Understanding power can be the first step to success in any part of your life, whether it be in politics of weightlifting. This relationship is described in Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. Power can come from an understanding of human nature and the behavior of people, for power can be defined as making others do what you want them to do. In this philosophy book on the transition from public torture to modern prison facilities, the state gained power when it began to understand that control of the soul (imprisoning people with the ability to control their happiness via possibility of parole or other incentives) is a lot stronger than control of the body (to torture someone as punishment). This knowledge had brought modern states to manage their crime in more efficient manner, and the adage can spring in all aspects of life, with a little help from the Governator.

For one thing, we can broaden power to include the ability to control one’s self, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is the archetype for such a power. In his autobiography, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, Arnold’s knowledge comes from his power, and vice versa, to commit to multiple reps. This practice applied to all parts of his life: before he was a seven-time Mr. Olympia, he spent years just working on sets after sets of weights, spending over 7 hours a day, six days a week in the gym. He knew that his success is not only the podium or the trophy but also from just meeting his reps over and over. When he wanted to make movies, everyone couldn’t understand his thick Austrian accent. So, he worked with linguists, took night classes for English, and read his lines over and over again before his first major hit Conan the Barbarian, making him the first actor to make $1 million from an acting contract. Finally, when it was time to make a difference in the community, he went as far as a foreign national could go: the governor’s office in his home state of California. Knowing close to nothing about politics, he would sit with experts for hours a day before running, coming into the debates and the campaign with the confidence of a seasoned veteran.

Arnold had given a lot of great tips to his readers, and he understood that to succeed really, you must be willing to give the effort to achieve what you want, believing that you are entitled to nothing. While the aphorism “knowledge is power” holds true to some extent, the next step must be made to apply the knowledge into your everyday life. When he hadn’t even turned eight years old, Arnold’s father had told him to do sit ups and push-ups before every meal, and even though he may not always reach his set number of reps, the most important thing is that he tried his best. When you train your personality to look at the world as a gold mine rather than an oyster, you begin to recognize that immense possibilities are not given like the pearl necklace gift you get for an anniversary, but are taken from you when you are willing to get your hands dirty in search of that fortune. When Schwarzenegger worked for his goals, he made his life wealthy with exhilaration. After all “My (Arnold) definition of living is to have excitement always.” He learned to love his work and dedicated his life to making it the best part of his day. He would always become so mad when someone was mad when someone would gripe to him about how hard his 10-hr shift was, answering “when the day is twenty-four hours? What else did you do?”

I would recommend reading this book for anyone: whether you’re into a great nonfiction story, or you’d like to see some parts of your life improve. I am new to self-help books, but from the ones I had read previously, I would give it a 7/10. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to adapt the motto “knowledge is power” in order to really narrow his dreams to reality ratio.