Tetragramatine. I think when I was maybe around 18 years old, that's when I was always said and turning my visions into reality. I went to the National Bodybuilding Championship. It was 18 years old. I was in the Stuttgart and I won. And there was a scout like, oh my God. I won my first in the national. The junior Mr. Europe, the junior best skilled man of Europe. This is unbelievable. I mean, this is the first time I've asked you, I won, and in the national competition like that.
And I feel like my dream and my vision that I had for my bodybuilding career is becoming woodward reality. And so I felt like it really worked because it was chasing this vision. And then eventually with the age of 20, after winning Mr. Europe, when I was 19 and then another in missing the national competition. Then I went to the Mr. Universe contest with 19 in the place. And I saw the very blood flow and to the very theater, the Dredge Park that Steve Reeves and my idols won Mr. Universe.
And I said to myself, I cannot believe that I'm actually standing at the same podium as my heroes and my idols were standing on. And then, sure enough, that inspired me so much that I became runner up. I could place winning at the age of 19. This has never ever been heard of something like that. I became kind of the new sensation. The young far boy from Austria, OVU should see his arms. He's just got to be the next boss.
He's got to be the next champion in order to, we should have a year later come back with the age of 20 and then became the youngest Mr. Universe ever on that very same stage. So that very vision that I had of Redge Park winning Mr. Universe, but placing my head on it, that's the way I was visualized it. And people screaming from the balcony, I'm all done, I'm all done. In order to, all of that became an absolute reality, exactly the way I visualized it.
So I think that between 18 and 20, I realized this is amazing that my dream and my vision become a reality. And so it became natural to be to then do everything like that, to start really concentrating on what is my next movement. So I started getting a lot of thoughts, a lot of visions and a lot of dreams and I started not acting them out. How much of bodybuilding was mental? We think of it as a physical thing, but tell me the mental game of bodybuilding.
Well, I would say everything is mental, even though in order to achieve the goal, it's physical, but first you have to kind of create a vision in the goal. So that comes from your mind. I had a very clear vision of what I wanted to look like and what composition I wanted to win and all that stuff. And then you start working out and then you realize, you know, it takes a lot of discipline and it takes a lot of kind of planning.
So you can have a vision of what your body should look like when you still have to not figure out, how do you train to get there? How do you make this vision become a reality? And so that's what I needed to do for the program together. And again, I learned some of the masters that were already Mr. Universe and Mr. Great Britain and Mr. America and all of those titles. And I studied their routines and I started copying their routines in some ways.
Of course, you have to kind of create your own routine because everybody is different. Every body type is different. So I just had to kind of really understand this is what I wanted to look like. And it's kind of sculpting. You have to have the same kind of mentality and mind of an artist that is sculpting a sculpture except you're doing it on your own body. And instead of using clay and chisels and all of that, you're very stiff in the equipment to chisel and to board.
And you do it with machines and with exercises. And so I kind of create this body. And so it's totally meant that you have to have that vision all the time in front of you and then you have to know exactly okay, I need to read down to it. I need one of the lower back striations. I need water, PCU's muscles. I need more striations in the pectoral muscle.
And there's specific exercises for each of those kind of body parts that you have to know and then you have to do and then you have to know what are the reps, what are the sets. So you have to have a total understanding of the way the body is being created. And what you need not just to copy someone else but what do you need for the new body needs, since your body is different than maybe your idol's body. So I think a lot of that is metal.
I think that this is metal understanding that you need training partners that motivate you. This is metal. You have to keep your continuous motivation. So there's the long term motivation, which is your long term goal revision. But then there's short term goals where you have kind of say, okay, I made five months from now. So it comes to the true lie and I have made the national politics. I have to bench breast in us 300 pounds and I have to go and have my arms developed to 20 inches.
But did they have the competition? So this is the more short term goals. The long term goals is just to have the overall vision. But I say, I want to be the greatest body goal of all times. I want to be the most massive, the most defined, the best pose and all sorts of things. So a lot of the whole motivation for you to go to the gym every day. Everything comes from your mind. So I would say it's as much a mental game as it's physical game.
There's another aspect to your mental game of bodybuilding that nobody talks about. When you entered bodybuilding, it was a tiny fringe subculture. It seems like in addition to your vision, building your body that no one had ever seen one like before, before you people did not know about bodybuilding. It's like with Bruce Lee, people didn't know about martial arts before Bruce Lee. Right. What was interesting about it is I talked a lot about that in my book. It'll be useful.
It's sell, sell, sell. A lot of the important things is to really communicate and to make everyone become part of it. Because if you don't really sell your sport well and if it isn't a popular sport, it'll never chance to make money in it. So it was very important to me that I get the sport to the level.
Now when I started out, I thought it was at that level because when I looked at Joe Wheat as magazines, I saw the international Federation of Bodybuilding and I read about all this bodybuilding, one of the world training, training principles. And I saw bodybuilding running around with surfboards under the arms and with the older girls around them.
I saw them being in movies and doing, you know, we don't make waves and all the things with the Dave Draper did or the Hercules movies that Steve Reeves and Rich Park did or that Brad Harris did, Commissa X, which is a cop show in Germany and he's a bodybuilding champion. So all those bodybuilders were working and doing it. This is really huge. This is like a gorilla to go for the tennis.
For them and I came to America, I realized that the magazine that Joe Wheat published, the bustle fitness and flex and all those magazines, that it was exaggerated, that it was kind of like a take off the child's atlas kind of ads, you know, where you kind of like
you're skinny and you're lying down the beach, someone kicks sand in your face, you don't know what to do, know that they grab your girlfriend and they take her away and you're like an idiot sitting there, you can defend yourself and all of the stuff so you say to yourself, okay, I gotta go and train. So you get a whole of these child's atlas kind of courses and within a few months, next summer comes around the corner, next summer, know what it's gonna do that to be again, right?
And then of course there's exactly the same situation happening again and now you punch the guy out, you take the girl and you're the victim. So this is what Joe Wheat did with his magazines, he kind of like made you believe that you're part of this big big community of his family, bodybuilders, millions of bodybuilders, one of the world that we're training in the best gymnasium, gold gym and the vincers gym and all these different gyms.
But when I came up with America and I looked at those gyms, they were kind of like gyms a little bit better than in Germany and in Austria, but not much. And I felt that Roger Wheat doesn't have really airplanes to deliver food supplements and equipment all over the world. This was a promotional picture where he painted his name on a plane and that was it. And you know, the oldest trucks that he had kind of advertised and used in the magazines, the none of them really existed.
They, you know, his self was delivered better post office or better delivery services. So it was like totally made up fantasy stuff that I bought in as a kid. Then when I came over here, I realized that is not the case and that bodybuilding was actually not popular here. Nothing that had a terrible reputation, but no one really knew that at the beginning people were always asking, wow, look at the body. And I said, what are you doing here?
