The most important skill that knowing SQL has given me is the ability to think in terms of sets and declarative ways of defining what I want the end result to b

The most important skill that knowing SQL has given me is the ability to think in terms of sets and declarative ways of defining what I want the end result to be (I believe the fancy term is the "projection" :) ). Yes, it can appear to be magic to people who don't think that way, but doing things with window functions etc and understanding what the output of EXPLAIN means have helped unbelievably when improving performance etc.