If you have known me for any length of time or have made an appointment with me, you know I am a very punctual person. I would rather be an hour early than a minute late. I pride myself in always being punctual and find it extremely rude if I have an appointment with somebody and they arrive late. To me, if somebody arrives late, its show they don't respect me and they don't value my time. And let's face it, life is too short to be waiting around on people who don't value you.  

There are moments in life when you learn the most valuable lessons in the strangest of ways. I don't remember much about middle school but I have vivid memories of my band teacher who was a brilliant musician but quite possibly the meanest person I had ever met.

He trained me to become a first chair flutist, but he also taught me two valuable lessons.  

One was to always use a pencil because you need to continually revise and tweak your craft to improve and be the best you can be.  

And the other was to always be punctual. I learned quickly that if I wanted to advance as a musician I would have to arrive early to rehearsal. He'd lock us out of band rehearsal if we were late and would throw music stands across the room if we messed up during rehearsal. To this day I can recall the sound of his voice as he would yell at us for arriving late to band and sectional rehearsals and wouldn't let us in. We would have to sit outside in the hallway and listen with agony while the other students practiced.  

To this day, I refuse to be late to ANYTHING.  I would rather be an hour early than a minute late. I live by William Shakespeare's motto in that its "Better to be three hours too soon than a minute too late".

So the next time we have a meeting together and I arrive an hour early and you see me sitting in the parking lot catching up on emails or reading you will know why. :)