Q+A: Charles Gay

Q: How do you spend your weekend amid your busy schedule?

A: Conversations with my family over Skype or Facebook and planning the next Greenstar solar-powered community center in a rural village somewhere in the world.

What are your hobbies?

My hobby is also my vocation. Greenstar is also a core part of my life, which makes me both a better person and a better professional.

I also enjoy photography. A photograph of friends, family and parents taken years ago lets us see them in the same way we remember them.

What is the saying that you like the most? Why? What is your motto?

Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life (Confucius).

This basic principle is the secret to a successful, happy career.

Once the right career has been found, hard work takes care of itself. Then hard work is not hard work at all. With this combination the conscious becomes unconscious and we become capable of the highest performance and innovation.

Motto: Be favorable to bold beginnings (and endings).

Who is your icon? Which living person do you most admire?

Mahatma Gandhi: Generations to come will hardly believe that such a man walked the earth.

The living person I most admire is E.O. Wilson (American biologist and author).

What book are you reading at the moment? What is your favorite book?

I am currently reading The Social Animal by David Brooks. My favorite "book" is Wikipedia.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Perfect happiness is the freedom to use my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. To live a happy life, tie it to the pursuit of a goal, not to people or things. Happiness lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in victory itself.

What quality do you most admire?

It is character that makes one great. The man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age is also a good model.

What is the quality you most admire in a woman?

The ability to pause in wonder is a sacred gift of woman's intuitive mind. It seems that women are blessed with either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art and knowledge. Everything comes down to character and that means everything comes down to relationships because relationships are the seedbeds of character. The reason life and politics are so hard is that relationships are the most important but also the most difficult things to understand. A woman is almost always more attuned to relationships.

What do you value the most in your friends?

The best support a friend can render is to inform your character by holding up a mirror in which you can visualize a noble image of yourself. A friend is someone who lets you have the freedom to be yourself and before whom you may think aloud. A best friend is one who brings out the best in us.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Perpetual optimism - it is a force multiplier on the journey to continuous character development.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would like to better grasp and understand pure mathematics because it is the poetry of logical ideas. How can it be that mathematics, a product of human thought, independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?

Mathematics enjoys special esteem. Above all other sciences, its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.

What is your most treasured possession?

Having experienced the unexplainable phenomenon of love is my most treasured possession. Where there is love there is life.

You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give. The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart.

On what occasions do you lie?

Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on muAmerican Applied Materials Inctual trust and respect. Lying is done with words and also with silence.

One may tell a lie, but the facial grimace that accompanies it tells the truth, which makes lying futile. Whoever is careless with the truth, even in small matters, cannot be trusted with important matters.

Truth is what stands the test of experience.

Weakness in speaking with candor becomes weakness of character. A single lie or even a half-truth destroys a whole reputation for integrity.

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. I am a farm boy liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I know, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

What's the best way to break the ice with a Chinese businessman you've met for the first time?

The best way to engage with a Chinese businessman for the first time is to ask about his home region, life journey, art, aspirations, philosophy, goals and vision. I find the sense of humor among Chinese businessmen a readily accessible opportunity to build rapport.

Give three words to describe your impression of Chinese businessmen.

Entrepreneurial, philosophical, focused. Just like Albert Einstein, Chinese businessmen understand that the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.