Learning to build relationships is one of the most important things you can do.

Relationships are a key component to sustained success - be it personal or professional life. Quite often this is mistaken for 'transactional' benefits but the end goal is to meet people who add value to you or see value in you.

Unfortunately this is always done with an intention to buy or sell but never with an intention to help or just get to know someone.

It's not really difficult to establish connections if you take into consideration the following steps.

Step 1: Don't Fake Interest

If you're not interested in the person, building a long term relationship is fragile.

In the event you don't like a person and don't see eye-to-eye with anything they advocate, it's pointless. If you have zero interest in the person but are doing this for transactional benefits, this could misfire. If you do this repeatedly with different people, it gets worse.

It could work in the short run, but sustainable relationships is where the juice is at.

Step 2: To Be Interesting, Be Interested

Building on Step 1, being genuinely interested in people tends to open a two way street.

As Dale Carnegie said, you can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years trying to get other people interested in you.

Relationships develop over time. The best ones come from zero expectations and sincere interest.

Step 3: Share Ideas And Opportunities Instead Of Hoarding

A common mistake is hoarding ideas and opportunities from people with the fear that they would capitalise it better than you.

For the most, if you've established genuine connections, sharing ideas and opportunities solidifies things. People DO return the favour in the long run. That's where the whole point of playing the long term game comes into play.