Skimm'd from the Couch: Tamron Hall

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"The pivot is real." That phrase has defined Tamron Hall’s professional and personal life: from walking away from her job at NBC News, to hustling to get her own talk show on air, to her IVF journey. This week, Tamron told us how she approaches life’s unexpected moments. And how she turns setbacks into success.

On Career Pivots

Tamron: The pivot is real, I say all the time. It will come in some form. You're going to either be replaced or you're going to lose a job, someone's going to hopscotch over you. Unless you start the company, keep the company and make money your whole life, at some point you're going to work for someone. And the pivot will become real. I always tell people in business, "You're going to quit them or they're going to quit you. Are you ready?" 

I apply that to relationships. I applied that to my journey through IVF. The pivot was real.... So for me, that's the advice. You can't be afraid of losing it. Be afraid of not being prepared to lose it.

On Picking Yourself Back Up

Carly: For somebody listening who has gone through their version of this, where they were not deemed the best at work, and they were felt like they were being treated as the D-list player, and they don't necessarily get that outside validation, what would your advice be on how to pick themself up?

Tamron: The first thing I did was acknowledge the hard part of it, acknowledge, I don't call it fear, but the reality that the money in the bank, whatever you have, if it's a dollar or a hundred or 2,000, it's not going to last forever. But you have to know: that can't be the motivating factor for the next part. It's real. I know the difference in being able to pay my bills and not. And trust me, it feels a lot better to be able to pay them. 

But I think for me, honestly, there was a moment of acknowledgment of the hurt, of the embarrassment, of the unfairness of it all…. I didn't give in to bitterness, because I think that's a different sensation. I did, though, give in to the feeling of being wronged. And I think that that's something we experience in relationships, in friendships, that we want to run from.

We don't want to acknowledge that. You know what? Sometimes you will be wronged and it will happen. And I gave into it because I was tired, honestly, of always being the tough one, always being resilient, always having to muscle up and carry the weight of that.

.... What I tell people, when you're going through this loss of, especially job, because it's your identity…[is] picture life with a blank business card and just your name on that card. What does that say to you? Does it say you're no one? Does it say you're blank? Or does it say there is room now for you to put what you want. And that's what I kept telling myself.