I picked up Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Be Useful” recently. I thought it was a great title – a nice motto for life. And I was curious about Arnold’s approach to life as well.
It takes a lot to be successful in one career. So I’m fascinating when folks repeat it across careers – as a bodybuilder, an actor, and a politician in Arnold’s case. There was a lot in the book that I expected to hear. Arnold, predictably, is an “all in” kind of person with an incredibly high pain threshold. He doesn’t leave anything on the table.
The first chapter of the book, however, is on “clarity of vision.” He spends a lot of time talking through the role this played in his life and why he believes this is the place to start. He explained that we normally start with fuzzy visions. For example, as a kid growing up in Austria, he had a fuzzy vision of going to America. That vision became clearer over time as he realized bodybuilding could be his ticket. He then saw a fuzzy vision of himself as an actor that became clearer over time. And so on.
It is a recurring theme in the book – develop a vision, get clearer, then go all in and make it happen.
This struck a deep chord – vision lock is my biggest learning from 2023 after all. I’m looking forward to reflecting more on this in the coming days as I begin to work out how I want to change how I do things in 2024.
