Transcript
0:02 [Applause] mr. president upon the recommendation of the appropriate university committee I present for the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters the Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
0:33 you Arnold Schwarzenegger are a self-made man ever a Californian at heart you are a warrior for the Golden State a tireless leader in seeking to protect the environment to advance scientific discovery and to bring people together for the common good your greatest strengths our ambition discipline and fortitude you're a devoted public servant in a philanthropist a gifted entrepreneur and
1:06 a statesman here in your adopted country your name has been immortalized in the annals of Hollywood and in the archives of our nation's history for your inspirational realization of the American dream your many accomplishments as a leader actor and sports icon and your significant contributions in promoting the state of California the University of Southern California now presents you with its highest honor
1:42 by the authority vested in me by the trustees I hereby confer upon you Arnold Schwarzenegger the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa please accept our warmest congratulations [Applause]
2:16 and now it's my great pleasure to ask dr. Schwarzenegger to offer the 2009 commencement address for the University of Southern California thank you well thank you very much
2:46 hello everybody what a great introduction what a wonderful thing what a great great welcome I'm getting here so thank you very much I mean I haven't heard applause like that since I announced that I was going to stop acting but anyway it is really terrific to see here so many graduate students and undergraduate students and graduating here today I heard that they're 4,500 graduating here today and undergraduate students so this is fantastic there's 2200 men 2300 women
3:20 and five five four listed yourselves as undecided so this is a really a great great bunch of people here I love it but seriously president sample trustees faculty family friends and graduates it is a tremendous privilege to stand before you this morning there's nothing that I enjoy more than celebrating great achievements and it don't just mean your parents celebrating never having to pay another tuition bill that's another that I'm talking about I'm talking about just
3:51 celebrating the great accomplishment so let's let me congratulate the Trojans class the Trojan goes of 2009 on your graduation from one of the finest universities in the world let's give our graduates a tremendous round of applause what a special day what a great accomplishment now this is an equally special day of course for the parents for the grandparents siblings and other family members who support made all of this the
4:23 day possible and let's not forget of course the professors those dedicated individuals who taught you who came up with exciting ways to share your vast wisdom knowledge and experience with you and I must also say thank you to president sample for honoring me with this fantastic degree thank you very much Wow Arnold Schwarzenegger Doctor of Humane Letters I love it but of course I noticed that
4:55 it wasn't a doctorate in film or in cinema or in acting I wonder why but anyway that's okay I think whatever I can get but maybe now since I'm the doctor I can go back up to Sacramento maybe now the Legislature will finally listen to me but anyway I stand before you today not just as dr. Schwarzenegger or as Governor Schwarzenegger or as the Terminator was Conan the Barbarian
5:29 but also as a proud new member of this Trojan family now some of you may know that my daughter just completed her freshman year right here and one of the most exciting things for me has been to learn about the great traditions that make this University so wonderful and so special but hora dogged me all about for instance the victreebel she set me down and she told me about it weighs on 295 pounds and how the winner of the annual
6:02 football game between USC and UCLA takes the spell and gets the painted in the school colors and I stopped in the middle of talking I said wait a minute captain back up a little bit I UCLA has a football team of course my daughter's journey here at USC is just beginning and us is ending
6:32 and I know that you're a little bit stressed out right now as you start this exciting new chapter in your lives some people say it is scary to leave the comfort of the university and to go out into the cold hard world but I have to tell you something I think this is a bunch of nonsense because after all this is America this is the greatest country on Earth with the greatest opportunities I mean it is one thing if you were born
7:02 in Afghanistan or in smart Valley it's what Valley and back is done where you be forced to join the Taliban or be killed now then they will say yes that is a little bit scary but this this is going to be a piece of cake for you trust me you live in America and you're prepared for the future with this tremendous education you've got me of one of the greatest universities in the world this is going to be exciting it's
7:27 a great adventure and this is a new face in your life this is going to be awesome now of course this journey is not going to be without any setbacks and failures or disappointments that's just the way life is but you're ready and you're able and you would not be here today with your degrees and with your honors if you wouldn't be ready so now of course to help you along the way I thought that the best gift that could give you today
