When Life Trashes Your Trophies

I absolutely love the Focus on the Family ministry. And one of my favorite stories told by its founder Dr. James Dobson concerns his student tennis career. As a freshman at Point Loma Nazarene University, he saw a large, impressive trophy in the gym engraved with the names of each year’s most valuable tennis player. “I’m going to get my name on that trophy,” he vowed. And, sure enough, the name James Dobson was added in both 1956 and 1958.

Years later, as one of the college’s outstanding graduates, Dr. Dobson was invited back to address the student body. On the way to his speaking engagement, he spied, of all things, the coveted outstanding tennis player trophy peeking out of a dumpster behind the school’s gym. Years after Dr. Dobson’s triumphant accomplishments, someone valued that trophy so little that they literally trashed it. He took that as a lesson in keeping perspective on how much emotional investment to make in what really can be legitimate pursuits.

I had a similar experience. The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) is a 40,000-member, international personal membership association for senior healthcare leaders. Each state elects someone to the role of Regent to represent them to the international organization, and once a year, each Regent gives a special award to just one outstanding senior leader in their region. Every year, I secretly hoped my name would be called. It never was.

Ironically, about nine years ago I was elected Regent for Georgia and found myself in the position to actually select the winners. Besides recognizing that the selection process is fairly arbitrary, I realized that, since there is only one award, many worthy leaders never receive that honor.

Once I completed my term as Regent, ACHE sent a beautiful certificate commemorating my service. When I started my consulting business in 2015, I turned an extra bedroom at home into my office. My wife Annette asked me if I wanted to get the ACHE Regents certificate framed to hang in the office. I decided that, since she, I, and the pest control technician would be the only three people who would ever see it, it wasn’t worth the $150 necessary to frame it.

This realization put a lot in perspective for me. First of all, I had strongly desired getting the award but never did. It’s OK. That fact doesn’t diminish my value as a leader or a person. Then, I was in the position to actually give the award to others and saw how difficult it was to single out just one person. This further made my non-existent award OK. And, finally, in the end, I decided the symbol – i.e., the Regents certificate – of my “prestigious” role of recognizing an outstanding peer was not even worth framing.

Now, I’m 100% in favor of setting goals, working hard, and applauding others for their accomplishments. But if what used to be Dr. Dobson’s treasured trophy ends up in the trash, and if a certificate that recognizes one of my more important professional accomplishments isn’t even worth spending $150 on, how much sense of self-worth should I place in those goals? (I was going to take a picture of the certificate to use as a visual for this article, but, frankly, I don’t even remember where it is.)

Scripture teaches that there are only three things that are truly eternal:  God, his word, and people. So, while I’m legitimately pursuing life’s important and necessary “human” goals, I should always consider to what extent I’m balancing those against the three things of eternal significance.

In recent years, God has led me into an extremely rewarding individual mentoring ministry with about a dozen younger men. God calls each of us to different ministries, and I encourage you to ask yourself if you are investing in what really matters in life:  your relationships with God, your family, and those he has placed in your path. These are life’s true trophies that will never be trashed.