Years ago I read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography, “Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story”. In it, he tells a story which illustrates his mindset before competitions.
Actually, I think the entire book is about this.
Mindset. Competitions. Winning. Being the best.
I’ll give you the story in a bit, but first let’s put this into context. Mindset you can probably deal with, when it comes to playing music. But competitions? Winning? Being the best? You may not ever desire to enter a competition, in which case “winning” becomes irrelevant. As for “being the best” – most of us don’t play the piano for that reason. In fact, I don’t know anyone who does.
But here’s my take on the Schwarzenegger philosophy: Your mindset is the start of everything. It underpins everything you do, not just your music. It makes the difference between success and failure, between happiness and sadness and between good and bad. It is fundamental to everything you are and everything you do. From that point on, it becomes easy! The competition is to have a positive mindset. You win when you succeed in this. And you become “the best” when it’s instinctive and no longer an effort.
Why does this matter? Because success is preferable to failure, happiness is more enjoyable than sadness, and good must triumph over bad. Your mindset is how you think. How you think changes how you act. And people only see how you act, don’t they? They can’t see your thoughts. Your playing improves when you think right. It goes down the pan when your thoughts send it there.
Here’s the story. It’s the story of one man’s triumph via his own mindset. It can be yours, too.
In the film, “Pumping Iron”, it’s the day before the Mr Olympia competition of 1975. Schwarzenegger has already won this competition for the last five consecutive years. He wants this sixth title too. So what does he do? He phones his mother the day before the competition to tell her he’s already won it and he’s holding the trophy. So now he has no choice. He has to go out and win.
In “Total Recall”, Schwarzenegger says, After [losing to Chet Yorton in London] I never went into a competition to compete. I went to win. Even though I didn’t win every time, that was my mindset. I pictured myself high up on the pedestal, trophy in hand. Everyone else would be standing below and I would look down.
Maybe this comes across as arrogant and complacent. It’s not. It’s the mindset which says “I’m going to win”. Even if you lose, you know it wasn’t because you weren’t thinking right. Perhaps the other person was just better, and you need to up your game next time. This is true not just when competing, but in everything we do. If we want to succeed at work, at home, with our relationships or our music, we have to imagine ourselves being really, really good. We have to know what that looks like. Being a good father, or a good colleague. Being an excellent performer or a fun and supportive friend. We have to feel the trophy in our hands.
Did you know that Arnold Schwarzenegger worked with physically handicapped children? It was his belief that weightlifting would give them confidence. He got them doing benchpresses, when you lie on your back on a bench and press a barbell up high above your head. Weights can be added to the barbell, and you press it up, then lower it, then up again and so on. Each time you make the bar go up and then bring it back down again, it’s called a “rep”, short for repetition. Schwarzenegger got his class of teenagers to start with tiny weights and build up slowly, doing ten reps each time. As they did it, they grew confident and proud. Schwarzenegger was careful to make sure they experienced success. Then he taught them to imagine they were experiencing success, even before the first lift. One thing followed another.
This was not a competition in the way Mr Universe or Mr Olympia was for Schwarzenegger himself.
But those children still experienced winning.
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Humoresque = a whimsical or fanciful piece of music. Be whimsical, be fanciful, but play in time!
This is Humoresque Number 28