Inspiration Station - From Traumatized to Unshakeable - Philip Brittain

A single moment of shame can follow you for years, especially when the same cruel nickname gets repeated until it feels like your real name. Philip Brittain joins us to share a raw, human story of childhood bullying, identity collapse, and the slow process of rebuilding self worth from the inside out. If you’ve ever wondered why encouragement at home still couldn’t drown out what happened at school, you’ll recognize yourself in this conversation.

We talk through the mechanics of how repeated messaging becomes belief, why “staying busy” is often just numbing, and what it looks like to actually process grief, anger, and unforgiveness. Philip also shares the surprising turning point that helped him stand up again: a lunchroom moment where saying yes to an opportunity created a new narrative and started stacking real confidence. It’s a reminder that healing from childhood trauma is rarely instant, but it is absolutely possible.

From there, Philip lays out his Victory Framework, a faith-based personal development roadmap built around vision, identity, character, trust, and relationships. He explains why the framework is simple to understand but hard to live, and why that’s exactly what makes it effective. You can also connect with Philip at PhilipBrittain.com and grab his free 150-question assessment at iwantvictory.com/gift.

If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review so more people can find stories that lead to real healing.

Our team will choose random (but timely) episodes from our previous three seasons (which are our most popular ever!) to share with our listeners during the slower parts of a long podcast season. We think you will enjoy them! Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Welcome And The New Show Style

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Welcome back to the Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. Of course, I'm your host, Mr. You. Or in case you guys haven't been made aware, we do some new things, very different for us, but we're excited about it. All four of our shows on our They Call Me Mr. You podcast brand of allgoing interview style. So we're going to meet a whole lot more people with compelling stories, life experience, actionable tips and strategies to help you help you win the day and be the best person you can be, and so much more. So on the inspiration today, we're going to have a little bit of that. But if it's your very first time watching and listening to us, thanks for making us part of your week with your station for inspiration and your everyday edge podcast. We're going to be hearing some of the most compelling and powerful stories from around the country and around the world. Today is no different. In studio with us, entrepreneur, award-winning international speaker and author of the Victory Framework. Philip Britton is in the house. Phil, good to see you, brother. How are you, man?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Hey, I'm great, man. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Same here, man. Sydney, good to have you on. You are very first interview on the inspiration station. So I'm excited about that. This show is all about inspiring stories and compelling, uh compelling stories, and just kind of sharing the thing that kind of changed your world that can help change our world as well. So we're gonna get into that, man. But before we get into that, just a little background on Philip, where you're from, what's life been like as a young Philip, and how'd you get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Oh man, that's that's a long story there, brother. Do your best. I'm I'm in the Seattle, Washington area, Bellevue, Washington, born and raised in Eastern Washington, Tri-Cities area. And man, I I grew up as the as the kid that everybody knew, and nobody wanted to be around. I was the kid that got beat up, and I was humiliated in second grade, and life was pretty much a living hell for me at school growing up. It was miserable.

The Humiliation That Started The Bullying

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Okay. You see me way more adjusted now than then. So I'm I'm I'm definitely excited about that. I know I heard a good bit of your story because we are connected in in friendship and in community, so I know a little bit, but I want I want to kind of get to the story because this is what people that are watching this presentation want to hear. So kind of tell us, you know, more of your story, flesh it out for us, take what time you need for that because I want to do a before and after with you. So go ahead and just kind of share what before looked like. Go into all the gory details if you want to, then we'll find out how you've been changed and how you got to the place where you're uh more uh put together now than you were then. Fair enough, man.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

So I it it really all started in second grade. I I was homeschooled until second grade. Parents realized that mom had to go to work, so they were they were both working, and they had to be up and gone and out of the house by 6 a.m. And I was suddenly the responsible adult at eight years old that had to get me and my brother up for school. I was still wetting the bed at age eight. It was my first time at public school, and I had all these nerves, and you know, whatever goes on in an eight-year-old's head, I don't even remember. But I remember it was the second day of second grade, and I wet the bed, and I knew I had to take care of the the wet bedding and and take up my wet clothes and put on dry clean clothes and you know, get the wet, nasty stuff in the laundry and get me and my brother to school. So I I did that, and I remember getting to school, and I I got into the classroom and I sat down at my desk, which just happened to be in the middle of the classroom. And as the bell rang, I found my desk, I sat down, and it might as well have been Moses parting the Red Sea. Boom! And every single desk just started to back away. And there I was left in the middle of the classroom. Everybody's pushed their desk away, and I'm sitting alone in the classroom going, what in the world is going on? I I did not understand what was happening. The school called my dad, he had to come pick me up, take me home, and get me bathed. The one thing that I did not understand was that I had to clean the urine off of my own body before I went to school. So my dad took me home, he got me bathed, he took me back to school that same day. Here I am, I show up humiliated.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Oh man, only imagine too.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

From that day forward, my nickname was stanky. I got beat up every other day after school. When the bell rang, I ran for my life. It was it was miserable. Second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade. Halfway through fifth grade, I moved schools and I got a chance to kind of make some changes, but then sixth grade happened. I went to middle school, and all those kids showed right back up.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Come on.