7:55 is it will give you a few of my own personal ideas and how to be successful and parents I just want you to know maybe you should close your ears you should plug your ears because maybe the few things that you maybe don't like what I have to say but there any way I can explain how I became successful in who I am today by going through what I call dr. Schwarzenegger six rules of success of course people ask me all the time
8:25 they say to me what is the secret to success and I give them always the short version I say number one come to America number two work your butt off and number three marry a Kennedy but anyway but anyway this is the short rules now the day I'm going to give you the six rules of success but before I start that is one of the stages are my rules and I think that they can apply to anyone but
8:56 that is for you to decide because not everyone is the same there's some people that just like to kick back and coast through life and I just want to be very intense and want to be number one and want to be successful let's like me I always wanted to be very intense I always wanted to be number one I took it very seriously in my career so this was the same when I started with bodybuilding I didn't want to just be a
9:16 bodybuilding champion I wanted to be the best body build of all times the same was in the movies I didn't want to just be a movie star I wanted to be a great movie star that's the highest paid movie star and have the buff the title building and so this intensity always paid off for me this commitment always paid off for me so here are some of the rules the first rule is trust yourself and what I mean but that is so many
9:40 young people are getting so much advice from their parents and from the teachers from everyone but what is most important is that you have to dig deep down dig deep down and ask yourselves who do you want to be not what but who and I'm talking about not with your parents and teachers want you to be with you I'm talking about figuring out for yourselves what makes you happy no matter how crazy it may sound to the
10:05 people I was lucky growing up because I did not have the television or I didn't have telephones I didn't have the TV the computers in the iPods and of course Twitter was then something that birds did outside the window I didn't have all those destructions in orders have spent a lot of time for myself so could figure out and listen to what is inside my heart and inside my head and I recognized very quickly that inside my
10:32 head and heart a burning desire to leave my small village in Austria not that there was something wrong with us Austria it's a beautiful country but I wanted to leave that little place and want to be part of something big the United States of America a powerful nation the place where dreams can come true I knew when I come over here I can realize my dreams and I decided that the best way for me to come to America was to become a
10:55 bodybuilding champion because they knew that was my ticket the instant that I saw magazine cover of my idol reg Park he was mr. universe he was starring in Hercules movies he looked strong and powerful he was so confident so when I found out he got that way I became obsessed and I went home and I said to my family I want to be a bodybuilding champion now you can imagine how that went over in my home in Austria my
11:23 parents they couldn't believe it it would have been just happy if I would have become a police officer like my father or married someone like Heidi who had a bunch of them had a bunch of kids and ran around like the fun trap family in Sound of Music that's what my family had in mind for me but something else burned inside me something burned inside me I wanted to be different I was determined to be unique I was driven to
11:47 think big in the dream big everyone else thought that I was crazy my friend said if you want to be a champion in a sport why don't you go and become a bicycle champion or a skiing champion or soccer champion those are the Austrian sports but I didn't care I wanted to be a bodybuilding champion and used that to come to America and use that to go into the movies and make millions of dollars so of course for extra motivation I read
12:12 books on strongmen and a bodybuilding and looked at magazines and one of the things that it was I decorated my bedroom window of a bedroom wall right next to my bed it was this big wall that had decorated all with pictures hung up pictures of strongmen and bodybuilders and wrestlers in boxes and so on and it was so excited about this great decoration that it took my mother to the bedroom and I showed her and she shook
12:36 her head she was absolutely in shock and tears started running down her eyes and she called the doctor she called a house doctor and she brought him in and she explained to him there's something wrong here she said she looked at the wall with the darkness this is where did I go wrong I mean all of Arnold's friends have pictures in the wall of girls and Arnold has all this man but it's not just men they're half naked and they are oiled up
13:06 with baby oil and what is going on here where did I go wrong so you can imagine the doctor shook his head and he said there's nothing wrong at this age you have idols and you go and half does this is just quite normal so this is rule number one I wanted to become a champion I wanted I was on a mission so rule number one is of course trust yourself no matter how and what anyone else
