The most important letter in CAPITAL: build the habit, schedule the work and restart after slips, because relationships pay off over years.
The idea
If you only take one letter of CAPITAL to heart, take this one. Good relationships build over months and years, and the payoff is unpredictable. The client you just closed will be back in the market in five to ten years. The candidate who isn't a fit could be in two. Our brains discount anything that far away, so we skip the work. Nor is it a skill you build up over 10,000 hours and then "have." You need a habit. Of people, processes and systems, the one most likely to fail is you.
How to do it
Trigger. Set a recurring calendar appointment, or attach five minutes to something you already do daily.
Routine. Keep the work light enough to repeat: short, low effort, templated where possible.
Reward. Give yourself an immediate treat afterward, since the real payoff is years away.
Recover. When you break the streak, do one tiny action right away to get back on.
Recruit. If none of that holds, find a person to hold you to it.
Example
I work out at 5 a.m. The workout itself isn't the hardest part. Getting out of bed is. Relationship work is the same: the actions are easy, and the trigger to start, again and again, is everything. Years after the book, I added the last step. We'd tried time blocking, distraction management and habit loops, and urgent tasks kept winning. The concept that finally reshaped how I work was Who Not How: find a person to keep you consistent.
Watch out for
Starting with the hardest routine. Begin small and tune up over time.
The CAPITAL Strategy: Seven linked steps for building relationship capital: C (Consistent execution), A (Aggregate), P (Prioritize), I (Investigate), T (Timely engagement), A (Add value), L (Leverage).
Cue, Routine, Reward: Make relationship work a habit with a reliable trigger, an easy routine and an immediate reward, so you do it without deciding to.
The Hour of Power: Block a recurring hour, label it HOUR OF POWER, ignore email and calls, and spend it working on your relationships instead of in your inbox.
Falling Off the Wagon: When you lapse, give yourself grace, drop the backlog, and restart right away with one tiny action, like a single email.