Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. Personally, I can say that I think of myself as an all around good guy, I express who I am around whoever I am around, I am myself and always will have faith in myself. I am a polite guy who will walk around almost every day with a positive personality. I am not one to ever give up. Of course, I make mistakes here and there, but I will realize what it was that I did and I will not give up, I will continue to try my best until the end. My personality has had a positive turn around and has changed a great deal ever since I was younger. Family, my older brother particularly, is the main reason my personality has changed and has made me more aware of having a positive attitude and way of looking at life because of the time we have spent together throughout our lives from being children to growing up and now working together, learning something new every day.

One thing that I can point out about myself and my personality is that I am not one who will ever give up on something that I truly want to do or that I truly believe in. I have faith in myself and I have a strong backbone about certain things. One thing I remember that had happened back in middle school that can relate would be when in the sixth grade I tried out for the boy’s basketball team and didn’t make the cut. I had made it through the first two days of tryouts and it was the day after the third tryout when I went into the locker room during school to check out the team’s list and see if I was on it. Scrolling down the paper with my finger and not seeing my name for a while got me worried. Eventually I had gotten to the end of the list and there was my name, not on the same list as everyone who had made the team, but instead it was down lower, by the coach’s names. It read Team Manager: Matt S. At first I was really angry at the coach of the team for not making the list that actually mattered to me, but I then realized, after a bit of pouting and thinking, “Hey, maybe this will be my chance to show the coach that I really do care and that I really do truly want to earn it and have my name on one of those jerseys.” With my new attitude towards being on the team, I began to walk out of the locker room when the coach came out and invited me into his office to talk about it. His reason as I remember him saying first, “Sorry about the list, Matt. I know how hard you have worked and that is part of the reason I still wanted you as a part of the team.” He had said that there were a lot of other good players that he needed on his team and I understood completely and was glad he confronted me face to face about it. I continued to be the “Team Manager” and go to every practice of that year with a positive attitude and believe it or not, the next year in the seventh grade, I tried out again and made the team. This situation stood out to me because it showed that having patience and a good attitude will pay off in the end. Also, it helps describe who I am as a person and gives an idea of some of the characteristics of my personality.

Sometimes people will look at my brother differently than I do, but I have always looked up to my brother since day one. My brother has done some stupid things, but I will always look at him the same way no matter what. Golfing is one thing that my brother and I enjoy and love doing together because it is a very relaxing sport that we both have a great time doing. The two of us are able to hangout and catch up with each other and have fun doing something we love in the beautiful weather. He would always give me advice for everything when we would talk and hangout, like how to deal with certain situations or he would be giving me tips for any sports because him and I basically watch and play the same sports. He would sometimes be giving me advice or tips on things that were relevant including girls, school, sports, family, general people, and basically advice for life and what he already knew about it and always talked about the things that he had been through. I recall him giving me some advice one time while we were on the golf course. The two of us were sitting in our golf cart waiting for the people ahead of us to move forward to the next hole until it was our turn to tee off. He began giving me this advice when we started to talk about our family, saying something along the lines of, “always remember one thing about dad before it is too late. You may already know what I am going to say,” he said. He started speaking again, “if you ever get into any sort of trouble and you have to deal with dad and he starts yelling, listen to what he is saying and do not ever try to argue back to him.” It made sense to me not to ever yell back at my dad because he can get on the loud and angry side if he is getting a point across. When I look back at some of the things my brother has told me, it just makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I always have somebody looking out for me and I like that. I believe that having a close friend like my brother is healthy because I know that the two of us can talk about anything we need to talk about. My brother is part of the reason I am who I am today because he has always been there for me and has taught me a lot of what I know from being social to learning the proper way to dribble a basketball.

All of the time that my brother and I have spent together throughout our lives from being children to growing up is the main reason that my personality has changed and has made me more aware of having a positive attitude and positive outlook towards life, learning something new every day. I have learned a lot of things about myself since I was younger. Being able to learn new things about myself is important because I know how I would react in certain situations, which benefits me because I will more than likely make the smart choices and do the right thing. I also believe that my brother has been a big influence on me while I was and still am growing up. The situations that I have noticed a change in my personality may be the things that make me different from some people that have an opposite negative attitude than the one that I have. Not many people have an older brother to look up to like I do, which may also make me look unique to others who do not have the benefit of having siblings sometimes. It feels good to know that one of my best friends is always there and so close because he is family.