Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger

I actually bought Be Useful for somebody else. My partner Jamie loves Arnold Schwarzenegger but refuses point-blank to read, so I thought this might finally be the book that persuaded him. It sat there untouched for a while, I eventually picked it up myself and, somewhat annoyingly, discovered that I’d bought myself a brilliant book.

I wasn’t expecting to get quite so much from this one. I’ve read plenty of leadership and self-development books and they can become repetitive very quickly, but Be Useful isn’t like that. It’s straightforward, entertaining and refreshingly low on fluff.

It also helps that Arnold Schwarzenegger has an extraordinary amount of life to draw upon. Bodybuilding champion, Hollywood action star, comedy actor, businessman, Governor of California and philanthropist, even if you don’t agree with every piece of advice, you can’t accuse the man of thinking small.

The title comes from something his father repeatedly told him growing up: be useful. Schwarzenegger has taken that idea and built seven practical rules around it, using stories from his own successes and failures to explain how he approaches life.

Have a clear vision

The first lesson is about knowing where you’re trying to go, and this was probably the part I needed most when I read it. I was going through a divorce and feeling more scattered than usual. When a large part of the future you thought you had suddenly changes, it can be incredibly difficult to stop looking backwards. Schwarzenegger’s approach is very different. You can’t rewrite what has already happened, so put your energy into deciding what happens next.

That landed with me. It’s also a very good leadership lesson. We talk endlessly about strategy, targets and plans, but none of those things are particularly useful if you haven’t decided what you’re actually trying to create. A team can’t move confidently towards something if the person leading it doesn’t know where they’re going.

Schwarzenegger’s own life is an extreme example of that mentality. He describes having very clear ambitions and then working backwards to determine what was required to achieve them. The destination came first; the steps followed.

Never think small

Now this chapter was much more familiar territory for me. I’m always telling my team to aim higher, so Schwarzenegger’s argument that we limit ourselves by setting goals that are too small was always going to appeal to me. His career certainly suggests he practises what he preaches. He didn’t simply want to become successful at bodybuilding; he wanted to reach the very top. Then he moved into Hollywood and set himself another enormous goal.

There is something useful here for leaders because it’s very easy to become consumed by what’s immediately achievable. What can we do this quarter? What’s realistic? What will definitely work? Obviously, businesses need realism. But they also need somebody willing to ask what might be possible if the ambition were considerably bigger.

You can always work backwards and make the plan practical afterwards. First, somebody has to imagine it.

Work your arse off

This chapter felt like chatting to a kindred spirit. Schwarzenegger isn’t particularly interested in shortcuts. His philosophy is built around doing the work, putting in the repetitions and accepting that achieving something difficult is probably going to involve periods of discomfort.

I loved this because leadership books can sometimes make success sound unnecessarily complicated. There are frameworks, theories, acronyms and elaborate morning routines when sometimes the answer is much less glamorous: do the work.

Talent matters. Opportunity matters. Having good people around you matters. But there is still no substitute for actually showing up and doing what needs to be done. That applies to leadership too. You can’t expect standards from a team that you’re unwilling to demonstrate yourself.

Learn how to sell

One of Schwarzenegger’s seven tools is Sell, Sell, Sell, and interestingly this was probably the chapter where I highlighted the least. Not because it wasn’t good. Because it already felt like second nature to me.

Leadership involves selling constantly, even when nobody’s job title contains the word sales. You’re selling an idea to your team, a vision to investors, a strategy to the board, a product to customers or sometimes simply persuading somebody to take a chance on something that doesn’t exist yet. Having a brilliant idea isn’t enough if you can’t communicate why anybody else should care about it.

Schwarzenegger understood that throughout his different careers. He didn’t simply do the work; he learned how to communicate what he was doing and bring people with him.

Knowing when to shift gears

This was the other chapter that really hit me personally. Schwarzenegger talks about the importance of adapting when circumstances change rather than wasting energy wishing they hadn’t. You assess where you are, accept what you can’t change and shift gears. I needed that when I read this book.

Divorce, business setbacks, criticism, people who enjoy seeing you fail — you can spend an extraordinary amount of energy internalising all of it. I’ve become much better at asking myself whether I would actually want the life of the person whose opinion I’m allowing to bother me. If the answer is no, why am I giving their judgement so much power?

For leaders, adaptability is essential. Plans change. People leave. Markets move. Something you were absolutely certain would work doesn’t. You can either remain emotionally attached to how things were supposed to happen or deal with what is actually in front of you.

Sometimes you just have to shift gears.

About Arnold Schwarzenegger

It’s difficult to think of many authors who could write about reinvention with quite as much evidence behind them as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Born in Austria, he became one of the most successful bodybuilders in history before moving into Hollywood, where he became one of the world’s biggest film stars. He subsequently entered public service and served two terms as Governor of California.

He has also spent decades involved in philanthropy and public service, including work with After-School All-Stars and the Special Olympics. That matters because the final idea behind Be Useful isn’t simply about personal achievement. Schwarzenegger repeatedly comes back to the importance of contributing and being useful to other people.

Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life was published in October 2023 by Penguin Press and became a #1 New York Timesbestseller.

My verdict

★★★★★ 5 out of 5 stars.

I bought Be Useful hoping Jamie might finally read a book and ended up finding one that I needed myself.

What I particularly liked is that Schwarzenegger doesn’t pretend success is mysterious. Have a vision. Think bigger. Work hard. Learn to communicate. Adapt when circumstances change. Keep learning. Help other people. None of those ideas is revolutionary on its own, but hearing them through the experiences of somebody who has repeatedly reinvented his life makes them surprisingly powerful.

I also read it at exactly the right time. Going through a divorce meant the lessons about deciding where you’re going next and learning to shift gears landed differently than they probably would have a few years earlier.

For anyone leading a business, building a career or finding themselves at a point where life hasn’t gone according to plan, I’d recommend it. It’s practical, funny, direct and one of the least irritating self-development books I’ve read.

And Jamie still hasn’t read it.

Jill Newey
Editor-in-Chief