Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1282 ｜ Autism Isn’t a Superpower — or a Death Sentence： A Story of Tough Love ｜ Leland Vittert

00:00:00.000 In an age when having a diagnosis is almost a badge of honor, Leland Vittert is telling a different story from his perspective.

00:00:10.300 As someone who is diagnosed with autism, he says that the adversity that he went through growing up helped him become the successful journalist and reporter that he is today.

00:00:20.300 Because his parents, while they loved him, refused to coddle him. The lessons that he learned, especially from his dad, about hard work, about overcoming difficulty are so incredibly important for us today.

00:00:35.540 You are going to be so moved by this gut-wrenching story and also encouraged as a parent, as a friend, to ensure that we are helping people reach their highest potential in everything they do.

00:00:50.000 You are going to love this conversation with our new friend, Leland Vittert.

00:00:53.520 Leland, thanks so much for taking the time to join me.

00:01:06.060 It's been a long time. Good to see you.

00:01:07.560 It has been a long time. Okay, I want to talk about your story.

00:01:12.140 You're a newscaster. You've been in the news business for a long time.

00:01:15.420 But a lot of people don't know that when you were little, you got diagnosed with autism.

00:01:20.480 That's a big part of your story.

00:01:21.640 It's a big part of the story. It's one I never told until I was about 43 years old.

00:01:26.180 And that was a big part of my parents' philosophy growing up, which was, we're not going to let you be defined by a diagnosis.

00:01:34.040 We're not going to let you define yourself by a diagnosis.

00:01:37.860 And my dad, from when I was 8 years old, decided to try and adapt me to the world rather than the world to me.

00:01:45.600 And that is the born-lucky story.

00:01:47.760 And the reason I'm willing to talk about it now at 43 years old, going to therapy on national television, is not exactly a bucket of fun.

00:01:56.280 It's sort of like sitting in a bathtub full of scissors.

00:01:58.060 It won't kill you.

00:01:59.680 But it's not comfortable.

00:02:01.260 Enjoyable, yeah.

00:02:02.120 Is if I, by sharing the darkest, deepest, most awful parts of my life, which are in Born Lucky, if that can help other kids, if that can help other families to know they're not alone, then it's worth it.

00:02:15.580 If that can provide hope to other families.

00:02:17.220 And it doesn't matter if it's ADHD or anxiety or bullying or whatever the difficulties that kids are going through growing up, Born Lucky is real hope of what parents can do.

00:02:26.700 And the reception, you know, people have asked me, how's the book doing?

00:02:30.220 I don't measure it in sales.

00:02:31.700 I measure it in letters.

00:02:33.280 And I've gotten hundreds of letters from families of kids dealing with autism, peanut allergies, anxiety, physical disabilities, all saying how this has changed their perspective on their kid.

00:02:45.940 Wow. So it's called Born Lucky.

00:02:48.240 And you were given the nickname Lucky.

00:02:50.160 I was.

00:02:50.400 When you were little. Tell us why.

00:02:52.080 So I was given the nickname Lucky when I was born.

00:02:54.860 As a mom, you'll appreciate this.

00:02:56.480 It was my mother's first pregnancy, 1982.

00:02:58.880 She was older. She was 35. 1.00

00:03:01.200 And when she went to her last appointment, they could see that I was breech.

00:03:07.000 I was upside down.

00:03:08.300 Before sophisticated ultrasounds, the doctor said, I've got a bad feeling.

00:03:13.020 I think you should have a C-section.

00:03:13.980 And this is when natural birth was very in vogue.

00:03:16.720 There was all this research that doctors were prescribing C-sections because it was more convenient, all the things.

00:03:21.920 And my mom made a fateful decision.

00:03:23.440 She said, if I'm not going to take my doctor's advice, I should get a new doctor, not take his advice.

00:03:30.080 Less than later saved me, saved my life a couple times in the Middle East.

00:03:33.420 But it goes in for the C-section, and there's the curtain, and I'm being born on this side of the curtain.

00:03:40.760 And my dad and my mom are on this side of the curtain, and my mom is holding my dad's hand.

00:03:44.200 And she hears, oh, my God, from the doctor.

00:03:47.160 Not what you want to hear in a delivery room.

00:03:49.380 Oh, my God, this is a lucky baby.

00:03:51.700 Oh, my God, this is the luckiest baby.

00:03:53.400 And my dad kind of peeks his head out.

00:03:54.720 He's like, everything okay?

00:03:55.980 And the doc goes, give us a minute.

00:03:57.240 And then the nurse goes, oh, my God. 0.99

00:03:58.520 And my mom about broke my dad's hand, clenching down on it. 0.99

00:04:03.180 And they said, this is the luckiest baby we've ever seen.

00:04:05.720 And the umbilical cord was tied in a knot and around my neck.

00:04:09.800 So had I been born naturally, I would have been dead.

00:04:12.440 Wow.

00:04:13.920 And the next day, up in the little, like, nursery area or my mom's hospital room, wherever it is,

00:04:20.100 there's this little whiteboard outside the hospital room that says, you know, Leland Vittert,

00:04:23.900 how much I weigh, last time I pooped, what I ate, whatever it is.

00:04:27.800 And the doctor came up and crossed out Leland and said, call him Lucky.

00:04:33.280 Wow.

00:04:33.780 So up until when I was 18 years old, I introduced myself to everyone as Lucky Vittert.

00:04:38.960 And I thought it was a fitting title of being born lucky.

00:04:44.460 So many people would think about autism as this great challenge and how terrible and affliction

00:04:50.320 and everything else.

00:04:50.880 And I want to make it clear how lucky I felt to have the parents I had, to have the dad

00:04:55.300 who had dedicated himself in the way I did, to have the family I did that came around

00:04:59.100 me.

00:04:59.580 Mm-hmm.

00:05:00.320 And at what point did your parents say, okay, like, I think that there might be something

00:05:06.900 going on with him and we might need to see a doctor?

00:05:11.340 It's a great question.

00:05:13.000 There were signs.

00:05:13.980 I didn't talk until I was well past three, took me to a speech pathologist.

00:05:18.580 And this is way before the diagnosis culture that we have right now.

00:05:23.080 There was a lot of, well, you know, just let them go along.

00:05:25.780 At about eight, I was told, they were told I needed to be evaluated.

00:05:29.040 So as a mother, you would know what that would mean and the difficulty there.

00:05:33.220 So they brought me to one of those medical testing buildings, all been there, linoleum

00:05:38.580 floors, old magazines, stale coffee.

00:05:41.600 They waited for a couple of hours.

00:05:44.620 And the woman comes back and says, this kid's got real, real bad problems.

00:05:49.760 So it had been years since I'd been invited to a play date or a birthday party or anything

00:05:54.180 like that.

