It turns out that just one thing led to all of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success, according to the Netflix docuseries on his life released Wednesday.
Schwarzenegger is arguably one of the most polarizing voices in pop culture today, but it’s hard to deny his overwhelming success. He quit bodybuilding at the peak of his career after winning back-to-back national, international, and global championships. Why would he continue when he was at the top? It’s always good to go out on a high note, right?
From here, he set a course for a career in entertainment that is still going to this day. And, of course, he was Republican California Gov. between 2003 and 2011, becoming the first to decriminalize marijuana in the state, along with a slew of other political actions that you can take or leave depending on your personal ideology.
Regardless of your personal feelings, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the American Dream. So what did it take for him to achieve every single one of the goals that he set out to accomplish?
According to his docuseries on Netflix, the one thing that Arnie attributes his successes to is his vision. From his somewhat humble beginnings in post-war Austria, Schwarzenegger knew that he had a bigger and better life waiting for him in America, and everything he did during his youth set a course for that to become a reality.
It sounds like he would constantly visualize the things he wanted to achieve. Every waking moment, even while he was asleep, everything revolved around envisioning and then taking the action toward those desires. (RELATED: Arnie Fought With James Cameron Over The Most Iconic Line Of His Career)
Focus, direction, and hard work may have been the actions Schwarzenegger took to get to his iconic place in history, but his vision was the seed from which his dreams grew into reality. It sounds simple, almost silly, but what he described is essentially a form of prayer. Hyper-focused concentration on an image or idea is a type of prayer, or “manifestation” if you’re part of the new-wave hippie movement. So in some ways I’d argue that Schwarzenegger owes his successes to God.
You can watch the trailer here: