Secret admiration

One of my favorite exercises in The Artist's Way was in the chapter I covered with my group tonight. Author Julia Cameron asks you to name five people you admire and five people you secretly admire. When you look at the traits of those on the first list and then see what the people on the second list have in common, it's often astounding to realize what qualities you secretly admire. Cameron asks you to be with that latter part of yourself for a while.

So here's what that means for me. I secretly admire Madonna, Howard Stern, Frank Sinatra, Bill Clinton and Katharine Hepburn. The traits they bring to mind are smarts, fearlessness, vision, "my way or the highway" philosophy, overcoming adversity.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me.