00:05:54.800 But you were in school, typical school.

00:05:56.820 Typical school, but with lots and lots and lots of problems in typical school. 0.72

00:06:01.160 If a kid touched me or looked at me the wrong way or whatever, I'd turn around and slug them.

00:06:06.620 So I mean, I was, you know, pretty aggressive.

00:06:10.360 Temperamental, sensitive.

00:06:11.540 Big sensory issues.

00:06:12.880 If I had socks on I didn't like or a jacket on I didn't like or whatever, I would just melt

00:06:16.960 down.

00:06:17.500 Day would be over.

00:06:18.700 And then the test showed these big learning disabilities or what we now call learning

00:06:22.820 disabilities.

00:06:23.220 So IQ test is two halves of a test averaged together.

00:06:27.800 A 20 point spread is a learning disability.

00:06:31.040 My spread between the two tests was a 70 point spread. 0.57

00:06:34.400 So basically in the parlance of the day from genius to mentally retarded. 0.99

00:06:39.480 And the woman says to my dad and my mom, it is very difficult to understand what's going

00:06:47.380 on inside his head.

00:06:48.960 Now, my wife would tell you it's still very difficult to understand what's going on inside

00:06:53.560 my head.

00:06:54.780 But when they looked at this, she said, it's the biggest point spread we've ever seen.

00:07:00.180 You basically have to meet your son where he's at.

00:07:02.220 He's just is who he is.

00:07:04.420 And sorry to interject, but was there a pattern in which areas you were scoring so high in genius

00:07:11.340 level and which areas you were really struggling then?

00:07:14.140 They have it in the test in terms of like, I think it's called knowledge and performance.

00:07:17.780 The standards have changed.

00:07:20.400 There were certain areas of math that I was quite good at.

00:07:23.160 There were certain areas of language that I was terrible at.

00:07:28.320 So they I had great vocabulary, but I couldn't spell like these kinds of issues.

00:07:35.560 So the woman says the biggest point spread we've ever had kind of just need to meet your

00:07:40.280 son where he's at.

00:07:40.960 There's not much you can do, which to my dad was unacceptable, if for no other reason

00:07:46.560 than where I was at was a disaster.

00:07:49.000 And at that point, he said, is there anything we can do?

00:07:51.720 And she said, not really.

00:07:54.580 So he said, I'm going to try my best to adapt my son to the world because the world's not

00:07:59.800 going to adapt to him later on.

00:08:01.020 And, you know, they wanted to make all these accommodations and therapies and on and on

00:08:05.100 and on.

00:08:05.280 And my dad said, that's not the way real life is going to be.

00:08:08.280 So no therapies, no accommodations.

00:08:10.180 They never told anybody.

00:08:11.620 You know, they never told a school administrator, a teacher, any of their friends, you know,

00:08:17.980 never told me until I was in my 20s.

00:08:19.980 Wow.

00:08:20.500 And so what did your adolescence look like?

00:08:23.140 Your parents know.

00:08:24.540 Right.

00:08:24.720 Maybe they're trying to work with you more because obviously they want you to do well.

00:08:28.960 But what did school look like for you?

00:08:31.080 So, yeah, that that I think is the part that's kind of taking people's breath away.

00:08:37.780 You know, a few sort of moments in Born Lucky that kind of explain, I think, a lot of what

00:08:42.980 kids go through.

00:08:44.820 Fifth grade, this was my third school, I think.

00:08:49.320 My dad comes over one day to the school to see me and check on how I'm doing.

00:08:54.900 Here's I'm at P.E., goes up to the P.E. fields.

00:08:57.140 It's a little small school and they've got a bunch of fields sort of tiered down.

00:09:03.180 And the P.E. coach was a guy my dad knew from another school and said, hey, where's Lucky?

00:09:07.840 And the guy said, oh, I think he's doing better these days and on and on.

00:09:11.800 And my dad goes, great, let's go see him.

00:09:14.540 And the guy goes, I don't think that's a good idea.

00:09:16.000 This is the coach.

00:09:17.000 I guess, why not?

00:09:17.960 He says, well, he said, I had to put him with the girls for the past month.

00:09:20.720 So imagine as a father of a fifth grade boy here and the only sort of place his son can

00:09:27.540 be is with the girls.

00:09:29.700 That was about the same time that as my sister and I would walk home every day from that school.

00:09:35.720 So fifth grade, my sister was in kindergarten.

00:09:38.860 And I asked my sister when we were working on Born Lucky, what's the earliest memory you

00:09:42.440 have of me, of your brother?

00:09:43.520 She goes, oh, that's easy.

00:09:45.720 Fifth grade, fall of fifth grade year, I was in kindergarten, meaning Liberty.

00:09:49.360 And I would come to her classroom, pick her up, and we would walk home actually through

00:09:53.460 all those athletic fields that I was playing with the girls at.

00:09:56.820 And we'd get to the woods on our way home and I would start crying every day.

00:10:00.100 And she says, my first memory as a kindergartner is holding my older brother's hand as we walked

00:10:04.260 home and he was crying every day.

00:10:05.400 So got pulled out of that school, middle of fifth grade.

00:10:08.600 And you were crying because?

00:10:10.060 Just the bullying.

00:10:11.160 You know, sort of just the relentless social torture.

00:10:14.760 Yeah.

00:10:15.660 Is that why you were moved with the girls?

00:10:18.780 Yeah.

00:10:18.960 Because the boys were picking on you.

00:10:21.880 Yeah.

00:10:22.140 Both physically and emotionally.

00:10:23.880 And then seventh grade, new school, my parents get called in in the second week.

00:10:29.260 So they're hopeful things are going well in this new school.

00:10:32.040 And the teacher or the principal says to my parents, right when they sit down in the principal's

00:10:36.600 office, everybody at this school thinks Lucky is very weird.

00:10:42.540 Arrow number one.

00:10:43.860 And then she follows up.

00:10:46.180 And frankly, I do too.

00:10:47.480 Arrow number two.

00:10:48.180 So now anything that happens at the school is my fault, right?

00:10:51.360 And I think the thing that's been sort of stunning to a lot of people is how the teachers treated

00:10:56.560 me.

00:10:57.100 You know, teachers are supposed to be the ones to protect you.

00:11:00.020 And in eighth grade at this school, I was in art class.

00:11:04.660 I was not going to become Picasso.

00:11:06.020 So that's probably still true today.

00:11:08.800 But the art teacher didn't like something I had done or said or painted or whatever.

00:11:15.420 And he says in front of the entire class, you know, Vittert, if my dog was as ugly as 1.00

00:11:20.600 you, I would shave its ass and make it walk backwards. 1.00

00:11:24.180 Oh, my gosh. 1.00

00:11:25.540 In front of the entire class.

