Athlete. Actor. Businessman. Governor.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been world-class at everything he has done in life.

I spent a fascinating 90 minutes last week listening to Schwarzenegger speak on success at the University at Buffalo.

From my notebook ...

• Picture it: Discover your passion and picture - quite literally, if possible - yourself following it.

Even when others don't see it.

As a boy growing up in Austria, Schwarzenegger discovered a love for bodybuilding.

It wasn't an easy thing for his parents to accept.

"My mother and father had no interest in (bodybuilding)," he said. "They wanted me to become a police officer like my father."

Instead, young Arnold pinned pictures of strongmen on his bedroom wall as a way of reminding himself not only what he wanted to become, but whom he wanted to surpass.

His mother worried about him - she thought he should have pictures of girls on his wall, like other teens did. She even talked to doctors and mental-health professionals, who assured Mrs. Schwarzenegger that Arnold's pinups were completely OK.

They told her what Arnold already knew: "I had a very clear vision."

• Love the work: As a world-class bodybuilder, he spent five hours in the gym every day. He did so with a smile, which confused people around him. How, they wondered, could he be happy about pushing through such pain?

"I was happy," Schwarzenegger said, "because it was one step closer to my vision of becoming the world's best bodybuilder."

• Take what's wrong about you and turn it into an asset: Schwarzenegger wanted to become a Hollywood star. After moving to America, conquering the bodybuilding world and becoming a millionaire businessman, he approached a Hollywood agent and told him that he wanted to be a leading man.

The agent told him it wasn't possible. He was too muscular, his accent was too thick, and his name was too difficult to remember.

So Schwarzenegger used the same strategy in acting that worked for him as a bodybuilder: He devoted several hours every day to training hard. He took acting and speaking classes, networked and kept focused on his leading-man goal.

He landed his breakthrough role - Conan the Barbarian - in large part because of his physique.

And his most memorable role - the Terminator - has endured in large part because of his accent.

As for his name?

"If it's hard to spell and it's hard to say, it's also hard to forget," Schwarzenegger said. "All of those things the agent said would work against me became assets."

• Don't be a "girlie-man": As governor, he caused a stir when he referred to California's legislators as "girlie-men." In a political context, he said it because he thought they lacked guts.

On a broader scale, he equates being a girlie-man with being afraid to fail.

In most jobs, he said, failure isn't an end.

"For firemen, if something goes wrong, they die. For police, if something goes wrong, they die," Schwarzenegger said. "But if you're an actor and something goes wrong, you didn't get the part. So what? If you're in business and something goes wrong, you don't get the deal. So what?"

It's OK, he said, to feel down or to get frustrated - as long as you don't let it stop you.

"You're not a girlie-man if you're depressed," he said. "You're a girlie-man if you're afraid to fail."

Contact Tim O'Shei at toshei@bizjournals.com. You can follow his Gen@Work blog on our website at bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/gen-work.