I'm dressed for, you know, when we're with your football player, then there's something which is guessed, you know, every kind of a sport other than bodybuilding. And so I said to myself, I think we have to change that. So all of the sudden my vision and my goals expanded. And so instead of just thinking about I got to become the greatest bodybuilder of all time, it expanded to I have to make bodybuilding as a sport, a recognition as what all over the world.
Because then I can benefit much more from the success of bodybuilding. You can make a living else that people will be more interested in seeing me in the movie. So I literally had to hire a public system at the beginning. I remember in 1974, behind the public system that helped us promote bodybuilding and to get needed to my show and then I'm left with a show and then it might type this show.
Notice different shows where I could really explain bodybuilding and get people really excited about it and then they did the book pumping on and then they started writing books on the education of the bodybuilding, the onsen, the sake of the bodybuilding and the speeches on over the world. And so we promoted and promoted, promoted, got into movies and did movies myself.
And now you know, the only thing eventually we did help with many, many other people bodybuilding as exploded this now in the something that literally everyone does and not just guys, but women, very, very popular amongst women because it makes them feel like this is one way of getting a quality. You know, I've got to get strong. I've got to get fit. I can then do the same job that the guys do. I can go to the military. I can go to join the police force.
I can join the fire department because I can get the strongest guys up and I can train for that. So I think that tends to bodybuilding is taken off and it's got to be big. If you were to guess when you started, how many bodybuilders were there in the world? I would say, I would say there were probably, you know, thousands, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, but that's definitely, if you think about that, then the population was around seven billion.
You know, now we have eight billion population. And now I would say that half of the world is working out. It is no two ways about that because we can see how the industry is booming. We can see how much money is being made in the food supplement business, how much money is being made in the equipment business, in the gymnasium business, in the franchise business.
And all of those areas, I mean, it's just really booming now and one where people are joining clubs and they're training at home and they have, you know, their videos that they can follow people online. They can follow people how they access. So it has become a real business in the real phenomenon. Did you ever get to meet Charles Atlas?
No, I never met Charles Atlas, but I mean, I was very happy to meet, you know, Rich Park and Steve Frieves and all of his old legends and that I was able to work with Joe Weeter brought me to America. I was able to meet Bob Halfmother, who was the king of weightlifting back with the AAU. Back in the 60s and 70s, I was able to meet the second client who was one of the early strong men after Joe Sando, a huge in Sando and I met a lot of the old timers.
I met them, but I didn't meet Charles Atlas, no, that didn't meet huge in Sando, which was my hero. Tell me about Joe Weeter. Joe Weeter was an interesting guy that he was a great visionary, you know, he was a great businessman and he, luckily, was affinating about the bodybuilding and about physical culture, about training and exercise and all this. And I think that there was no one that I've ever met that lived just once in nearly 24 hours a day.
And there was not one conversation that he would have with him that is not somehow going back to training and to food supplements, more equipment and stuff like that. Even though he was somewhat of a renaissance man because he didn't only teach me about bodybuilding and about selling bodybuilding and selling equipment and food supplements and how to sell and how to approach the customers, how to build a customer face. But he also taught me about art.
I remember him taking me to art galleries in New York and I remember him taking me to art auctions. I didn't even know there was such a thing. There's an art auction and I came to America and he would take me to this art auction and people buy art. And then eventually I got into it and started making money and started buying art. And I started getting interested in having a collection. So he really taught me a lot about business.
And he always encouraged me to go to business classes which I did when I came to America to English classes and math classes and business administration classes, accounting classes, management classes and all this. Then eventually I got a degree in business administration. And it was all because of Joe inspiring me and saying you got to that about business. And they're only seeing that really counts as to brain and how smart you are because this is something that they can take away from you.
And I think that was because he was a Jew. I think it was part of his religion and his upbringing. The because Jewish people have been taken from the whole history and they've been killed in all of this so that he thought always like we learned a long time ago that the only thing that someone cannot take from you is you know we had television, brain power. And we're so really developed that that is really on the end.
You can buy cars, you can buy art, you can buy houses, you can buy rules that can invest in different things. But the best investment that I had is your head to brain and I listened to him. So there was a lot of other man and women that listened to that helped me to inspire me in this very different directions to go beyond just bodybuilding and learn other things. Were you in love with bodybuilding or was it a means to an end?
Both. I mean it's like I was in love with bodybuilding simply because and that there's something that I wasn't talking about book being used for is that you have to find your talent. You know, I was searching for my talent. I was searching my whole childhood. What is it that I could excel in? What could I be the best in? And then I was playing soccer, I was skiing, I was curling, all of different kind of things. But when I started lifting weights, I felt kind of like something clicks.
I felt I found something that I could be good at. And so first it was weight lifting, Olympic lifting. Then it was power lifting and then it's eventually it turned into bodybuilding. I did them all three for a while and it was fantastic. And they started getting obsessed with that. So the idea of being able to build muscles, to rebuild your body, to build it in the mystery universe, to seek. But at the same time I felt kind of like my dream is to get to America. I was not happy and asked you.
I was not happy growing up around farms. You know, when I saw newsreels and news footage of America, I always felt kind of like that's where I want to be. When I see this high rises of the York, when I see the Golden Gate Bridge, when I see the Sixth Lane Iowans with those big cars, the big wings in the back, going down the highway that's all big Cadillac, several days. I was like absolutely inspired by that. And I said, I got to be part of this country. I got to go to America.
You know, I don't feel like I'm really Austrian. I think I'm America. I mean, I was like, I felt kind of like, okay, now how do you get to America? You know, it's kind of bad ticket. And you can fly with them. And then when you go with it, you can get to be a visitor. How do you get a job? But how do you do any of that? So I mean, I wanted to move to America. So I felt like, well, bodybuilding actually is an American sport.
So if I get really good at bodybuilding, if I become a world champion, I think America would notice me. And somehow, I didn't even think about Chauvita at this point. That's just somehow someone would invite me to America to compete in America at a Miss the Universe, kind of, so Mr. World Competition, Miss Olympia or whatever. And this exactly would happen after one of my second Mr. Universe title in London in 1968.
I always had to go to telegram from Chauvita and then with limitations, I'm sending you the Yuckeleton tickets. I wanted to come to Miami to compete in the Miss the Universe contest. And then maybe you'd think about training over a year and staying over here for a while. As soon as I said, oh my God, this couldn't be true. I mean, another one of my dreams and visions is becoming a reality. It was just unbelievable. So I came to America. I took this opportunity.
Came over here with just a chin bag and literally just in the $20. I didn't have enough money. I remember asking Chauvita in Miami for some money because the surface, if he via a rifle was anxious, I wouldn't have the money to go with a taxi, do an apartment or do the gym by this and like this. So he gave me some cash and helped me out. And I came to America and I never left since. So much of today's life happens on the web.
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Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. Do you think if you were born in America, you would have the same love for it? Or do you think the distance allowed the fantasy to be more powerful? Well, you know, this is obviously just guessing. Yeah, hypercars. We don't know. I cannot tell you where I love America the same way the day I set as an American one. Or do I love it more because I'm a foreign one?