00:11:26.200 To an eighth grader?

00:11:27.220 To an eighth grader in front of the entire class.

00:11:28.380 So if the teachers feel like they can do that, you know what the kids can do, right?

00:11:32.740 And this is at like a good private school.

00:11:36.060 Good private school.

00:11:36.960 Yeah.

00:11:37.940 So you and I were talking about this before we got started.

00:11:41.580 I went home that night, as I did every night, and sort of unloaded emotionally on my dad.

00:11:45.380 He would sit there for hours and kind of let me unload emotionally, take out the physical,

00:11:52.280 emotional beatings I had taken all day on him.

00:11:54.380 But the next day, he made me go back to school.

00:11:58.200 And I think that was really the story of my adolescence of that adversity is your friend.

00:12:04.920 And my dad's philosophy was, if you embrace adversity, embrace it honestly.

00:12:09.120 And boy, was it so much harder for him to hold my hand through it, right?

00:12:12.880 It would have been very easy for him to say, oh, he's got this diagnosis.

00:12:15.300 He's got this problem.

00:12:16.000 He needs this accommodation on and on and on.

00:12:18.180 Much easier for him and for my mother and for my sister.

00:12:21.020 But it would not have taught me the ability to get through things later on in life.

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00:13:31.260 I want to hear you talk more about that because this is certainly a novel approach.

00:13:41.080 Like as a mom, certainly our instinct is to shield our kids from all of that pain.

00:13:48.000 Also to march up to the school and to like, I mean, I want to bully that teacher.

00:13:54.480 I want to bully that teacher right now.

00:13:56.100 However, many years later, that's just such an awful story.

00:13:58.860 But your parents chose not to do that.

00:14:02.240 They chose to allow you to endure that adversity.

00:14:06.680 And I know there's a balance.

00:14:08.300 Obviously, there is a point at which parents have to protect their kids.

00:14:11.820 But your parents kind of chose a hands-off approach.

00:14:14.820 I don't think it was hands-off.

00:14:17.860 Okay.

00:14:18.060 I think it was very hands-on.

00:14:20.040 Like to you.

00:14:21.240 To me.

00:14:21.760 Right, right.

00:14:22.280 Every night my dad would sit with me for hours.

00:14:24.680 And I found out actually as we were writing Born Lucky, not even from my dad, but from my mom,

00:14:30.340 that there were a lot of nights that my dad would go downstairs in the living room by himself

00:14:35.520 after dark when my mom was asleep and just start sitting there crying himself.

00:14:39.880 I'm going to cry thinking about that.

00:14:43.800 I have many times talking about this.

00:14:45.660 But dad's idea was to hold my hand through the adversity.

00:14:49.360 Yeah.

00:14:50.060 And I think what he realized was that I was going to face that adversity later in life,

00:14:55.980 which I did.

00:14:56.580 And if I didn't know how to get through it, and also if I wasn't forced to adapt.

00:15:02.160 I mean, in many ways, you know, socially, I was an extraordinarily awkward, weird kid.

00:15:08.180 I had to learn how to adapt and how to interact with the world as the way the world interacted,

00:15:14.600 not as the way I wanted to interact with it.

00:15:16.220 Yeah.

00:15:17.560 You know, I had terrible timing.

00:15:20.580 I couldn't figure out when to be serious.

00:15:21.820 I couldn't figure out how to relate to people emotionally the way they were emotionally.

00:15:25.880 I couldn't figure out how to, you know, read a room, when to stop talking, all of these

00:15:29.620 things I had, I was going to have to learn.

00:15:31.580 And if you're put in bubble wrap, you're never, and told how wonderful you are all the time,

00:15:36.180 you're never going to learn that, right?

00:15:37.340 So, you know, from the very beginning for my dad, it was, how do we teach this kid self-esteem?

00:15:43.600 So when I was five or six years old, I was doing 200 push-ups a night.

00:15:47.400 And you'd get, you know, after a couple months of doing that, you get some kind of reward.

00:15:50.780 But my dad wanted to teach me self-esteem is earned, not given, which is a very different

00:15:56.260 philosophy, I think, than what we see now.

00:15:58.420 Totally.

00:15:59.220 Yeah.

00:15:59.420 Tell me what else your parents did in helping you.

00:16:03.760 Because as you mentioned, it was a hands-on approach at home, hands-off approach when it

00:16:07.960 came to shielding you from the difficulty at school.

00:16:10.600 So what else did that look like in giving you that extra help that you needed to adapt socially?

00:16:15.640 Right.

00:16:15.860 So my dad figured out early on, I'm not going to have self-esteem from having friends at

00:16:20.160 school, because I wasn't going to have friends.

00:16:21.740 I wasn't going to have it from doing well in school because of the learning disabilities.

00:16:25.780 And I wasn't going to have it from being good at athletics, because I wasn't going to

00:16:31.080 be good at athletics, very uncoordinated.

00:16:32.180 So his idea was, how do we find things for him to have self-esteem at, at a young age?

00:16:38.260 So push-ups, stuff like that.

00:16:40.940 The second thing was how to teach this eight-year-old how the world works socially, the social and

00:16:48.660 emotional fabric that so many people understand naturally.

00:16:53.160 And he couldn't do it with kids, because no kid would be around me.

00:16:57.200 I was repellent like a magnet.

00:17:00.180 Some people attract people like magnets, but if you put the two poles of a magnet together,

00:17:03.820 they repel.

00:17:04.400 I was repellent magnetically.

00:17:07.340 And my dad said, okay, I will be his friend.

00:17:11.120 So my dad started spending hundreds of hours with me, thousands of hours, still as my best

00:17:15.660 friend.

00:17:15.980 What is this?

00:17:16.920 We're recording this at a little before noon.

00:17:19.580 Yeah.

00:17:20.240 And I've already talked to him, I think, three times today.

00:17:22.360 Yeah.

00:17:23.320 Still as my best friend.

00:17:25.260 So he would then take me out to lunch, and we'd go out to lunch with any of his friends.

00:17:30.440 And because I spent so much time with him, I could sort of talk about business and politics

00:17:34.000 and news and those kind of topics.

00:17:36.540 But as soon as we'd sit down at some diner for cheeseburgers and milkshakes, as soon as

00:17:41.500 his friend sat down, I would either start blasting him with questions or blasting him with stories

00:17:46.800 about my push-ups.

00:17:47.720 Yeah.

00:17:48.320 And my dad would tap his watch.

00:17:50.460 And that was my dad's way of saying, okay, be quiet.

00:17:53.920 So my dad tapped his watch.

00:17:55.340 I had to stop talking.

