By Daniel Winningham
Success comes down to one thing, making someone else’s life better.
That was the overarching message from Dave Davlin, the keynote speaker at the Perry County Community Foundation’s 2021 Humanitarian of the Year dinner Nov. 4 held at the Robinson Event Center.
A former halftime entertainer at NBA games who was featured in the Guiness Book of World Records for spinning a dozen basketballs on his body at one time as well as an author, Davlin provided an inspirational message for event attendees.
“I bet everybody in this room, you all wanted to be the hero,” Davlin said, before ticking off portions of his various sports analogies.
“The game-winning three are the person you become, the memories you create and the difference you make,” Davlin said.
The gift of memory can be both a blessing and a curse, Davlin said. What may be a great memory for one person could be a haunting one to another individual.
Quoting 19th author Ralph Waldo Emerson, Davlin said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
“Here’s the thing, you never know the small things you do every day, things you don’t think twice about, they’re insignificant to you, those things can mean the world to someone else,” he said.
Recognize and embrace your uniqueness,” Davlin said. “Everyone can contribute something.”
This can be talent or ability, or wisdom or influence.
“It’s about doing whatever you can, and doing it massively well,” Davlin said, adding this can take time, energy and effort.
The purpose of his talk was to challenge those in the audience to lead a more selfless life.
Learn to make it about somebody else, Davlin noted.
He closed his speech by reading an obituary about his mother, Mary, who worked as a waitress for decades in a small town in Texas. His mom’s passions were high school sports and high school band.
Long after her children had grown up, she attended all the high school basketball, football and marching band competitions for nearly three decades.
“At the end of our lives, all of us will be remembered in some way, but the greatest impact we will ever have is the impact we have on people,” Davlin said. “In the end, it’s not about the things we have, it’s only about the lives we touch.”
The journey is not a self-serving one, according to Davlin.
“I’ve learned the hard way, what’s important is not what you do in life, it’s what you do with life,” he said.
Davlin added a few more sports analogies as his speech wrapped up.
“Life is a lot like the end of a basketball game, there is two seconds left on the clock and you’ve got to have that game-winning 3 to win, the only difference is in basketball it always happens at the end,” Davlin said. “In your life, it’s going to happen throughout your entire journey. Either way, we all get one shot, it’s up to each of us to make it count.”
No matter the length of time in days or years one is given, Davlin said, people should strive to make the most of their talents and treasures.
“For every single one of us, there’s a clock ticking, it’s time we all get off the bench and check into the game and we all start becoming the heroes we were created to be,” Davlin said.