13:28 thinks and of course who number two is break the rules we have so many rules in life about everything I said break the rules not the law but break the rules my wife has a t-shirt my wife has a t-shirt that says well-behaved women rarely and make history well you know I don't want to burst her bubble but the same is true with man it is impossible to be a maverick or true original if you're too
13:54 well behaved and don't want to break the rules you have to think outside the box that's what I believe after all what is the point of being on this earth if all you want to do is be like to everyone and avoid trouble the only way that ever got any place was the breaking some of the rules after all I remember that after I was finished with my bodybuilding career I wanted to get into acting and want to be a star in films
14:19 you can imagine what the agent said when I went to meet all those agents everyone had the same line that it can't be done the rules are different here just look at your body here if this huge monstrous body and overly developed that doesn't fit into the movies you don't understand this was 20 years ago the Hercules movies now there is the little guys that ain't Dustin Hoffman Woody Allen Chuck Nicholson before he gained weight of course that is but anyway those are
14:49 the guys that win and the agent also complained about Max and he says no one ever became a star with an accent like that especially not with the joy an accent in yes I can imagine with your name Arnold Schwarzenegger all or whatever the name is on a billboard yeah that's going to draw a lot of tickets and sell a lot of tickets you're right so this is the kind of negative attitude they had but I didn't listen to those
15:12 rules even though they were very nice and they said look we can get you some big parts be kingmaker get you to be a you know being a wrestler or a bouncer oh maybe with the German accent we can get it to be a Nazi officer in Hogan's Heroes or something like that but you know I didn't listen to orders this were their rules not my rules I was convinced I could do it that if I worked as hard
15:35 as I didn't bodybuilding five hours a day and I started getting to work I started taking acting classes took English classes took speech classes dialogue classes accent removal classes I even took I remember running around a fine wine grows and a vine see because Germans had difficulties with the F and the W and the V so fine wine grows on the vine I know what some of you now say is I hope that Arnold got his money back but
16:03 let me tell you something I had a good time doing those things and it really helped me finally I broke through I broke through and I started getting the first part in TV streets of San Francisco Lucille Ball hired me and made pumping iron stay hungry and then I got the big break in Conan the Barbarian and there the director said if we wouldn't have Schwarzenegger we would have to build one now think about that and then when ADA Terminator I'll be
16:31 back became most of one of the most famous lines in a movie history all because of my crazy accent now think about it the things that the agent said will be totally a detriment and will be impossible for me to get a job all of a sudden became an asset for me all of the things my accent my body and everything so it just shows you never listen that you can't do something and you have to
16:58 work your way up of course run for something else first I mean it was the same when I ran for governor the same lines that if the rug give up it can't be done and then of course I ran for governor and the rest of course is history they said you have to start with a small job as mayor and then there's a simply man and then he was lieutenant governor and then as governor and he said that's the
17:20 way it works in a political career I said I'm not interested in the political career I want to be a public servant I want to fix California's problems and bring people together and bring the parties together so like I said I decided to run I didn't pay attention to the rules and I made it and the rest is history which of course brings me to rule number three don't be afraid to fail anything I've ever attempted I was
17:45 always willing to fail in the movie business I remember that you pick scripts many times you think this is a winning script but then of course you find out later on when you do the movie that it didn't work and the movie goes in the toilet now we have seen my movies I'm in red Sonia Hercules in New York last action heroes those movies went in the toilet but that's okay because they're the same time they made movies
18:11 like Terminator and Conan and True Lies and predator and twins that went through the roof so you can't always win but don't be afraid of making decisions you can't be paralyzed by fear or failure or you would never push yourself you keep pushing because you believe in yourself and in your vision and you know that it's the right thing to do and success will come so don't be afraid to fail which brings me the rule number four
18:36 which is don't listen to the naysayers I mean how many times have you hear that you can't do this and you can't do that and it has never been done before just imagine if Bill Gates had quit when people say it can't be done I hear this all the time some effect I love it when someone says that never no one has ever done this before because they mean I do it that means that I'm the first one
18:58 that has done it so pay no attention to the people who say you can't be done I remember my mother-in-law eunice Kennedy Shriver when she started Special Olympics in 1968 people say that it would not work the experts the doctors that specialized in mental disabilities in mental retardation said it can't be done you can't bring people out of the institution you can't make them participate in sports in jumpy in swimming and in running that will hurt themselves to reward each other