00:17:56.780 And I had to bookmark that moment.

00:17:58.940 And the idea was, later on, as we were driving home, it was like, okay, when Mr. So-and-so

00:18:03.560 was talking about his weekend, and you interrupted it to talk about your push-ups, why did you

00:18:09.760 think he would be interested in that?

00:18:11.200 Well, I don't know, dad.

00:18:12.260 Okay.

00:18:13.040 And then we would role play what you could have asked Mr. So-and-so about himself.

00:18:17.500 That's good.

00:18:18.220 That would have elicited a better response.

00:18:21.040 It was this very minute-by-minute teaching of the emotional and human dynamic.

00:18:28.220 Wow.

00:18:29.120 That's amazing.

00:18:30.420 Were there any teachers or any individuals that were classmates that you can think of

00:18:36.760 in your upbringing that stand out as actually being kind or helping you?

00:18:43.160 Yeah.

00:18:43.180 It's a great question.

00:18:44.900 And you'll notice when you read the book that we didn't use the names of anybody who

00:18:50.200 was mean.

00:18:50.740 So that our teacher remains nameless.

00:18:52.700 And it's not because I don't remember their names.

00:18:54.340 Yeah.

00:18:54.580 And my sister certainly remembers the names.

00:18:56.480 Of course.

00:18:56.900 Or the principal who called me weird or anything else.

00:18:59.900 There were a few.

00:19:02.860 And we used their names because we wanted to really highlight what a difference a teacher

00:19:09.920 who's kind and whose understanding can make.

00:19:13.680 Sufficing to say, there were few and far between.

00:19:15.500 Um, but there were a few.

00:19:18.660 Yeah.

00:19:19.040 And I remain grateful.

00:19:20.180 And I thought, when I was writing the book, I thought it was going to be harder to remember

00:19:25.120 all the awful times.

00:19:27.460 And really, I got the most emotional thinking about sort of the people who were the kindest.

00:19:33.520 You know, I got most emotional in reading the audio book.

00:19:36.360 I know you've done that for your books.

00:19:37.580 But reading the audio book and telling the story of, like, when our dog died because

00:19:41.280 of how much she meant to me.

00:19:43.380 And that was the most important part to me.

00:19:45.880 Yeah.

00:19:46.540 Can you tell us, from your experience, what makes a good teacher when you're a kid who

00:19:52.760 just has such a hard time fitting in?

00:19:55.060 That's a great question.

00:19:56.980 And actually, of 171 interviews I've done, that's the first person who's asked me about

00:20:01.200 that.

00:20:01.380 I've heard what makes great parents.

00:20:02.800 What advice do you have?

00:20:05.300 I really believe that there are some wonderful teachers and people who really want to bring

00:20:12.200 out the best in kids and to really help kids.

00:20:14.940 I think, at least in my experience, most of the teachers who were so evil and cruel to me,

00:20:21.180 it was about them. 0.84

00:20:23.900 They were bullies themselves.

00:20:25.960 And this was just sort of a free way to do it.

00:20:27.960 Um, I think that there is an enormous amount of cowardice in education because of lots of

00:20:39.320 different incentives.

00:20:40.940 And that's few and far between.

00:20:43.440 I guess the obvious thing is the teacher's job should be to champion the most vulnerable

00:20:52.420 among their students, right?

00:20:53.920 Not to champion the kids who are doing the best.

00:20:56.520 Mm-hmm.

00:20:57.180 Yeah.

00:20:58.300 I guess the reason why I thought of it is because although you and I don't have the

00:21:02.560 exact same experience growing up, anyone who's, like, a little bit different, maybe

00:21:07.740 particularly at, like, a private school where being uniform, like, there's just a lot of

00:21:13.640 value on that, anyone who's even a little bit different could have a hard time and, you

00:21:18.680 know, I just didn't stop talking, which is exactly why I do what I do.

00:21:22.000 But I remember also those teachers who instead of just constantly beating the kid down who

00:21:29.420 cannot remember to, you know, keep up with his homework or whatever it is, positive reinforcement,

00:21:36.720 kindness, friendliness, things like that.

00:21:39.780 But it really makes a big difference.

00:21:41.620 And I just remember, you know, I remember my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Ross, so well just

00:21:46.660 because, like, she was that different teacher for me.

00:21:49.920 And what a difference maker those people can be in the life of a kid who feels different.

00:21:54.760 Yeah, and what a difference it can be when someone's really awful and cruel.

00:21:59.640 Yes, totally.

00:22:00.640 And I think you point out rightly, for people who had a hard time growing up, me, you, the

00:22:08.340 number of people who were nice is far smaller than the number of people who were mean.

00:22:13.700 Yeah, it can definitely be that way.

00:22:15.820 And it changes your perspective as a person, too, when you're dealing with people who are

00:22:20.080 a little bit different.

00:22:21.380 So you graduated high school.

00:22:22.880 You went to college.

00:22:23.760 What was that experience like?

00:22:25.620 I did.

00:22:25.960 I think college was the first time I started realizing that I needed to change, right?

00:22:32.560 Because my dad spent, you know, all those nights that I was so upset saying, look, when you

00:22:38.420 get older, the same qualities that are making you ostracized and bullied and having all these

00:22:43.640 issues are the qualities that's going to make you successful later in life.

00:22:46.200 He was correct in many ways.

00:22:48.640 He did not tell me in eighth grade that an eighth grade middle school classroom is great

00:22:55.520 training for a Washington newsroom, which would later turn out to be very true, still

00:22:59.900 is.

00:23:00.220 But the college experience, my dad used to always tell me this story about when he was a freshman

00:23:10.200 in college, Ripon College in Wisconsin, he had been blackballed from all the fraternities.

00:23:15.600 He never got a bid at any one of the fraternities that was on campus.

00:23:19.720 And it was a way of sort of explaining to me, right, that he understood the isolation.

00:23:24.840 He understood what I was going through.

00:23:26.680 And the same thing happened to me.

00:23:29.400 I called my dad on a January night at Northwestern.

00:23:32.240 I had gone to all the fraternities I wanted to rush.

00:23:34.200 They all said, you're not getting a bid.

00:23:35.560 I called my dad that night, 930, 10 o'clock at night.

00:23:37.860 It's snowing at Northwestern, bitterly cold.

00:23:41.100 Tears are freezing on my face.

00:23:43.300 And I called my dad.

00:23:44.100 I said, I'm just like you.

00:23:44.960 And then I said to dad, I said, I need to understand that it may not just be everybody

00:23:54.840 else.

00:23:55.900 I'm going to have to change.

00:23:57.440 And that really became the college experience.

00:23:59.960 To me, going to college wasn't really about learning economics, which I majored in, or journalism,

00:24:05.640 which journalism school is pretty useless.

