EDUCATION | Driving tomorrow’s achievements
08 December 2008
It Can Be Done
This excerpt is from a commencement speech delivered at Brentwood School in Los Angeles, California, in 2008. Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected California’s governor in 2003, after a career as an actor and a professional bodybuilder. He is a native of Austria who became an American citizen in 1983. (Excerpt used with permission.)
Don’t listen to the naysayers. How many times do you hear people saying it can’t be done? I have heard this my whole life: It can’t be done. It can’t be done that I come to America; it can’t be done to be a bodybuilding champion; it can’t be done to go into movies; it can’t be done to run for governor. Especially, I remember when I ran for governor: “It can’t be done,” they said. “You know, you are an actor. What do want to do? Two months before the election you’re going to decide that you’re going to run for governor? Are you out of your mind? It can’t be done. First you have to run for mayor, then maybe for city council, or maybe for assembly or for senate, then for lieutenant governor. You have to work your way up the political ladder. That’s the way it works in politics.”
I said, “I’m not going after a political career. All I want to do is be governor. [Laughter] And fix the problems of California, turn the economy around, protect the environment, reform education, reform our health care system. That’s what I want to do.” And I went out and I talked to the people directly and had one town hall meeting after the other, did one interview after the other. And the rest is history. The people sent me to Sacramento [the capital of California]. So don’t listen to those kind of things: “It can’t.”
