The Trophy I will Never Win Again

Sometimes the greatest victories in life never show up on a leaderboard.

In this deeply personal episode of Finding Your Innergator, R.B. Wright steps away from the Whale Hunting series to share two recent fishing tournaments that reminded him what success is really about.

One was an offshore king mackerel tournament with his daughter, Jillian, fishing her first tournament. The other was an inshore redfish tournament alongside his 76-year-old father.

Neither tournament ended the way they hoped.

But both ended with something far more valuable than a trophy.

Through these stories, R.B. explores how easy it is to spend our lives chasing accomplishments while overlooking the relationships that ultimately become our greatest victories.

Because one day, the trophies will collect dust...

But the memories never will.

What You'll Learn

• Why success isn't always measured by winning
 • The difference between accomplishments and significance
 • Why relationships are the true measure of a meaningful life
 • How to recognize success before it's too late
 • Why the greatest investment you'll ever make is in the people beside you

Key Takeaways

"Champions don't need yesterday to go their way to show up today."

"Life keeps score differently than we do."

"Nobody remembers every fish. They remember the stories, the laughter, and the people."

"The greatest catch wasn't the fish—it was the people standing beside you when you caught it."

Your Challenge This Week

Take a step back and ask yourself:

What trophy am I chasing?

More importantly...

Who am I taking with me?

Spend intentional time with the people who matter most. One day, those moments will mean far more than any promotion, paycheck, or trophy ever could.

Because greatness isn't measured only by what you accomplish.

It's measured by who you become...

...and who you bring along with you.

If This Episode Spoke to You

Share it with someone who has helped shape your journey—or someone you simply need to spend more time with.

Sometimes the greatest reminder we can give another person is that they matter more than the scoreboard.

Thank you for listening to Finding Your Innergator.

And as always...

