Hoda Kotb - Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives

ALSO BY HODA KOTB

Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee

Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2013 by Hoda Kotb

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition January 2013

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kotb, Hoda.

Ten years later : six people who faced adversity and transformed their lives / Hoda Kotb; with Jane Lorenzini. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

p. cm.

1. Life change eventsPsychological aspects. 2. Adjustment (Psychology) 3. Biography. I. Lorenzini, Jane, author. II. Title.

BF637.L53K68 2013

155.240922dc23

2012042253

ISBN 978-1-4516-5603-9

ISBN 978-1-4516-5605-3 (ebook)

To Sami, Abdel, Judi, and Jim

~

And for anyone who needs hope

Ever asked it? With your nose pressed up against a mental crystal ball, your eyes squinting and your heart pounding, have you ever asked:

What will happen if I ... ?

Fill in the blank: get a divorce, win the lottery, am diagnosed with cancer, quit my job, suddenly lose someone I love .

Weve all wondered about a what-if and wished for times guidance. We want time to say to us, Yep, youve made the right decision. Or Everythings going to work out just fine. But (hmph!) time wont tell. Not until we take a first step. Time then takes over, slowly turning our what-ifs into realities. The days, months, and years eventually reveal, like a Polaroid, a clear picture of how significant events and decisions ultimately shape our lives.

From time to time, Ill look back through the personal journals Ive 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. I was desperate to know whether one day I would feel happy again, that I would find love again, that I would survive. How intriguing to look back at those past fears now that I have the benefit of hindsight. It made me think, What if I asked other people to take a look back at their greatest challenges with a decades worth of perspective? What an interesting concept for a book. Plenty of us, including me, have struggled to take a first step toward an uncertain future. Weve all prayed for the patience required to heal our pain, one excruciating day at a time. Weve all wondered, in our darkest hours, how life could possibly change for the better.

Ten Years Later is about the journey six extraordinary people take with time. Each has experienced a game-changing eventperhaps a life-threatening illness or a catastrophic personal loss. Some of the challenges will make you wonder how the person got through the next ten minutes. Others will make you think a lifetime wouldnt be enough to overcome the damage done. Following the game changer, youll find out what steps (or missteps) each person took and how each has fared over the next ten years. Did her decision turn out to be wise? How did he navigate the pain? Has she truly changed? Throughout the book, Time curls its pointer finger, beckoning Curiosity, Come with me. See where I took this life.

In my own life, Ive had numerous personal and professional game changers. Some broke my heart, others made me braver. One of the earliest game changers happened along an interstate. In 1987, I was driving around the Southeast in my moms car, looking for my first job out of college. I had a degree in communications from Virginia Tech and a twenty-minute videotape rsum. I bought a new green suit for the one interview I so ignorantly assumed it would take to land a television reporting job in Richmond, Virginia. Well, I was off by about six suits and a hundred TV market rankings. Richmond told me no. Memphis said no. Three nos from Birmingham. My rsum tape got ejected from VCR after VCR, and my one day on the road turned into eight, then nine, then ten. No, sorry. The maddening cycle of ejection, rejection, and dejection started in Virginia and continued all the way down through the Florida panhandle. A total of twenty-seven news directors told me no. I was devastated. My dream of working in TV news was now looking more like a career in public relations. I turned the car around and headed north back toward Virginia. And then, somewhere in Mississippi, I took a wrong turn. GPS systems and cell phones did not exist; I was officially lost. As I drove around looking for a way to get back on track, I noticed a billboard for WXVT featuring the CBS Eye. The station was located in Greenville, a TV market I hadnt considered. I figured, What do I have to lose? I drove to Greenville, digging deep for one last shred of hope. That very day, Stan Sandroni was promoted from WXVTs sports director to news director, and he agreed to see me. In went my rsum tape, and out came the words I so desperately wanted to hear.

Hoda, I like what I see.

My wrong turn turned out to be one of the best mistakes Ive ever made. Stan hired me after nearly thirty other people would not. Gutting out the challenge of rejection paid off. That chance meeting would prove to be a game changer in my life.

Ten Years Later profiles six people whove faced a series of lifes game changers and challengesabuse, illness, addiction, grief, job loss. These people didnt just fight their way through adversity, they forged better lives because of the battle. Their journeys are measured in the very small steps that painstakingly result in change and the big, bold leaps of faith that launch dreams. The book is meant to inspire you, wow you, motivate you, and move youand maybe even do all those things within the same chapter. In the pages ahead, the courageous people who share their life stories have done so in hopes of enriching yoursnow or ten years later.

Ive met plenty of inspiring women on the Today shows Joy Fit Club whove lost a significant amount of weight. But when Joy shared with me the profile of a particular club member, Amy Barnes, I knew she was special. In the short story Amy wrote about her journey, it was clear that her astounding 340-pound weight loss was not her proudest accomplishment. This woman wanted to share what she considered the more important message. She wanted people to know that she had shed and survived an even heavier burden.

In the spring of 2001, twenty-seven-year-old Amy Barnes was working as a paralegal at the Anoka County Public Defenders Office, thirty miles north of Minneapolis. Her career was solid, but her personal life was vulnerable, not that Amy recognized it. There were too many distractions. She had two sons from different fathers, a cheating husband, and a hundred extra pounds on her five-feet-eight frame. On a sunny April day, Amy walked next door to the courthouse to pick up new client files. As she headed back to her office, a handsome man her age started up a conversation.