Hoda Kotb Announces New Book Two Months After Leaving Today — Here’s How Her Colleagues Helped Inspire It

Kotb’s latest literary venture ‘Jump and Find Joy’ will be released September 23, 2025

Hoda Kotb. Photo: Nathan Congleton/NBC/Getty

Hoda Kotb answers the phone with a “GIRL! How’s everything?” as if she’s greeting a friend she’s known forever. Her joy is palpable and pervasive, and it’s especially apt in the wake of her latest endeavor.

The former Today show anchor announced on March 10 that her new book Jump and Find Joy will be coming out on Sept. 23 from G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House. The author tells PEOPLE that she was inspired to write it by those who take big leaps in life.

“I was so fascinated with people who did that kind of thing. I don’t know when I had the idea, but I was like, you know what? I’m a jumper too. I do it too,” Kotb says, recalling a conversation she had with her pal Maria Shriver about the concept.

Jump and Find Joy will feature stories from changemakers like Viola Davis and Sarah Jakes Roberts according to Today. Kotb, who’s authored multiple books in the past, thought a lot about people she admires in her own life while writing, too.

“It’s like when I saw Sandra Bullock adopt kids, it made me brave. I always wanted to, I just didn’t think it was possible,” Kotb says. “If somebody else jumps, somebody else tries something, you look and you go, ‘Well, why not me? Why can’t I try that too?’ And I think this book is sort of filled with those kinds of stories. It’s got a bunch of stories of my life, and it also has a bunch of stories from other people’s lives that have inspired me.”

Even though she departed the Today show in January, Kotb’s closest friends still include her former co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager, both of whom are also published authors.

Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager on September 26, 2024, the day Hoda announced she’d be leaving the show.Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty

Savannah Guthrie Shares Emotional Tribute to Hoda Kotb on Her Last Day at Today: ‘I Will Always Be by Your Side’

“I think the common thread is everyone’s kind of showing their underbelly a little bit, their vulnerable part, the piece of them that a lot of times you try to push away and hide. And I feel like that’s so important. With Savannah, she did it with her book, Mostly What God Does. And Jenna does it with all of her books, and Jenna’s, just, daily life is very open and free,” says Kotb.

“It’s like sometimes you just have to just be you, warts and all, man. This is it,” the author continues. “This is what we’re about. It’s like what I say to my kids. I mess up all the time, and I make sure my kids see it because that’s what life is. It’s messing up and picking up. That’s it. Messing up and picking up and doing it all again.”

Kotb left the NBC morning show to spend more time with her two daughters, Haley Joy, 8, and Hope Catherine, 5, and beyond the new book, she’s also working on a wellness company with plans to launch in May.

When asked about all the free time she still doesn’t have, Kotb laughs.

Hoda Kotb with her daughters (L-R) Hope and Haley.Hoda Kotb/Instagram

“You know what’s so funny? It’s like when you fall in love with things, it’s not work. When you are doing things that are your purpose or why you’re here, it’s just being,” Kotb says. “And what you’re doing is what you’re supposed to be doing in your life.”

Kotb soon begins to tell a story about Guthrie — the two had been FaceTiming over the weekend, and Guthrie had followed up with a moving text.

“She was asking me just about life, and I was looking at her,” Kotb says earnestly. “And you know it’s so funny, she just sent me a picture. She said, ‘You and Char, when he was 12 days old.’ And it reminded me of one of the very reasons why I kind of chose to switch things up. Life’s a blink, man. It’s a blink. In a blink, [Savannah’s son] Charley is 8. In a blink, one of my kids is in second grade and one’s in kindergarten. In a blink, everything changes,” she says.

Then, without meaning to make a book pun, Kotb does anyway.

“I think this was just a reminder to me: life’s fast and it has chapters. And try to make them different, because otherwise you might live a whole life of one chapter, which is awesome, but life is meant to be a variety and to be lived,” she says. “And then you do get a story. And it’s really fun to hear of other people’s big leaps, because it makes you brave.”