What Happens When You Bet on Yourself with Ted Lasso’s Brendan Hunt

A Bit of Optimism - Simon Sinek

In this episode of 'A Bit of Optimism,' Simon Sinek sits down with Brendan Hunt, best known as Coach Beard from 'Ted Lasso,' to explore the transformative power of trusting your instincts

Key takeaways

• Sometimes the most successful career moves come from stepping wildly off a well-laid plan.
• Imagination and vision are essential, but they must remain open to real-world opportunities.

Main topics

• Career pivots and unconventional paths
• The value of curiosity in personal development

Notable quotes

"Sometimes taking the risk to go wildly off the plan is the best thing we can do for ourselves."

"Have a plan, but be open to going off the plan. That's the way."

Conclusion

Brendan Hunt's journey from a Chicago theater kid to an Emmy-winning creator of 'Ted Lasso'

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) You're looking at real opportunity, go and do this thing in Amsterdam that's real work versus stay here for your imagination. And people choose imagination. Speaker 2 (0:07) Yeah. I'm confused by that. To offer that view some grace a little bit, because what is imagination but a plan, you know, a plan and a vision. I think inarguably did not have enough of a plan. I can see the value of having a plan, but I guess it's like, don't be so locked into your plan that... Speaker 3 (0:27) you don't recognize an opportunity. It's kind of like strong opinions loosely held, right? Speaker 2 (0:31) Yeah. Like, Speaker 3 (0:32) have a plan, but be open to going off the plan. That's the way. Yeah. When we're young, we make a decision about what we want to be when we grow up. And we make a plan to make that happen. The things we study, the opportunities we pursue, all go according to that plan. But what happens if the plan is the obstacle to achieving our dreams? Worse, what if we can't see? that the plan is the obstacle. Sometimes taking the risk to go wildly off the plan is the best thing we can do for ourselves, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to Brendan Hunt. Most of us know Brendan as Coach Beard from the show Ted Lasso, which is back for its fourth season on Apple TV. Brendan also has a solo show called The Movement You Need, which may hit Broadway in 2027. But none of that would have happened if Brendan had stuck to his original plan. Brendan is living proof that trusting our gut over the plan may be the single best thing we can do for ourselves and our careers. Brendan took the crazy risk to leave America to take a job in Amsterdam, of all places, a decision that nobody thought was a smart career move. And yet it was there that he gained a love for soccer and met Jason Sudeikis. It was his choice to go off the plan that led Brendan to becoming one of the Emmy Award-winning writers, producers, and co-creators of Ted Lasso. The lesson is profound. Sometimes doing things we want to do, the things that others think are unwise, will be the best decisions we make for our lives. If you liked this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is a bit of optimism. Speaker 3 (2:19) This episode is proudly brought to you by SAP. Is curiosity natural or can it be taught? It turns out anyone can learn to be curious. And it's the curious ones that get more out of life, advance quicker in their careers, and just generally grow as human beings. The more we learn to be curious, it's surprising how many doors open for us. Speaker 2 (2:43) Brendan, it's so good to have you here. It's great to be here, Simon. Thank you. Speaker 3 (2:46) I don't think people... recognize or know in how how wonderfully insane and mad and creative you are I know some of it because I came to see your show in Amsterdam, your one-man show in Amsterdam, which is basically your life story, Speaker 2 (3:05) which is pretty nuts. Until that time, at least, yeah. You saw it sometime. My solo show, Five Years in Amsterdam, which I wrote starting in 2004 after having lived five years in Amsterdam. And you Speaker 3 (3:16) saw it in 22, 23? Something like that. And I Speaker 2 (3:19) believe that was my official Viking funeral. last performance I was doing of that show. The theater I used to work for out there, Boom Chicago, they had requested it. So yeah, it's my life story up until leaving Amsterdam. I'm not going to talk about a show none of you have seen, but it's what we're going to do. I like the show very much, but it's also like clearly the show of a younger man. But it was