Recently, thanks to my friend Winnie, I came across this article Warren Buffet: The three things i look for in a person. I want to highlight a particular section that resonated well with me.

“You’re looking for three things, generally, in a person,” says Buffett. “Intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two.”

I couldn’t agree more. I once met with several owners of factories in Shenzhen and these guys are the rich and powerful. One piece of advice they all agreed on to give me, is to find people you can rely on and trust. Trust can be found and broken anywhere; whether I’m in the US or anywhere else in the world as I’ve recently encountered. My friend Rayfill once told me “at the core of everything business is one thing; TRUST.” Even for our startup Taxiwise, we aim to build one attitude: that we are trustworthy. Trustworthy to both the passengers and the taxi drivers.

Surround yourself with those you trust and know that they will be there for you when you need them. There are times when the trust between a person can be shaky but if they are truly your friends, they will try their best to repair the bond. For me, trust is easy characteristic to earn and also easy to lose and hard to gain back. I recently had a test of trust in regards to a “so-called” friend not being truthful and leaving us in the dust to for monetary gain. Some people show their true colors at one point however its good to remember not everyone is like that and there are a lot of good people out there.

Read the article if you haven’t. It’s a good read for the end of the week.