They don't know, but I can tell you one thing that I have a tremendous love for America. And I feel truly that America gave me everything. So America, but the very fact that it's so even there was 10 years old, I sold the footage, black and white footage of America. It was just things that inspired me to get America. It inspired me to get into bodybuilding. It inspired me to become a world champion in bodybuilding. So it can come to America.
And then in the came to America, America helped me to become even a greater champion in bodybuilding. Because now I was training here with the best bodybuilders in the world and with the best equipment in the world. Everything was the best. So America helped me to become the greatest bodybuilder of all time and winning seven install become musicians and five missed universities, Mr. World and Mr. National and all this stuff. The 13 world bodybuilding championships is extraordinary.
I mean, the most anyone is ever one. And then to go on and to get into the movie business and not only to get into it and to be an actor, but to become a movie star, which was one of my dreams and to become a celebrity. And then to do the movie set up, rock, fuzz, the movies, there's a lot of people getting movies, but then to be fortunate enough to work with directors like Jim Cameron or Ivan Ryden or John McTernan, people like that.
John Louis Williams did the Conan the Pabarian and we work with people like that. That is unbelievable. I mean, what a privilege to work with directors like that and they are the ones that made me become the box office hit where you know, when Terminator took him out, it was the biggest movie of the year, not only the best to keep up with the national.
So you know, that really helped my career and it was like my career was style, rock, and I was starting to make like $30 million of movie and to get, you know, 20% back and stuff like that. So that was really great, great feels. It was really extraordinary. So I mean, I learned everything here in America, then that's the responsibility.
So this is why I wanted to let people know that look, here's how I learned my lessons and life and I wrote them down and I wrote them in my book so that others can learn from that because it doesn't do me any good. If only I know about it. I want other people to know about it too. And in other secret secrets, it just comes and stuff that I learned throughout the years in bodybuilding. It didn't a gym and working on movie sets and working in Sacramento as governor and all of that.
I mean, it's unbelievable. The kind of education that I got, I have to say that, you know, just being up in Sacramento at this capital, the capital became kind of like a universe. It was to learn every day. It was like really a base. And you list the great directors that you worked with. If you think of each of them, would you say there are any qualities that they all shared? What made those people so great from your perspective? Well, I think that all of them had vision.
They all, when they tell you the movie that they want to do, you know, they will look out into emptiness and they will kind of tell you of what the movie will be about and what's important in this movie and how you should play the role in this movie and what they're trying to get across. So they were visionaries. All of them. The other thing that is a common thing, it is the kind of thing, again, I mentioned in the book is here, here, the tools for life.
Some of the tools is don't think small, think big. And those guys were big thinkers. So it was not kind of like, all that we do in the movie. You know, it was like, let us do a movie that really would be a huge smash. And they would be daring. I mean, I was like, the chin camera, for instance, you know, he took on this terminator movie and then he did a second lot of the sequel.
But to be able to go and to take the terminator, that machine that was killing everything in the first one and to say, I'm going to go and surprise the people. I'm going to go and make the terminator a good guy that saves people. And then another machine come back from the future and the kind of a destroyer, the terminator. I was like, kind of like doubting it. I was worried about it. And he just, he had the balls to go and say, yeah, that's what the kind of movie we do.
And sure enough, it became the huge hit. It became the huge hit of the entire year by changing the characters. So that's also do that. And I'm in right, he had the balls to take me as an action hero and to say, I'm going to go and make you famous. What is an action hero? But also as a comedy hero. And I said, wow, that will be really fantastic. And he created the movie twins and he said, I'm going to have any divider and you be twins. And so that was funny to be right off the top.
And then he go, you know, to go and to say when the studio said, we didn't want the movie, which was they got the psychology. Then he would put a picture together. He would have to strip to it and he would have to be there. Me, we both going together. We also, we are first going together to top public the University of studio and we go when the hype in the movie and make the deal right there. And he went for it and he even right when saw it as a huge, huge success.
And he was the movie and she enough when the movie twins came out. He was number one at the box office and it made the most money of any movie that I've ever made at that point. So it just shows you how daring this guy is. How much guts they had and how they kind of like did not take a no fun answer. There was a key to it. They said it would never work. Don't do it. This is a big mistake. And the same thing is said to Jim Cameron.
The same thing the state to to John Millius when he said, okay, honor is going to be Conan and Ed Prestman also said that honor is going to be Conan and didn't the right to say that at the beginning. No, no, no, I don't want to. They forced their way through it and that became Conan and she enough after the third day of filming, didn't the right. This came up to me. It wasn't the studio. This warehouse in Madrid that we were filming. We watched the scene that was in the movie.
We shot it at the beginning of the movie. And I remember that there was this freezing cold of warehouse. We shot the scenes and then Peter came up to stairs. I just came right in front of me. He hated it. He didn't want me to become. It came up to me right in my face. And he said, as you're not the leg. Ah, you're Conan. Ah, and turned around and walked off. So John Millius comes over from Iran and over to me. He says, what is he saying? What is he saying? I said, he said, it's a nigga.
You're Conan. And John Millius the director just jumped over me, hugged me, gave me a big, big beer hug. And he says, congratulations, I love congratulations. This is the greatest compliment that you can ever get some dinner. Dino loves the dailies. He watched short of footage with shot the last three days. He loves it. And he can say, honor this Conan. You got that? This is a compliment. This is the great. I said, well, I felt kind of like, I was shocked that he didn't say more.
I mean, I just said, oh, this is none of the, that's all you want there here. He just trust me. That's all you want there. Yeah. That's really fantastic. And so John Millius didn't afford that right away as to go out. You know, to celebrate the whole thing and we were smoking up a storm right then and then they're on the set. But they will be well all of them. And so I was so excited that Dino finally bought in the idea that I'm Conan. And so since then our relationship has been fantastic.
And Dino and I did other movies after that together and he became kind of like a mentor to me and treated me always like a son. And he was absolutely fantastic. So I was very, very sad that he in the past away. I think he was like 91 years old. He never worked that in his life. But he always ate well and lived out in life. And so he passed away with 91 years of my activities. He was a huge cheat. Many passed away. He had to cathedral and down out of Los Angeles. He was just a wonderful man.
It just loves the guy. What's it like going through life, having people over and over tell you you can't do something. And then you do it in the biggest, most beautiful, successful way possible. What does it feel like? Well, I first felt kind of like an idiot because then was the wise, everyone always say, no, you're going to fail in that. Oh, you're never going to make it. You're never going to go to America. What did you really talk about? You want to be a world champion thought?
Why didn't you just American spot? You're asking why don't you try to play soccer or learn to ski or something like that? So everything was always no, no, no. I didn't mean I came to America. I don't want to get into movies to say, oh, yeah, sure, that's a good one. You would movies, I mean, look, calculus movies are out that the new I need to, you know, just half-moneyed up, but she know and the Woody Allen that doesn't the new guys, they're over 120, 140 pounds. You had 250 pound body is out.
