What Arnold Schwarzenegger Taught This CEO About Leadership These two banned words shaped how I lead my family and company — and taught me that success starts with vision and ends with hard work.
By Ray Titus Edited by Carl Stoffers
Key Takeaways
- Eliminating self-defeating language like "try" and "can't" can dramatically shift your mindset toward achievement.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success principles, from having a clear vision to outworking everyone, align closely with the author's approach to business and parenting.
- Change is not the enemy, it's inevitable. Embracing it, rather than avoiding discomfort, is essential for growth in both life and entrepreneurship.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
When I was growing up, my father had only two words we weren't allowed to use: "try" and "can't." He didn't mind curse words so much, but those two specific words were forbidden because they're so limiting. Saying you'll try means you're prepared to fail. It leads directly to "can't."
My father's rule became mine, too. It's one of the non-negotiables I've lived by in running my business and raising my family, which I compiled in my book Laws of Inevitability: How You and Your Family Can Benefit from These Down-to-Earth Basics. I found a variation on it in Be Useful: 7 Tools for Life, by bodybuilder-turned-actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger. They're separate books by two very different men, but they share the message that success takes clear vision, unwavering commitment and a strong work ethic.
"Plan B" is a plan to fail
If I were raising my three sons again, I would give them each a copy of Be Useful. It's one of the best books for guiding a young person, a new business owner or a new employee. Schwarzenegger and I both believe in rejecting any possibility of failure — to Schwarzenegger, "Plan B" is a plan to fail. "The second you create a backup plan," he writes in Be Useful, "not only are you giving voice to all the naysayers, but you are shrinking your own dream by acknowledging the validity of their doubts."
This is one of many things that resonated for me in Schwarzenegger's book, which he calls a tool kit for "knowing where you want to go and how you're going to get there, as well as having the willingness to do the work . . . [and] the capacity to shift gears when the journey hits a roadblock." No matter what you think of the guy, there is an argument that he is the most successful human being of our lifetime.
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Hard work works
Schwarzenegger has followed his rule that hard work is the only tactic that always works for any goal you attempt. He trained five hours a day, every single day, for 15 years to become the world's top bodybuilder. Later, he devoted those daily hours to acting and then to politics.
That's my rule: "Hard Work Works." You've got to put in the time if you want to be great at something. You may not have the experience or the knowledge, but you do have the ability to outwork everybody else. And like Schwarzenegger's hours of repetitions in lifting weights, repeating the habit of coming in early and staying late day after day will give you the experience and the knowledge.
Of course, it has to start with Schwarzenegger's first rule, "Have a Clear Vision." So much more follows from that. Most people are not as clear in their vision; they have too many different options and they can't focus on one specific life plan. It's remarkable when you think about that, but the clearer the vision and the fewer options, the easier it is to realize the vision.
Once you have that vision, you have to "Sell, Sell, Sell" yourself — another Schwarzenegger rule that impressed me and not just because my business is sales. This is a guy who sold people on him when he shouldn't have been able to. And here we are, looking back at his amazing career in fitness, entertainment and politics and ahead to what he calls his "fourth act" of helping the world.
Laws of Inevitability, my first book, was also written as a guide to help people. It's a short book of 42 laws, each mostly just a few sentences long, that you could read in one sitting. The idea is to take one law at a time and implement something from each one as you go through life.
I call them "inevitable" because sooner or later, everyone will encounter them; I didn't think them up but simply observed them and wrote them down. Like number 18, "Complainers Lose." Or number 20, "Be the Bigger Person."
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Change is not a 4-letter word
In my company, we often run into people who have never run their own business before, and they have to get outside of their comfort zone of getting a steady paycheck and health insurance. Many of them get so caught up in this safety, they refuse to step outside of it. They have to learn to embrace change and understand it doesn't mean completely reinventing themselves but tweaking those parts that keep them from moving forward. They have to see how limiting it is to cling to the security of that regular paycheck.
Many of the principles in these two books will require people to branch out of the norm. Schwarzenegger did it. He came to a country where he didn't speak the language and had to build himself up to become the world's greatest bodybuilder. Then he transformed himself again to become an actor, and again to go into politics. Change is essential; you can't have improvement without it. That's one of the most inevitable rules of all.
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