I recently joined an awesome community called Tech Leaders which is designed to help folks successfully take the leap from builder to business leader. This community is young but actively growing and is filled with quality individuals each eager to grow.

This morning, one of the founders made a post discussing The Secret to Achieving things. The Secret? Show up, get started and believe in yourself. We all have heard this before and we know it to be true. Being apart of a community whose sole purpose is to empower each other makes showing up, that much easier. This post inspired me to reflect on a similar topic. Perfection or Execution.

Too often, we or our teammates get caught in the age-old question: Should I perfect everything or ship something that might still have a few rough edges? This mindset can be a trap. We believe that if something is flawless, others—whether users, colleagues, or managers—will view us more favorably. But in truth, nothing is ever truly perfect. There’s always room for improvement, something that can be “better” or more “correct.” The problem with constantly chasing perfection is that we end up never shipping. Without shipping, we don’t get feedback, and without feedback, we don’t learn or grow.

When I was a younger engineer, a senior engineer once told me, "Stop obsessing over perfect code—it doesn’t exist. Ship the code or product and get real feedback. Otherwise, you won’t grow." That advice has stuck with me, and I often share it with my teams. It’s not about releasing poor code or unfinished features, but rather recognizing that nothing is ever truly flawless—and that’s okay.

Take SpaceX, for example. They knew their boosters weren’t perfect, yet they moved forward, launching rockets that sometimes exploded or crashed. But with every failure, they gained something invaluable: feedback.

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Feedback fuels iteration, and iteration drives progress.