At Atlanta event, Hoda Kotb shared how she’s starting anew after career shift
Many TV watchers who welcomed an on-screen Hoda Kotb into their homes for decades were disheartened with the television personality’s decision to leave the “Today” show in early 2025.
But her choice to step down from the NBC show in January was sparked by a question about her life priorities, Kotb told an audience of about 1,600 at the Atlanta Women’s Foundation’s annual luncheon in late October.
Kotb gave other glimpses into her life and shared hard-earned wisdom during a conversation on stage with 11Alive anchor Cheryl Preheim at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Kotb has been in the public eye since she became a correspondent with NBC News in the late 1990s, before joining “Today.” Along the path of her career she shared her battle through breast cancer and divorce, as well as the experience of becoming a mother in her 50s.
Kotb became the Atlanta Women’s Foundation’s latest high-profile annual luncheon speaker, following past years’ luminaries Madeleine Albright, Jill Biden, Maya Angelou, Laura Bush, Gloria Steinem, Condoleezza Rice and others.
Pie of life
Kotb said she focused on work through her 20s and 30s, went through cancer and divorce in her 40s, and then reached what she saw as the best job in television, co-anchoring the “Today” show — and adopting two children.
“I was thinking about my time and how I was spending my time,” Kotb said.
Her friend and a former NBC News journalist, Maria Shriver, asked her how she liked her life, and asked Kotb to draw a pie split up into the parts of life she puts her time, effort, energy and love into. Kotb acknowledged she was spending more time on the “work” piece of her pie than her “kids” piece.
“She said, ‘That’s your life. Do you like it?’” Kotb said. “And I thought, ’I’m not sure if I did like it, actually.’”
Find a different tree
Kotb said at the time she was contemplating leaving the “Today” show, she watched her daughter Hope, who was then 5 years old, climbing up and down a tree in their front yard.
“I go, ‘Hey, honey, you’re at the top of the tree. What are you going to do now?’ And she goes, ‘I guess I’ll find a different tree.’”
“So I decided that my 60s was going to be my time of beginning again, learning again,” Kotb said. “Joy comes when you’re learning, when you’re trying something new.”
“So I’m 61 years old and starting this whole kind of cool new era, new time in my life,” Kotb said.
Kotb said she had a strange feeling when contemplating this. She said she thought to herself, “This is the best job in television. … This is so great. Why would I leave?”
But, “My time pie was what kind of convinced me,” Kotb said. “The truth is, we all get one ride and that’s it.”
Stuck in a so-so situation?
Kotb has been plenty busy since leaving the “Today” show earlier this year.
She started a wellness brand called Joy 101 with an interactive app. She also in September published her ninth book, a memoir titled “Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life.”
In it, she advises readers to “Ask yourself: Am I where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing, with the people I want to be doing it with?”
“I think we’re wired to follow the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it strategy. But that can keep us stuck in a so-so situation for far too long,” she writes.
Kotb said during her Atlanta talk, “Sometimes when there’s something that you really desire, you can’t stuff it down. It’s almost impossible. You can try, but it keeps bubbling up.”
That’s how she felt about having children, which she thought would never happen after getting divorced and going through cancer.
So she hadn’t even told a close friend, “because it’s like me saying I want to be an astronaut. … It’s not happening. So why would I say it?”
But, “Once I said it out loud, things started happening,” Kotb said.
Her girls are now 6 and 8 years old. The chance to spend more time with them is why she left the “Today” show.
“It kind of grabs you by your shoulders and says, ‘This is the time, and the time is now,’” she said.
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About the Author
As business team lead, Kelly Yamanouchi edits and writes business stories. She graduated from Harvard and has a master's degree from Northwestern.
