This morning I worked out at my gym.

I took one of those spinning classes where you sit on an exercise bike and ride for 45 minutes while an "instructor" leads you through a pretend road race.

Now I am not much of a gym guy. I much prefer exercising outside, riding my real mountain bike or running the back hills around where I live.

But right now it’s butt cold here in the mornings, and I am just not motivated to go bike or run when it’s freezing outside.

So as I went into my spinning class this morning, I was bummed out to see that the class "instructor" was this annoying guy who pretty much caused me to stop going to these classes a year ago.

I double checked the schedule, and Stephan was not on the schedule. So I couldn’t figure out why he was teaching.

He’s got an annoying accent which makes him hard to understand as he leads the classes, and without getting into any further specifics, let’s just say he isn’t my kind of guy.

But he did do something this morning that raised him up in my view a bit .

Just before the class started, he came up and introduced himself to me.

He repeated my name, and welcomed me to the class.

Good move.

Today, just the fact that he came up, introduced himself, and repeated back my name, gave me a somewhat better opinion of him. Now I did still get one of those awful limp-fish handshakes, and he didn’t pronounce my name correctly, but hey, I will give him credit for making an effort.

Rumor has it at my gym that this guy was so disliked and so many people complained about him as a spinning instructor that he was removed last year from the spinning schedule (and it turned out the only reason he as leading today was the regular instructor was out of town).

Now not everyone has the most "normal" personality that is easily liked by everyone.  And life would be pretty boring if we were all the same.

But trying to bridge your differences, cultural, language, values or "other" is the first step to greater acceptance.

Frankly I don’t try to get along with everyone all the time. Its too much work.

But I do know *how* to get along with anyone, anytime I want to, and when I choose to do so because I have decided it best serves me to do so.

And as a professional salesperson, I suggest that such skill would be good for you to possess as well.

You can find out more about how I do this in my rapport skills course.

Sell with Pride,

Shameless Shamus Brown

P.S. Be sure to look for the 1-1 Rapport Skills DVD Program on the checkout page.