In-Powered Coach: Will Hardy

Humor, Freedom and Competence

You might look at Will Hardy’s W-L record from 2024-25 and say, “He should probably not be an HC in the NBA.”

I’d disagree with you.

Professional sports needs 100 Will Hardy’s.

Here are a few principles worth mentioning from his interview with Slappin’ the Glass.

Humor

Humor is an In-Powered coaching principle. Humor calibrates above 500, deflates your self-importance and attracts people to you, improving relationships and making you a more enjoyable person to be around.

To transcend the world requires compassion and acceptance. They are the result of inner humility by which the world is surrendered to God with increased peace of mind. One of the most valuable spiritual tools about which, historically, little has been said is the great value of humor. Comedy arises as a result of the comparison that is made between perception and essence, and the resolution is a consequence of the acceptance of the ambiguity.

Humor is quite different from ridicule or malice as it is compassionate in that it accepts human limitations and foibles as being intrinsic. It therefore assists ‘wearing the world like a light garment’ and illustrates that in being like the reed that bends in the wind, one survives instead of being broken down by rigidity.

-Hawkins