Chapter Seven 95
him. I accepted that. But I knew he could be useful to me. There
were still a number of important goals before me, and this man
could help me realize them.
I found out right away that Joe had two personalities. The
warm, beautiful, human Joe Weider in his private life, and the
shrewd businessman at the office.
I admire both sides of the man. Business fascinates me. I get
caught up in the whole idea that it's a game to make money and
to make money make more money. Joe Weider is a wizard at it,
and I liked being able to watch him operate. But I especially
liked the humanistic side of Weider. When he comes to my par-
ties or when we go out to dinner, he loosens up and has fun.
He's great to travel with or to be around when he shows off his
home or his collection of antiques and paintings. We've spent
some beautiful times together. On the other hand, we've also had
some times when we were in strict business dealings that were
not so pleasant. I'd seen that from the start, though; and I was
always firm, always forceful. I knew I couldn't rely on him to put
my welfare above his own, for which I couldn't blame him. It's
always foolish in business to say, "Oh, he's my friend, he's going
to take care of me." I'd been burned a few times in business
before; I'd been taken advantage of in Munich, and I was deter-
mined not to let it happen again. Consequently I had to be as
tough as Joe was when we did our dealing. A number of body-
builders have not been as cautious and have found themselves
backed into a corner because they thought, "Joe was really nice
yesterday. He bought me a steak dinner. So he'll give me a fair
shake when we sign the contract." But that's not so. Business
and friendship are two different things for Joe, as they should be.
I think Joe is just naturally suspicious. He sometimes even
feels his best friends are out to take advantage of him. Conse-
quently, it's almost impossible to get him to trust you in busi-
ness. It was always frustrating for me because he would seem to
forget a lot of things he promised and I would be forced to re-
mind him of them. We had seven years of ups and downs. But
I'm proud of that fact that I remained with him and that, because
of my tenacity, it was a good experience. There is nobody who's
had a longer relationship with Joe Weider than I've had. And I
don't believe anyone's come out better.
The reason it worked was honesty. That was my policy with