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My perspective is different than what has been posted, so here it goes.

I knew I could outwork everyone and brute force being a better programmer by a function of continuous improvement through hours of work. (btw I was wrong, there is always someone out there that will outwork you...and they will be smarter than you, but hey it made sense to me).

I didn't realize I made it until

a) People would recognize me in meetings because of my code

b) New programmers started to ask me for advice

...now I'm in the Sr Devs, Tech Leads, and Lead Architects ask me for advice level. Honestly, I still have the same attitude, if I work effectively, I can keep getting better. Notice that I remove the "work harder" part.