Go Gatorize Your Day.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Finding Your Innergator Podcast, where we talk about discipline, relationships, and the habits that release to greatness that is already inside of you. I'm your host, RB Wright, and I am so glad that you're here. In each episode, we'll explore powerful lessons, real life stories, and practical strategies to help you live intentionally, build meaningful relationships, and unlock your full potential. But greatness isn't something you stumble into, it's something that is built every single day. So let's get started and begin the journey to finding your innergator. All right, everybody, hello and welcome. You are listening to Finding Your Innergator Podcast, and I am your host, RB Wright, and as always, I am so glad that you are here. You know, over the last several weeks, we've been walking through what we've called the well hunting series. We've talked about research, we've talked about having a plan, your presentation, the fight, landing the fish, and aftercare. I've had so many people reach out and tell me how those lessons apply to their business, their relationships, and their goals, and thank you. Thank you. That really means a lot. But today, today's a little different. Today isn't about well hunting. It's not about winning a tournament. Today is about something that's actually kind of personal to me, and I was reminded over the last few weeks that I honestly think that it's this is even more important. I want to ask you a question. I want you to think about this. What if the greatest thing that you bring home isn't what you thought you were chasing? Let me tell you why I'm asking that. Maybe this will help clarify. A couple weeks ago, uh I fished in the East Coast got emotion classic King Mackel tournament. This thing's been going on for decades. It's one of the oldest King Mackel tournaments on the East Coast. It's a fun tournament to be a part of. This year I had uh my stepdaughter, I call her my daughter, right? Just clarifying, she is my stepdaughter, has been for, Lord, 17 years. Uh, but she wanted to fish as the lady angler. Now, I I was excited because I got her on the boat with me, uh, and she was taking a little bit of interest, uh, but I didn't know how it was going to go, right? So the first night we get to the captain's meeting, and she's walking around, kind of taking everything in. Got back and she, I told her, I said, we're leaving, you know, we've got to be ready to go at 5 a.m. Day one. Honestly, it was rough. Heavy winds. We actually stayed kind of close, uh, got beat up on the water. Uh, we caught a couple of sharks. We had a few what we call short strikes where the reels would go off and the fish either threw the hook or just bit the bait in half and didn't get hooked. No kings, no mahi. It's just riding, we followed a plan, but man, riding back to the dike, I was thinking, man, that did not go as planned. And I could tell she was worn out. Like I said, it was her first offshore tournament. We actually had a conversation, we being my, I call them my line guys, my mate, his name's uh Hunter, Hunter Jacobs. He and I talked the night before, didn't know she was going to want to go because the weather was so bad on Saturday. It's a two-day tournament. But we had that conversation on Saturday night, and I honestly wondered if she'd even want to go back after sitting out there for 10 hours getting beat up and not have anything to show for it, and the wind's blowing, it was rough. But you know what happened? I told him we got to leave earlier on Sunday. We're gonna be at the truck at 4 45 a.m. She beat us up. She was ready before we were. She was excited. There was no complaining, no excuses. She wanted another shot. Right there, that told me something. Champions don't need yesterday to go their way to show up today. They don't need it to go the way they wanted, just show up and try again. We met up in my shop, 445, loaded up, headed to the marina, and I told them on the way, we're gonna follow a different plan today. It's gonna be a little bit better weather. We took a different approach, we had different water, different mindset. We called Mahi. In fact, she's letting the line out, and all of a sudden it started screaming, and she had a Mahi on. We called a nice king. We had a great day. Now here's the interesting part. I'd been talking to some folks, and I knew that the top fish were going to be between 30 and 40 pounds. Actually, a 61-pound fish, which was incredible, was weighed in. And our fish is probably 18 to 22 pounds. We could have been somewhere where we got a little something for it. And we could have burned fuel running all the way back to the weigh station, probably about an hour and a half, two-hour run, and say, hey, we weighed a fish, let her experience that. Even though we knew the king wasn't going to be where we wanted. And I asked, what do you want to do? She wanted to stay out and keep fishing. She was having so much fun, smiling, ear to ear, learning as much as she could. We caught more fish, saw some things that she never would have seen. We laughed, we talked, we made memories. Had fresh Mahi tacos for dinner. On paper, we didn't win. On paper. But nobody on that boat felt like we lost. Then that made me start thinking about another tournament. About three or four weeks ago, I fished a red fish tournament, an inshore tournament with my dad. He's 76 years old. Think about that, 76. I picked him up at his dock at daylight. We talked all day. On a boat with no cover, on a small boat, no cover. Just sitting there in the sun. It poured down rain some. We talked, we laughed. We picked apart every decision we made all day. He caught some flounder. He loves catching flounder. And we caught a redfish at the last minute. Now, we didn't finish where we wanted to. We didn't win the entire tournament. We did win something, which was good. We placed. But somewhere during that day it hit me. There's only so many more mornings that I can pick him up at his dock, and he'll be sitting beside me in a tournament. There's going to come a day that I would give anything for one more tournament with my dad. You know, I've been thinking about that a lot. It's funny how we keep score, right? We keep score by trophies, by plaques, by rankings, by dollars, by followers, by titles, who finished first. But life. Life keeps score a little differently. It keeps score by memories, by relationships, by conversations, by sunsets. By teaching your daughter how to tournament fish. By watching your dad smile when a fish hits. By them looking at you, both of them saying, Hey, when are we going again? Those things never show up on a leaderboard. But they're things that you'll remember 20 years from now. You know, one of the foundations of Intergator is optimizing relationships. We're talking about it all the time. I said it a hundred times. Gator, the original acronym is greatness achieved through optimizing relationships. Notice I didn't say greatness achieved by accumulating trophies, accumulating money, accumulating titles. Relationships. Because when life is over, nobody asks how many terminates you entered. But they will remember who you entered them with. Nobody remembers the fish. They remember the stories, the laughter, the people. You know, I started thinking maybe we spend too much time chasing success. And not enough time just recognizing it when it's already sitting beside us. Jillian wanted to win the tournament, but she didn't need to win that tournament. She needed confidence. She needed encouragement. She needed another reason to want to fish with me. My dad didn't need another trophy. He just needed another day on the water. And honestly, so did I. You know, I'm I've accomplished some things professionally that I'm very proud of. I've recruited great people. I've built some really good teams. I've had the opportunity to speak on a lot of stages, build businesses. But if you ask me what I remember years from now, it's not going to be the production numbers. It'll be the mornings on the boat, the rides to the endlet, watching the sun come up over the ocean, watching somebody catch their first fish. Those are the things that matter. Now for you, it may not be a boat, but I think you get my point. And my challenge for you this week is don't just chase the trophy. Don't just chase the promotion. Don't just chase the next deal. Ask yourself, who are you talking to? Who are you taking with you? What are you investing in? Who needs more of your time than your money? Because I promise you, one day you're going to discover that the greatest catch wasn't the fish, it was the people standing beside you when you caught it. You know, every week, I tell you that there's greatness inside of you. I know it's there. And I'm trying my best to help you find it and release it. But today I want to remind you of something else: that greatness is not just measured by what you accomplish. It's measured by who you become and who you bring along with you. Thank you for spending a few minutes with me today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this podcast. I really, that says a lot. And I thank you for allowing me to share a little bit of my life with you. I hope that you have an incredible week and that you spend some time with people who matter and you make some great memories. And as always, go Gatorize your day. Everybody, thank you so much for listening to the Finding Your Inner Gator podcast. You know, if today's episode helped you, share it with someone who needs to hear this message. Remember, greatness is achieved through discipline, intentional action, and optimizing the relationships around you. I look forward to getting with you next week. Now, go Gatorize your day.