I mean, they're forget about it. It's always no, no, no, even when I was going to run for, you know, governor, they say, oh, we have to start the first for mayor, run for mayor, then for state senator, but you can't just go for governor. This is crazy. It's always was no, but then I found out as time went on, system was common saying that people told that if they hear a dream or vision, that is count outrageous, people will just say, it's impossible. It's a natural thing.
I'm sure you have heard that, right? Every step of the way, every step of the way. Exactly. So we every, but it's because you do great things. So of course, when you say now, I want to do this record, I want to produce this record, I want to bring this and this musician together. I want to do this and that's the state of strategic, I don't know where it guys out. He's never going to be in a, it's always something. It's always a reason why they said no, it can't be done.
And so this is wonderful lessons that I talk about also in the book is just done. Kiss to the naysayers. And because if you have a clear vision, that's where you go.
So I think one of the things that all the people, the directors that you mentioned, that work with me, that were really fantastic directors, one of the things that they had in common, all of them was that they had another vision, that they had the guts to do it, that they didn't think small, they thought big, and they didn't use to do the naysayers. Yeah. That's the one of the things.
So I myself now, I feel like it's really a compliment in some of the seasons impossible because it means that kind of goes back to what Nelson Mandela said, everything is always impossible until someone does it. Yes. Right? Yes. Okay. I've been someone said, oh, it's impossible. I don't, it's that make actually motivates me to say, okay, I'm going to show you that it is possible. And then I break this ground and then everyone else can do. Yes. And then everyone else is, it's possible.
You know, I did go back to, you know, weightlifting and there's many other examples because weightlifting I remember, it was always kind of like it's impossible to clean a jerk, to lift overhead 500 pounds or over 500 pounds. They tried, they tried, they tried and everyone always said, this can't be done, this can't be done. You're always failing and all this. And then one time a Russian weightlifting name of Alexiev, he went and he says, okay, I want 498 pounds.
And you want to do, you know, those counts. Third lift, you want to be safe and still break his record. He's got a record of 496. So he wanted to go 498 and because they go back to Russian, it's money for that. So anyway, so it was in Columbus, Ohio and they put on the 498 and he lifted it, pop overhead, weight is down, three green lights light up means it was a good lift.
And now of course, because it's a world record, they have to roll it onto the scale because they have to be three charges seeing that it's sagged, it is, you know, it does plates, it can always be a little bit off. No, sorry, they rolled it out and it was 500 and one pound. Wow. So now the world has seen the human being because they didn't know it was 500 pounds, if you would have known, maybe we wouldn't have lifted it. Yes. But anyway, so now it's 500 one pounds.
They're very same year for other weightlifters, this is the double 500 pounds. Amazing. Being impossible, I thought it was being impossible, but it just shows you the power of the mind. Yes. Because you were asking me how much in a body, but it has to do with the body of the mind. The mind is extremely important in every step of the way in your life. Yes, we can well things with, but the will comes from your mind and being able to say, I don't give everyone says no, as impossible.
I see it, I know I can do it, I'm convinced I can do it and go all out to do it. And so you know, this is in weightlifting, you've seen it in the, remember the formula in the bio running on bio, the formula is endless amount of examples that people have shown that possible becoming possible. You know, so I think the key thing with all of this is, you know it because it's just successful. I know it because I'm successful. But there is a lot of people out there that don't feel they're successful.
And there is always something or a lot of things that are holding them back from being successful. And the little thing like not having a vision, that knowing where to go, what to do next, can trip you up and already make you kind of freeze. And there's a, what should I do? What whether or if they listen to people that say, you can't be done, you're stupid, tell you and try that.
You know, so many things like that, or those people that are just, you know, loners and they don't know how to connect with people. And I always tell people, it is so important to recognize that we are all into kind of like company. We all love to do things together. Don't float around by yourself. It's a waste. You got to be with people, be with people. I love training with people. I love bicycling with people. I like going to dinner with people. I like talking with people.
I like traveling with people. I like going to the football games with people. I like the skiing with people. We have people that need company because then you kind of have great conversations. You inspire each other. You can't do it alone because there's no such thing, right? So that's why I said, there's no such thing as self-made man because we all need this kind of inspiration and this. Oh, so I always urge people.
And that's why I wrote this book because I wanted to let people know here are some of the rules that you can use. They can help you forward and it helps you also to be successful. In today's busy world, daily sauna sessions can help us to relax, reenergize, burn calories, detoxify and soothe the muscles for faster recovery. When traveling, why not bring a solar to go? The bone charge sauna blanket is a convenient mobile alternative to a traditional sauna.
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But when you have friends, you cheat each other and you kind of inspire each other. So when you go to the gym, you just translate into the gym and to the bodybuilding. I would go with my friends and they would be devastated at the balcony in the morning in the gym. They would be working out. And I would just say, all the day I don't really feel good. I don't know. Everything is kind of sore and it's like, I just don't slow with the program the day.
And I'd find God would save my training partner. He was it. So why don't we just use very little weights? Let's just use light weights. Let's just do high reps. And we would light down and we would just do high reps and do with low weights. Then always enough to have an hour. Frank, we always say, let's put our legs up late on it. Let's just try it out.
And then always that and I realize that now I've gotten over this period of everything is painful, everything is sore and blah, blah, blah, blah and all the stuff and something bad about myself. Then always in the gun beyond that and always in the way it's said and so it's really good. And it's okay. Maybe we should go that some more way to next set and sit together and say, you know, I don't feel it great to be out of it. But let's just let's just see how far we can go.
And so you said, talking each other through that and always that because you have two, three training partners, you pop the other up and you forget about this and then always that and you end up with a great, great workout. So this training partner said, pour the out of this kind of dark spot where he didn't feel good when he came into the gym and now you left the gym feeling great and going for lunch and out together with the gang and feeling like they get a great, great pop in everything.
So I think that doing things together and supporting each other and pumping each other I think it's so important and it's also fun. I mean, when I see someone doing an exercise in the gym and they see them in a doing kind of like half reps and they say to them, is it if you plan on doing half reps? No, why am I doing half reps? Wait, I don't want to criticize you.
But the minute it seems to me that if you go and pull down exercise, why not go all the way up to the top with your arms, they put all the way down between the bar goes to the chest and then all the way up again. That's the full motion. I said, that's what I would do. I always found out in my training that the wide-foot movement that better works and then it said, well, thank you very much. It's a kind of you that they say that. I said, well, let me just check it out. Let's go for it.
And then I just called out the reps for them and they feel fantastic. They have just now learned something. So this is how you help each other. Even with bit strangers. I do it with strangers. It makes me feel good that I could help someone else because I know how great it makes me feel someone helps me. Yes. And so this is always like a give and take with everything like that. And then this is why I always say that people give back. Don't just take with give back. It's very, very important.
You can make it feel just as good as receiving. It's giving something. When I was a little kid, your book, the Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding came out and everyone I knew had it. It was like the Bible. It was the reference book that every kid used who was inspired by you or by bodybuilding and just wanted to get into shape. It's amazing. How successful is that book being over the course of its life? Must be insane. It's insane. It's really unbelievable. And so I think that's what it's all about.
