Brett Goldstein says a gratitude journal helped change how he thinks after a period of depression, long before Ted Lasso turned him into a familiar face. The 46-year-old actor said the exercise began as a hard daily task and became a habit that rewired his outlook.
That detail is drawing attention now because Goldstein is already known to many viewers as Roy Kent in Ted Lasso, the 2020 series that became an immediate success and set a record for the most Emmy nominations for a first-season comedy. Goldstein won the Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy in 2021 and 2022, but his latest comments focus less on awards and more on the private work that came first.
Goldstein said his therapist told him to write down at least 10 positive moments every day. At first, that meant starting with almost nothing. He said he was depressed and could only force himself to list simple things like the sun being up. By day 30, he said, the practice had changed the way his mind looked for information, and he could write down 100 things he was grateful for.
He described the shift as more than a mood boost. The routine, he said, helped build a new habit of noticing what was good instead of only what was missing. That matters because Goldstein has been open about growing up with the idea that men were not supposed to show emotion, a lesson he said he later realized was wrong after learning that being vulnerable often went better than expected.
Even so, he did not present gratitude as a cure. Goldstein said he still has darker days, and that the practice helps rather than erases them. That is the part that gives the story its weight: the same person who won back-to-back Emmy awards and now moves easily inside the success of Ted Lasso is still describing recovery as work, not arrival.
What he left unanswered is how long the journal routine stayed with him after those first 30 days. But his account makes the point plainly: the change did not begin with fame, and it did not come from a speech or a breakthrough role. It came from repeating a small exercise every day until his brain started reaching for the positive on its own.
