Hoda Kotb Finally Reveals Her New Career Path After Leaving ‘Today’ Show

Hoda Kotb is finding her joy in a new stage of life!

The former TODAY host, who left her role at the NBC morning show in January, announced Tuesday that she was launching a new wellness brand called Joy 101.

“It is a community,” she shared via TODAY.com, explaining that the brand will include an app, as well as a website. “It’s a retreat in your pocket.” Joy 101 will also feature courses and live events with some of the people who have helped Kotb on her own journey over the years, including NYU professor and bestselling author Suzy Welch.

Kotb also teased that there will be a major single-day tentpole event called Joy Fest, which is planned for spring 2026 and will feature various speakers.

The I Really Needed This Today author’s own journey into the wellness space has been a “great adventure,” which she credits to her former fourth hour co-host Jenna Bush Hager, who encouraged her to try a breathwork class on Zoom.

“It was transformative,” Kotb recalled of the session, which left her crying mid-class. “It’s just a release of whatever you’re lugging around.”

That turned into an openness to things like meditation, which was recommended to her by friend Maria Shriver. “Everywhere I turned, I was trying something new,” Kotb said, “and I just felt like I was telling all my friends about it.”

Now, Kotb hopes she can share her experiences with everyone. “I was like, ‘Don’t keep it to yourself. Just share it, put it out there,’” she said of this “one great place” she built, where she hopes people can feel “lighter and better and more joyful, without going 10 different places.”

Kotb is calling this new community Joy 101 as a reference to childhood, a time when “we had joy without trying.” Throughout the years, that joy “gets kind of covered over and buried under life’s stuff, life’s heaviness, and it’s still in there.”

“It’s almost like a rite of passage in life and birth,” she continued. “It’s like it’s in you, and so we’re just kind of peeling back the layers and letting it out again. That’s what it feels like to me. Get rid of all the junk that’s covering up your joy.”

As Kotb embraces her 60s, she said she’s happy to be enjoying time as a “beginner” once again. “It’s like I’m doing things for the first time, and I love that. I want this decade to be about that — like, being a beginner, and not being embarrassed about being a beginner,” she said, adding, “I think it’s going to be a fun decade.”