I don't know if you remember when Mike Keybist connected us. Yes. Because I called you because I was about to have a surgery and I was terrified. And you had the surgery. So right. And I thought if I talked to someone who had the surgery and lived, it would feel better than just going in blind. And you really helped me a lot. Yeah, but I mean, that's what I'm talking about. See, I've known you. Yes. And I've known your career and I've known your success.
And I know what the speak to I could have reduced you are and record that you make most of the extraordinary records of working with the huge fans and rock and roll stars and all this. I knew what this is. But no matter how successful you are and how powerful you are, that is a scary thing to go through to have a heart surgery. It's a scary thing to do. I know other people, but I went through it.
So of course, when I went through it, I called people and asked him what was it like to have a heart surgery and they will kind of Skype me through it. Don't worry about it. I mean, it's just one of those things in that they would take good care of you. You're going to be the hospital of blah, blah, blah. And so when I learned the deal for a heart surgery and then Michael Keyway said, do you want to talk to him? Of course, I want to talk to him.
I said, because I need to let him know that it is not. It is a big deal, but then I had a son of a big deal because he doesn't have to do anything. You know, the heart surgery is doing all the work. You know, it's just like the other head is pleased here. And then you wake up and then he is with the expect. And so we went through it with the expect when you wake up and from that point on and all this stuff.
And you know, I mean, you've done unbelievable because you've taken all the advice and I mean, how much weight did you lose since then? I lost 130 pounds over the course of when my life was heavy. It's unbelievable. Miracles. I mean, how linear now? I mean, it literally looked like 10 years of you of your life. Yes. I mean, it made the 10 years younger. There's been now, Nina and everything like that.
So, I mean, but this is the very thing I'm talking about is that it made me feel great that I could go and pump you up before heart surgery and then go and make you feel like it's okay. That's just the way it did it because the last thing you want is have the heart surgery and worry about it like crazy. Right? So anyway, so this is the, and the same thing is not. So of course, there will be people that will be calling you and say, Hey, I have heart surgery telling me all about it.
So then you pump them up and you spend the half an hour or an hour or two hours and then phone with them and you talk to them and you make them feel good. Right? Yes. So this is what I'm talking about is it's so important that we recognize we are so powerful if we do things together and not just think that I could do it by myself or I can do it by myself. I'm a self-made man. It's the same. It's all nonsense. We need each other. That is the key thing.
I remember when I called you, you were in Europe. We were in a very different time zone and you were smoking a cigar and playing poker. But you took time out from the game to talk to me and I just remember the scene. It was just such a wild scene growing up watching you now talking to you, smoking a cigar playing poker and trying to calm me down about heart surgery was a wild experience. So I thank you very much again for that. No, no, you're welcome.
How has everything going with the music business? Everything's cool. Making music like a fiend can't stop. So we worked together back on last actually Euro, right? Yes. I produced the ACDC song that was for the soundtrack for the last action hero. Yeah, and then I was in it in the music video. Yes. And then we were really a lot of fun kind of like I think the story was of me going in there and not really improving the crowd that much and just being amazed.
And everything I saw was very close to the musicians and checked out and they made them move since I met the way they played to get down. Or there was a lot of fun doing that because at that time I have done one other one which was with Axel Rose, Guns and Rosers. We have done it for Terminator 2. And so I really enjoyed that. That was also fun to do. And since then, I was like, yeah, that's amazing that I'm getting involved.
Even though I'm not musically inclined, even love music, but I'm not musically inclined. My father played six instruments really with trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, fluid one. And all of those kind of instruments. And he was also the conductor, the Shender Marie, which is kind of the police music in stereo and it provokes the Dan crew up in.
So he was playing a lot of funnels and a lot of times I did this in the city park where he dragged us to listen to him, which was because we had no interest in. So he always wanted me to learn an instrument. So I just never got it. He decided to teach me how to play the trumpet, but I didn't get it. Then he decided to go and have me go to the farmer next door who was also a musician. And he played the guitar. He tried to teach me how to play the guitar and I didn't get that either.
So it was the legacy. I did not understand when they had the music, the notes and all of that. It just didn't quite connect the thoughts there. And so they just gave up. Did your dad used to play in the house? Would you hear him play? Yeah. It was like there was a kid, the most cool colleague that was living a hundred yards from us in the little shack and there were four of them. He was very talented and still that they placed the trumpet with the three of them.
So my father would go with the windows and I was working out outside in our house. And while I was working out, he would be playing the trumpet and my friend then started to take the trumpet across the streets on the other yards away. Also the trumpet. So I mean, the whole neighborhood here, the trumpet had heard all this music and he was going back and forth and back and forth. It was wonderful. Do you think that your dad's work ethic with music inspired your work ethic in the gym?
He was very disciplined and he wrote music and I remember him writing the notes and all the pages of the pages of the pages with the black ink and with the pen, you know, just put the ink well and then just write the music and all that stuff. And so he was really into it. I mean, it was like music was it. And I don't know where he got it really from, to be honest with you because I don't know. I think maybe Marella, they've spent, maybe comes from music, I don't know.
But I mean, he was really into it. You mentioned earlier about when Franco said maybe we'll do lighter weights, more reps. Tell me about heavy weights, less reps versus lighter weights, more reps. What's the philosophy? Well, first of all, it's always better to go lighter weights and more reps. Why?
Because so many people injure themselves because if you don't have a really skilled trainer with you, there's a lot of exercises that you do like squats, dead lifts, bend them or rowing and shoulder presses and something that they really can hurt your back and then you can make it into these and your hips and your shoulders, not itself and upper back.
So I always say to people, if you're trained in most cases, which is rather called lighter than heavier, I have found the joy of lighter training on the back. So then really because we after my heart surgery, the doctor said to me, this is like, we replaced your boughs, so don't go anymore like, you know, it's just kind of like lift 600 pounds.
It's over because every time you do that, you're just training and you keep your ear in and you try to lift a heavy weight, it puts a lot of pressure on that boughs. So the idea of it is to have that boughs last the smallest possible. Eventually, we have to replace the boughs maybe in 10 years from now, maybe in 15 years from now, but the more heavy you train, the faster we have to replace. So that is the reason we forget that I'm going to go and shift now.
I'm going to just do 15, 20 reps everything until the lighter weight that they can easily do and really get kind of concentrated on those mats and get the same pump. And that's what I started doing and I tell you something, my injuries went away and I still felt great physically. I've still got the pump and everything like this. So I realized that it is not advantageous to overload.
Yes, if you are young, you're 15, 20 years old and you really want your muscles to grow and yes, you want to gain strength, then you have to do power lifting training, then you have to go into the first set, 15 reps, then 10 reps, 5 reps, 3 reps, 3 reps, 3 reps, you know, in order to really hit the mind and the body, now this is the way you need to lift. So to get comfortable with the heavy heavy weight.
