How To Foolproof Your Success Dreams (What I Learned From Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Do you know what Jack Canfield says about getting the things you want in life? He said:

"Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it" ~ Jack Canfield

It’s one of those cute, clever, and immensely powerful success quotes… and it hits you like a stray juggernaut the first time you read it!

Now, Jack Canfield is one person who walks his talk… One of his “wants” at some point in his life was to make a million dollars. And so he went and printed a one million dollar bill – if you’ve heard about those – and he pinned it up next to his computer in his home office.

He did go on to make the one million dollars… and that was pretty much all there was to it, if you discount the little elbow grease he put into writing the books that would bring him the money, as well that visualization thing for which he’s famous (painting a picture in his mind like he’d already received the money…)

Another time his “want” was to sell a million books on a single day. And it came to pass that he achieved this very enviable record for being the first guy to sell one million books in one day. His other record is that of having 7 books on the New York Times Bestseller List on the same day.

This report however is about the achievements of Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Jack Canfield… just that it’s instructive to relate their phenomenal achievements.

Practically everyone now knows Arnold Schwarzenegger. What most people don’t know is that he started out as a little-known bodybuilder immigrant to the Unites States. And, phenomenally, like Jack Canfield above, he went on to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and then Governor of California.

Here’s how he did it. It’s a very simple but very powerful success formula… and it goes like this…

In his book, “Power of Motivation – How To Succeed In All Circumstances”, Michael Bolduc offers a simple formula for success – a formula so simple you could teach it to a 5-year old!

Step 1: Know what you want.

Step 2: Take massive intelligent action.

Step 3: Notice what is working and what isn’t.

Step 4: Change your approach until you succeed.

Step 5: Sustain your drive and motivation with attraction and visualization (Schwarzenegger style)

Simple enough, don’t you agree? I must add that Step 6 is my own addition, based on what Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as people like Jack Canfield explain how they are able to sustain unfailing motivation till they reach their goals.

Michael Bolduc made this observation in his book that, “Success is very simple, but motivation is not.” In another part of the book he also said, that we all know how to succeed (in other words that we know what to do to succeed…the information is all over the place). That what most people don’t know is how to motivate ourselves to do what it takes to become successful – regardless what our goals are).

This is where people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jack Canfield beat the rest of us… How do they do it? First, let’s get Schwarzenegger’s success story… It’s very illuminating. Arnold Swarzenegger’s story is one of the power of self-belief, and the power of visualization to attract (or manifest) wealth and achievement…

In 1976, Steve Chandler, then a sports columnist with the Tucson Citizen was assigned to do a feature story on an unknown Austrian actor. As Chandler later put it in “100 Ways To Motivate Yourself”, it was to be a story he would never forget.

The interview took place over lunch at a Doubletree hotel. As the two men sat across from each other, Chandler reported that no heads turned to look at the actor. No one recognized him. Even Chandler knew very little about him, other than the fact that he had achieved success as a bodybuilder and was now in town publicizing a movie that had been a box office disappointment.

During their conversation, Chandler casually asked little-known Arnold what he was going to do now that he had retired from bodybuilding.

In a matter of fact voice and without missing a beat, Arnold Schwarzenegger replied in his thick Austrian accent,

“I’m going to become the number one box office star in all of Hollywood.”

Chandler was taken off guard by the naïve, boldness of his statement. After all, commented Chandler to his readers, a thick Austrian accent and hulking physique didn’t exactly make good box office material. Doing his best to disguise his shock and amusement, Chandler calmly asked him how he planned on accomplishing his task.

Arnold Schwarzenegger replied in the same matter of fact tone.

“It’s the same process I used in body building. What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture, as if it were already true.”

That was Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1976, little-known but supremely confident. As you know, that self-belief eventually made him one of the biggest stars in Hollywood and also propelled him to the top office of the richest state in the USA, California.

Did this have to do with the bodybuilding he received? In part… It can be argued that his successes in bodybuilding provided the forward momentum that drove him to push for greater heights. The training also nurtured and matured his powers of visualization – he learned he could create a vision of who he wanted to be, and then he lived into that picture, as if it were already true.

