Some of the people you admire most are good at being alone. Notice how they don’t need to fill every silence.

Watch the people whose steadiness you want and you notice a common feature: they are not working the room. They let a silence sit, they do not chase a joke that missed, they are not checking faces. That ease comes from being all right with their own company, so they do not need the room to vote.

Practise the smallest version of it this week. Let one silence stand in a conversation without rushing in, and let one joke of yours land flat without a follow-up. Both feel terrible for about four seconds and then stop mattering.