00:24:07.220 But it was about learning as a person and trying to put all of those lessons that my dad taught

00:24:14.240 me into effect.

00:24:17.920 Yeah.

00:24:18.560 And so tell me the rest of your college career, graduating, going into the industry that you're

00:24:24.320 still in today.

00:24:25.200 Yeah.

00:24:25.540 Graduated college, started working in small market television stations, was in Denver,

00:24:31.060 Colorado when Fox called and said they needed a foreign correspondent.

00:24:35.240 And first, sorry, let me back up.

00:24:36.700 How did you know this is what you would want to do?

00:24:39.080 Because again, a little bit of a strange dream to have as someone who has struggled socially

00:24:44.200 for so long.

00:24:45.000 This is a very dynamic, communicative role.

00:24:49.440 Glutton for punishment.

00:24:50.740 Yeah.

00:24:51.220 But the one thing about journalism, and you know this as well, if we sort of look at this

00:24:55.680 really broadly, is it is an industry that really bends to hard work.

00:25:03.160 You know, if you want to be a great doctor, you pretty much have to be great at chemistry

00:25:06.580 and biology and all of these things.

00:25:08.160 I wasn't going to be that.

00:25:09.280 You want to be a great lawyer, most have to be able to be very good writers and on and

00:25:13.420 on and on.

00:25:14.500 There's some industries that just yield to hard work.

00:25:17.500 And journalism is one of them.

00:25:18.680 So I got an internship when I was a kid at a radio station.

00:25:23.980 And I figured out early on that if you just work hard and outwork everybody, that is of

00:25:28.860 enormous value in journalism.

00:25:32.060 And I began down that path.

00:25:34.400 And when I was 20, I was 19 or 20 at a local TV station in St. Louis for my internship after

00:25:41.060 my freshman year of college.

00:25:43.180 And some reporter said to me, hey, kid, you're pretty good on TV.

00:25:47.520 I said, oh, OK, thanks.

00:25:49.060 And he says, you may be able to make it to the network one day.

00:25:51.580 Now, that doesn't mean you're younger than me, but in 2000, the network was still a big

00:25:58.720 deal, right?

00:25:59.120 You had Peter Jennings.

00:26:00.000 You had Tom Brokaw.

00:26:00.740 You had Matt Lauer flying around the world on the GE Jet.

00:26:04.540 It was a different world of television.

00:26:07.700 And so I Googled, what's the youngest anyone's ever made it to the network?

00:26:10.720 And it was 30.

00:26:11.840 So I said, that's my goal, to make it to the network, to be a network correspondent by the

00:26:15.640 time I was 30.

00:26:17.220 And started working in small market television stations.

00:26:20.720 That's not really the way people come up anymore, but it's way back then you did.

00:26:24.220 I was in Denver, Colorado.

00:26:25.980 A network job opened up in Jerusalem.

00:26:29.160 And it's a funny story in Born Lucky because just to show how out of my depth I was when

00:26:34.620 I got this job, I went over for an interview with the bureau chief, the Fox bureau chief

00:26:39.200 in Jerusalem, and I didn't know the difference of the West Bank and Gaza.

00:26:42.040 So I drew a crib sheet on my hand of the geography of like the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and

00:26:49.300 everything else.

00:26:49.880 And I get to Israel and I'm, you know, in the meeting with him and it's so hot and I

00:26:56.060 am sweating so much, my whole hand just runs with ink.

00:26:58.540 And still got the job, show up on my first night with my mom to go look for an apartment

00:27:06.500 in Jerusalem.

00:27:07.220 And what year is this?

00:27:07.960 This is 2010.

00:27:09.160 So Obama's given his speech.

00:27:10.920 He's declared peace with the Muslim world.

00:27:14.140 Hillary's going to negotiate the Israel-Palestinian conflict. 0.85

00:27:17.180 Everything's going to be fine.

00:27:18.100 And I show up and we're at the American Colony Hotel, which is this beautiful compound in

00:27:24.040 East Jerusalem, old world, neutral territory of the spooks, the diplomats, the journalists,

00:27:28.740 everybody meets there.

00:27:30.220 And hotel and then a big garden where they serve drinks in East Jerusalem, Arab service

00:27:35.500 run by a Swiss company, neutral in every sense of the word.

00:27:39.180 And I'm there in the garden with my mother.

00:27:41.740 We're having a drink.

00:27:42.380 And all of a sudden, just after sunset, there's the unmistakable sound of automatic weapons

00:27:48.620 fire.

00:27:50.220 So I throw my mom to the ground and I think, oh my God, the hotel's under attack and I

00:27:54.280 cover her with my body and what do I do?

00:27:55.760 It's before camera phones and stuff.

00:27:57.380 So I'm thinking through all this.

00:27:59.120 And all of a sudden, one of the waiters walks by and he looks down at me on the ground.

00:28:03.660 He goes, uh, everything okay?

00:28:06.120 And I said, no, gunfire.

00:28:08.760 And he goes, oh, he goes, oh, and he sort of mimes shooting a gun in the air.

00:28:15.020 And he goes, no, no, celebration, wedding, wedding, happy.

00:28:18.780 Oh my goodness.

00:28:19.900 So I pull my mom off the ground. 1.00

00:28:21.520 Everybody's kind of looking at us.

00:28:22.680 And that was my welcome to the Middle East of clearly I was not in Kansas anymore or Missouri.

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00:29:31.460 Okay, I want to hear more about your time in the Middle East because I want to go back

00:29:41.900 to something that you said in the beginning.

00:29:43.460 I bookmarked it in my head when you said that your mom said, if I'm not going to take this

00:29:49.600 doctor's advice, then I need to get a different doctor, not not take his advice.

00:29:53.400 And you said that came in handy when I was in the Middle East.

00:29:56.680 What do you mean by that?

00:29:57.400 It did.

00:29:58.060 And this is a pretty amazing story.

00:30:00.420 We're out running with the rebels in Libya.

00:30:03.780 So six months, Barack Obama was correct. 0.79

00:30:06.580 Things were calm in the Middle East. 0.99

00:30:07.640 And then the Arab Spring kicked off, right? 0.60

00:30:09.620 And they threw out Mubarak.

00:30:11.960 Terrible decision in retrospect.

00:30:13.920 The Libyan civil war started.

00:30:15.540 The United States took the side of the rebels.

00:30:17.300 So I went in and started running with the rebels in Libya in March of 2011.

00:30:24.080 And we were at a checkpoint.

00:30:25.460 One town back from the front lines of the rebels.

00:30:30.760 We're filming and talking to rebels and about to go to the front lines.

