Humility

The most sophisticated and intelligent people I know are the ones willing to challenge their thinking and admit there's more to learn.

The real questions are: Am I getting better as a person? And is what I'm doing bringing me and the ones around me happiness?

There may be more failures than victories. I've been blessed to have 24 Grammys, but I've lost 46 times. That meant rejection 46 times. Please don't ever feel entitled to win — just keep working harder.

My father spent the equivalent of a year's salary on my plane ticket to the US so I could attend Stanford. It was my first time ever on a plane.

Whatever you do with your life, be a builder.

Whatever you do with your life, be a builder. Builders are comfortable in the belief that their life's work will one day be bigger than them — bigger than any one person.

In the moment, you don't know how important a story is going to be. In the moment, you don't know if you're fighting because you're right, or if you're fighting because your ego, and your desire to win, and your notion of yourself as the hero in your own story are clouding your judgment.

Not everything in Silicon Valley or any industry or life for that matter need be portrayed as home runs or strike-outs — success or failure — it's just what you hear about so often because it's what sells newspapers.

Talk about your accomplishments. Be humble, but not too humble. Don't be invisible.

You don't have to be rich to be a humanitarian. You don't have to be rich to help somebody. You don't gotta be famous. You don't even have to be college-educated.

You can call me Arnold. You can call me Schwarzenegger. You can call me the Austrian Oak. You can call me Schwarzy. You can call me Arnie. But don't ever, ever call me the self-made man.

The whole concept of the self-made man or woman is a myth.