So yes, the moment like that, I did all of that when I was young, when I was weight lifting and power lifting, competing, you know, the lift is like my best at it. It was like 710 pounds. And with squats, I was doing like 600 and bench press, 525 and all of that stuff. So yeah, I lifted heavy weights, but the comes the time when you get to get off the heavy weights and then lift lighter weights to the exercises correct.
And the key thing now is the mental aspect again that you got to be inside your body when you train. And though just to go and look around and to go see the motion is not going to do anything. You have to really concentrate when I train my bicep, I'm with my mind inside the bicep. When I train my chest, I'm inside my pectoral muscles and my chest. So I really mentally feel and I do chin ups, I feel the lats and the wings in the back, you know, kind of moving in order stuff.
So I think the key thing is to really concentrate and I think that all the great athletes would tell you that the more you are inside the sport, the more you can look at it as a mental thing, the better this field, the more success you will have. LMNT. Element electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? You want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper.
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It's like I remember the weightlifters when they didn't have weights to train with and they would travel around the world to go to a world championship competition. They would just press against some door inside the door which is pressing against the door frame. They would pull against something really hard, something static and they would get just as much of a workout doing that and much much better than not doing anything. That's always I think the key thing.
How did the movie pumping iron come about? Well it's interesting you asked it because it was number one. It was pumping iron that got it pressed the idea to buy the Conan rides and to have me play Conan. Incredible. It was pumping iron. It was not staying hungry or any of the other projects that I've done it was pumping iron because they could show my personality and everything.
Well George Butler who was the photographer for the book pumping iron that came out of 1973 and the writer was Charles Gaines. He came to me in 1975 and said I would like to do the documentary of bodybuilding and be called it pumping iron. I said great Mrs. but the only problem is you have to retire last year for bodybuilding competition so you would have to come back and compete again. Because I don't have a documentary. If you don't compete again I don't have a documentary.
So I said can you let me think about it? I thought about it for a while and then I told him okay I go back to competition. Go down to South Africa. We had the Miss Olympia competition was in Brutoria and the compete again and they would film my training and also my competitors with my competition film their training also. And so that's what they did for the next four months they filmed film film everything on my training and the competition itself and all that stuff.
And then after they've edited it they actually saw some stories that kind of came out of filming that were not fully developed and then they went and shot after it was done in order to make the stories become alive so to speak. But they were not really kind of like true stories. They were kind of like bogus. But the only thing that pumping out of the show and was reality was the training and the competition.
So but everything else when you saw for instance Mike Kat looking for his underwear backstage and it made it sound like Ken Waller. He's combed the friend he kind of hit them to throw him off a little bit. That was only just because they had the footage of him looking for the underwear but now they said let's come back and see Ken Waller say I'm going to hide this underwear. I'm going to fuck up his brain a little bit. I think that he made news because of that.
It's your Mike Kat's loss the competition. Ken Waller said this was the kind of thing since that were kind of like fabricated little things like that. But so they could that's why we only the dark and drama rather than the documentary. But everything else was a documentary. It was a real footage. And because people got really interested in the personalities and the movie it became like a huge hit Ken Waller became one of them was popular documentaries I think of all time. And it was huge.
It was played in the car in car when we opened over there to the film festivals with a huge smash because international release for the movie. So it really got the kind of attention as that regular movie would get except it was the documentary because around 800 thousand dollars I think they're originally 500 thousand dollars the budget eventually made to 850 thousand dollars. And it was a fantastic success. I was very happy that I was in it. It helped my career.
I think when the Hollywood foreign press saw pumping on I think they gave me the more global work for say 100 videos for them because of popping on I think that this or both of these movies then they saw my personality and they got the global works with this active debut because of say I'm great but I think it was also because of pumping out so pumping out was really very important for me and for my career and for bodybuilding.
Remember that this movie this documentary is being seen day and night thousands and thousands of generations on over the world all day long like in Goldshin we've walked in there seven in one and pumping out is on the walking there seven and night on big islands. So kids and people get inspired that you still can see on television. I mean it's really fantastic. It's a beautiful movie and it really is inspiring and it gives us a view of a world that you can't imagine.
If you're not in that world you can't picture it. I just want to tell you also that when I talk about there there's so many ingredients that helped to make bodybuilding as big as it is today and one of those ingredients is George Butler that directed pumping on and Charles Scains that wrote the book pumping out and also that wrote the book Stay Hungry which is if the movie did it it.
So those guys came along in the early seventies and they did a lot of features for various different magazines about bodybuilding and other sports and when they came around they started a ticolating so well and photographing bodybuilding this is really what has a tremendous impact and all of a sudden the book pumping on became a best seller and it was like selling everywhere around the world and bodybuilding became one more popular.
Those guys were extremely what for the growth of bodybuilding and new on the stage. Tell me something about bodybuilding that people who are not bodybuilders can't know. I think that probably what people should know is that it doesn't matter if you're five years old or if you're a hundred years old you can do it. People always think this is a for young people but it's not. There is a guy with the name of Henry Downs that is a Canadian bodybuilding.
He's now 90 and some years old and I competed with him at the Miss Universe contest in London and I was 19 and he was already over 30 years old. It was like 36 years old and he was one of the oldest bodybuilding and some competitors and I just saw a month ago a video of him still exercising and it was 90s. I mean, I think about that. It shows to you there is people that are working out women and men that are working out and they're doing it for forever and they feel like this is really good.
What is interesting about it is in the old days, it was an absolute no-no to do weight training. As far as what the guy is, there was a hundred thousand big towns that I was talking about. We were able to Canadian that big towns. I just remember it's for us that big towns. Anyway, in the early days when I got involved with bodybuilding, this bodybuilding is paid for your health. It's paid for your health and this is paid for that and all that stuff. Now it's exactly the opposite.
All the research is shown that if you do exercises every day that it belongs to life, it doesn't matter if you're women or men, it doesn't matter what your condition is, your health condition. You got to exercise every day and now they're using it for therapy. I mean, weight resistance training has become the number one thing. My girlfriend is a physical therapist and she has a clinic in Sanomatica here and she is like 46 people working for her.
She's like 150 to 200 patients coming through every day and they all work out and do resistance with weights. The football players that are coming in that they have surgery, it's these surgery, they're working out with weights right after that. The baseball players that are having shoulder surgeries, elbow surgeries, they immediately go back to the weight resistance training. I mean, hot patients to weight resistance training. I mean, everyone is doing weight resistance training.
This is where the action is today. So I mean, everything that they used to think is bad. Now everyone is writing about it that it is the best thing that you can do and you have to do it every day. Amazing. Conan was the first movie after pumping iron?
No. I did the first stay hungry was in 75 and then after pumping iron, 75, 76 and then after that it's streets of San Francisco and the chain man's field story and then did a movie with Kirk Douglas and then Margaret called the villain and then after that I got the counter-blown. It was the first in the national baking studio movie. It was like the number one, it came out number one in the box office.