fun to do. It was fun to give it a good send off and I was glad you saw it. Speaker 3 (3:44) So let's back up a little bit, which is, you know, one of the things I'm fascinated about people with careers. is how many people are living their childhood dreams and how many of us just sort of like the twists and turns of where we find ourselves and how people learn what to say yes to and what to say no to. I think your career is a twisty-turny one. So where did you grow up? Chicago. And how does a kid who grew up in Chicago end up for how many years in Amsterdam? My main chunk was five, Speaker 2 (4:12) but then I piecemealed two more because I kept going back. You kept going back. And you speak Dutch. A little. Enough to impress people who don't and frustrate people who do. Speaker 3 (4:20) So I'm impressed that you speak Dutch. Dunkevelt Speaker 2 (4:24) is like Speaker 3 (4:25) all I know. Well, I'll start as what did you want to be when you grew up? And then how did you get, why did you go offshore? Speaker 2 (4:32) I basically knew I was going to be at least an actor from doing the seventh grade school play, which was The King and I. I played Louis, son of I. And then it was like nothing really was ever considered. Like that was just going to be it. A huge... Night of impact for me, though, was seeing Second City for the first time in eighth grade and just being blown away by what was going on there. That cast included Bonnie Hunt, who was phenomenal that night in particular. And I think that probably introduced the notion to me of like, oh, you can write stuff, too. Then, you know, go to Illinois State for college. They have a great theater program. Most of the original founders of Steppenwolf all met at Illinois State. The teachers they had were some of the teachers that I still had. And Speaker 3 (5:21) were you setting yourself up for stage or screen or were you just actor? Just actor, really. Speaker 2 (5:26) But probably with nowhere near enough attention to screen because by then I'd been exposed to a fair amount of theater in Chicago, a steady diet of improv and Second City in particular. But Illinois State, they hewed so tightly to the sort of Steppenwolf ethos that there wasn't... camera class. If there was, it wasn't required. All we were working with was kitchen sink, nuts and bolts, passionate at all times, gritty stage acting. Real stage work. That helped my improv, I'd say. My improv helped my stage acting. I do feel like I am of the stage more than anything else if I had to describe me. And certainly, like, I like movies and TV, too. I just, for some reason, it wasn't even something I thought about as much. And even when Steppenwolf people, who were the ones I admired the most, would show up on TV, I tended not to think of that as part of them in a way, even though they'd be great. You know, like Laurie Metcalf in Roseanne. You know, my mom particularly loved Roseanne. We watched it all the time. Laurie Metcalf's great on that show. John Malkovich, I think the first movie his I saw was... In the Line of Fire, which I don't think he would even call his best performance, but he won an Oscar for it, I believe. Did he? Yeah, yeah. That was a Speaker 3 (6:45) great film. Speaker 2 (6:46) It's fun. Speaker 3 (6:47) It's Speaker 2 (6:47) fun. Yeah. Not really thinking about camera acting at all. And then in Chicago after college, I'm basically always performing every weekend, but sometimes it's with an improv company or sometimes it's with my theater company that I had. You would hear once in a while in the improv circles about this place called Boom Chicago. And Boom Chicago, all I knew about it was it was in Amsterdam. And it was founded by some Chicago people. And so they were doing like Chicago improv as we knew it out there. The Speaker 3 (7:11) Second City Speaker 2 (7:12) style, Speaker 3 (7:12) that kind of. Speaker 2 (7:13) Yeah, best I knew. Speaker 3 (7:14) Ouvra. I used the word Ouvra. Speaker 2 (7:16) That's really, really. Thank you. Like, you know, the fact that you called attention to it. I know. Kind of ruined it. I mean, I don't want Speaker 3 (7:21) people to think I was a snob. Speaker 2 (7:24) I'm going to throw a French word in later and it's going to, we'll be even Stevens. But, you know, I knew one dude who'd gone there and come back and like he. You know, I didn't know him that well to like get into it with him, but he's like, he spoke positively of it. I know another guy who had gone there and never came back and like, oh, interesting. But