I haven't been around the block a lot nor do I consider myself as "ridiculously good" but from my experience shipping is king, every time.<p>It's very easy for us to focus on the tech and think that more knowledge, more performance or whatnot is the next level. While we have some superheros (John Carmack, Dennis Ritchie, Dan Abramov) that are famous for incredibly focus and deep technical skills, for the rest of us, we are evaluated on getting stuff done, reliably and consistently.<p>There are, of course, situations in which "shipping" has to do with performance (I once had to rewrite and algo from python to rust to gain about 100x performance), but in those cases it's often explicitly defined as a business requirement, i.e. more revenue or lower expenses.<p>Another tool in my toolbox has been understanding better the "business" of coding, that is, how does software engineering work fits in the "supply chain" of a company, from idea to the sales guy making cold-calls. Two books come to mind, "The Unicorn Project" and "The Phoenix Project".<p>At any rate, the desire to keep improving yourself, growing and learning it laudable!