Sometimes, little moments can lead to some of life’s biggest changes. Just ask Hoda Kotb.

The TODAY co-anchor, whose last day with the show is Friday, Jan. 10, shared an unexpected moment with her younger daughter, Hope, 5, last year that helped shift her thinking about where she was at in her life and career.

In an interview with TODAY.com, Hoda says she “could feel the peak” of her own career at NBC News, where she’s worked for 26 years.

“I knew that that was the best it was going to be,” she says, while also attributing her decision to leave TODAY to a realization she had around her 60th birthday celebration.

“I was on top of the mountain, and I was looking out, and I said, ‘God, this is amazing,'” she explains.

“And then it was kind of underscored,” she adds, “because, like, a week or so before, my little girl Hope was climbing a tree, and she loves this tree, and she was at the top. And so, I said, ‘Look at you. You’re on top of that tree.’ I go, ‘What are you going to do — what are you going to do now?'”

Hoda didn’t know at the time how much her daughter’s answer would influence her life’s path.

“She goes, ‘I guess I’ll find a different tree,'” Hoda explains. “And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh.’ So sometimes the world starts showing you. So I kind of knew that it was time to try something different, and that means, you know, having my kids ride sidecar next to me more often than they have been.” Hoda’s daughter Hope joined her onstage in 2023 for the 60th celebration of Hoda’s high school. Liz Lynch
Hoda will soon be spending more time with Hope and Hope’s big sister, Haley, 7.

She previously talked to Jimmy Fallon about how she told Hope and older daughter Haley, 7, she would be at home more often.

“I was telling them, ‘Mommy is going to be able to take you to school,’ and they go, ‘(Gasp) Wednesday?’ ‘No, honey, not Wednesday.’ ‘Next week?’ I go, ‘No, honey, not next week. Probably somewhere January, February,’” she said in October on “The Tonight Show.”

“(They said) ‘January, February?’ I might as well continue working forever. For them it’s like till the end,” she added.

Hoda also has one thing in mind she’s looking forward to doing with her daughters more than anything else.

“It’s funny,” she said on a December episode of her “Making Space” podcast. “When I was mentioning here that I was going to leave the TODAY show, one of our producers came upstairs in the makeup room, and she said, ‘I want to say something to you.’ She goes, ‘My mother walking me to school every day was the best memory I’ve ever had.’

“And all I want to do is walk my kids to school. And it’s the simplest thing, with a cup of coffee, walking your kids to school. But all the little things, you get to see growth.”