Brett Goldstein has revealed that keeping a gratitude journal transformed his mindset after experiencing depression prior to the success of Ted Lasso.
The 46-year-old British actor and comedian plays Roy Kent, a retired footballer turned assistant coach, in the Apple TV comedy Ted Lasso, which stars Jason Sudeikis as a Midwestern American football coach hired to manage fictional side AFC Richmond despite having no experience in the sport.
Upon its 2020 debut, the show became an immediate success and set a record for the highest number of Emmy nominations received by a first-season comedy, with Goldstein winning the award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy in both 2021 and 2022.
Before the series catapulted him to fame, Goldstein struggled with his mental health. His therapist advised him to start a gratitude journal, tasking him with noting down at least 10 positive moments every day.
Speaking to Men’s Health UK, he said: "I was depressed.
"Every day she (the therapist) made me write a list of 10 things that happened that day that I was grateful for.
"In the beginning, when you’re so, so depressed, it’s like, ‘Nothing’. But you have to put 10 in. ‘The sun was up.’ That’s one. You start so small. But by day 30 of doing that, you’ve started training your brain to look for the positive, and I could write a list of 100 things. I’m the luckiest guy in the world! Everything’s f****** amazing!’"
A few weeks into the practice, Goldstein noticed a clear shift in how he viewed the world, noting that while he still experiences difficult periods, learning to value smaller moments continues to support him.
He said: "It really had changed me, built new synapses, whatever it is. You can look for the good. It’s a f****** skill – or, something you have to work at.
"I don’t always achieve it. I still have darker days. But gratitude helps."
Reflecting on expectations around masculinity, Goldstein explained that while his family did not explicitly discourage showing feelings, he still felt broader social pressures to suppress his emotions.
He said: "I definitely grew up with the feelings of, ‘Men aren’t supposed to show emotions.’ But then I got older, and my experience with women was whenever I was accidentally vulnerable it went very well.
"I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I’ve been learning the wrong lessons.’"
He said something similar was also true of men’s relationship with body image.
"My trainer in New York, he was a professional bodybuilder and there are pictures of him on the wall in amazing shape. He said, ‘Men love it. Women hate it.’
"There are all these things where I think most people don’t know what they’re doing, they have been behaving how they think they’re meant to behave."
Besides his role in Ted Lasso, Goldstein is also the co-creator of Apple TV’s Shrinking, in which he also stars. It follows a therapist (Jason Segal) who decides to become drastically more involved in his patients’ lives. The character of Dr. Paul Rhoades (played by Harrison Ford) is loosely based on Goldstein’s own father, who has Parkinson’s disease.
This year, he appeared opposite pop star Jennifer Lopez in the Netflix rom-com, Office Romance, which he also wrote.
The full interview with Brett Goldstein appears in the September issue of Men’s Health UK, which is on sale now.
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