Finding Confidence Through Christian Rap

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Sixth grade was miserable, seventh grade was miserable. Halfway through my seventh grade year, God did something unique. Somebody introduced me to a Christian rap artist named Stephen Wiley, and he had an album called Wrap It Up. And I remember taking the cassette and I, you know, unfold the jacket, it's like a you know mile and a half long, right? And I'm writing out the lyrics. I I get I get to my desk, I have first period English class, and you know, the most popular girls in school are all in that same class, and they tormented me. And I'm sitting there at my desk, I'm writing out the lyrics to this song, and suddenly my desk is surrounded by the six most popular girls in school, and I'm just like going, Oh dear, here it comes. What are you doing, Philip? What are you doing? Tell us what you're doing. What are you writing? What is that? You know, I'm like, Oh, nope, nothing. And they they finally pull it out of me. Well, it it's it's rap lyrics, and oh my goodness, you rap, you're gonna rap for us. Come rap for us. Oh my dear lord, the bell rings. I'm like, oh phew! Okay, thank God. Saved by the literally. And they're like, no, no, no, no, we're gonna find you at lunch, you're gonna rap for us. And they were so insistent, I just I was mortified. And so the lunch bell rings, and I'm playing like 007. I'm hiding behind trees, I'm trying to duck behind benches and I'm trying to trying to hide and not be seen. And they find me, they corner me, and I I don't know what happened, but I can only describe it as the Holy Spirit just took over. Because in that moment, suddenly I stood tall and I said, I'll do it. And I I reached into my pocket of my memory, and I knew every song backwards and it was forward, side A, side B. I knew it all. I had I had rapped those songs so many times, and I stood there with all I had and I busted my rap. And the the crowd just increased and increased and increased. And I remember one day, so at every single day for the rest of my seventh grade year, I would show up at lunch and I would rap. Christian rap. Every single day at lunch. And one day the crowd got so big the principal and the teachers are all busting in break it up, break it up. They thought it was a fight. And so I God God taught me something in that moment, how to have confidence and stand up and and say yes to an opportunity. And that shifted the narrative. The the the picking on the bullying, the getting beat up. 80 to 90 percent of it stopped during that time. And I finally finally became not so much known as stanky, but that Christian rap guy.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

And my my my nickname at that time became Philly B Philly B. Better than Stanky, but okay. That's my rap name, Philly B.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Oh my Philly B. Yeah, you have to hear this story by you rapping and being known as Philly B. I'm I'm I'm I'm so I want to hear their reaction to this.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Your dad was nobody.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Somewhere I have a folder buried in a box somewhere in the garage that has a folder of original Philly B raps. But that that's a that was seventh, eight.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

You didn't wrap for your kids yet. You haven't wrapped for your kids yet? No, all this time. That's what I don't believe. You the bust some more rappers, Philly B.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, that's that's not happening.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Somebody gonna buy into this. They ain't gonna believe if you don't if you don't if you don't bust a two bars. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah, uh that's uh right now. No, just kidding. No, no, you don't want to hear that.

Parents Support And School Survival

SPEAKER_03 11:11

I promise. I won't put you through that. Tell me this though, man. Tell me what tell me your parents tell tell me tell me hold on, tell me tell me your parents' view of this because you mentioned you yourself in relation to the kids in the class and how they treated you. I didn't hear anything about your parents and what they thought about your your early challenges. What was their thoughts on that? How did they parent you through this situation? I'm just curious about that.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

