Being dependable isn’t flashy, but it’s what people call you for at 2 a.m.

Reliability accumulates without producing any visible moment. Nobody notices the ninetieth time you did what you said you would, and yet that record is exactly what determines whose name comes to mind when something goes badly wrong in the middle of the night. It is the least glamorous reputation and the most valuable one.

Keep the small commitments even when they are inconvenient and nobody would mind. Answer when you said you would answer. The list of people who can be counted on is short in everyone’s life, and getting onto it takes years of unremarkable behavior.