Having cancer empowered me to take more risks. I knew beating cancer was going to shape me, but it wasn't going to be all of me.
From time to time, I'll look back through the personal journals I've 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.
When my shoes are killing me, I take a maxi pad and put it in the bottom of my shoe. It is better than any Dr. Scholl's insert. That fashion tip has saved me through some long nights.
I think after overcoming breast cancer, you sort of become fearless and somehow going up to your boss to talk about a possible promotion doesn't seem like such a daunting task anymore.
When I first came to NBC, I thought it was going to be swimming with the sharks, all men for themselves, be careful and all that. I have to tell you I learned that you can be kind and a hard worker and move up. You don't have to play dirty or do things that you think happens at big corporations.
I'm a huge karaoke person even though I have the worst singing voice. When you love doing something, who cares?
I wake up at 4:15 A.M., get some coffee, turn on the news, see what's happening, go clickety-clack on the web to see what I missed overnight. Then I go to the gym, around 5:15, and I do what appears to be a very light workout, but who cares. I'm socializing with other nice people at the gym. Then I go into work, and I'm really awake.
'Ten Years Later' is about the journey six extraordinary people take with time. Each has experienced a game-changing event - perhaps a life-threatening illness or a catastrophic personal loss.
Weight is just not a hot button. In fact, during my life, it probably should have been on my radar screen a bit more. I look back at work photos and am shocked. Was I eating the people I was interviewing?! Good Lord, I was big.
One day, right after my mastectomy, I went for a walk in Central Park, and there was this mob of people blocking the road. I thought, 'Oh, great, now I'm stuck!' but then I suddenly realized that it was a breast cancer walk.
Sometimes you have to take the focus off of you and put it on someone else and it's funny what you can accomplish and how much strength you really have.
I love Jennifer Aniston's style. She is streamlined and never overdone. And Demi Moore always looks classic, gorgeous and sophisticated.
One day, right after my mastectomy, I went for a walk in Central Park, and there was this mob of people blocking the road. I thought, 'Oh, great, now I'm stuck!' but then I suddenly realized that it was a breast cancer walk.
Tone is often the most important part of a conversation - and listening is so much more important than what you say.
I'm an optimist, so I think everything can be worked out and fixed. But from having cancer I learned that even if you're even an optimist, sometimes you just have to face the facts that certain things are broken.
To this day, my mom's unsinkable spirit is an inspiration to me. For nearly thirty years, she's worked at the Library of Congress. Everyone knows Sameha simply as 'Sami.' Along with 500 miles of shelved books, her closest friendships are cataloged in that library. They are as much the value of work to my mom as is the work itself.
I've had weight issues all my life. I've been on all the diets: Atkins, liquid protein, Scarsdale diet. Now I go to the gym often. I'm always on the StairMaster, and I do weights.
Sometimes when things are way too big and I can't control it, I do sort of a weird thing where I kind of check out a little bit. It's all about self-preservation for me.
So I go to my first book signing, and these two girls came up and gave me a piece of paper: '10 reasons you should date our dad. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He's a lawyer.' He didn't know what was going on. He didn't even know me. They called him, and he came down and asked me out that day. Now I'm dating their dad!