Today contributor Donna Farizan doesn’t shy away from the personal and vulnerable in her work. In a 2022 segment exploring the rising popularity of child-free lifestyles, Farizan, then newly 30, invited viewers of the program’s fourth hour to explore her complicated feelings about the looming specter of motherhood. “Do you want to have kids?” Farizan asked her audience at the time. “Have you paused to actually think about what you want, or is it a decision you feel pressured to make?” To get a fuller perspective, Farizan spoke with a panel of successful women including Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell about how each of them decided whether to have or not to have children. After Farizan said she wanted to keep the option open, Candace Bushnell told her: “Freeze your eggs!”
So Farizan — who is single and lives alone in her Flatiron studio — reviewed her company benefits and decided to take the plunge, documenting her nine-month-long egg-freezing journey for a special segment airing on September 12. It’s part of her new series on Today with Hoda & Jenna,“Owning Your Power,” about navigating your thirties. She hopes it will provide insights to women who are considering egg freezing themselves and may be nervous about the process. “I’d heard a lot of people’s accounts of, ‘You’re going to be really bloated, so you need to cover the bloat,’” Farizan tells me, “or I heard people say they were depressed because they were single and doing it so to get a therapist.” But her experience was largely positive — although not without its ups and downs — and she hopes to assuage some nerves with it. Creating those intimate connections with viewers is what keeps her passionate about what she does. “When you’re able to be vulnerable and personal, especially in this field, you’re able to connect with so many people, and the relatability is the point of it all,” Farizan says. “I want to share because I want people to feel seen.” Here’s how she gets it done.
On her lifelong love of the Today show and how she got there:
My mom always watched Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, then the Today show. It was always in the background of my morning routine. Then in middle school, we had a series of guest speakers at our all-school assembly, and I remember SuChin Pak from MTV came. I was most interested in what she had to say, so I mustered up all my courage and asked her what her favorite interview was. I’m pretty sure she said Britney Spears. From that moment, I thought, Wow, I’d love to interview; I’d love to be in that field.
I’m first-generation American. My parents were born and raised in Iran and have always modeled that hard work is the way to get somewhere. I knew the industry I wanted to be in was very connection-based and I didn’t have those, so I went to college at George Washington University in D.C. and worked five internships, three with NBC and one with the Today show. I was happiest at Today and even wrote my senior thesis on it, which proves how obsessed I was. I had just graduated college when I got a call from who would become my first boss; she was the co-executive producer of the nine and ten o’clock hours. She asked me if I could shoot an edit. I hadn’t gone to journalism school and told her I was an amateur at it but was extremely hungry, that I’ll teach myself anything. The next week, I got the job and did just that. There were nights I was at 30 Rock till midnight, then had to be up at 4 a.m., but hard work is all I’ve known.
On going public with her egg-freezing journey:
That 2022 segment was what triggered me into wanting to freeze my eggs. The people on the panel said, “You should do it no matter what.” I mulled it over for two years, but the timing wasn’t right. When I turned 32, a whisper in me said, This is the year to get it done. I found out my company’s benefits — it’s costly without insurance — and interviewed different doctors, word-of-mouth recommendations from friends.
The process, from conversations with those doctors to execution, took nine months. It was a positive experience for me. I’d seen influencers post videos pulling over to the side of the road and having breakdowns because of the hormones. Because my estrogen levels were so high, I was so happy. I felt fatigued, but not sad or upset that I was single. I was nervous at first but was pleasantly surprised by how I took it, physically and emotionally. I documented the process to show the reality of what it was. I got bloated a couple of days before and after the retrieval and had to limit physical activity. I’ve battled with body-image issues and thought it would be hard on me, but I realized how capable and strong the female body is, and I was angry about the time and energy I wasted being self-conscious. If you’re going into the process with a positive mind-set and you aren’t anxious, you’ll have a more positive experience. Of course, that doesn’t control the outcome of the eggs you get. But if you want to feel good, positive, and peaceful during the process, it’s all based on your mind-set.
