Michele Tafoya: My Freedom to Speak Meant More than My Job | Stories of Us

if I wanted to speak I had to leave my freedom to speak meant more to me than staying in that job [Music] my name is Michelle Tafoya and this is my story I am a daughter a mother a wife and now a podcaster sideline sanity well I was fortunate enough to be born to two parents who raised our family in Manhattan Beach California their work ethic set a standard for all four of us kids we had to earn our allowance we weren't just given our allowance we had chores when you're the fourth in line that means everything you wear everything you have is generally passed down from the kids above you and I think that shaped a lot of me because I wanted some new stuff as a kid I wanted to get an a toy that was uniquely mine or a pair of jeans that was uniquely mine and I realized in order to do that I was going to have to earn my own money earn my own way and so I started working at the age of 11 or 12 watering all the plants for my neighbors when they went on vacation taking care of their pets I had a paper route when I was 13 and I was really ambitious to be able to control my own life that way to have my own income stream so I didn't have to just look up at my siblings to see where the next t-shirt or dress was coming from that I could do some of the materialistic things that I saw some of my other friends doing and so it was instilled in me from a very young age that this is how you get the things you want when I was little I wanted to be an actress and I was a drama queen I loved to pretend I was people that I wasn't and I thought that was going to be the greatest thing ever and I went all through school doing drama and playing roles and As I Grew Older and I saw the world for what it is I realized there had to be a practical element to my life so as I went on and I went to college I studied journalism and I was a massive sports fan and I started to see women like Leslie Visser and Robin Roberts and Hannah Storm on television and I thought I know I know as much as they do I can do that I really can do that God that looks like really a lot of fun I mean you're now talking about marrying my two loves sports and you know being a performer of sorts and the bite I got was in Charlotte North Carolina to do Sports Talk Radio it was radio it wasn't television but I said I'm gonna start I gotta start somewhere and so I took it and that was the beginning people usually work local television and then get promoted to a network CBS Sports had just lost a ton of properties and a lot of their talent went with it so they were looking for young up and coming cheap Talent sign me up and I went and I had a you know not an audition really just an interview and the next day I had an offer from CBS Sports in New York I left there after five years for ESPN and worked for and got a job on the lead crew of the NBA and I get this call from the producer of Monday Night Football at my house one day I'm just I'm at home the phone rings the next thing I know I'm introduced as the new sideline reporter on Monday Night Football with Al Michaels and John Madden and it didn't really hit me until my husband and I were sitting at home and the TV was on in the background and it was some news and I turned my husband was look and down on the little scroll under the news ABC announces new Cylon reporter Michelle Tafoya on on a news like a national news thing and I and I was like this is kind of wild so I think for me that was probably it and then I think winning my first Emmy which I didn't think was going to happen was another sort of you got to be kidding me I was 37 when I got married and I had a miscarriage and the first time you have a miscarriage you think everyone has a miscarriage but I thought gosh I hope I can get pregnant again and I did several months later and I thought yay okay it's gonna work this time you know and I had another miscarriage so okay let's do in vitro so we do in vitro and the first time we do it we got one embryo out of all of it one embryo you know I think most people get four or five we got one the embryo was implanted and it split so now I had identical twins going okay and that was sort of like whoa Nelly identical twins we were in Hawaii my husband and I was probably close to three months close to that end of that first trimester and I felt something was wrong miscarriage number three and you're losing two so we went back home I was there covering the Pro Bowl and I called the producer and I said I just lost my twins I want to go home can you find someone else to do my job and they were great about it and they did and so we flew home and I remember coming into the dining room our little tiny dining room one day and I saw my husband sitting at the dining room table all alone with his head in his hands and this was my support my optimism my guy so what is it he said I just wonder if we're gonna get the picket fence you know that ideal little life with the family funnily enough we were in Hawaii again this time for the NFL owners meetings and I was exhausted and I thought this time change is killing me my gosh the sun is so hot I am I'm exhausted we get home from that trip to Hawaii we're still waiting on the donor eggs and I realized huh I'm a little late took a pregnancy test I was pregnant [Music] now I had no reason to be optimistic about this I had just had three straight miscarriages once with twins there was no reason to be excited but you could not bring me down that day and I can't tell you why and nine months later I had my son after that emotional roller coaster which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy my husband said well now we get to adopt now it's not we have to adopt we get to adopt so we started when my son was six months old we started the process when we went down to pick her up she was three and a half months old and needed open heart surgery [Music] but it was okay we didn't know that when we headed down there and we went through with it and she is the most healthy happy smiling funny person in my life and I can't imagine it any other way and we have our picket fence I remember my mom who was very emotional about all of this because she hurt for me as much as I was hurting she saw me going through this she knew I wanted children so badly and after we finally had these two kids she said Tyler is your miracle and Olivia is your gift and I thought that's yeah that's who they are they're my miracle and my gifts I pity the person who has gone through life with no adversity because through work comes growth comes accomplishment comes achievement comes Joy yeah sometimes comes a lot of pain but as my mother-in-law says it's not win or lose it's win or learn and even in agony there is something to learn and through Agony I found my family there's just so much to be gained then I'm not talking about financial I'm talking about wisdom and courage and strength and as the years continued to go by and I continued to cover Sports outside of that world I was paying attention to politics to policy to where we stood on the world stage to history really started reading a lot of history and there was a lot of perspective to be gained and I realized I wanted to preserve the freedom and the liberty and the beauty that is America for my kids for the future and the more divisive things started to grow 2016 and 2020 I just couldn't keep silent anymore I was frustrated and I respected Sunday Night Football as an Enterprise and I respected NBC and I knew that if I said anything too controversial it would reflect on those entities and I didn't want to do that so um if I wanted to speak yeah I had to leave my freedom to speak meant more to me than staying in that job and I look I'm one of the luckiest people in the world to do what I did but there was something bigger out there that I needed to tap into or wanted to be a part of and I don't know what kind of impact I can have but I can't settle for having none so I quit and yeah as people said you're crazy I said okay [Music] okay maybe I am but you know what I I have to do this life is short and you want to make an impact and this is something I have to do I just have to speak up so I've started a podcast and I'm trying to use my voice there's too much going on out there that calls for us to say enough I'm not being canceled and I'm gonna speak up and I'm hopefully gonna give others courage do the same I've got a message and it's pretty simple find your courage and use it that's what I'm doing and I'm not going to apologize for my values because I've looked at them really closely and I know they're wholesome and they're good thank you for watching this video to keep prageru videos free please consider making a tax deductible donation