Matter of fact, when we had test screenings in Las Vegas, they had a theater for 500 people and out there was 3,000 people standing in line. 3,000. So I mean, every gymnasium I think in Vegas and around Vegas or the bar that they heard that Conan was being screened so they all came to the theater and they had to have three more screenings after that because people wouldn't be.
So they're seriously so when you're in a rush with a studio and you're not about it, they were so ecstatic to start putting more money in the budget of the promotion of the movie and all that and the movie was very, very successful. What was the experience like going on to a set starring in a movie, not a bodybuilding movie but an acting movie, an action movie essentially? What was it like? What was going on in your head?
Well, I felt that I had to do the work because Conan is one of those roles, one of the lifetime role either. So you get it right or you don't. And so to me, he was important and I think the director, John Millius, he had me watch the Funi in the Seven Summarized and he said, watch me Funi and watch Seven Summarized very carefully because this is the attitude that Conan true that. And that's exactly when I saw it as a form of Funi's like a Swarth Master. I mean, he looked fantastic as a samurai.
So okay, I got the message from Millius. I should really practice the Swarth really a lot. And so three years before the movie was filmed in 1977, I started working with the Swarth and be the Swarth Master at the name of Yamasaki, Sanjit Yamasaki, which has passed away literally like 10 days ago, whatever it was. But he became my trainer and he spent every week, three times, three hours with me practicing with Swarth.
So but literally summarized Swarth, bronze Swarth and wooden Swarth and plastic Swarth and all kinds of different Swarth people bring around and then practicing with axes and with spears and all this. And so we were practicing, practicing, practicing and then the horse begwriting was also extremely important. And so I would just train the horse begwriting going out here with Terry Leonard with the stunt coordinator of Conan. And so he would take me out three times a week horse begwriting.
Then we went to Spain months before we started filming. I was was begwriting every single day all day long. I was sitting in a horse. We were going for lunch with the horse, we were going for dinner with the horse, everything was in the horse. So it became second nature and then having always the sword with me practicing the sword. So when we actually started filming, I never really got intimidated by the scene so overwhelmed by the scenes because I always felt kind of I was ready.
And it was kind of the seven piece proper prior planning prevents physical performance, right? So this is what it was. It was like I don't just be prepared. The proper prior planning is extremely work because you don't want to give a shitty performance. And so this is what I was training, training and practicing and practicing and rehearsing with the scenes, the dialogue. I either was the two actors that were like genius actors, one was changed in all Jones who was unbelievable.
He played falsetto. And so I went to him regularly to his motorhome who worked with me at my acting and then I'm out of the living the lines in a dramatic way and all this stuff. And then there was Max Conceder who was now in a academy with what winning, eliminating kind of the character who was extraordinary, who was in the movie, played the priest in the exorcist and he did many other movies of course. But the man he was, he played the king, King Harold I think was his name in the Conan.
But so anyway, I went to him also to his trailer and asked him the help we would make acting. I would just anyone that was able to kind of help me, I was asking for the help. And because I always say, you know, just shut your mouth and open your mind. This is always my rule. This one of the rules in my book because there is a instead of talking so much when you go to the set, just listen to the wise actors in there and just open your mind and let them teach you how to become better and greater.
That's how it becomes successful. It's really about being humble enough to be open to learn to not feel like, you know, everything not feel like you have to do it your way, but learn the wisdom from the people around you with more experience. But absolutely. And you know, there's no one that I know that likes to learn more than me. I mean, I'm like a sponge in a fun. I love to listen because I always feel like there's so much that you need to learn. I don't know. You're fucking idiot.
You know, nothing. That beat myself up all the time. You know, nothing. The open your mind, it's just listen. And so it was like, you know, it doesn't matter if you're a secondary, listen to the legislators, to all of the various different problems that they have. Listen, listen, listen. And listen to the experts out of the softest problems. And it doesn't matter if it's a democratic or a Republican, listen and just let it get all this information in the mind. And that's how you get enriched.
And so I did this with moviemaking. I did this in politics, policy, you know, in my after school programs, with education and special Olympics. And it became the international culture of special Olympics. I listened very carefully. How do you deal with the special Olympics? How do you train with them? How do you train them? How do you reward them? And all this kind of stuff. So it was like, in a life of the me is kind of an ongoing, never-ending learning experience.
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When you first went into acting or when you first went into politics, do you think that there was some advantage you had by not having experience or not having the baggage of the past that you were coming in with a clean slate? Was that one of the strengths you had? He had certain advantages when you kind of like a naïve.
Because I remember when I became governor, one of the Republicans said, because I made a certain decision, and he said to the Republican colleagues, I said, well, Governor Schwarz and I got, and I were always supported. But we have to recognize that he's politically naïve. I was sitting right there and he said that.
Yeah, I didn't so offended by it at all because the fact was I was, but it was my advantage because by being naïve and by not accepting just things the way that were, made me recognize that we in America have cherrymandering and cherrymandering is the evil of all evils. Explain to me about cherrymandering. I don't know anything about it.
But just, you know, the whole United States is coughed up in districts, and this is where our representatives from, like the Congressmen, whoever said the district, congressional district. So the way every 10 years, because the population moves around, sometimes it's more like, what is going a year or there, there's more farmers here, there, and more white people there. And all of this is being just kind of like watched and then you go and redraw the district lines accordingly.
But what happens is the district lines are being drawn in most cases by politicians. So they were drawn to this again in a way to predict their job. So the Democrats were drawn to district lines so that all the Democrats and what the area. So all you have to do there is just be way to the left and you will win the nomination from the Democrats. And the Republicans will kind of close in and lock in their district. So it's a Republican district.
So all you have to do there is be way to the right and then you win your district. Now imagine when the Democrats and Republicans get old now to succulent or whatever capital is. And one is way to the right. One is way to the left. Nothing gets done. So now the idea is just how do we go and get them closer together so that they can work together? Well, the way the districts are drawn, you can't do that. So what I said was just wait a minute.
That we are having a fixed system here and no one has to do anything. And you always get real elected if a job security. But the mean of nothing is getting done. They said, yeah, absolutely right. And so I said, well, we're going to change that. We're going to go and have the district's drawn ordinary folks to the experts in maps, but not by politicians. Well, you can't do that. So the Democrats and Republicans are like, well, I really matter. They said, how could we start tackling this problem?
This is not the problem. We love it. And this is not blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I put the bullet on the ballot. And initially, they've under ballot. They've to people both. And twice we lost because we couldn't really explain the ordinary folks with redistricting this about. And it would cherry man do this about those. But some people were saying, is this up? Why did he give up? It's never going to happen. Why did he give up? It's not going to work in more research.
We're sure enough in 2008, we won. Then two years later, we won also primaries. So now both of those things are now one. California now coughed itself out of being unique. It was kind of one of the first states that created its own kind of independent redistricting commission to draw the district lines. And they did responsibility away from the politicians. So now the politicians went nuts because of that. But it now created fear districts.
