Today, a friend of mine asked me to talk something about his strengths and weaknesses. In fact, though we are good friends, it’s hard for me to talk about this topic. That’s one of my weaknesses.

So, instead of telling him how I think of him, I’d like to talk about “what counts for”, which means, what is important for us in our life. Before I talk about detailed aspects, I’d like to distinguish what a person needs to have into two parts: character, ability. Though character and ability required for a person vary according to what s/he does, there is something in common that we should have.

Character is “the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary). There are some characters that count for, and I’d like to talk a few of them, which I value much.

l Down to earth and diligent. Nothing is easy. If you want to master something, it would be more complex that you thought, take time to study the subtle interact in it. I remember a piece of article which talked about 20/80 rule. You can know about 80 percents knowledge by spending 20 percents time, but what really count are those 20 percents that you have to spend lots of time on them. Because, those 80 percents are easy to understand, you can know, while other also can know. What distinguish you and others is, you spend more time in mastering those additional 20 percents knowledge which they don’t know.

l Active and keen to new things. The more we know, the more we know we don’t know. New things emerge day after day. What you know does matter something, but what matter more is what you don’t know. When we came to the world, we know nothing. But at that time, we were curious. We learnt how to show that we were thirsty, something we wanted. Gradually, we grow up and lose the curiosity. Once we lose curiosity, we lose the chance of growing. Some people might be interested how I know something they hadn’t heard of, the answer is very simple, curiosity. I didn’t know much, but whenever I came cross something new, I will take time to seek more about it if I think it’s interesting, visit the website it’s from, search it with Google or Wikipedia (will you search what is wikipedia if you don’t know what it is?). Also, I don’t care about that I may fail or waste some time. We learn from the mistake we made. If we fear of making mistake, we can’t make progress. In Chinese culture, making mistake is not acceptable, and parents often warn their children not do something, which is partly responsible for children lose curiosity for the world.

l Open-mind and Magnanimous. Open-mind has some overlap with keen to new things, but what I want to talk about is, taking time to think of other aspects. You might think you know something, and then you deny taking time to think the opposite aspect. The exist of different opinions values much, and we can learn lot from other aspects. John Stuart Mill talked something about the value of debate on his famous book, On Liberty, which can be downloaded at Gutenberg.org (Shamed on that it can’t be visit in Mainland China, while you can download ebooks in Guterberg.org by emule). Magnanimous means "showing or suggesting nobility of feeling and generosity of mind" (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary). Why magnanimous is important? Without it, it would be hard, if not impossible, for a person to work with intelligent and people who might be less smart than him/her. S/he will be jealous of people who is more intelligent than him/her and look down upon less smart one. In this case, S/he can get alone well with other colleagues.

l Frank. Frank is the most powerful method for effective communication. Though sometimes too frank may hurt the relationship, you need to learn something about the art of communication. But frank is so important that Jack Welch talked about it with a full chapter in his book, Winning, just after the first chapter, mission and values.

l Cooperative. In modern world, we are no longer the Robinson lived on the desolate island. We work with other to finish a task. Don’t regard yourself as a versatile person, even if you’re, your time is limited, and in some aspects, they can do much better than you.

l Modest. Modest is a kind of virtue. Be arrogant will not only encumber you from having good relation with others, but obstruct you from getting progress as well. What should be take care is, what is true modest, it’s not the facial etiquette, but the deep respect on others that matters.

l Considerate. Whatever you do, take time to think of, what is the effect? Especially think of the effect on those important persons in your life. If you don’t take affection on others into consideration, how can you make good relationship with other members and create great things? You will need help from others.

I will talk about abilities in the next piece, please be patient.