This is the second part of the commencement address Meredith Vieira delivered at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts on Sunday, May 18, 2008:
I grew up in Providence so I went home to my family home and I’m in my bedroom crying. My dad comes in and he says, “What’s the matter?” I told him and he said, “Well, do you think you have what it takes?” Even though I didn’t, I said, “Yeah. I think I do. And he said, “Why do you care what anybody’s going to say to you that would conflict with that feeling? You’re going to have naysayers, and I’ll tell you, you will throughout your life have people who will tell you not good enough. Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they think you aren’t. Maybe they’ve had a bad day. But ultimately you have to believe in yourself.” Based on that pep talk or maybe serious PMS, I did go in that Monday. I basically pinned him to the wall. You know and I think back on it and I said, “I don’t care what you think. I am going to make it.” I might have freaked him out, but he gave me a second chance. Since then, we have become very good friends. But I did learn a lesson about believing in yourself.
After that I was sort of on a fast track. I went from Providence directly to New York City at WCBS television and then onto network news. Some of you are going to find yourselves with that same trajectory because of the kind of students that you are. You’re going to move very fast and you’ll find that there isn’t a lot of time to pause and reflect. And I would urge you to do that. Sometimes you get on this high speed train and you never stop to think, “Well, where am I going and who am I? What am I really doing?” That’s when you’re tested at your core. Probably my biggest test came with 60 Minutes that Larry referred to.
Again, I was on this fast track and I was in West 57th, the magazine. I was also married but had several miscarriages and finally was pregnant with my first child after trying for quite a few years. I was leaving on maternity leave to have Ben, and I was brought into office of president of CBS News and he said to me, “How would you like to be a co-anchor, a co-editor at 60 Minutes”? And without thinking, I said yes, because it truly was the only job in the business that I ever really coveted. It was the perfect job for a reporter, the height of success.
I went home that night and I had a really bad stomachache and I figured, well I am going to have a baby so maybe that’s what’s causing it. The following week I had Ben but I never got rid of the stomachache, it kept getting worse and worse. Six months later I’m at 60 Minutes and I find that every time I’m on the road for a story, I’m having that pain thinking about my family and every time I’m with my family, I’m feeling guilty about my job and confused. Meanwhile, I became the media darling. There were all these stories, “Meredith Vieira, the woman who has it all. She’s got a husband, she’s got a kid, she’s got one of the best jobs in the business.” I just went along smiling and the whole thing even though inside I was churning.
Then I got pregnant with second child, Gabriel, and I was brought into Don Hewitt’s office who was the head of 60 Minutes at the time and he said, “You know what? You’re going to have to make a choice here. What matters more to you? You going to go full-time with this and really commit to it or are you going to leave?” In that moment, I did what I urge all of you to do later than I should have. I listened to my gut and I said, “You know what, I’m out of here.” And I said it in a nice way. And that night for the first night in years, I really slept well.
