Gravitas

Authority that has to announce itself was never authority.

Gravitas is weight a man carries without displaying it. You feel it when he enters — not because he is loud or large, but because he has clearly paid for what he knows.

It cannot be bought or performed. The man who tries to seem serious only seems anxious. Real gravitas is the residue of tested seriousness: years of keeping his word, sitting with hard things, refusing the easy lie. It moves slowly because it is sure. It speaks rarely because it has nothing to prove. A young man can fake almost anything except this. Gravitas is the one thing only time and conduct can mint.

The Stoic source

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1.16

There was in him nothing harsh, nor implacable, nor violent, nor, as one may say, anything carried to the sweating point; but he examined all things severally, as if he had abundance of time, and without confusion, in an orderly way, vigorously and consistently.

Translated by George Long

The Scripture

Titus 2:2, KJV

That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

The move

Slow one thing down on purpose — how you speak, how you walk into a room, how you answer a question. Replace speed with deliberateness once a day.