On her morning routine:
When I’m on the show, I typically wake up at 6 a.m. Hoda gave me Brianna Wiest’s The Pivot Year last December, and I read one page a day before I leave my apartment. I’m in the car at 6:20 and get to work by 6:30. I’ll have my Athletic Greens and usually work out at the NBC gym with Jenna to maximize my sleep. I’ll do weights or treadmill, sometimes Orange Theory if I don’t work out at work. I’ll do a little meditation, which sounds cheesy, but is almost like an OCD ritual. Then I shower and get into hair and makeup, which is my favorite time of the day. I lay my outfit out the night before. I enjoy glamor and having fun with the way I dress; I like keeping it spicy and don’t have a traditional news look. Makeup and hair is very therapeutic. The team and I gab about our lives, and I’m all about the complimentary amenities. Laura, our wonderful hairstylist, brews this incredibly strong coffee, which I’ll have with whatever milk’s in the fridge at the moment. I’m not a big breakfast person, but since the egg freezing I’ve gotten into protein. My doctor told me to have 60 grams of it a day during the process. In the work pantry, we have hard-boiled eggs, so I’ll have one with spicy mustard on top, sort of a makeshift deviled egg.
On the importance of positivity during a workday:
In the car or subway to work, I listen to pump-up songs and visualize how I want my segment to go. Every day is a different mood, song-wise, but it ranges from Rihanna to Rosalía to Dem Franchize Boyz. There’s always an upbeat element. With a lot of the content I put on the show, whether it’s my personal experience or that of others, I try to give a fresh take, and with those segments comes a lot of persuasion. You have to believe in what you’re pitching and you have to be able to sell it. But when I first started working on Today, I basically did three jobs under one title. I’d produce, do social media, and my on-air stuff. That trained me to manage stress, and now I feel running on adrenaline is a thrill. I want to do the best job I can, but since COVID I remind myself that we’re not curing cancer. So taking everything with a grain of salt is important and so is knowing that you’re the only one who can make your segment the way you want it to be.
On letting go of perfectionism on-camera:
You can’t let criticism get in the way of your growth. It’s easy to hear a negative comment or critical feedback and let it diminish you or weigh you down, especially in your 20s. But I’m always going to bet on myself, because if I don’t believe in myself, how can anyone else? We all have the anxious thought of, Is this as great as I visualized it to be? But in this field, you can watch yourself back and see how you appear when you have those thoughts and it seems calm, like nothing is wrong. That’s a good lesson for anyone. The negative thoughts are only in your head, and they’ll only sabotage you if you let them. So you can’t sweat the small stuff of, I didn’t get the full soundbite I wanted in the script, or, This was cut, because it’s a team sport. Not everything you want in your story is going to air. I’ve let go of the perfectionist side of me and go with the flow.
On the joys of solo living and winding down with single girlfriends:
I’ve lived in my studio for a few years. There was a time when living solo felt like a void. Now, post-COVID, I’ve loved living in the city more than ever. I’ve been making a lot of new single girlfriends, which has been so fun. There was a period of time over the past few years when every weekend, or even after work, it felt like there was an engagement party, a bridal or baby shower, or a destination bachelorette. In the last year, I’ve focused on saying yes to all social invitations. So I’ll have a random slew of events to go to each night. It’s like it was in the beginning of my time in New York, when I was saying yes to everything. I’ve been meeting new people. I’ve picked up squash, which I played in school. I took up acting classes. I’m just taking more advantage of the city.
On the moment she made it professionally:
There is one moment that left me in disbelief. I was 24 or 25, live-wrapping my first broadcast celebrity interview for the 40th anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was Halloween; I was sitting next to Hoda, Kathie Lee, and Regis Philbin. It was emotional. I thought, Wow, these are all the people my mom watched, and it’s cool that she gets to watch me.
On the advice she wishes she’d had at the start of her career …
Not to step on anyone’s toes,and to get ideas for pitches green-lit by your boss before pursuing them. You know how everyone watches Emily in Paris and cringes at how bold Emily is? She reminds me of how I was in my early days here. I’d meet executives in the elevator and do elevator pitches, so I definitely stepped on toes in the beginning. Especially when you’re starting out, pass things by your direct bosses before going rogue.
… And the many pieces of bad advice she’s received:
The worst advice you can listen to is that of changing anything about you. After my local news internship in college, I made a demo reel and met with an agent. He told me I was good, but the only way I’d get a job was if I got rid of the beauty marks on my face. I once had a boss who told me I needed to change my voice and make it lower. I tried to do that. I was told I shouldn’t dress as glamorously as I do, to tone it down. I came out of the womb feeling glamorous. Heels over flats any day.
On what she still wants to get done:
My biggest goal is professional longevity. The more birthdays I have, the more I’m looking to grow. The definition of that growth is always changing, especially in a changing industry. But success here is a team sport. I couldn’t grow without the incredible network of women who allow me to do so, and I always pay it forward. I have informationals with hundreds of interns and entry-level people in this building. It’s so important to share whatever advice you have. This is a field where there’s no no direct path, which can be daunting for a type-A personality. But it’s also freeing. There’s no wrong turn you can make.
