Arnold Schwarzenegger.Photo:Mark Von Holden/Variety via Getty
Mark Von Holden/Variety via Getty
Arnold Schwarzeneggernever expected to be a self-help guy.
But in the “fourth act” of his life, he’s been moved to distill some of his greatest life lessons into his new motivational book,Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life,out Oct. 10.
When it comes to his legacy, “everyone will have their own take on it,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “All I’m trying to do is just try to use my talents and help other people. It’s the simple stuff that I do that really helped me get where I am today.”
At 76, is he content? Over breakfast in Los Angeles, the sentiment doesn’t quite register with the star, who this year alone released his firstlive-action series, a documentary about his life calledArnold, a fitness-infused newsletter and a podcast calledArnold’s Pump Club.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger at age 11 in 1958 in Thal, Austria.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
Schwarzenegger continues: “So today I feel good where I am. I feel I’m much wiser. I’m much smarter. I’m not as crazy. I think more about people. I think more about people’s feelings. In your 20s, you don’t do any of that. It’s me, me, me, me. As time goes on, you learn from your mistakes.”
From left: Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Christina Schwarzenegger in May.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Schwarzenegger still wakes up at dawn with his father’s phrase prompting him out of bed. “It was the very phrase that motivated me,” he says. But he wouldn’t define his new book as closure.
“I was never looking for closure. I’m not into all this stuff, because I never really blamed my father for anything,” Schwarzenegger says. “I never ran around and said, ‘It’s my father’s fault.’ It’s nobody’s fault."
“I have fond memories of my dad, and I don’t blame him for anything, simply because he did not know any better. He was beaten when he was a kid. It was just a tradition. And then he was forced into [World War II], and was misled. He was growing up in an area where life was the way it was.”
Todaythe father of five— Katherine, 33, Christina, 32, Patrick, 30, and Christopher, 26, with ex Maria Shriver, and Joseph, 26, with Mildred Baena — is “really well bonded with my kids,” he says, and can often be found lifting weights with them at Gold’s Gym, where his body-building career began, or riding bikes around Santa Monica.
He’s also a grandfather now — or Opa, as he’s known to his daughter Katherine’s children Lyla, 3, and Eloise, 1, with her husband Chris Pratt.
When Lyla visits, she beelines for his animals, cuddling with his little dog Cherry and feeding the pig. “Itaught her how to feed the horses,” he says proudly. “She was scared in the beginning but she got used to it.”
For more on Arnold Schwarzenegger, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
source: people.com
