Hoda Kotb knows what it’s like to completely overhaul a career and start fresh in a brand-new industry.
The longtime journalist left NBC’s “TODAY” in January after 26 years with the organization, and launched her own company — a wellness brand called Joy 101 — in May. Becoming a first-time CEO at age 60 felt somewhat impossible to her, which is exactly why she decided to do it, she said on a Dec. 8 episode of “The Mel Robbins Podcast.”
Whether you’re “20 or 40 or 60 or 80,” you can determine whether such a drastic career change is right for you by asking yourself one important question, said Kotb, now 61: Is this job giving me what I deserve?
In Kotb’s case, she was ready for a new challenge, and realized during an on-air 60th birthday celebration that continuing her journalism career probably wouldn’t fulfill that need, she said. “I was almost having an out of body [experience],” she said. “I kept thinking … This is the top of the wave. I could feel it … This is the best it’s ever going to be.”
Other people may come to a similar conclusion through more a frustrating process: Maybe you’ve worked a job where you didn’t receive enough positive feedback, or the company lacked opportunities for you to learn and grow.
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If you feel like you’re hitting a professional roadblock, you should sit down and figure out what it is that you feel like you deserve, said Kotb. That self-audit shouldn’t come from a place of envy or “FOMO” around what someone else has, she noted. And it won’t always prompt a total career reset — maybe you’ll seek a raise or promotion at work instead, for example.
“Look at your life, just look at it from 35,000 feet and then decide, do I want to change it?” she said. “And I’m here to tell you, I feel like I’m living, breathing proof that you can change it at any time. Things you thought were impossible are not impossible.”
Kotb has previously said that her decision to leave “TODAY” was also influenced by a desire to spend more time with her family. This was made difficult by her daily 3:15 a.m. wakeup to get to work on time, she told People in May.
Entrepreneurship now presents Kotb with a different kind of challenge, she’s said. “Being an entrepreneur is hard,” Kotb told Variety in May. “I didn’t realize how many hats you wear as an entrepreneur … I’m learning how to be a boss.”
To make building a new career from scratch feel less intimidating, you can start small, Kotb recommended: Spend 30 minutes per day doing something that’ll help you make progress, from working on your resume to creating a business plan or learning a new skill. After a month, for example, you’ll have 900 minutes of groundwork, rather than making a spur-of-the-moment decision to quit your job without a plan.
“Baby steps toward the jump,” said Kotb. “Sometimes we think we want it and you’re like, ‘I’m going to run and jump off the cliff’ … Don’t do that. We’re not idiots. We need our paychecks. We need our insurance. We need these things, but we can explore possibilities at the same time.”
Disclosure: NBC and CNBC are divisions of NBCUniversal.
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