Arnold Schwarzenegger Reveals How He’s Changed at 76: ‘I Think More About People’s Feelings’ (Exclusive)

Arnold Schwarzenegger never expected to be self-help.

But in the “fourth act” of his life, he was prompted to distill some of his greatest life lessons into his new motivational book, Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, is released on October 10.

When it comes to his legacy, “everybody’s going to have an opinion on that,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “All I’m trying to do is just try to use my talents and help other people. The simple things I do have really helped me get to where I am today.”

At the age of 76, is he satisfied? Over breakfast in Los Angeles, the feeling doesn’t quite match up Terminator actor, who released a Netflix series just this year FUBARcalled the streamer’s documentary about his life Arnolda fitness-infused newsletter and podcast called Arnold’s Pump Club.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger aged 11 in 1958 in Thal, Austria.

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“I don’t know what you mean by pleasure,” he says. “I’m always satisfied, but, I mean, I’m always hungry for more. I slept with my first trophy. No one could take it away. But at the same time, the other leg has already gotten out of bed in search of another Mr. title. Universe.” (He won three more, followed by seven Mr. Olympia titles.)

Schwarzenegger continues: “Today I feel good where I am. I feel that I am much wiser. I’m much smarter. I’m not that crazy. I think more about people. I think more about people’s feelings. You don’t do any of that in your 20s. It’s me, me, me, me. As time goes by, you learn from your mistakes.”

“Be useful” was the commandment of Schwarzenegger’s tough father when he was growing up in the remote Austrian town of Thal, and the record-breaking bodybuilder-turned-world-action-star-turned-California “governor” chose it as the title of his new book, which recounts a miserly, episodic childhood in which his father would occasionally come home drunk and beat him.

From left: Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Christina Schwarzenegger in May.

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Schwarzenegger still wakes up at dawn with his father’s line driving him out of bed. “That phrase alone motivated me,” he says. But he would not define his new book as an ending.

“I was never looking for an ending. I don’t deal with all these things, because I never blamed my father for anything,” says Schwarzenegger. “I never ran around saying, ‘It’s my father’s fault.’ It’s nobody’s fault.”

“I have good memories of my dad and I don’t hold anything against him, simply because he didn’t know any better. He was beaten when he was a kid. It was just a tradition. And then he was forced [World War II], and was misled. He grew up in an area where life was what it was.”

Today, the father of five — Katherine, 33, Christina, 32, Patrick, 30, and Christopher, 26, with ex Maria Shriver, and Joseph, 26, with Mildred Baena — is “really good with my kids,” he says, and he can often be found lifting weights with them at Gold’s Gym, where his bodybuilding career began, or riding bikes around Santa Monica.

Now he’s also a grandfather — or Opa, as his children Katherine Lyla, 3, and Eloise, 1, call him with husband Chris Pratt.

When Lyla visits him, she runs after his animals, cuddles with his little dog Cherry and feeds the pig. “I taught her how to feed the horses,” he says proudly. “She was afraid at first, but she got used to it.”

For more on Arnold Schwarzenegger, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

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Source: HIS Education