My hometown of Baldwinsville does not have the most ethnically diverse population considering the population proportions of America.  Despite the fact that I am mostly surrounded by Caucasians like myself, I was raised in a home where a respect for everything was mandatory.  My parents instilled in me a set of core values, that everyone has something unique to their personality, and that nobody is better than someone else solely based on their physical or religious attributes.  I did not understand why my parents impressed these views onto me until I started to learn history and witness the behaviors of individuals that thought they were more apt to rule based on how they were born. 
      	Any activity I have done, I tend to take more of a leading role.  My peers and classmates look at me to be able to lead them in a school project, or a soccer workout.  My gender and ethnicity have nothing to do with why they choose to look up to me to become a leader, they see me for the qualities and characteristics that I posses.  In a similar manner, I behave the same way in regards to looking through physical attributes.  I am not quick to judge someone based on what they are.
 Looking past a persons gender, color, ethnicity, or religion is not always the best option. I have had success being a leader because I take everyone’s uniqueness and see them as a multitude of specialists.  When I consider how a person is different than I am, I try and focus on what they will do best in, rather than how they will fail.  In a sense, it is how a person is different than I am that makes them more apt to be successful in that certain endeavor than I would be alone. 
I think that peoples differences should be respected, and that is why I have such success with group work rather than someone that delegates responsibilities based on what the person is rather than who they are.  I will be successful in working with a group of people that are not similar to me because I understand the concept that not everyone can be like me. Because there are many different types of people in the world, there can be many styles of approaching a problem.  I try and take the best course of action based on the attributes that I have and the qualities the people around me possess.
  Many of the people that inspire me do not resemble me based on their ethnicity, color, gender or religion.  Most of the authority figures in my life have been women.  Many of my school instructors have been female. These female instructional figures have shown me that it doesn’t matter what gender the person is, that anyone can have an important role in my life.  My best friends have been followers of a religion that is dissimilar to mine.  When I was younger, I did not understand why they celebrated different holidays than me, the concept did not overwhelm me in any way. I’ve had soccer coaches that had a different skin color than myself, but he was the biggest influence in my athletic career.  I have never behaved differently due to the fact that someone I was working with wasn’t just like me.