00:30:35.760 And all of a sudden, our security guy, who was a Kiwi SAS guy, Maori guy, so just this

00:30:41.640 huge 6'4", 240-pound former rugby player, looks around.

00:30:49.320 He says, we got to get out of here.

00:30:51.360 I said, well, give us a minute.

00:30:52.400 I got to get a few more shots.

00:30:53.320 He goes, no, now.

00:30:55.160 And he grabs me and my photographer by the pull straps on the back of our flak jackets

00:31:00.300 and starts pushing us and running us to the truck.

00:31:04.180 Throws us in the truck.

00:31:05.120 And I could have protested, but I sort of at that point made the decision.

00:31:07.780 If our security guys are saying, get out of here, we need to get out of here.

00:31:11.440 Threw us in the truck.

00:31:12.260 We drove about 100 yards back from the checkpoint.

00:31:14.760 And a Libyan jet flew over, Qaddafi's jet, and bombed the checkpoint.

00:31:19.040 So had we stayed, we would have been among the casualties there.

00:31:23.700 So how long were you in the Middle East?

00:31:25.680 Four years.

00:31:26.440 Four years.

00:31:27.200 So I did Egypt, Libya, a couple of Gaza wars, a little bit of Syria, and then ended in Ukraine

00:31:36.640 in 2014 for the first Russian invasion of the East.

00:31:40.600 Yeah.

00:31:40.980 Remarkably, these storylines just keep coming back around.

00:31:44.380 Yeah.

00:31:44.820 Here's maybe a little bit of an odd question.

00:31:47.540 Is there anything about your personality that maybe growing up was seen as a weakness that

00:31:53.540 you actually think was a strength when you were over there in the Middle East?

00:31:57.020 You know, Alibeth, it's a great question, right?

00:31:59.720 Because there's this whole idea now that being on the spectrum is a superpower, right?

00:32:05.220 That somehow being autistic, kids are told, no, no, this is your superpower.

00:32:12.520 I wish I felt that or knew that, but I kind of don't know anything else, right?

00:32:17.060 People have asked, what was it like dating as somebody on the spectrum?

00:32:20.520 Well, I don't know.

00:32:21.080 I never dated not being on the spectrum.

00:32:22.720 So I don't know if I can answer that.

00:32:26.800 I can say, you know, the things my dad taught me of sort of that hard work yields results,

00:32:32.120 huge.

00:32:32.880 Character is destiny, which was a big part of my upbringing of that there's two things you

00:32:38.440 can control in life.

00:32:39.460 I think this is true for any kid having a hard time, really three.

00:32:43.460 You can control your attitude.

00:32:44.620 You can control your work ethic and control your character.

00:32:46.940 Yeah.

00:32:47.780 And that was really drilled into me by my dad of you take pride in those things.

00:32:51.340 And the rest will sort of take care of itself because you can't control it.

00:32:56.500 So those things were extraordinarily important.

00:32:58.960 Yeah.

00:32:59.400 You know, I think it's so interesting, the perspective that you're bringing, that you're

00:33:02.960 talking about how you were able to overcome adversity.

00:33:05.620 You have this diagnosis.

00:33:07.040 It was difficult, but you were still able to do these things.

00:33:09.980 But you're not making the argument, as so many are, that, oh, that's, it's actually because

00:33:15.140 of my autism.

00:33:16.200 It's because it was the superpower, which I think is a very nuanced perspective on things,

00:33:21.900 because you could either say, just like, ignore it altogether, pretend like it doesn't

00:33:26.440 exist, just say, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

00:33:28.840 Or you could say, it's this wonderful thing that we need to endlessly accommodate.

00:33:32.620 That's neither of your perspectives.

00:33:35.960 It's interesting.

00:33:36.580 I think being in the Middle East teaches you life is not a thousand shades of gray.

00:33:39.640 It's three thousand shades of gray.

00:33:41.120 But I'll give you two points on that.

00:33:43.180 One, in the current conversation about autism, right, I'm always struck by how sort of angry

00:33:52.440 and dismissive the left is of RFK's search for a cause of autism.

00:33:56.980 There was Chris Hayes on a podcast saying, you know, RFK Jr. is obsessed, obsessed with

00:34:02.600 finding the cause of autism and really ridiculing that.

00:34:06.200 Well, why wouldn't we be obsessed with it?

00:34:07.940 Yeah.

00:34:08.220 You know, if we could find a way for kids to not go through what I went through, hallelujah.

00:34:14.500 I've only been married for six months, but if my wife was pregnant and you gave me a 0.99

00:34:17.520 piece of paper and said, you know, your child will be autistic or not, I would check no.

00:34:21.760 And every other parent would too.

00:34:23.360 So I think that is a really important point.

00:34:26.980 Or perspective parent, I should say.

00:34:29.620 Number two, and I think I've acknowledged this a lot, but people have asked me after

00:34:35.060 reading Born Lucky and in interviews, you know, what's your advice?

00:34:39.400 I don't have any advice.

00:34:40.940 The only advice in the book really is the last four pages written by my father, which is a

00:34:45.960 couple of the principles that he used to sort of guide him in this moment.

00:34:50.780 And I'm fully aware there's so many families who have things that are so much more difficult

00:34:56.500 than what my parents were dealing with at home, whether it's physical disabilities, more

00:35:01.280 severe cases of autism, the list goes on, right?

00:35:03.800 But the one thing that has stood out is Born Lucky isn't a how to cure autism book.

00:35:11.840 It's a love story of what great parenting can do and how every parent can help their kid

00:35:18.600 be more.

00:35:19.320 I heard from a father whose son, 22 years old, living in a group home, severe, profoundly 0.97

00:35:25.740 autistic, and would never be able to live on his own.

00:35:30.260 And the kid had some real, had understandably a lot of behavior issues, really angry, very

00:35:35.480 physically sort of upset and unhappy all the time.

00:35:39.820 And his father saw in the reports from the group home that he loved being in the pool.

00:35:47.100 Three times a week, they would take him to a pool and he was the happiest in the pool,

00:35:50.980 splashing around.

00:35:51.980 And the father said, let's teach him to swim.

00:35:54.640 And the expert said, you can't teach a 22-year-old autistic kid to swim and he can drown and he's 0.91

00:35:59.460 going to be upset when he gets worried and we can't do this.

00:36:02.200 And the dad goes, he's happy in the pool.

00:36:04.140 Let's lean into that.

00:36:05.340 Let's try to help him be the most he can be.

00:36:07.740 The kid now swims an hour and a half, swims a mile and a half every morning.

00:36:11.660 Wow.

00:36:12.800 And he's totally different physically and he's up every morning and dressed in his swim clothes

00:36:17.040 and ready to go and physically is totally changed, mentally is totally changed, much

00:36:22.780 happier aren't, all because a father said, no, no, I can help my kid be more.

