How Duke’s Head Coach Thinks About Adversity 💪

Hey 👋

It’s Sunday night (Nov 16) as I’m writing this. I wasn’t able to put together a new newsletter this week, so I thought it would be fun to re-run a favorite from our content library.

This one’s about “handling hard better,” inspired by a viral pre-practice message from Duke University’s women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson.

We love hoops around here, and with basketball season in full swing, it felt like a good time to bring this one back.

Enjoy!

How do you handle hard in life and work?

Do you relish it? Or run from it?

Left humbled and convicted, I asked myself the above after watching women’s basketball coach, Kara Lawson, speak to her team about how to Handle Hard Better on and off the court.

In the video, three themes stick out that may unlock growth and purpose for the young professional in challenging seasons of life and work —

1. The Reality of Hard

2. The Purpose of Hard

3. The Gift of Hard

“We all wait for things in life to get easier. I just got to get through this and then it will be easy… it will never get easier.” — Kara Lawson

The reality of life and work is, it is hard. It will never get easier! A young professional typically faces micro and macro seasons of hard:

• Micro Seasons of Hard — Think busy work seasons, challenging client relationships, community and family struggles, health challenges, financial hardship, to name a few. These ebb and flow.

• Macro Seasons of Hard — Zooming out circumstantially, often we are either in a storm, heading into a storm, or leaving a storm.

And waiting for life to ease up or banking on the “next thing” to solve the adversity won’t actually solve the adversity. Why?

• Waiting – A wise friend once said, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” Passivity doesn’t bring growth or ease. It keeps us stuck. An object at rest stays at rest… unless acted upon.

• The Next Thing – A new job, raise, city or community may offer a temporary pressure release, but hardship can reappear, just in new forms.

Harsh realities, but reality nonetheless.

So if it won’t get easier, what’s the point of all this hard?

“It never gets easier. What happens is you become someone who handles hard better.” — Kara Lawson

There are several hidden nuggets in Lawson’s speech. “You become” stands out the most.

The purpose of hard is not to get to easy. The purpose of hard is transformation. It produces something good within by helping us to become:

• More mentally tough

• More financially wise

• More spiritually steady

• More relationally aware

• More professionally skilled

• More emotionally empathetic

Not to benefit ourselves but for the common good of an employer, a boss, a work team, a family, a community, a church.

Think of it this way: to build muscle that benefits the body, you have to work out. In a workout, muscles break down and build lactic acid, increasing soreness. Workouts hurt. They’re hard. However, after a few days, the muscle grows back stronger and more equipped to handle more weight, benefitting the health of the body.

• The writer Paul says it like this. “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4, NIV).

• Take it from Helen Keller, who states: “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

Therefore, see adversity as an opportunity to develop character muscle for God’s glory, the benefit of others, and your good.

Now that we know the reality of hard and the purpose of hard, why is hard a gift?

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-4, NIV).

Handling hard better doesn’t mean ignoring adversity or powering through. It means meeting it joyfully, trusting what it produces in you is worthwhile.

Not fake optimism. Not toxic positivity. But a deep, grounded confidence that the hard is forming something good.

Therefore, hard is a gift because the process of what it produces inwardly in you and what it creates outwardly for others is filled with joy.

Handle hard better joyfully in seasons of challenge because of that.

“In any meaningful pursuit in life, if you want to be successful, it goes to people that handle hard well… not people that wait around for easy.” — Kara Lawson

Those who handle pressure well are successful professionally, spiritually, relationally, and financially. Maybe not successful by how culture defines it, but successful in who you are becoming.

So, be the person who relishes the hard rather than runs from it.

As always, let us know how we can help you navigate your world as you navigate the world.

In Your Corner.

See you next Tuesday!