the first rule of success is to have a vision
you see if you don't have a vision of where you go and if you don't have a goal where you go
you drift around and you never end up anywhere it's like you can have the best ship in the world
you can have the best airplane in the world if the pilot or the captain doesn't know where to go
it would just drift around it would not end up anywhere or most likely in the wrong place
i mean as you know i was born in 1947 in austria after the second world war and i didn't really
like austria when i grew up i couldn't wait to get out of there
i couldn't see myself becoming a farmer or a worker in a factory or anything like that
even though my parents wanted me to stay there and have a normal life
but that was their vision not mine my vision was totally different i felt that i was born
for something special for something unique for something big so i was searching then one day
i went to school i remember was 11 years old and they showed a documentary about america
there they showed in this documentary the huge skyscrapers
the high-rises the huge bridges the six-lane freeways the huge cars with the wings sticking out
and all of this stuff and say myself that's where i want to be
how i don't want to be around here with these little farm houses and these little buildings
and everything is old i want to be in america one day after school i walked by a store in graz
so i went inside and i looked around and looked at this stuff and then i saw a magazine
it's a bodybuilding magazine that had reg park on the cover bridge park was then a
three-time mr universe and i saw him on the big screen as hercules so i bought the magazine
i read that and i said to myself wow this is the blueprint for my life this is exactly what i want
to do i want to become a bodybuilding champion just like rage park i want to get into movies
just like rich park and i want to make millions of dollars and be rich and famous just like reg park
do you know how great it felt that i knew where i was going imagine the majority of
people don't know where they're going i knew where i was going i was so relieved because
when you have a goal when you have a vision everything becomes easy so people always ask me
when they saw me in the gym in the pumping iron days they say why is it that you're
working out so hard five hours a day six hours a day and you have always a smile on your face
and they told people all the time i said because to me i'm shooting for gold
in front of me is the mr universe title so i couldn't wait to do another 500 pound squat
i couldn't wait to do another 500 pound bench press i couldn't wait to do another 2 000 reps
of sit-ups i couldn't wait for the next exercise for the next half hour of posing and all the
kind of things that you have to do to be a champion with the age of 20 i went to london
and i won the mr universe contest as the youngest mr universe ever
and it was because i had a goal so let me tell you something visualizing your goal and going after it
makes it fun you got to have a purpose no matter what you do in life you got to have a purpose so
that's rule number one have a vision rule number two is don't listen to the naysayers
i'm a strong believer of what nelson mandela said that everything is always impossible until
someone does it well i'm gonna be the one who said to myself i'm gonna do it and i'm gonna show
it to them maybe it has never been done before that's perfectly fine with me but i'm gonna do it
and i did not listen to the naysayers everything i ever did
the thing that they heard out of people's mouth was that's impossible that can't be done or no
so whenever someone said to me it can't be done i heard it can be done when they said no i heard yes
and when they said it's impossible i heard it is possible because i am a strong believer
the simple truth is if you don't have a vision if you don't have a goal
if you don't see your future laid out in front of you you're just floating around
without a purpose and i think that the numbers speak for themselves
this is why so many people around the world are unhappy with their jobs i mean in america
74 of the people hate their job and would like to change jobs but think about that that means that
only a quarter of the americans love the life's work i mean that is a very depressing statistic
i always smiled when i worked no matter how hard i worked i always had a great time no matter what i
did it didn't matter if it was in bodybuilding or if it was in the movies or if it was as governor
always discover your vision and the rest will follow never ever think small if you're going
to accomplish anything you have to think big you have to go and shoot for the stars
the biggest challenge most people have is because they think small and the reason why people think
small and why they choose small little goals is because they're afraid to fail they know that
if you shoot for a big goal then the chances of failing are very high and they're afraid
of failing is one of the most common things why people are frozen and why they can't make a move
in life because they're scared of failing i say to myself hey i'm not worried about failing because
that's part of life you're not going to be go and win everything and how far can you fall look at
this this is the ground that's as far as i can fall and you know something that the only time
you really consider the failure is if you fall and you don't get up what you learn in acting is is
that you connect with the audience that you speak from your gut and not just out of the mouth not to
have just diarrhea out of the mouth but you have actually have the every word come with meaning
and that's very important in acting so you connect and you make the scene believable
or the same is in politics as you know that in politics a lot of times people just talk
and it's just words but people don't buy in they don't believe it because someone just reads it off
the script or from the teleprompter or something like that and it doesn't come from the heart so i
think it's very important that you connect with the people and you make it believable that you
believe in it and that you are passionate about it and then you can draw the people in and make
them understand your vision and sell your vision that's what leadership is all about
i mean this is the best investment you can make to sit here and to sit and to listen to those
kind of motivational speeches and so on i have read so many of those books i've listened to so
many of those motivational kind of seminars and listen to the tapes i think they're fantastic
because they pump you up they build you up and you get out there and you say okay i'm ready to
fight and i'm ready again to climb and to to be the number one and so on so i think
i would say make an effort to grow as a person all the time stay hungry