Nicola Alter's Reviews > Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life

I admit, this was an impulse buy, and the main reason I bought it was because I couldn’t resist the idea of listening to Arnie read me an audiobook. I grew up loving his films and his accent, so I wasn’t really expecting much from this beyond the narration, but after I got over the initial amusement of walking around my house with him on loud speaker, I actually got pretty absorbed in the contents.

From the outside, his life had always seemed so random to me—from body building to acting to being a the Governor of California—that I assumed chance and luck had swept him down on all these paths. Through listening to this, I realised how intentional all of it was, unified by a very early dream of going to America, and how he worked to make it all happen. From the get go he planned to use bodybuilding as a path to becoming a movie star, and even his shift into comedies was driven by his own ideas and determination. The more I listened, the more I realised that the pairing of being a body builder and having an accent had often made people underestimate him, but he regularly overcame this and even used it to his advantage. It was interesting to get an insight into the way he thinks and approaches things.

The other thing I appreciated about this book was that it didn’t feel totally narcissistic and self-focused. He regularly mentions and quotes other people who he admires, both famous and ordinary, talks about people who have helped him, and turns his nose up at the idea of the ‘self-made man’. He devotes chapters to things like listening to others and giving back to your community. All in all, I came out of this with a greater respect for him than I had going in, and a better understanding of his life and what got him to where he is today. I'm not aligned with him on everything politically, and ego has of course driven a lot of what he's done (I'd wager it's the same for all actors and politicians) but I believe he genuinely wants to help people and do good in the world.

In terms of life advice, I don’t think all of the suggestions in this will work for all personality types and situations, but I found some of it motivating and useful. So if you like Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is a short, fun, and motivating read, and a good way to learn about his life and his way of thinking in his own words (and in the case of the audiobook – his own voice!).