What Truly Matters Most in Life and in the Game of Business We all want to get ahead in this world, but that shouldn't come at the expense of this vital thing.

Building great, sustainable and meaningful relationships is arguably one of the most important things we can do during our time here on Earth.

All too often, we see men and women who think it's perfectly fine to neglect their relationships just to move up the corporate ladder or increase their net worth.

Now, don't get me wrong. You absolutely should strive to get better and advance from where you are to somewhere higher up within a company. And who doesn't like to make more money and see their net worth increase every year? However, this should not be done at the expense of neglecting what's most important: relationships.

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What a lot of people don't understand is that creating and nurturing exceptional relationships will actually help advance your career and increase your personal net worth. Relationships and people aren't just important when referring to living a healthy and happy life, they are also the foundation of creating exceptional businesses.

It utterly amazes me when I see someone neglect a relationship for the sake of closing a deal. It may give you short-term satisfaction and build your ego, but as time goes on, it will do more harm than good.

The companies and organizations that dominate their competition and market completely understand the extreme importance of creating a memorable and unbelievable experience for their customers. They understand that people matter. They understand that every single relationship and interaction matters.

A piece of advice that changed the direction of how I operate and look at business is as follows: "If you want to make a million dollars, serve a million people." Regardless of what business you are running or what field you are in, when you aim to serve people, build meaningful relationships and adopt the "people matter" mentality, you will eventually win in the game of business.

Related: 25 Tips for Having Meaningful Relationships

We live in a technology-driven society, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's unreal the amazing things that technology can do for us these days, but we are at the point where human interaction and relationships with actual people are being pushed to the side by a large portion of entrepreneurs, organizations and companies.

Besides creating a world-class product or having an exceptional service to offer, the quickest way to grow your business and build a loyal and growing fan base is through care. Care for every relationship, interaction, tweet, email and phone call that you come across. Go out of your way to make people feel special. People matter.

These wonderful words from Max Lucado sum it up perfectly:

"When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to the garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in rereading your financial statement? Of course not. What will matter then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn't they matter most now?"

Relationships matter most. People matter most -- in life, and in the game of business.

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