Hoda Kotb is staying busy after leaving Today! The broadcaster announced a big project two months after exiting the talk show.
Hoda, 60, appeared in a video interview during the episode of Today on Monday, March 10, to unveil her new book, Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life.
“Everybody in their life, at one point, stands on the edge of something and says, ‘Should I jump?’” she said in the video. “And I felt that way about the Today show, and I was terrified to even think about jumping.”
Hoda said that a conversation with pal Maria Shriver impacted her decision to leave the show.
“She was like, ‘You’ve jumped your whole life. You were in small markets in television [and] you jumped from city to city. You jumped into relationships and out of them. You jumped into motherhood. You have a history of jumping, so don’t tell me that you can’t jump.’”
“I was thinking of a book and the idea of jump kind of hit me so we started thinking about different people who I loved and respected and admired who have been afraid to do something and have done it, and I included some of them in the book,” the NBC personality added.
She explained that several famous faces have had moving stories that she has taken inspiration from in her own life, which she included in the book.
“Viola Davis: This woman went from on her knees to this incredible spot, and it was an image that caused her to jump. Sarah Jakes, who’s also in the book, T.D. Jakes’ daughter, she’s a pastor and she said, ‘When you jump, you have to imagine yourself on the other side,’” Hoda said.
“Here’s my thing, you get one life. That’s all. That’s it. It’s ready for the taking. It only takes a jump,” she concluded.
Jump and Find Joy will be released on September 25 and is available for presale today. A synopsis of the book via Penguin Random House said that this project is “an intimate book that reveals for the first time what Hoda discovered as she started embracing change in every aspect of her life.”
“In her quest to better understand change and how to work with (not against) it, Hoda relies on her reporting instincts to investigate HOW change works, WHO is approaching it with grace, and WHAT she can apply to her own life and share with others,” the summary continued.
“Jump and Find Joy combines the wisdom of change experts, insights from the latest work on resilience, and deeply personal stories from celebrities and inspirational people in our own communities. From small shifts in daily routines to major leaps of faith, Hoda shows why change isn’t to be feared but celebrated … and how each of us can thrive in the midst of changes we’ll inevitably face ourselves.”
Hoda made the decision after her 60th birthday to leave Today to spend more time with her daughters, Haley, 8, and Hope, 5. Additionally, she revealed plans to start her own wellness company.
“I’m working on a whole bunch of different things, but I’m going to do, from 9-11, two hours, work there,” she told TODAY.com in January of her new schedule. “Then, for the afternoon, for 11-12 — that period of time, that’s where I want to really take time because you get creative when you have space. When you’re sprinting from place to place, you lose all your creativity. So I want to be able to have room to take walks outside.”
