| Approachable people exhibit the following characteristics: 1) Personal warmth; they truly like people. In an old Peanuts cartoon Charlie Brown says, 'I love mankind, it's just people I can't stand.' Hello! It's not enough to love people in theory; you have to generate personal warmth toward those you meet each day. 2) Their moods are consistent. Have you ever worked with someone whose moods are constantly up and down? You never know how they'll be. In contrast, approachable people are even-keeled and predictable. They're basically the same way every time you see them. 3) Sensitivity toward people's feelings. Although approachable people are emotionally steady, that doesn't mean they expect others to be that way. They recognise that good people have bad days; consequently they tune their moods to the feelings of others and quickly adjust how they relate to them. 4) Understanding of human weakness, and exposure of their own. Novelist Ed Howes said, 'Express a mean opinion of yourself occasionally, it will show your friends that you know how to tell the truth.' Approachable people are honest about their abilities; and their shortcomings. They embrace the old proverb which says: 'Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.' And because they can admit their own faults, they don't have a problem allowing other people to have faults as well. 5) The ability to forgive, and ask for forgiveness. Author David Augsburger wrote, 'Since nothing we attempt is ever without error, and nothing we achieve, without some measure of the finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness.'
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