Schwarzenegger’s story illustrates in twenty first century terms what everyone in every tradition has recognized since the beginning of time – that we human beings have the unique power of being able to transform the circumstances of our lives through the power of visualization.

If success was this simple for Arnold Schwarzenegger what’s miring the rest of us? Here’s your answer…

Step 1: “Know what you want”…

I’m sure anybody reading this knows what you want. Or do you?

You’d be surprised how many people haven’t taken the time to figure out what exactly they want out of this life…

Do you know what you’re really good at? Because, you can very quickly chalk up some success doing something you’re really good at. When you can succeed in any area of your life, it’s easy to translate that into successes in other areas of your life. Success feeds on success!

Do you know what you’re passionate about? Oprah Winfrey said,

“Forget the fast lane. If you really want to fly, harness your power to your passion.”

If you can discover your passion, it becomes easy to find a purpose to your life. When you have a purpose, and you’re driven by that purpose, and every action you take is aligned to that purpose, it becomes very easy to stay on track. You will then find that you can nail every goal you set for yourself!

Step 2: “Take massive intelligent action”…

Have you heard the phrase, “Stuck in Neutral”? A lot of activity actually goes on under the hood when a car is stuck in neutral. For many people something similar happens with their lives… You find that you’re spending a lot of time on cooking, cleaning, running errands and sometimes find yourself exhausted and too tired to do anything worthwhile once you're done with those… and before you know it a year goes by then two years, then three, and you haven’t moved an inch where your plans to better your life are concerned.

Step 3: “Notice what is working and what is not”…

You may have heard the phrase, “Doing what you have always done and expecting a different result”. Some call it the “definition of insanity.” It can happen that you even fail to notice when your best efforts or your best approach to a problem, or the options you’ve chosen are not working.

It happens to a lot of intelligent people – they get trapped into this sort of spiral because it is characteristic of us human beings to tend to resist change… I could go on and enumerate all the steps and tell you what can go wrong, but this isn’t the place. If you really want to change your life, read on below…

The information in these next few paragraphs is life changing. So, heads up…

Do you suspect that you have a lot of potential but you are not living the life you feel you deserve? Or perhaps you are doing everything you know to become more successful and live the life of your dreams, but your results so far are mediocre at best?

This is a problem that causes a lot of pain and despair to lots of people… and so, you’re not alone! And it’s possible that you may have sort of “given up” or decided to “take it easy on yourself”… in short you’ve decided to just get by and so you’ve settled for what you now call “your lot in life”…

The problem with this attitude is that (1) you will always regret this decision and will always feel that you didn’t do enough when you could (and should) have done more to achieve your once cherished goals for a better life.

You will agonize all your life that you didn’t demand the best of yourself, deciding instead to take the easy, mediocre road.

And (2), if you do not go all out to do your best to succeed, you will never experience the joy that comes with grappling with life’s challenges and then emerging successful against all odds.

Lastly, (3) and perhaps most important of all, if you don’t do your best to achieve the life you dream of, you’ll miss the opportunity once and for all to be an inspiration to others around you – your children, or your family and friends. This is regrettable (and it could come back to haunt you big time in later years) because if you’re a parent it so happens that “as you do life… is (likely) how your child will do life”

If you find it hard to stay motivated day after day, or to stay focused on achieving your success goals, you are not alone. My best piece of advice is you should get to know yourself, what makes you tick, what you're good at, and make yourself better as you go. Here's a great quote:

“You can’t expect to win unless you know why you lose.” ~ Benjamin Lipson

In closing this how-to, let me leave you with a very good piece of advice I liked a lot. It comes from Scott Adams, creator of the much-syndicated Dilbert comic strip. He gave this piece of advice in an interview with Tim Ferriss (taken from Ferriss’s Tools of Titans):

“If you want [to achieve] something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people…

The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill.

Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.”

According to Scott Adams, one of these two skills ideally should be in some form of communication (writing, speaking as stated above, social media – I leave it to you)