My parents were great. They, you know, I when I got home, I knew they loved me. I knew I knew God was for me at home. But where was God when I went to school? That that was uh that that was my my challenge because at home I I had the love of my parents. I I knew that God loved me. We we were at church five nights a week, it seemed like my dad was doing sound and doing men's groups, and he was plugged into the church. And but that there was still this this stigma. Me and my brother were just hellions. Uh, we were we were rambunctious, we were wild and crazy and loud, and people didn't know how to handle us. And uh a lot of that was just all of the the energy and and pain from school that was being translated into this rambunctiousness, like I don't know how to deal with it, so I'm just crazy, right? And my parents did the best they could to help us to to go go to bat for us at school and try to help us not get expelled when we acted out, and you know, when when we were caught retaliating uh against things, you know, all of the the struggles in school of grades and assignments, the the stuff that I just wouldn't do, couldn't do, didn't feel like doing. I I had a really tough time in school because of all of the the the pain and things that were happening that a lot of the I don't know if the teachers really understood what was going on because a lot of it would happen behind their backs, and then I would retaliate, and I was the one getting caught for the retaliation, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Stow was the sipping guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

So I remember having detention one time. I had this this girl behind me, Rachel, and she had this massive fro, and she stabbed me in the back with the business end of a pencil, and I turned around and hit her. And wow, we we ended up both getting suspended out of that ordeal. Or no, wait a minute. Maybe it was she was picking on me, and I stabbed her with the pencil.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Oh my goodness, that that that changes that changes everything to me.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Actually, I think I'm the one that stabbed her with the pencil. It was it was brutal, it was mean, it was it was harsh.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

I got a follow-up question because of this now. Okay, wait a minute. Have you ever figured out? I don't think I recall hearing this part of your story. Have you ever figured out what kind of caused the challenges you had early on? I saw how you dealt with it, how you reframed it. I think that's that was a a masterclass in kind of finding your identity after dealing with you know the uh the one that people try to give you. But do you have you ever figured out what what the root cause was for what you were dealing with, the challenge you had early on, the perception you had of yourself, your family was uh obviously showing you love at home. Where do you think this was coming from?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Well, I I remember when when I was proclaimed stanky uh all the way up to sixth grade, I I remember very clearly that I hated Phil so much because Phil was stanky, and I it went so far that during I think it was my sixth grade year, I tried to convince everybody in sixth grade that my name was now Scott. That the entire school year I went by Scott. Don't call me Phil anymore, I'm Scott. Still had the nickname stanky, but yeah, I was trying to change my identity because I hated who I was. I hated who everybody thought I was because I was stanky. I was the kid that everybody hated. I was the kid who who smelled and was the awkward kid. And you know, I I wet the bed and I suck my thumb and I I was the the awkward self-conscious. I I didn't like who I was. I I hated this version of me at the time that everybody else saw that I thought that's not me. I I don't want this identity, I don't want these labels, I don't want what everybody else says I am, and I was I was trying to break out of it. And I went that whole school year, I tried to go by Scott and it didn't stick. And then seventh grade, halfway through my seventh grade year, suddenly God brings this whole rap thing into my life, and it began to change my identity. God began to show me that I'm not stanky, I'm not the awkward kid that gets beat up every day, I'm not the lonely, awkward child. I I can be somebody, I can be likable, I can be something other than stanky. And that that was a that was a major shift in my idea of of what could be, what should be, what didn't have to be. And so as I got into high school and I got into theater and drama, that was an escape for me because I could be someone other than me. I still had all this pain and hatred and anger and and resentment and frustration from all these years of being picked on and beat up. And I became really, really good on stage because I could become some other character, I could step into someone else's role, somebody else's life, and I could become that person so that I didn't have to be me, because me hurt too much.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

That's really sad, brother. I got a question I gotta ask you here, man, because this is this is not me trying to bring the culture out. This is just a question that I it just it just hit me really hard in the field, especially. This is not to diminish what you went through, it's not to diminish your story at all. What you gave me was uh essentially half of a sandwich. You said that your mom and dad loved you, you knew that very much so from the beginning, and then you were dealing with the torment from your periods at school. Can you can you pinpoint for us? Somebody that's watching and listening right now may have gone through the same thing and may have unresolved issues about that, they may have not figured out that you know that person still hasn't been dealt with, they're still kind of just moving on, and he's still alive or she's still alive, and it has it hasn't been put to sleep like it needed to be. Why was it so easy, in your opinion, to allow all these feelings to be introduced? You had a loving household from your assessment. They, I don't know how what your parents taught you about identity and such, but you knew that you were loved at least. How do you think you got from the place where you can just go into this place where this homemade can push you so far away from the loving person that they were trying to build up as parents? Are you able to identify that at all? Can you tell what kind of sparked that? Should I rephrase it? Do you think it's you understand it?

