This “Hero Exercise” Will Help Determine What Matters Most To You.

My older brother was on Wheel of Fortune.

He won a trip to Egypt. I was lucky to be chosen to go with him in October 2021. Scroll to the end to see pictures of us in Egypt.

There was one night we were resting in our Nile River Movenpick cruise ship room, after a long day of exploring.

I started asking Aman about his experience at UVA Darden School of Business. He told me about doing a semester in India, and an exercise his teacher gave the class.

“Think of your heroes. Real or fictional.. Up to five.

Then start describing what qualities you admire in them.

Once my brother and his class made their lists, his teacher said:

“The qualities you admire in heroes are the qualities you desire in yourself.”

What you admire is what you desire.

Some qualities might even come up more than once.

Those overlapping qualities are ones that mean the most to you.

My brother said it was a great exercise for business school students to do.

He then asked me, just casually, what my list of heroes would be.

That day in October 2021 I listed:

Martin Scorsese
Tony Stark (Scorsese dislikes Marvel, ironically)
Jeff Bezos
Steve Jobs
Ryan Coogler

The first and last are easy: Scorsese and Coogler make terrific movies.

They get great performances out of their team, like great managers or coaches.

Michael Ovitz wrote this of his client in his memoir Who Is Michael Ovitz?

“It’s a Scorsese specialty, grinding movie stars into artists.”

Robert De Niro.

Leonardo DiCaprio.

Joe Pesci.

Scorsese’s been making movie stars into artists for DECADES. Coogler, same.

I admire Tony Stark because he built his own super suit. Tom Holland’s Spider Man suit, too. Bezos and Jobs also created their own versions of Stark Industries.

I admire Stark’s wealth; his playboy, devil-may-care attitude; his character growth into a mentor, leader and father.

The relationship between cinema and technology is obvious to me.

Everything from the 1930s gangster movies like The Public Enemy to yesterday’s latest blockbuster exists in “the cloud.”

My brother agreed, my list of heroes and the qualities I admire in them are indeed the qualities I desire in myself.

I then said he was my sixth hero to make him laugh.

Here is the final list of qualities I admire (and desire):