You Might Also Like: Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb

**Hoda Kotb** (0:11)
Okay, so something kind of strange and a little bit scary happened in our family. Just, spoiler alert, everything's great. But it was late in the night that I had to rush my little girl, my seven-year-old, to the hospital, and we were in the ER for several hours until the morning. And again, everything worked out fine.
But something happened during those five hours where, for me, like, the world snapped into focus. It was, like, all the things that I had been thinking about that day or worried about or whatever they were, dissolved. It was like the only thing I cared about was, hope's got to be okay. That was it. And so while we were sitting there with all the beeping and stuff of the machines, all I could think about was hope being safe.
And then I thought, like, isn't that what we all want for our kids and ourselves, to be safe, to be loved, to be seen, all those things? And yet we bog ourselves down with all this ridiculous worry and silliness and stuff that we think is urgent and on fire when really it's not. Nothing really is that urgent, even though we think it is in the moment.
And so the next morning, I was driving to the gym and I was playing that Puerto Rico song that's so funny. I love that song, it's like Puerto Rico by Sax Boy Billy. Anyway, I was playing it. And you know when a song is so good, you roll the windows down? Well, I was rolling the windows down and I was thinking about Hope and how happy I was that she's good, she's back to herself. And the wind was blowing and I was like, wait, Hope felt this good last week. And I didn't roll down the windows and I didn't play Sax Boy Billy, I just went to the gym. So it just reminds us like there's celebration all the time. We don't have to have a big scary monster come in for us to say, oh my God, I better appreciate X, Y and Z. Like it's all just sitting there waiting for us.
So I think to me, it's like just to remind ourselves that don't wait for the darkness always before you see the great light that's out there because it's always there. Which brings you to this guest. Y'all, I am super excited for this guest because I have loved her for such a long time.
And her life has taken on so many different forms over the years. I knew her back when she was day drinking with me and Kathy Lee. Her name's Olivia Munn. She is an actress. She is a mother. She is a wife. She's a breast cancer survivor. And she's so funny. I know she's married to John Bellini and he's the funny one. But as you'll see in this conversation, she's actually so funny. She's witty, and she kind of doesn't care. You know, when you're with someone who doesn't care. But what she's done is she has a great way of reflecting on her life as she's gone through things, as she went through motherhood, as she went through the difficulties that come with motherhood in spite of all the joy, as she went through falling in love, which happened after she had her baby, falling in love with her husband. And then she went through this real scary chapter of breast cancer and how she evolved and came out of that. And just how she sees the world now. I mean, she is somebody who understands that life's full of bumps and bruises and she's an ultimate optimist. I loved our conversation with Olivia Munn and I hope you will too.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:40)
Okay, so first of all, Oh my gosh, first of all, we both have kids.

**Hoda Kotb** (3:44)
What happened?
Okay, so just so everyone gets it, I met you a long time ago. We filled in co-anchored together.

**Olivia Munn** (3:53)
Do you remember that? We did. And then also it was back when I was day drinking with you and Kathy.

**Hoda Kotb** (4:00)
By the way, the day drinking, that whole season was like one of my favorite seasons.

**Olivia Munn** (4:04)
Yeah. It was St. Patrick's Day.

**Hoda Kotb** (4:06)
And I'll never forget.

**Olivia Munn** (4:08)
It was the best. I was like, I'm on national television, a little tipsy.

**Hoda Kotb** (4:15)
You literally downed one. And I remember going like, this girl is boss.

**Olivia Munn** (4:20)
Well, when I saw the reaction on you and Kathy's face, I thought this was a mistake. Probably. Look at them. This was not a good decision.