the World Bodybuilding Championships. I lost. I collapsed. I feel like a loser, a big loser. I cried, in fact, because I felt that I had let down my friends and myself. But the next day I pulled myself together and changed my attitude. I said, "I want to learn from this lesson." After that, I continued. My career has taken off and everything I want to do has come true. The first is to become a bodybuilding champion. Later I became a movie star, and then I became the governor of California, the sixth largest economy in the world.

All this happened because of my dreams. Even though others told me those dreams were false and crazy, I stuck to my dreams. In Hollywood, they say, "You will never succeed. You have a German accent. No one in Hollywood has ever succeeded in using a German accent. Yes, maybe you can play some Nazi roles or something like that, but you can't be a protagonist with an accent. Plus your body, you are overdeveloped, and you have these muscles. They made the Hercules movie 20 years ago, which is out of date. Your name, Schwarzenegger, will never appear on the movie poster. Forget it, you won't succeed. Go back to the gym. "

Well, the rest is history. After Terminator 3, I became the highest paid movie star in Hollywood. Let me tell you something, it goes on. Even when I ran for governor, people said, "Arnold, you will never be governor of California. How much do you know about the government? " Well, I'll keep campaigning. I listened to my dream, and the rest is history. I became governor. So those dreams always take me forward. So bodybuilding gave me confidence, movies gave me money, public service and being a governor gave me a goal beyond myself.