one time when they came around to do auditions, you'd hear when they were in town, you know, they'd come like once a year and they came to see me at a comedy sports where I was performing. Well, they saw a bunch of people, but including me and they asked me to audition and you know, my knee jerk reaction was like, no. fucking way am I going to Amsterdam for a year. That's ridiculous. Yeah, for Speaker 3 (8:00) my comedy career. Yeah, improv career. But Speaker 2 (8:03) this is like despite the fact that I'd never left the US and also like nothing's really happening to me career-wise. Speaker 3 (8:09) You're doing your small shows on the weekends. Doing my Speaker 2 (8:10) small shows. I had by then understudied a Speaker 3 (8:12) show at Steppenwolf. Did you have a survival job or were you able to make money as an actor? No, I was temping and oh yeah, Speaker 2 (8:17) nowhere near making money as an actor. You're getting like 20 bucks a show. Oh, okay. You're blowing that on the beer with the gang after the show. Yeah, but the context of this time when they came around was like, I'm in the middle of getting divorced. Like, I got married straight out of college, which, as some have told me since then, is a little young. And I was very soon getting divorced out of college. And I also just had my own, like, emotional, you know, childhood baggage that I'd never worked through at all in any way. I was just like, just... you know, running straight ahead, you know, shows, shows, shows, shows, shows. And so when I went to the audition, which I went to out of a sense of obligation, I'd heard that like every actor should go to every audition they can, which is now, I think, not really that great of advice. But I went and looking around, there was some people in the room who was like, oh, I've seen that person improvise before. They're really funny. Oh, they're really funny. Oh, okay. All right. Well, this is a... a good cohort. And then, you know, before they had us play any games, the artistic director, Josie O'Reilly, Australian goddess of improv and comedy in my book, she, her spiel about Amsterdam, like just by the time she was done talking, like I want this more than anything I've ever wanted in my entire life and got it. And then when I went, I was only going to go for a year and yeah, as has been spoiled, ended up staying for five. What was her pitch that made you want it so badly? Like fragments of it. One, for one thing, the realization that I would be performing constantly and that it would be the job, you Speaker 3 (9:44) know, Speaker 2 (9:44) they'll Speaker 3 (9:45) pay you enough to, to live. Speaker 2 (9:46) Yeah. It was like, Oh, that's appealing. And then, you know, the way she was describing, um, Amsterdam and like by then Pulp Fiction had come out, like all I knew about Amsterdam by then it's like Pulp Fiction, uh, and Frank, John Lennon and Yoko having their honeymoon there. And for all I knew, those happened simultaneously. But hearing her talk about Amsterdam made me like the reality of like, Oh, this is, this is an opportunity to like, get the hell out of here, actually, and to do it in a place that sounds more amazing than you've given it credit for. Was this a little bit like the cruise Speaker 3 (10:17) ship pitch, which is like, sure, it's a cruise ship, but you'll get to perform every day. Like, did it matter where it was? Or was the pitch partially, oh my God, I'm an actor, I'm an improv guy, I get to do the thing I want, make a living doing the thing I want. Was that the primary driver? Speaker 2 (10:32) It was Amsterdam as much as the job, I would say. If it had been a cruise ship, it would not have... drawn interest from me at all. I was tempted by cruise ships often later in life, but never quite took the plunge. Good night, everybody. Comedy, Speaker 3 (10:48) comedy. I mean, the Speaker 2 (10:50) improv Speaker 3 (10:50) quality here. I can't turn it off, Simon. Speaker 2 (10:54) And I've Speaker 3 (10:55) known Speaker 2 (10:55) a lot of super funny people who did cruise ships and had a great old time, but at that time it wouldn't have interested me. Because being on a cruise ship doesn't sound like real life. I mean, it is, but... but it doesn't sound like it, but living in another country sounded like real life. What could that life be like? It was an unexpected opportunity that came my way. It had never been in my thoughts. The amount of time between them asking me to audition and them being cast was maybe five days. They insisted I leave the