Overview
As the co-host of MSNBC’s popular show Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski has established herself as a leading political news journalist and beloved television personality.
But success hasn’t always come easy for Mika. Growing up the only daughter of former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, she struggled to find an identity in a family of overachievers. She worked her way up the ranks of network television to surpass even her own ambitions, reaching the very top of the ladder, only to get canned less than a year later. After an unsuccessful stint as a stay-at-home mom, Mika went back to the workplace with encouragement from her eight-year-old daughter. She decided to start all over again with a beginner’s job at age forty, a step back that proved to be a brilliant career move. Mika stumbled into Morning Joe and the rest is history. Now, in a time when many women are losing their jobs or struggling to find the perfect balance between work and home, Mika guides women of all ages to a place where they can find peace and fulfillment in their lives.
In the tradition of Gail Sheehy’s classic Passages, this illuminating book shows women how to reach their full potential in all areas of life and at every stage of their journey. Blending the personal with the prescriptive, Brzezinski’s book will address the perpetual question of how to “have it all” when it comes to work and family; the importance of remaining equally humble in the face of great success and seemingly devastating setbacks; as well as the necessity of knowing and embracing our limitations so that we may transcend them.
Synopsis
The New York Times bestseller and media sensation, now in paperback, is a candid and inspiring book that helps women confront personal and professional challenges in the key moments of their lives—from the popular television and radio co-host.
Publishers Weekly
In her second year as cohost of MSNBC's Morning Joe, TV news veteran Brzezinski is on fire, after enduring her share of professional setbacks and personal hardships. In this straightforward, frank account of her career trajectory, Brzezinski, the daughter of President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, does not bother to disguise her hard-fought ambition to secure a top news anchor position or hide the fact that she is not satisfied (nor very good at) being a stay-at-home mom of two daughters. From the beginning of her TV career, working her way up at local affiliates in Hartford, to her big break, getting hired in 1997 for an overnight CBS network anchor program in New York, Up to the Minute, the author resolved to make the frantic pace work, despite the increasing toll the late hours and absences from her family were taking. Distracted, pressured to return too early to work after the birth of her second child and exhausted, she took a bad fall down the stairs of her Yonkers home while holding her infant. The trauma scared her into slowing down, but not for long. Opportunity has seasoned Brzezinski but not hardened her, and having found her venue and voice with Morning Joe, she shares a refreshingly pragmatic approach for the professional woman: don't wait to have children and don't let your job treat you like a bad boyfriend. (Jan.)