Greg's blog

 Dear ETH Members,

Today the Swiss Federal Government has declared a national state of emergency due to the coronavirus epidemic. New measures will enter into force starting today at midnight. The population is being called upon to minimise human contact. ETH Zurich is doing everything in its power and is therefore adapting its measures. Starting immediately and for the time being effective until the end of May, all research and administrative activities must be carried out with as little human contact as possible. This is in addition to the suspension of classroom teaching that is already in place. Concretely, this means that until further notice, all ETH members may only be present at ETH Zurich if their physical presence is absolutely necessary. Everyone else must work from home starting immediately.

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As I wrote last Friday, we are all currently facing an immense and unprecedented challenge. We will all need to get used to this new way of working together, which will be a learning experience. I ask you to support each other in the challenging times that lie ahead, and I also ask for your patience if not everything runs smoothly at first.

However, I am confident that we can successfully get through this situation together. The most important priority at the moment is for us to act consistently and decisively when it comes to your health, the health of those around you and the health of the general population. I have already seen that everyone throughout ETH Zurich is working with great dedication to overcome this crisis. For this I would like to offer my sincere thanks. Due to the current situation, we will only hold one employee town hall meeting, which we will move up to Wednesday, 18 March, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the latest. We will provide you with more detailed information tomorrow.

Stay healthy.
Joël Mesot
President of ETH Zurich

16/03/2020

I’m here to talk about success. The first rule of success is to have a vision. You see, if you don't have a vision of where you go and if you don't have a goal where you go, you drift around and you never end up anywhere. I mean, as you know, I was born in nineteen forty-seven in Austria after the Second World War, so I was very fortunate. That I stumbled on to my vision. And I didn't really like Austria. I mean, I grew up, I couldn't wait to get out of there. I couldn't see myself becoming a farmer. Or work in a factory or anything like that, even though my parents wanted me to stay there and have a normal life, but that was their vision, not mine.

My vision was totally different. I felt that I was born for something special, for something unique, for something big. Then one day I went to school. I remember I was 11 years old. And they show the documentary about America, the other shows in this documentary, The Huge Skyscrapers, The High Rises. The huge bridges, the six-lane freeways. In all of this stuff, in this episode, that's where I want to be. I don't want to be around here with the little farmhouses in these little buildings. I want to be in America. One day after school, I walked by a store in crowds. So I went inside and I looked around. And then I saw a magazine as a bodybuilding magazine that had read 'Park' on the cover. ‘Reg Park’ was then a three-time Mr. Universe, and I saw him on the big screen as 'Hercules'. I read that and I said to myself "Wow, this is the blueprint for my life. This is exactly what I want to do." I wanted to become a bodybuilding champion, just like ‘Reg Park’, I want to get into movies just like ‘Reg Park’ and I wanted to make millions of dollars and be rich and famous, just like ‘Reg Park’. Do you know how great it felt that I knew where I was going? Imagine the majority of people don't know where they're going. I knew where I was going, that I'm going to become this bodybuilding champion just like him.

So it was just a question of how do you do it? I was so relieved because when you have a goal, when you have a vision, everything becomes easy. So people always ask me when they saw me in the gym, in the pumping iron days, they said, why is it that you're working out so hard five hours a day, six hours a day, and you have always a smile on your face? And I told people all the time, I said, because to me, I'm shooting for gold. In front of me is the Mr. Universe title. So every rep that I do gets me closer to accomplishing that goal to make this point, this vision into reality, every single set that I do, every repetition, every weight that the left will get that close to underscoring the reality. So I couldn't wait to do another 500 pound squat. I couldn't wait another 500 pound bench press. I couldn't wait to do another thousand reps of sit ups. I couldn't wait for the next exercise. With the age of 20, I went to London and I won the Mr. Universe contest as the youngest Mr. Universe ever. And it was because I had a goal.

So let me tell you something, visualizing your born and going after it makes it fun. You've got to have a purpose no matter what you do in life, you've got to have a purpose. 

Seventy-four percent hate their job in America, though there's not much different when you come to Europe. The majority of people don't like what they're doing because they're really not doing it because they didn't have a goal and they followed this goal. They're just aimlessly drifting around. And then all of a sudden there's a job opening. So they get the job because you have the real. But then when you broke, it's a chore, it's really it's not fun. So if you think about only a quarter of the people really enjoy what they're doing in life, that is unbelievable. If you think about it. So I felt so blessed that I knew what I was doing. It's like a medical student who studies and knows he wants to become a doctor.

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So that's rule number one have a vision, rule number two is don't listen to the nay-sayers. Don't listen to the nay-sayers. Everything I ever did, the thing that I heard out of people's mouths was that's impossible, that can't be done or no, that is exactly what I heard. And of course, I proved to the people that it can't be done. So whenever someone said to me, it can't be done, I heard it can be done. And they said, no, I heard yes. I mean, to say that's impossible. I heard it is possible. I'm a strong believer in what Nelson Mandela said, that ‘It Always Seems Always Impossible Until It’s Done’. Well, I'm going to be the one who said to myself, I'm going to do it and I'm going to show it to them. Maybe it has never been done before. That's perfectly fine with me. But I'm going to do it. And I did not listen to the nay-sayers.

It's all about the hard work that you put in. I said to myself in bodybuilding, I worked out five, six hours a day. I'm going to do the same thing now for acting. And of course, I went to college to study English, I studied the accent, removal, acting classes, and all of this stuff all day long. I work and I worked in the books. And within a short period of time, I made one movie called 'Hercules' in New York, which, of course, went right into the toilet. But it didn't discourage me. I still had the same vision. And then all of a sudden 'The streets of San Francisco', I did ‘Stay Hungry’ and ‘Pumping Iron’ and ‘The Villain’. And then all of a sudden I was asked by the rent is the Universal Studio, the star in "Conan the Barbarian". And after that, ‘Conan the Barbarian’, the director at the press conference, said to the press. The director was ‘John Miller’. He said to the press, if we wouldn't have had Arnold, we would have had to build one.