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Yeah, I a couple of thoughts come to mind. Okay. One, there's a an I I how do I say this? In the 30s, 40s, 50s, there's a a communistic message that you know if you tell a lie enough, they begin to believe it. All you gotta do is just keep saying it enough. And eventually they'll believe it, regardless of how ridiculous it is. And in fact, the more ridiculous it is, the more they'll believe it if you just keep hammering it down their their ideas, right? So take that idea and bring it into and attach it to an actual trauma experience when when you have a traumatic experience like I did, that was so humiliating, and then people assign a label to you and they keep assigning that same label over and over and over and over. It doesn't matter how how good the message is at home. If you hear at home, you know, a few hours a day, yeah, we love you. Mom and dad love you, and they they care for you and they love you. But at school, every single day, you're hearing hundreds of times. You're just you're stanky, you're nobody, you're good for nothing, you're all the names, all the mean things that kids say at school, you're hearing that hundreds and hundreds of times every day. But then you go home and you get, no, we still love you. And that might only be five or ten times a day, right? Or or at least experiencing that that feeling, but there's the there's a huge dichotomy. There's a massive difference in the messaging that's that's being told, right? Yeah, so it doesn't matter how good the messages are at home, if they're few compared to the many at school that you're bombarded with day after day after day after day, human nature, just because of who we are, we we accept the loudest voice. We accept the voices that are so loud and so plentiful. After a while, you you you become or you you you take that identity as your own, whether you want it or not.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Okay. I wanna this is not a pushback, I just have a uh a thought. Because I tried to do this some to some degree with my daughters, because I felt like what you were talking about. If I am only complimenting them five times and they're being insulted outside of the house 15 times, I need to I need to compliment them 10 more times to make it match or to exceed it. And it's like I'm not sure that that is definitely the answer. But I know there's times where as a kid, well, I see my kids react this way. I see other kids react this way to their parents saying I love you like 20 times a day. At around 11 or 12 times, the 13 times, they're like, okay, daddy, mom, okay, you love me, I get it. You know, it's it's not, it's not, they don't they don't accept it, especially at a certain age. And when they're younger, they're gonna accept it as much as you want to get it, 40, 50 times, they'll accept it by the by the uh bushel. But if it's they're a little bit older in their teen years, you can't do that 2025 with them, 2025 times with them and think that they're gonna just so I don't know how much it's gonna help, but I I totally get what you're saying. Tell me what tell me what was the the spark or the turning point, because when you're saying, you know, there was more of the torment and the vitriol than it was the compliments and the affirmation. So tell me how you got to where you are now. Or tell our listeners and viewers, our entire audience, how you got to where you are now. What was the turning point that made you what I would call unshakeable?

The Victory Framework For Real Healing

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Well, I the the short answer is I don't want the short answer. The the the reality is that it was it it was the work that God did in my heart over a long period of time, and and the lessons that he began to teach me, for instance, through that rap. He taught me some very valuable lessons in that rapping experience. He taught me along the way. Philippe can never die. Philly B is never gonna die. I've never told anyone that story outside. I can't believe I just told you that story.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

But I'll take care of you, man.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

God had to teach me one lesson at a time, and you know, through through my thick skull stubbornness, and all the the pain, God had to work slowly, gently with me to teach me over time. It it's taken a lifetime to get to the point where I am today that I can have the confidence I have to even tell you the stories, right? I even even a couple years ago, there's no way I would tell you that story. But but God has has graciously transformed my heart to encourage me to share my message in hopes that it can inspire others. Because there is hope. You can get past that, you can heal from those things. And the the victory framework that that God kind of came up with and and dropped in my spirit is the he each of these lessons he taught me over a lifetime, slowly, and now I get to put them all together and say, here's here's the framework. Now we just have to take the time to inculcate those things in our heart, work through them piece by piece by piece. It takes time, it takes effort, it's hard. The you know, thinking is the hardest work there is. That's why so few people do it. That's what Henry Fort is saying. And it's so true because we we spend so much time, we're we're we're acting, we're doing, we're we're performing, we're we're doing all these things throughout the day. We're trying to do business, we're trying to excel, we're trying to get the promotion, we're trying to you know make our spouse happy, we're trying to make the kids happy, we got all these things going on, and what free time we do have, we're sitting doing this, scrolling on our phone, trying trying to just numb the pain because we don't know how to sit and feel the things that we don't want to feel. We we don't know how to grieve anymore, we don't know how to sit and and actually take time to think and process and and be quiet. Yeah, we don't know how to just be still anymore. So, how how do we take all of the stuff from life and sit down and actually process it if we won't sit down and process it?

