Hoda Kotb Is on to Her Next Venture: Joy 101, a Personalized, Daily Wellness App
Hoda Kotb is back with her latest venture.
On Wednesday, the former 'Today' host is unveiling the launch of her wellness app Joy 101. It is a personalized daily wellness platform that provides insights from experts, researchers — and Kotb, of course. The platform, which will be available to download in two weeks, will cost $17 a month or $99 for the full year.
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Specifically, it will include a daily wisdom from Kotb, expert-led courses on topics like brain health and breathwork, 500-plus sessions on a variety of wellness subjects, guided meditations and twice-monthly livestreams with Kotb and friends. The first livestream will be held on June 11 with Jenna Bush Hager and Savannah Guthrie.
The platform will also offer sleep support, movement sessions, community conversation, access to Joy 101's in-person retreats led by Kotb, which will kick off in the fall, and an annual in-person celebration called JoyFest and a personalized plan for each user compiling all of the above. Joy 101 also features a group of advisers including Good American chief executive officer Emma Grede, journalist and advocate Maria Shriver and neuroscientist and dean of NYU's college of arts and science Dr. Wendy Suzuki.
Kotb's inspiration for the app started while she was at 'Today' when Bush Hager, her cohost, pushed her to try a breathwork session with one of her go-to practitioners. Kotb reluctantly tried a session on Zoom.
'After seven minutes, I exploded in tears. I was sobbing,' she recalled.
While the emotional release was surprising and helpful, it was the after effects that impacted Kotb the most.
'It gave me this weird clarity. I remember I walked back to my apartment and I was like, 'Oh my god.' I was very calm. [My daughter] Haley even said to me, 'Mom, what's going on?' I go, 'Nothing. I feel great,'' she said. 'I was calm. I noticed that I had clarity. I had a great night's sleep, and the next morning at work, I was firing through my notes…. This felt like a big deal.'
It was and is a big deal, as Kotb still practices this breathwork for five to seven minutes each day. From there, she was hooked and ready to find additional rituals that could amplify the results of these breathwork sessions. She and Bush Hager were on this journey together, trying other practices like meditation, poring over their results while on 'Today.' Seeing her passion for these practices, Kotb's friend Shriver recommended she try a retreat at the Hoffman Institute.
'She said, 'I've lived with nuns. I've walked with the Dalai Lama. I ate with Thich Nhat Hanh.' She goes, 'I'd trade my Georgetown degree for this place,'' Kotb recalled. 'I of course signed up… It was more life changing than anything else I'd ever done.'
With these experiences and a passion for discovering new practices and experts, Kotb realized she was going to a variety of places and people to get the best of the best when it could all exist under one platform. Enter Joy 101.
'[It's] like the retreat in your pocket,' she said. '[This] all came to be because of trying something once. It reminds me, my 60s is really about being a beginner again. That's what I'm doing. I'm beginning again, and it's fun. It's like, 'Oh my god! What a cool decade ahead.''
While Kotb started ideating what Joy 101 would be a few years ago, it wasn't always this type of platform. She originally played around with doing a summer camp for kids but quickly realized women actually needed the same type of attention and access to community.
As Bush Hager and Shriver's suggestions inspired Kotb, so did many of her guests and women she has looked up to over the years. Kotb recalled one interview with actress Viola Davis that especially inspired her.
'I interviewed her and said, 'How would you describe your childhood?,' and she said, 'I was hungry…' She described how difficult and treacherous it was, and she also described looking at the TV and seeing Cicely Tyson and going, 'I'm going to do that,'' said Kotb. 'That's a very extreme example, but I think what people need is to see somebody doing something like Viola.'
In her personal life, Kotb said she felt the same way when she saw Sandra Bullock adopt a child. She hopes to bring these same moments of inspiration to Joy 101 users.
'What this is doing is showing, in another way, women. Look at how different your life can feel,' said Kotb. 'You can make a change and a choice, and you can see how people who have tried it are feeling. Maybe it's something to look at, maybe something to give a try.'
For Kotb, all of these wellness practices that she's picked up over the last several years have become daily non-negotiables. Every day she practices breathwork, meditation and her specific style of journaling.
'I write down body, intellect, emotions and spirit, and I write down what does each thing need today,' said Kotb.
For example, she said her body may need a rest or a bit of exercise, and her intellect may need to read two chapters of the book that's long been sitting on her nightstand.
'There's my mini road map for the day,' she said. 'It's not a lot, and it's one thing here and one thing there, small things, but it gives you something that nourishes all the parts of you.'
In addition to these habits, after years of middle-of-the-night wake-up calls for 'Today,' Kotb is an expert when it comes to sleep practices, which will be featured on the app. Her top suggestions include putting your cell phone in a different room before bed, and making sure the last thing in your brain is nourishing like a daily devotional — Kotb reads a daily page from 'The Book of Awakening' each night. She also keeps a notepad by her bed just in case she needs to do a brain dump before heading to sleep — for eight hours of course.
As she launches Joy 101, Kotb said she will define the platform's success by its engaged users.
'Do you want 50,000 people who do a drive-by of your app every now and then, or go to a retreat or look at it online once in a while, or would I rather have 15,000 people who are like, 'I can't wait. When's the next retreat? Oh, you have a new course,'' she said. 'I want that kind of a community, as opposed to, 'Look how many people have come' because I think the people who come are going to want and need this.'
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