Showing up ten minutes early is a personality you can simply decide to have.

Some traits look like temperament but are only decisions that got repeated. Arriving early is one of them, and it asks for no talent, no confidence, and no change in who you are underneath. It costs ten minutes and earns the kind of reputation other people spend years trying to build. Much of what gets called reliability is a small stack of choices like this one.

Take the next three things on your calendar and set your leaving time ten minutes earlier than feels necessary. Notice how differently you walk into a room when you are not arriving out of breath.