My high school health teacher Mr. Saddick used to always drop this at random during his lectures:
Anytime you have a job interview, make sure you're 15 minutes early. This way you know that they know that you're thinking about it. 
Some people I worked with in college used to always say,
To be early is to be on time. To be "on time" is to be late. And to be late is to be forgotten. 
I took those words to heart and have lived by them ever since. Many people I come across don't quite understand why it's important.
One place it goes back to is when I first started playing ball. I wasn't that good of a player, so for the neighborhood pickup games I knew I had to be at the courts for the first game. The first game usually consisted of the only 10 players who were there, so if I was there when that game started I was guaranteed a spot until we lost. Then I'd have to hope to be picked up or just go home.
I kept that idea.
Then I started reading how the majority of the most successful people are early risers.
Then one of college coaches made us run suicides for 90 minutes when a bunch of us showed up late (read: less than 15 minutes early) to a mid-season practice. We were never late again.
Then I worked at a gym that didn't have a basketball court. But a different location of the same company did. Since I had a free membership, I'd wake up at 4am and drive to the bball gym, shower there, and drive to the gym I worked at. Then I'd work my job and go play in leagues after work.
Then the gym I was working out at once had a two-week summer camp that started at 7am. So the gym was closed to the public between 7am-5pm. My choices were either to work out before 7, or after 5. I chose the earlier and since the habit had already been developed, I stuck with it.
And I just hate being at the back of lines. If I'm going somewhere that I know will have a line, I might as well be first in that line.
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The wiring of human beings makes us believe that the person in front, the person who goes first, is the leader -- even if he's not.
People who show up "on time", to me, aren't serious about what they're doing. Those who show up late don't even deserve to be let in the building. Ideally, everyone on your team is so early that it isn't even "early" anymore, since early is always relative to everyone else's timing.
Timing is everything.