NEW YORK — Tamron Hall is "living the dream" now in the fifth season of the "Tamron Hall Show," but admits there's a lesson she had to learn to get there.

"I learned to bet on myself. I mean, and that doesn't make you selfish. Betting on yourself means being willing to look at what you bring," she said. "It's something that I had to do in 2018, when I left what I thought was my dream job."

Hall referenced her 2017 departure from the "Today" show when, after losing her time slot on the morning show's third hour to Meghan Kelly, she decided to walk away. That decision led to the birth of her Emmy-winning talk show, the "Tamron Hall Show," which airs in the Twin Cities on Bounce TV.

"We're not running away from life. I tell people, it's not a talk show. This is a live show. And we don't run from life."

In a Monday Instagram post, the talk show host posted a clip from Kevin Hart's "Gold Minds" podcast, in which she spoke about the process of pitching the show.

"We all kind of imitate, right? It's like 'Am I going to imitate this comedian? Am I going to imitate Oprah? What am I doing? And then you realize that you are your best weapon. You diminish your weapon when you copy other people, so I look for my weapon. I went there and I sold the show."

Turning these experiences into everyday conversations, Hall has hosted the likes of Angela Bassett, Erykah Badu and designer Telfar Clemens, Robin Roberts and upcoming guest Patti LaBelle on her award-winning show.

Her audience is adoringly referred to as the "Tam Fam."

The host has also poured her triumphs into the upcoming novel "Watch Where They Hide," loosely based on Hall's life. The thriller is due out in March 2024.

"People that approached about beauty books and memoirs and all those things will come but I wanted to do something unexpected," Tamron said. "I wanted to challenge myself, I wanted to bet on myself that I could do this."

She hopes her success betting on herself will inspire other women to do the same.

"I remember, when I left, I told my mom, I said, 'I have to get back up because they're watching' and what I meant by they, showing Black female journalists that we can bet on ourselves, and we can find our value. And when we find our value, we find our audience and we find that people were rooting for us. And we find a way to somehow in this wonderful world end up with a talk show with five seasons."