00:36:27.860 I can hold his hand and help him be more rather than just sit there and meet him where he's

00:36:33.840 at.

00:36:34.040 As you pointed out, just take all the adversity away and make things as easy as possible.

00:36:38.840 Yeah.

00:36:39.180 It's so tempting to do as parents.

00:36:41.080 It's just like we're hardwired in a way to want to remove all obstacles from our children's

00:36:47.620 life.

00:36:47.980 It takes actually a lot of discipline and self-control on the parents' part to step back.

00:36:54.500 It's actually much easier to control everything, all variables, than it is to step back and

00:37:01.880 let them maybe stumble a bit because of the lessons learned.

00:37:06.220 But when I look back at my life and I remember the times of rejection or exclusion or difficulty

00:37:12.040 or not making this or getting this or things being unfair, I remember very much the pain.

00:37:17.920 But I also know that is where I grew a lot as a person, not only just like character-wise,

00:37:24.780 but also like sense of humor.

00:37:26.620 You develop a really better overall personality when you are made to go through things that

00:37:32.740 are hard.

00:37:33.760 Yeah.

00:37:33.960 Adversity is a blessing.

00:37:36.360 Adversity is your friend.

00:37:37.340 And I think when parents teach their kids the resilience, and to your point, right, that

00:37:44.260 you learn you can do hard things and get through hard things.

00:37:48.780 And I think about when this sort of all came full circle, end of 2020, I got invited to

00:37:54.500 leave Fox News.

00:37:55.400 I was the only Fox News anchor who publicly questioned Trump's claims.

00:37:59.880 And we now know that-

00:38:01.040 About the election.

00:38:01.520 About the election.

00:38:02.880 I had just ended a long-term relationship.

00:38:05.580 I had no place to live.

00:38:06.800 I was living in a hotel out of a backpack.

00:38:09.900 And then I almost died of COVID, all within about one month.

00:38:13.860 You almost died of COVID?

00:38:14.720 Yeah, I was in the hospital for a week with COVID.

00:38:16.740 Okay.

00:38:17.240 I didn't know that part of the story.

00:38:19.600 So, but all of these three, you know, everything is sort of people, you know, your primary

00:38:24.840 relationship, your job, where you live, and your health, all the big four in one month

00:38:28.880 blown up.

00:38:29.900 Wow.

00:38:30.320 So I have my little backpack, and I get out of the hospital.

00:38:33.440 I spend a couple days trying to get a little bit of strength back.

00:38:36.220 I could only walk about a tenth of a mile in a half an hour.

00:38:39.320 And I go down to Florida to my parents' guest room.

00:38:42.160 And I'm sitting there.

00:38:43.480 And one night, I'm watching TV with my dad.

00:38:45.940 And I'm feeling really low, just like I did back in eighth grade, right?

00:38:49.640 And I've just, just really beat up, just beat up mentally.

00:38:54.560 And I'm lamenting to my father how terrible everything is.

00:38:57.720 He says, you're pretty good at feeling sorry for yourself.

00:39:00.200 I said, uh-huh.

00:39:01.240 He says, well, he said, in eighth grade, every day you went back to school.

00:39:05.960 You can do this.

00:39:07.280 You know, you can start over again and keep fighting.

00:39:10.460 And I don't think had I gotten through what I had gone through in school, I would have

00:39:17.560 known that I could do it.

00:39:18.880 I would have been, I would have had the fortitude to get back up and to start fighting again.

00:39:23.580 Yeah.

00:39:24.320 And that, that really was the gift, right?

00:39:27.040 And think about how hard it was on my parents through all that.

00:39:30.240 And my sister, too.

00:39:31.340 You know, the, I think one thing that I've learned in writing the book, but also in the

00:39:36.100 reception of the book, is how families of kids who are having a hard time, doesn't

00:39:40.840 matter, autism, physical, whatever it is, ADHD, bullying, anything, how much the siblings

00:39:48.960 are affected, too.

00:39:50.160 You know, there was, my sister went to the same high school I did.

00:39:53.940 I was in 12th grade.

00:39:54.680 She was in 7th grade.

00:39:55.940 One teacher said to her, I hope you don't turn out like your brother. 0.99

00:39:59.760 Kids told her to her face, you're the retarded kid's sister. 1.00

00:40:03.800 So it was horribly hard on her. 0.85

00:40:07.540 And I think what my parents did was make this a all of family effort, right?

00:40:12.800 It was, it was us against the world.

00:40:15.320 And, and that part really still sits around today.

00:40:19.960 And that, that core cohesion.

00:40:21.500 And you think about kids who face challenges, 80% of parents of kids who have some real significant

00:40:28.780 disability get divorced.

00:40:31.020 And it can go one, two ways.

00:40:32.600 It can either tear a family apart, or it can bring it together.

00:40:36.300 And for y'all, it brought it together.

00:40:37.800 Absolutely.

00:40:38.560 And so after Fox, did you go right to News Nation after that?

00:40:43.060 I did.

00:40:43.500 So I was, I had had, I had COVID.

00:40:45.660 I almost died.

00:40:46.480 And then in that transition period, Fox had basically said, you have a contract, but you

00:40:52.260 can take some time off.

00:40:54.040 And in that time, I started News Nation, which was the opportunity to sort of do journalism

00:40:59.440 the way I always envisioned it, which was to view the world as right and wrong, not left

00:41:03.140 and right.

00:41:04.340 And, and we've, we've done well in that pursuit.

00:41:08.000 Yeah.

00:41:08.200 And you just got married, right?

00:41:09.880 I did.

00:41:10.540 I did.

00:41:10.900 I met Rachel and it's, it's funny how the world works, right?

00:41:14.460 Um, from the lows, lows to the highs, highs, I landed in Chicago to start my new job at

00:41:21.340 News Nation.

00:41:21.820 I'm sitting on the plane, still moving to Chicago.

00:41:24.960 And I get a text from a young woman I went to college with, not young anymore, I guess.

00:41:30.260 She's a mother of two.

00:41:31.320 And she says, Hey, I hear you moved to Chicago and I hear you're single.

00:41:34.240 I said, that's right.

00:41:34.920 She goes, I'm going to find you your wife. 1.00

00:41:37.020 And I said, I don't want a wife. 1.00

00:41:38.400 I just got out of a long-term relationship.

00:41:40.920 I am moving to Chicago.

00:41:42.620 I'm going to focus on my job.

00:41:43.700 I'm going to have a great time this summer, live downtown.

00:41:46.180 It's going to be fantastic.

00:41:47.500 She goes, I'm going to find you your wife. 1.00

00:41:49.580 And the next day she sent me a picture of Rachel and she wrote, I found you your wife.

