All Things at Once

Mika, you rock! I love you on Morning Joe and knew somehow I connected to you! Now I know, you are a hard working woman like myself trying to find a balance. Not easy! Somehow the balls stay in the air just long enough and we are able to continue are juggling act. Great job Mika!!

If you like autobiographies, you're going to love All Things at Once. Mika Brzezinski gives us an inside look at her life ... the lows, the highs, and everything in between. Never boring, her life began in a family of super achievers, with experiences most of us will never encounter. From dinner with dignitaries to sleepovers in the White House, Mika's early years helped prepare her for an amazing future in television news. Through determination and unimaginably hard work, she rose up the ranks to land a dream contract at CBS as a news anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent ... only to be fired (seemingly) for no reason other than not being pretty enough. Every young hopeful in journalism school should read this book to learn the kind of dedication it takes to make it big in this field, and the dirty little secrets and politics which plague it. To keep a balance in your life as a journalist is a real challenge, with sacrifices that most are not willing to make. Mika's biggest failures always seemed to find her when she was trying to do "too much, too soon." Many of us can understand the guilt she felt after her baby daughter's serious injury, for which (of course) she blames herself. After achieving tremendous success, and then subsequently losing it all at 39, she fought her way back beginning as a lowly fill-in news reader on MSNBC, the only job she could get after her fall from the top. Her incredible drive and determination will inspire you, and the story of her experiences will help you accept your limitations. Any woman who has lost her job, or is having trouble finding the right balance between career and family, will embrace this book. The truth is it simply isn't possible to do everything at once, and accepting that simple truth will help all of us find our success and happiness. Everyone wants to "have it all" but sometimes finding the right "balance" is what will lead us to our greatest fulfillment.

I enjoyed this book . There was no glossing over what can really happen in a life. This story can be told I suspect by many people. However, Mika being a very public person, you don't hear many people in her position talk so frank. Great story.

The author skillfully writes how about the difficulties she faced when attempting to accomplish too many things before she was ready to do them all. She has since learned how to better pace herself. This insightful book presents a look at television news and how it affects those working on news programs. The author has been in broadcast news for over 20 years. She balanced her career with having a family with children. This proved demanding upon her time and energy. She had heard the advice that people with television careers should not have children, and she rejected that. Her mother had given up her career as an artist to raise her. Brzezinski had a cable access show in high school, summer internship at a network, and a college TV show. She started doing voice over after graduating from Williams in 1989. Her first steady, though part time, media job was working on a Vermont TV show for $100 per show. She learned that being nervous and sweating under live TV camera lights didn't look well to viewers. She next worked an overnight shift at ABC News for $200 a week and no benefits. She observed there were few role models then for women seeking airtime. After nine months at ABC, she went to work for a year at WTIC-TV in Hartford, Ct. in 1990 for $18,000. The author notes that "raw tape is like a truth serum" as it includes the film footage viewers don't see. By looking at the raw tape, one can learn how the broadcaster and crew work to get interviews and produce what is finally seen. The author then moved to WFSB in Harford, a CBS affiliate. Her husband, Jim Hoffer, ironically was hired by ABC affiliate WTNH in New Haven. Brzezinski became pregnant while working at WFSB. The reaction of the news director was "this will be great for ratings!" She was a $40,000 a year anchor in 1995 and her daughter was born in 1996. The birth was covered by both WFSB and WTNH. Brzezinski was offered a $150,000 network job in New York at CBS on her 30th birthday. The year of balancing a baby and a new job proved challenging and physically draining. A second pregnancy added to her hectic schedule. Her husband meanwhile found a job at WABC in New York. At CBS, Brzezinski was occasionally on the CBS "Evening News" Saturday. She recalls panicking during a news interview with news figures she had known since childhood and feeling she had let people down by not providing the interview she had desired. CBS management wanted the author to lose weight, cut her hair, and change her makeup. She was told she wasn't "presenting well", comments she admits "demoralized" her. Brzezinski went to MSNBC to host "Homepage". NBC spent $25,000 on new clothes for her. They had her hair dyed bright blonde and attired her in short skirts, tight blouses, and had her wear high boots. Brzezinski returned to CBS News. She was covering the plane crashes at the World Trade Center when the towers collapsed. This was followed by two and a half weeks of long hour

I began watching Morning Joe as I got ready in the mornings my senior year in college. The mix of hard hitting news and light hearted banter made me an instant fan of the show, and co-host Mika Brzezinski. As a result I was interested in reading her memoir, though I did not expect to find any correlations or advice that resounded in my entry-level, post college life from such a successful woman with a famous father. I was pleased to find, however, that the honesty Mika writes with creates a must read book full of anecdotes from the unique point of view of a national security advisor's daughter and later succesful journalist, but also of an ambitious business woman and overwhelmed wife/mother. Mika's lifestory is an inspiring example for anyone who has struggled between balancing big career dreams and finding satisfaction in his/her personal life. I expected such a tenacious career woman to take a hard stance against settling down before acheiving corporate sucesss, but Brzezinski imparts sound advice and great perspective on the risks one takes in pursuit of having it all that have taken her her whole life and career to date to realize. A compelling book that you will be better off for having read!