And now it became the model for the rest of the country. So now one third of the districts in America already draw independent commissions. So there's still a lot of work needs to be done. Because this is a 200 year old kind of like billion in America. It is totally a fixed system and where people sometimes have 70% of certain votes, but they get only like 30% of representation through the congressional seats and all this. I mean, it's just a terrible terrible system. We fixed it in California.
And I'm kind of like promoting it all over the country that they should fix it and have independent redistricting commissions. So there's certain things like this. But it's because of my needy day. I saw that and I found that the conflict if you have to do something about it, we shouldn't have taken the line down as it. That's the way it always was. That's the way you know, they meant to do it 200 years ago. Therefore, we should go along with it. So I kind of like felt being an outsider.
No, this is unacceptable. We got to do something about it. So this just gives you one example. And there's many other examples. Like for instance, when you are a little bit more naive about things, you're just in general, not except the status quo. Yeah, you don't know what's impossible. Exactly. That's right. It's a bit naive. For instance, in California, you know, they always say, you know, when we have an emergency, we are not really prepared. That's about this is inexcusable.
People will be prepared. And so we go and we started practicing and preparing ourselves, which drove everyone nuts. But I did it because I want to make sure that if you haven't heard, like we are prepared. Do we really know what the procedure is if there's an earthquake? And everything is coming down. All of our infrastructure and all this. What is the procedure? Where do we go? How do we communicate in all of these things? What hospitals would be available?
How would the hospitals increase the amount of bed size that the beds, the amount of beds that they have, the amount of rooms that have surgery rooms that they have for all this stuff? So we worked on all of this stuff. And to me, I think it is very, very important that we kind of like step outside and take a different approach rather than just accepting the status quo. So to me, there was always an advantage. Bodybuilding also looked at bodybuilding differently.
Not to look at the same way as everyone else did. And weightlifting was the same way. And acting was the same way. I was the first one that really said to Universal Studio, you guys are crazy to just promote the movies in three countries in Japan, Germany, and in America. I said, it's insane. You should go to 20 different countries and promote the movie and start increasing the popularity of movies in these other countries. And this is none of your crazy.
Well, I went with Conan the Biberian to 50 different countries. Wow. They were successful in these 15 different countries. And now, of course, they're sending the actors all over the world because now finally, they realize that the world is the marketplace, it's not just America and Germany and Japan. But you think it's the whole world. It's the least of its African countries. Maybe there's less money coming from these places, only South America.
But let's go and promote the movie in every country, in every continent, all over the world. So does that kind of like having a fresh mind and being outside of you look at things different? Considering you married into the most important Democrat family in the history of the country, how did you choose to run as a Republican? Well, I was a Republican from the time I came to America in 1968.
So when I listened to human humtry who was running for president in 1968 and then I listened to Richard Nixon. So there was no two ways about that to make my mind coming from a socialist country that I was more with Nixon. So I felt like when Humtry talked, it was like being back in Austria as soon as the dead's, that's not what I want. I want something different. And so I became naturally because of Nixon, the Republican.
And it was clearly a Nixon Republican, which means that he was also minded because Nixon was a Republican, but he also was seeking for universal health care. He was also starting out the EPA in Washington, the environmental protection agency. So he was in the environment, protecting the environment. He was also for fighting in a pollution.
So there was a lot of things that he had in the genius informed policy, especially with his sidekick, you know, Henry Kissinger, who was also very, very smart. So all of this, so this was known to Maria when I went out with her at the beginning. And also her father always stayed in the dinner table. I'm a Nixon fan.
And of course in the later 70s, there was a good thing to say because now we have gone through Watergate and we have gone through and Sergeant Strava father ran against it because he was the vice presidential candidate with the government. So Sergeant Strava said, I love Nixon. You know, he always said, coughing is a crook. He's a crook in another. And so I've said, so I'll be trying to tell you I'm a stud.
You know, there's some of you, he's one of you, because then you know, then one charge of, and the responsible for breaking into the national health court is a democratic party in order to, and it will major, major mistakes made. At the bottom of 90s policy wise, I always admired him and thought it was great. So I modeled myself kind of after that. But I mean, that didn't mean that I closed my mind to the democratic way of thinking.
So when I listened to conversations at the Strava house or at the Kennedy house, wherever we were, you know, I thought that we're really profound and very interesting ways of approaching problems and what I loved about the family was that they always talked about solving problems. They're solving issues. And so I was kind of like, but so excited about it. It was like, you know, the early days when someone talked to me about, around me about fitness in the birth weight training.
This was kind of a new world that I'm always certain picking up orders information that learning things that they never thought of. And obviously, I'm thinking about it. So it was really great that I was kind of learning from them, getting motivated and inspired by them and about policy. And then later on, that actually has an effect on me that I wanted to run for governor, but I never changed party because of that.
You know, and I just thought today, I have good ideas, I have good ideas, repubbing is a good ideas and the trick of it is for us to work together. Democracy and Republicans have to work together to utilize 100% of our brain power rather than just 50% of the brain power. And get the job done, not just be stuck, not just be stuck. It's all about getting the job done. That's amazing. Yeah. Of the three different work lives you've had, which would you say was the most difficult?
You know, I don't think I could put a thing on any of them because I think that bodybuilding was extremely difficult. You had to work your ass out to become a champion and to say it there for a long time, nor itself. So it was really, it was really tough.
And there's so much that was with your business and the amount of injuries that you get and stunts in your business and the dangers that you face, you know, that you can be one day up high and have the movie that comes out, it goes through the movie, the box office, the next day you come out with a movie and it goes into the toilet and then I was sitting here, nobody. So you always as good as the last movie. So it's kind of, it's that's also tough.
And then of course, I have to say that the biggest responsibility is being governed because when you do movies, it's not kind of the end of the world if a movie sucks and it goes into the toilet and it's just that people say, okay, the movie was not that good. But then when you discover the government, you serve 40 million people, you know, that is the huge responsibility. And now we really have to kind of connect and find out what is it that the people want.
It's like John of Canada said, let's not seek the Republican answer to a problem or the Democratic answer to a problem. Let's seek the right answer and the right solution. And this is, I think, the big challenge that you have at all times to find the right solution for the problems and those problems change all the time. So we have to recognize that also. But so it, I think the responsibility wise, it's the biggest responsibility that was being governed and also the most pleasurable.
I mean, to me, I got the most satisfaction out of serving the people is nothing like it and to serve the people of California and also the disavibling the fact that you helped people all over America and like we talked about, Madeline issues and good government practice as a rippling effect all over the world. So we have had an impact worldwide. So I mean, but I was very fortunate to have three careers, to have learned from all three careers that are talk about in that book be useful.
And now I'm combining all of those three talents into one so that I can use all of those three talents and move forward and make it just a better world, make people more fit, motivate people, make them more successful and do my TV series in the full bar and other TV shows and the movies and stuff like that and continue with my after school programs. So I'm having really a great time doing all my different careers. Thank you so much for doing this. I feel like I could talk to you forever.
Thank you so much for sharing the wisdom of your incredible life and look forward to seeing you soon. Okay, you got it. Thank you very much and good luck with everything.