I build the way I play tennis, which is to say I care about the boring part. Fifteen years on court teaches you that the good shots come out of a lot of unglamorous, repeatable work, and that following through when it stops being fun is most of the game. I still coach, and watching a player finally land a shot on the fortieth try feels a lot like watching a stubborn build go green.
Leading the tennis club turnaround is where that became how I think about software. Getting a group of people who didn't agree at first onto one plan is not far off getting a tangled codebase into a state the next person can actually pick up. Both come down to follow-through, and to still caring once the interesting part is over.
When a humanitarian AI hackathon came up in Sydney, I backed myself, booked the trip interstate on my own, and built for 44 hours with people I met that weekend. We finished in the top 12. Unfamiliar rooms on short deadlines turn out to be where I do some of my best work.