country within a month. They desperately needed us to get out there, and I had to untangle myself from some things, particularly my theater company, who I, you know. felt terribly guilty about it. I was pulling the rug out from under them a little bit, but I was also going insane. Like that's the third element of this is like on a personal, mental, emotional level. I, I, I couldn't resist the pull of an escape. I Speaker 3 (11:46) didn't Speaker 2 (11:47) realize Speaker 3 (11:47) this until I got to the theater to boom Chicago. Just how many people who are now famous in America have gone through that space. Can you just rattle off? Speaker 2 (11:57) Yeah, it's quite a bag. I mean, average Seth Meyers and Josh Meyers and Ike Barinholtz and Jordan Peele and Amber Ruffin. Jason Sudeikis was there for a minute. Golly, there's definitely more. And then there's some people who are like, maybe not that famous yet, but like are much respected in improv circles and comedy circles. People who know Alison Silverman, Hedda Campbell, Pete Gross. Oh, Colton Dunn. A lot of people know Colton Dunn. Speaker 3 (12:18) The reason I wanted to say that is I wanted people to recognize that for whatever they're building, whatever they built in Amsterdam. It's like a real thing. And just like most of us know Second City and being in the theater for Saturday Night Live and stuff like that back in the day, that this was a, this is a real feeder for the U.S. entertainment industry. But Speaker 2 (12:38) it was not then. It was not at all. When I started in 99, Pep Rosenfeld was one of the founders. He was writing for SNL and that was a big deal. Then he came back because he was having a better time. Boom. But then in 2001. Seth got SNL and then it was like, huh, because if you're taking the boom job, especially back then, you're not thinking career stuff. SNL is the, yeah, you're Speaker 3 (13:04) thinking I'm having fun, I'm honing my craft, I'm getting paid to do the thing that I love, I'm having a cool adventure in Amsterdam, then I'll come back and focus on my career. Speaker 2 (13:10) Exactly, yeah. And so to the fact that all these people took this. Speaker 2 (13:16) objectively unwise career choice and it's ended up paying off for them all is pretty fantastic, you know, because it is the thing where you get your chops up. We would have these guest directors and a couple times they were guys from Second City who I had seen like in high school years, you know, who I revered. One of them was a guy named Ron West, the doctor, Ron West. And he, one time I remember we were walking, I think on Queens Day actually, and I think I asked him like, is Boom good for... us like is it are we dumb for being here and i think i was in year three by that point two or three and he said something i've never forgotten which is it's like the being the beatles in hamburg and he just meant it in the sense of like you're not doing bad shows anymore like you've come here you're doing all the shows you're going to leave here and you're not going to do bad shows anymore which is not A hundred percent true, but it's pretty true. So what he Speaker 3 (14:06) means is you're honing your craft? Speaker 2 (14:07) Yeah, like I've thought about this a lot and now I refer to it in my other solo show, The Movement You Speaker 3 (14:12) Need, coming to Broadway in 2027, maybe. Speaker 2 (14:15) You get your 10,000 hours. Speaker 3 (14:16) Yeah. Speaker 2 (14:17) You're performing constantly. You are performing for people who, for the most part, have English as a second language. Yeah. So you cannot rely on any bag of reference tricks or whatever. You can only exist in like what is in the room at this moment, basically, which is a great little challenge. But also those people who have English as a second language are probably drunk. So you have to work all the harder to get through to them, which becomes about like some basic stuff like articulation, you know, but also, you know, presence and passion and drive. And, you know, it ends up making your characters a little broad, but still. You're just trying to make that show happen. But then on top of that, and this is still analogous to the Beatles in Hamburg, is you do occasionally have the night off. And when you have the night off, it is Amsterdam and all that that entails. So the amount of steam we were able to let off together as a group, because we were doing shows together. There's usually 12 cast members at a time. Five are needed per night. So you get a lot of nights off. But