The hoodie and hat were a validation – a sign of having arrived.

And in that, I think there’s a takeaway that’s wonderfully validating for promotional products professionals, too. 

Hang with me for a sec; I’ll explain.

This baseball season, my middle son Dylan made a travel team. It’s his first time playing travel, and my gosh, you would’ve thought he’d just got called up for his Major League debut when he learned that he was on the squad – a team in our home state of Pennsylvania called Powerballers.

Dylan has hardly stopped wearing the logoed hat and hoodie of his travel baseball team since he received them.

Barely were we done fist-bumping when Dylan asked, “When do I get my hat? Can I get a hoodie too?”

Since receiving them, I don’t think a day has gone by that he hasn’t worn one – and often both.

He wears them to school. He wears them to practice. He wears them around the house, to his friends’ houses, to go play wiffle ball. He wore them to the middle school cornhole tournament. He sleeps in the hoodie, and has fallen asleep with the hat on. You get the idea.

In my opinion, the hat and hoodie definitely look cool – each done in a kind of powder blue and black, the cap bearing an on-field-style flat brim and the hoodie made of performance fabric with digital-pattern gradation to the colors. The team logo features prominently on both.

Still, it’s not the sweet styling that has Dylan donning the gear daily.

No, what matters is what these branded items represent.

They showcase his connection to something that he’s proud to be a part of. They’re visual proof that he was good enough to compete for and earn a spot on a quality team in the sport that’s now far and away his favorite – a sport at which he works hard to excel.

The hat’s taken the kind of beating you might expect a rough-and-tumble 12-year-old baseball player to deliver, but that’s just a sign of the fun being had while wearing it. Plus, it’s holding up well.

At his age, I don’t think he could quite articulate the emotion that comes with a sense of confirmation tied to the logos he’s earned the right to wear. On the one hand, they’re just a hoodie and hat. But for Dylan, they’re more than that: They’re symbols of having achieved something and become part of a unit bigger than himself, one to which he’s thrilled to belong.

Promo pros, this is all by way of saying: It can be easy to become bogged down in the daily grind. To focus on the challenges and frustrations, the client demands and the roadblocks to meeting them. The need to stay ahead of the competition. To always give more.

In this, you can perhaps lose track of the positive impacts your work has on people who buy and receive the products you provide. So this is a friendly reminder: What you do matters. When you’re thoughtful and creative and you deliver a spot-on solution, you’re providing a tangible, graspable, wearable means of delivering delight to your clients’ end-users.

I hope you’re as proud of that as Dylan is to be a Powerballer.