Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

Life is a series of baby steps along the way and if you add up these tiny little steps you take toward your goal, whatever it is, whether it's giving up something, a terrible addiction or trying to work your way through an illness. When you total up those baby steps you'd be amazed over the course of 10 years, the strides you've taken.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

Tone is often the most important part of a conversation - and listening is so much more important than what you say.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

The days, months, and years eventually reveal, like a Polaroid, a clear picture of how significant events and decisions ultimately shape our lives.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

I can't remember a time when my mom didn't work. She has forever been on the move: a go-getter. When my brother Adel and I had a paper route as kids, my mom would get up before us at the crack of dawn to drop off the Washington Post at different corners.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

People think that you have to do something huge, like go to Africa and build a school, but you can make a small change in a day. If you change Wednesday, then you change Thursday. Pretty soon it's a week, then a month, then a year. It's bite-size, as opposed to feeling like you have to turn your life inside out to make changes.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

I run in Central Park as the sun comes up. Some may mistake it for walking, but I swear I am running. I could not do it without my iPod.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

From time to time, I'll look back through the personal journals I've scribbled in throughout my life, the keepers of my raw thoughts and emotions. The words poured forth after my dad died, when I went through a divorce, and after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. There are so many what-ifs scribbled on those pages.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

Sometimes you have to take the focus off of you and put it on someone else and it's funny what you can accomplish and how much strength you really have.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

If it weren't for my breast cancer, I wouldn't be a 'Today' host. After I got better, I talked to my boss about working on the show. Six months before, I'd have been terrified to go in there and ask for what I wanted. But after what I'd been through, how could I be scared of being told no?

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

I've had weight issues all my life. I've been on all the diets: Atkins, liquid protein, Scarsdale diet. Now I go to the gym often. I'm always on the StairMaster, and I do weights.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

Weight is just not a hot button. In fact, during my life, it probably should have been on my radar screen a bit more. I look back at work photos and am shocked. Was I eating the people I was interviewing?! Good Lord, I was big.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

I wake up at 4:15 A.M., get some coffee, turn on the news, see what's happening, go clickety-clack on the web to see what I missed overnight. Then I go to the gym, around 5:15, and I do what appears to be a very light workout, but who cares. I'm socializing with other nice people at the gym. Then I go into work, and I'm really awake.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

I'm a huge karaoke person even though I have the worst singing voice. When you love doing something, who cares?

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

If you have a friend or family member with breast cancer, try not to look at her with 'sad eyes.' Treat her like you always did; just show a little extra love.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

'Ten Years Later' is about the journey six extraordinary people take with time. Each has experienced a game-changing event - perhaps a life-threatening illness or a catastrophic personal loss.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

I think after overcoming breast cancer, you sort of become fearless and somehow going up to your boss to talk about a possible promotion doesn't seem like such a daunting task anymore.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

In New York City, you can walk down the street and see a girl in a trench who looks equally as cool as a girl wearing Lululemon. It's like you're watching models. You see a little of everything right by you.

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

If we all helped one person, wouldn't the world be an unbelievable place?

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

So I go to my first book signing, and these two girls came up and gave me a piece of paper: '10 reasons you should date our dad. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He's a lawyer.' He didn't know what was going on. He didn't even know me. They called him, and he came down and asked me out that day. Now I'm dating their dad!

Hoda Kotb
Hoda Kotb

Having cancer empowered me to take more risks. I knew beating cancer was going to shape me, but it wasn't going to be all of me.