00:41:54.640 Wow.

00:41:55.340 So, and then we-

00:41:56.340 And then the rest is history.

00:41:57.480 The rest is history.

00:41:58.260 So good.

00:41:58.900 You know, and look, again, if the adversity had not happened, not embraced it, not accepted

00:42:04.720 it, then meeting Rachel would have never happened.

00:42:09.620 Yeah, that's amazing.

00:42:11.920 Well, we're finishing up in the next few minutes, but I'm so curious, what is your thought about

00:42:17.080 the state of journalism?

00:42:18.300 You just said, you know, you like to view the world between right and wrong, not left and

00:42:23.480 right.

00:42:23.800 You know, there's probably a lot of journalists that agree with you, but a lot who don't.

00:42:28.860 Yeah, journalists make lousy media critics.

00:42:34.820 So I'm not a media critic.

00:42:36.820 What I can say is, is that I think we have gotten to a place where no one has to hear

00:42:44.360 an opinion that they disagree with.

00:42:46.260 Between the social media algorithms, the YouTube algorithms, enough cable networks, on and on.

00:42:54.220 People can live in these silos where they're only affirmed, and therefore opinions become

00:43:01.000 only more entrenched.

00:43:02.640 And there's absolutely a lane for that.

00:43:06.100 I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh.

00:43:07.360 I love Rush Limbaugh.

00:43:10.220 I don't know if that is what leads to sort of what brought out the best in America, which

00:43:18.140 is that we came together and we compromised.

00:43:19.580 Because if you live in silos, you think the other silos evil and wrong and un-American.

00:43:24.100 That doesn't lead to good things.

00:43:27.440 What we've found at NewsNation, and particularly for my show, is we've found people who come

00:43:34.960 to us and watch us because we give both sides hard times.

00:43:38.200 They want that middle ground of a fair arbiter.

00:43:44.480 Call our show the fairest show on television.

00:43:47.480 And that we view the world as right and wrong, not left and right.

00:43:50.860 And I think that's a very different thing than is being done, and we're being rewarded for it.

00:43:54.960 It's why NewsNation is the fastest growing network.

00:43:57.440 Um, in the country.

00:43:59.300 And we would always love to have you on, but you're always busy.

00:44:01.940 You know what?

00:44:02.880 You know why?

00:44:03.660 Because your show is right in the middle of bedtime.

00:44:06.520 And so that is, that is the tough thing.

00:44:09.340 Seriously.

00:44:10.200 Yeah.

00:44:10.680 My assistant knows that we always like want to get on.

00:44:14.020 And so we'll just have to like find a night, make it happen.

00:44:17.260 But the bedtime hours.

00:44:18.920 Dad can do bedtime.

00:44:20.680 I know.

00:44:21.100 You know what?

00:44:21.980 We are outnumbered.

00:44:23.320 And when you become outnumbered, the three against two is tough.

00:44:27.420 Is this team, this is like team coverage?

00:44:29.200 You go from man to man, man to man coverage to team coverage?

00:44:31.480 Yes, exactly.

00:44:32.240 Yes.

00:44:32.580 We definitely do bedtime together, but also we have six, four and two year old and mommy

00:44:38.020 is extremely popular.

00:44:39.940 I am the most popular person in our home.

00:44:42.080 So it can be a little bit difficult during bedtime, but we'll make it happen.

00:44:45.980 Being in demand is better than the alternative.

00:44:48.880 Absolutely.

00:44:49.640 It's a blessing, 100%, but we'll definitely make it happen.

00:44:53.380 Leland, thank you so much.

00:44:54.500 I was so moved by your story and encouraged as well.

00:44:57.960 Can you tell everyone where they can get your book, Born Lucky?

00:45:01.140 Amazingly enough, Amazon has it or any bookstore near you.

00:45:06.300 And I've been, I've been so humbled by how many people have come on the journey and I'll

00:45:10.540 leave everyone with this.

00:45:11.620 This story was about not to be told and because my dad never wanted to talk about it, never

00:45:17.160 wanted to talk about it publicly.

00:45:20.600 Someone had heard about it, Don Yeager, who your father knows as well, heard about the

00:45:29.100 situation.

00:45:29.720 He called me, he said, I really want to write this book.

00:45:32.020 I said, I'm not writing a book.

00:45:33.360 I'm not talking about this publicly, not doing it.

00:45:35.340 And he says, we need to write this book.

00:45:37.520 I said, why?

00:45:38.140 He says, well, he says, I have an autistic child.

00:45:41.700 And if I had heard this story, I would have felt so differently and I would have had hope.

00:45:48.260 We would start working on the manuscript.

00:45:52.420 I'm working on it.

00:45:53.280 I'm interviewing my dad.

00:45:54.320 And at every story he goes, I don't know if we can tell this.

00:45:57.800 I don't know if we can tell that.

00:45:58.680 I don't know if we can do this.

00:45:59.520 I said, let me write the manuscript.

00:46:01.020 If you don't like it, we won't turn it in.

00:46:02.480 Now, as someone who's had book contracts, you've got to turn something in.

00:46:06.720 So it's Tuesday before it's due.

00:46:09.060 And I give the manuscript to my dad and he reads it and he says, on Thursday, I can't do this.

00:46:13.680 I can't.

00:46:14.880 Wow.

00:46:16.140 Got 60,000 words due.

00:46:17.860 Chat GPT isn't going to bail you out.

00:46:20.440 And I said to dad, I said, let's turn this around.

00:46:24.280 I said, do you remember that woman who diagnosed me and who basically told you there was nothing

00:46:28.460 you could do and there was no hope?

00:46:29.680 And he says, yeah.

00:46:30.820 I said, what if she'd handed you born lucky?

00:46:33.660 What if she'd said, this isn't a prescription.

00:46:36.540 It's not a cure.

00:46:36.940 This is just a story of what a father can do.

00:46:39.600 What would you have done?

00:46:41.060 And he said, I would have read it every week.

00:46:43.480 Wow.

00:46:44.060 So I said, I think we kind of owe it to folks to put it out there and let the world sort

00:46:50.060 of know that there is hope.

00:46:51.560 Yeah.

00:46:52.220 That's a good pitch.

00:46:53.120 And it worked.

00:46:54.760 Well, thank you so much, Leland.

00:46:55.940 Thank you.

00:46:56.240 I really appreciate you.

00:46:57.640 Appreciate you.

00:46:58.340 Good to see you.

00:46:58.860 Congratulations on all the success.

00:47:00.500 Thank you.

00:47:00.960 Likewise.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 29, 2025

Ep 1282 ｜ Autism Isn’t a Superpower — or a Death Sentence： A Story of Tough Love ｜ Leland Vittert

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