Mike O'Hearn On Arnold

How Arnold Schwarzenegger Influenced My life and Career

WHEN I WAS A KID and I was getting ready to leave Washington to come to California, Joe Weider is the one who discovered me. Knowing that Joe Weider discovered me and that he was the one who brought Arnold over just really cemented what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do with my life. When I moved to California, I used to have Arnold pictures throughout the whole front of my pickup truck just to motivate me to go to the gym every day and in everyday life. So he wasn’t just a small in uence; he was a huge in uence to me. Arnold is the root of everything for me. I must have been around 10, 11, 12 years old when I first started watching Pumping Iron. His charisma, the artwork he did in the sense of the creation of his body just struck me. At that age, that’s what I wanted to be. He was like a real-life superhero to me, and that’s kind of what I wanted to mimic. So at that age, it was just anything I could do to be just like Arnold. You know, train like a beast, be positive, be larger than life, and anything is possible. The incredible thing about him was that he wasn’t born here, he didn’t speak the language when he came here, and he’d still accomplished so much by the time I was just a little 10-, 11-year-old kid. He was already doing movies. He’d already won the Olympia. It just showed me the world we live in is so free to you to achieve any goal you have if you are willing to put in the work. So that was the thing that I took away at such a young age, and it’s stayed with me my whole life. I’ve been able to work with Arnold and travel with him to give lectures to demonstrate exercises while he was talking about it. It’s great to say that I’ve gotten to work with him and spend time with him. He’s such a great guy and as cool as you think he is. So he’s motivated me throughout my whole life. His nephew Patrick Knapp—is also my attorney, which is a great connection. That happened much later in life. Arnold still trains at Gold’s Gym Venice and he’s always around the area.