Well, game shows may not necessarily, specifically have been on his mind, but bear with me…
I’ve just come home from seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger speak at a function here in Melbourne. The theme of his talk was his 6 Rules For Success. He was an incredibly engaging, inspiring, funny and super-charismatic (dare I say “Presidential”?) speaker. He illustrated his rules with fascinating anecdotes and examples from his incredible professional – and life – journey… and I thought you might find them helpful on your path to game show success.
So I now present – distilled, boiled down, and as best as I can remember them – Arnold’s 6 Rules For Success… COME AAAHHN!
Rule # 1: Trust yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks.
Rule # 2: Break the rules. Not the law, but break the rules. You have to think outside the box.
Rule # 3: Don’t be afraid to fail. If you try, and get knocked down, you’re only a TRUE failure if you don’t get up again.
Rule # 4: Don’t listen to the naysayers. How many times have you heard that “you can’t do this” and “you can’t do that”… “it’s never been done before”?
Mr Schwarzenegger illustrated this with an anecdote about the agents and the managers when he arrived in Hollywood, ambitious to be a leading man – his muscle-bound body was a liability, his Austrian accent was a liability, and they told him so. Repeatedly. He persevered. And when he got his breakthrough role (as the leading man) in Conan the Barbarian, his body was an asset. Then, when he rose to the next level of movie stardom as The Terminator, critics his praised his Austrian accent for making him “sound more like a robot”. His accent was an asset. He had persevered, and the naysayers had been proven wrong. To further illustrate the point, he also quoted that very powerful sentiment from Nelson Mandela…
It always seems impossible… UNTIL IT’S DONE.
Rule # 5: Work your butt off. You never want to fail because you didn’t work hard enough. When you’re out there partying, horsing around, someone out there at the same time is working hard. Someone is getting smarter and someone is winning. There are 24 hours in a day. You sleep 6 hours and have 18 hours left. Some of you say “but I sleep 8 or 9 hours”. Well then… sleep faster!
Rule # 6: Give something back. Whatever path you take, you must always find time to give something back; to your community, your state or to your country.
If you think about it, all of these thoughts apply to your game show winning goal. There will be naysayers. You may suffer temporary setbacks (“failure”, according to some) on your journey. But that “failure” is simply more knowledge and experience that you can utilise on your next attempt.
At the end of his presentation, there were also some questions from the audience tonight, but I’ll tell you the 10 very powerful words that Mr Schwarzenegger quoted as he left, that really resonated with me (and will hopefully resonate with you too)….
IF NOT ME, THEN WHO?
IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN?