What are the best Be Useful quotes? How can you push yourself to your limits and beyond?
For each of us to live up to our full potential, we need to give ourselves an ideal direction. In Be Useful, published in 2023, Arnold Schwarzenegger lays out his principles for meaningful success and making a positive impact on the world.
Below, we’ll look at four Be Useful quotes that encapsulate Schwarzenegger’s advice.
Quotes From Be Useful
To live up to your potential, you need a direction to strive for while honing your abilities and pushing yourself to your limits. In Be Useful, Arnold Schwarzenegger lays out his principles for achieving success and making an impact, first by defining your ambitions and then using your achievements to better the lives of others. He argues that by “being useful” you’ll find satisfaction, build strong relationships, and lead a more purposeful life.
Let’s look at the best Be Useful quotes to achieve your dreams and find the value of public service.
“You need to be able to see what you want to achieve before you do it, not as you do it. That’s the difference.”
It’s hard to get anywhere in life if you don’t know where you want to go. Schwarzenegger argues that clearly defining your major aspirations is key to aligning your decisions and your goals. A concrete picture of the future you want will lay out the steps you need to follow for success. Schwarzenegger suggests that your childhood dreams often hint at what aspirations you should follow, but if you’re unsure what you’re striving for, setting small goals can also spark your motivation.
Schwarzenegger says that having a clear vision of your goals is crucial to steering your life toward the right path. Just as athletes visualize success to fuel their progress, you need to imagine, in vivid detail, what your desired future looks like. This mental image will clarify what decisions you should make to bring your aspirations closer, as well as create a benchmark against which you can measure your progress. Keep in mind, though, that even if circumstances dictate that you have to redefine success or change direction, that’s all right. After all, the experiences and lessons gained on your journey are just as valuable as reaching your destination.
To choose what you want your future to look like, you can start by revisiting your childhood dreams. Schwarzenegger writes that your early aspirations often reveal your genuine passions, giving you a starting point that you can refine and expand upon. However, don’t get stuck on minute details in the early stages of sculpting your dream. Instead, maintain a broad perspective to capture the overall image of what you aim to achieve. Your dream is unique—its only boundaries are those that outline the necessary steps to take to make it come true. As your aspirations solidify over time, you’ll hone in on specific aspects of what success means to you, which will let you establish a plan to achieve it.
“The author of Lord of the Flies was rejected by publishers 21 times. J. K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times.”
To sell yourself and others on the idea of your dream, you have to truly believe it without giving in to negativity. Schwarzenegger’s story shows that adopting a positive mindset, viewing hardships as opportunities, and managing time efficiently are powerful tools for achieving your dreams.
The road to achieving your dream is full of challenges, which is why Schwarzenegger insists that you shift toward a positive mindset. You’re bound to encounter obstacles, but it’s beneficial, if not essential, to view your struggles as opportunities to develop your skills. We all tend to focus on the negative—an instinctive remnant from our ancestors who were primarily concerned with survival. However, this instinct is less useful if we want progress instead of mere survival. Adopting an optimistic outlook helps you engage constructively with your circumstances, so next time you feel like complaining about life’s difficulties—don’t. Instead, verbalize the potential positives that might emerge from those hardships.
For most people, a life-threatening medical scare like Schwarzenegger’s botched 2018 heart surgery would be a cause for despair. But Schwarzenegger recalls that after his initial wave of fear and frustration, the shock wore off and his mind shifted into its familiar “I can do this” mode. Schwarzenegger zeroed in on his next goal—making a full recovery, no matter how difficult the road ahead. He viewed his health crisis as merely another challenge to overcome, and the setback became a spark to reignite his drive to overcome whatever challenge was before him. He achieved all his recovery goals and went right back into making action movies.
“In German, we have a saying: ‘Wenn schon, denn schon.’ Roughly translated, it means, ‘If you’re going to do something, DO IT. Go all out.’”