19:28 they would drown in the pool what let me tell you something now 40 years later Special Olympics is one of the greatest organizations in 164 countries dedicated to people with mental disabilities and with intellectual challenge and intellectual challenge and she did not take nope one answer and the same is when you look at Barack Obama I mean imagine if he would have listened if he would have listened to the naysayers he would have never run for president
19:55 people say that couldn't be done that he couldn't get elected that he couldn't beat Hillary Clinton that he would never win the general election but he followed his own heart he didn't listen to the you can't and he changed the course of American history so Oh when over you see that if I would have listened to the naysayers I would still be in the Austrian Alps yodeling I would never have come to America I would have never met my wonderful wife Maria
20:20 Shriver I would have never had the wonderful four kids that would have never done terminated and I wouldn't be standing here in front of you that they as governor of the greatest state of the greatest country in the world so I never listened that you can't I always listened to myself and said yes you can that brings me to rule number five which is the most important rule of world of all work your butt off you never want
20:44 the film because he didn't work hard enough I never wanted to lose a competition or lose an election because they didn't work hard enough I always believed leaving no stone unturned Muhammad Ali one of my great heroes had a great line in the 70s when he was asked how many sit-ups do you do he said I don't count my sit-ups I only start counting when it starts hurting when they feel pain that's when I start counting because that's when it really
21:10 counts that's what makes you a champion that's the way it isn't everything no pain no gain so many of those lessons that I apply in life I have learned from sports let me tell you and especially that one and let me tell you it is important to have fun in life of course but 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 just remember that
21:38 now if you want to coast through life don't pay any attention to any of those rules but if you want to win there's absolutely no way around hard hard work none of my rules by the way of success will work unless you do I've always figured out that there's 24 hours a day you sleep six hours and if 18 hours left I know there's some of you out there now and says well wait a minute I sleep
22:03 eight hours or nine hours well then just sleep faster I would recommend because you only need to sleep six hours then if eighteen hours left there's a lot of things you can accomplish as a matter of fact dead Turner used to say always early to bed early to rise Brooke like hell and advertise and of course all you know this is you know already those things because otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here today just remember you
22:28 can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in the pocket that takes me to rule number six which is a very important or it's about giving back whatever path did you take in your lives you must always find time to give something back something back to your community give something back to your state or to your country and my father-in-law Sargent Shriver who is a great American truly great American who started the Peace Corps the Job Corps
22:56 legal aid to the poor he said that Yale University to the students at the commencement speech tear down that mural tear down that mirror that makes you always look at yourself and you will be able to look beyond that mural and you will see the millions of people didn't need your help let me tell you something reaching out and helping people will bring you more satisfaction than anything else you have ever done as a matter of fact the day
23:23 after having worked for Special Olympics never started after-school programs have promoted fitness and now with my job as governor I can tell you playing a game of chess with an eight-yard kid in the inner-city school is far more exciting for me than walking down another red carpet of a movie premiere so let me tell you as you prepare to go off into the world remember the six rules trust yourself break some rules don't be afraid to fail
23:53 ignore the naysayers Brooke like hell and give something back and now let me leave you with one final thought and I will be brief I promise this University was conceived in 1880 back when Los Angeles was just a small frontier town 125 classes of Trojans have gone before you they have Satya exactly where you sit today in times good times and in bad in times of war and in times of peace in
24:24 times of great promise and in times of great uncertainty through it all this great country this great state this great University have stood tall and persevered we are tough times now and there's a lot of uncertainty in the world but there's one thing certain we'll be back and we will be back we will be back stronger and more prosperous than ever before because that is what California and America has always done the ancient Trojans were
24:56 known for their fighting spirit their refusal to give up the ability to overcome great odds so as you graduate today never lose that optimism and that fighting spirit never lose the spirit of Troy because remember this is America and you are USC Trojans proud strong and ready to soar congratulations and God bless of you thank you very much thank you [Applause]