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Copy that, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Right. So the the victory framework is is literally just the lessons that God taught me in a framework that is easy, that's simple to understand, that's hard to do, but it's simple to understand, simple to implement, and it it starts with vision. Next, it you you have to get clear on your identity, you have to build good character, which builds trust in yourself, you have to learn how to trust others, you have to learn how to trust God, learn that you can trust God because all the junk in life, all the things that the enemy tries to use to kill, steal, and destroy all the good things in your life, God can work all of that together for your good on the end. All the crap that I went through, I thought I would never get through. But God now has worked it through so that I can sit here now in confidence and be able to tell the stories that I would never want to tell because they're humiliating, because they're silly, because they're not nice, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

But if I can inspire someone else to say, you can get through that, you can have victory in your life. And here's how vision, identity, character, trust, the always operate. Learning how to deal with the pain and the hurt and the unforgiveness and all of the things that we hold on to in life that really cause us to have a rotten attitude, to be angry when things happen. It's because we haven't dealt with stuff in our heart. We've got a hard heart toward people because we are hurting. Hurting people hurt people.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

That's all they do.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

So operating on the heart, we we have to learn how to heal. We have to learn how to sit in and feel the things we don't want to feel. And then the R is relationships, learning how to build good relationships, be the kind of person that others want to have a relationship with, turn down the negative voices, distance yourself from the toxic relationships, say yes to the good relationships, be intentional about good relationships, and say yes to opportunities. You start stacking wins and getting clarity in all these categories, they naturally build confidence at a core level. It's slow, it takes time, it's painful, it hurts, but it's worth it. And when you could come out on the backside and you can have unshakable confidence to stand up and tell your story, to be unafraid, to have actual joy and wonder and peace in your life, you you can't put a price tag on that. It's amazing, and and you can do it, you can have that victory in your life by applying those principles, and that's what I'm here to do is to to give you and your listeners the encouragement to step into that and join me on a mission to do that for others.

Where To Find Philip And The Gift

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Yeah, you're doing a great job of that, man. I just wanted to encourage you. But I also wanted to do let folks know where they can find you in your work. I'll give you a couple minutes at the end of the show, and you can share what reference on your heart on that one. But in regards to your story and have having the courage to share it, I'm gonna tell you right now, it's the people in the comment section that are resonating with the story. It's definitely hit them in the fields as well. I think there's some similarities to your story and many others. And they're really, really feeling this. Here's one example of that right now. This is from Raven said, I needed this. Thank you for this podcast, Mr. U, and your yes to God. And thank you for your testimony, Mr. Phillip. I did not come upon this by accident. This truly spoke to me. So, any event that you have a uh a memory lapse and you forget why you should be sharing your story, take a snapshot of this. Remember that in your doing so, you're definitely helping other people, myself included. So I just want to say thank you for sharing your story. You got a couple of minutes, man. You can let folks know where they can find you and your work, so they're here. Maybe they're podcast host out here, they may want to have you on their show. People who may want to uh grab a hold of some of your work and just follow you and encourage you on the journey, or share whatever's on your heart. You can do you can go ahead and do both. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Awesome. I can be found at Philip Britton.com. I would love to come speak on your stage, tell my story, encourage your audience if you're event planner or whatever. I can also be found on pretty much any social media platform at the PhilipBritten. IwantVictory.com is my event page. And as a gift for your listeners, if they go to iwantvictory.com slash gift, they can take my free assessment that takes 150 questions over seven categories to help them identify each of the victory framework sections where they can kind of take that next step and focus on certain areas. And if they want more one-on-one, I'd be happy to have some communication and to see if I can help them in their situation. They can email me Philip at PhilipBritton.com.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

Thank you very much, brother, for the courage to come on my show and be the first interviewee to share a story and you knocked it out of the park, man. You people are impacted by it, man. So thank you for the courage. Love and appreciate you, man. And for all you guys that are watching and listening to Philip and his story. Thanks for making us part of your week. By all means, please, if you feel like you have an inspirational story, no matter where you are where you are in the country in the world, reach out to me. I'd love to hear it. See if we can have you on the show as well. Entrepreneur, international speaker, award-winning international speaker, life-changer, founder of the Victory Framework. Philip Britton's in the house. Thank you for your time, sir.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Thanks, Mr. U. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

It's been inspirational. Have a great day, guys. Philip, I'm Mr. U. We're out of the way.