When working toward your dreams, you have to commit wholeheartedly. Half-baked efforts won’t yield the results you want, and it may make the difference between realizing your dream and falling short. However, Schwarzenegger suggests that wholehearted commitment goes beyond merely giving your best effort—it also means not holding back on the scale of your ambitions. In other words, dream big! Then if you fail to reach your grand ambitions, you’ll likely achieve success to some smaller degree. Don’t do yourself the disservice of setting small targets, and if you’ve charted a course toward a particular dream, resist the temptation to give yourself a backup plan—such thinking can only undermine progress toward your primary goal.
Schwarzenegger writes that hard work in practice and preparation is only half of what you need. The other side of wholehearted commitment is to carry through on what you start to the end. He illustrates this by recounting when, as California’s governor, he made sure emergency response agencies rigorously practiced their wildfire protocols. When actual fires ravaged the state, he rolled up his sleeves and continued to work, identifying where the existing plans fell short and adapting them to fill in the gaps. Going through the motions in practice would mean nothing if Schwarzenegger didn’t bring the same commitment he devoted to his prior careers—a refusal to settle for anything less than an all-out effort from himself and his team.
“You have a choice with the naysayers you face on the road to achieving your goals. You can ignore them or you can use them, you just can’t ever believe them.”
As important as it is to motivate yourself and define the ambitions that drive you, the time will come when you have to rely on other people’s help to move forward. Therefore, a key step to achieving your dream is learning how to sell it to others. You do this to win over supporters, but you need to understand your field so you can identify your potential backers. Just as important is convincing yourself that your dream is something you can make real while also learning to ignore naysayers—or, better yet, prove them wrong.
If you’re going to achieve your dream, and especially if doing so depends on other people, then Schwarzenegger says you have to learn how to sell it. In this context, “selling” means you should present your dream in a way that encourages others to view it in a positive light so that they’ll be inclined to support you. For instance, if your dream is to be a successful performing musician, you have to sell your dream to your potential bandmates, the owners of the venues you’d like to perform at, and the people you’d like to attend your show—and that’s only just to get started.
Therefore, find out who your potential backers are. They could range from financial institutions to the people closest to you in life and on whom you might depend for support. To identify these “customers,” Schwarzenegger writes that you must educate yourself about your field and what success within it demands. Avoid guessing which people or organizations might back you—instead, invest time and conduct thorough research. Pay attention to how other people react when you share your aspirations, and use those reactions as cues on how to pitch them the idea of your dream. And never shy away from being true to yourself when sharing your dreams. Your authenticity will resonate with people better than any façade.
Schwarzenegger learned about the need for salesmanship when he first arrived in America and was shocked by the lack of public perception around his beloved sport of bodybuilding. Rather than complain, Schwarzenegger took the public’s ignorance as a challenge and made himself bodybuilding’s ambassador to the masses, highlighting the discipline and artistry of his craft. Slowly but surely, Arnold recast bodybuilding as something aspirational rather than a niche sport to be ridiculed, as it often was by the media in the 1970s. By framing his passion so positively, he built a legion of fans and supporters who helped take the sport mainstream.
When it comes to your personal aspirations, the most important person to convince is yourself. This is why Schwarzenegger insists that having a well-defined mental image of your goal is crucial. Sharing this dream with others not only helps you refine your “sales pitch”; it also publicly commits you to fulfill it, fueling your determination and giving you a sense of accountability. Also, instead of framing your dream as a distant possibility, talk about it as an ongoing reality. For instance, don’t say that you want to write a novel—instead, tell people you’re writing a novel. This shift will make your aspirations more real, which will further inspire you to take steps toward them and follow through on all the hard work that entails.
Schwarzenegger warns that you’ll encounter cynics who doubt your ability to accomplish your goals. Their skepticism, often rooted in their own unrealized ambitions, might undermine your confidence if you let it. Therefore, your options are to disregard their negativity or use it as motivation to prove them wrong. Especially if people underestimate you because some aspect of your story is unique—such as if you’re the first person in your family to go to college—you can stun them with your unwavering dedication and maybe even win them over to your side. Proving people wrong can be its own form of “selling.”
