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Leland Vittert: The Autism Diagnosis That Changed Everything About His Life and Career · Unshaken & Unafraid with Joe Pags

0:00
Speaker 1: I was an art class, and the teacher didn't think
0:02
Speaker 1: I was going to become Picasso. So we're sitting there
0:03
Speaker 1: and there's drawings all over in pottery or whatever, and
0:06
Speaker 1: this teacher goes, hey, viittert in front of the whole class, Hey, viterart.
0:09
Speaker 1: If my dog was as ugly as you, I would
0:12
Speaker 1: shave its ass and make it walk backwards.
0:14
Speaker 2: Stop it.
0:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was the art teacher.
0:17
Speaker 1: So I mean, if the teachers are doing that, the
0:19
Speaker 1: kids now have license to do whatever.
0:22
Speaker 2: New York Times bestseller this is a brand new book
0:24
Speaker 2: out called Born Lucky. A dedicated father, a grateful son
0:28
Speaker 2: in my Journey with Autism. I gotta tell you, brother,
0:30
Speaker 2: you and I have been talking on television for a while,
0:34
Speaker 2: and you're right. You normally interview me. I had no
0:37
Speaker 2: idea that there was any journey with autism. So whatever
0:39
Speaker 2: it is that your dad did and your family did
0:41
Speaker 2: and you did through this process has worked very well.
0:45
Speaker 2: Let's go back to when you found out there was
0:47
Speaker 2: this diagnosis. You're a little younger than I am, but
0:50
Speaker 2: growing up I don't remember hearing about autism at all.
0:53
Speaker 2: So what did you think was going on?
0:56
Speaker 3: Right? So Joe, thank you. When I was eight years old,
1:02
Speaker 3: my parents were told.
1:03
Speaker 1: They needed to have me evaluated, which is the worst
1:06
Speaker 1: thing any parent can hear.
1:07
Speaker 3: So they take me to one of those medical office buildings.
1:11
Speaker 3: We've all been there.
1:12
Speaker 1: You can imagine any parent can how upset that parent
1:16
Speaker 1: would be. And we have the linoleum floors and the
1:20
Speaker 1: stale coffee and the old magazines. This is before cell
1:23
Speaker 1: phones or anything like that. So my parents just sat
1:24
Speaker 1: there for a couple of hours, terrified and nervous. The
1:27
Speaker 1: woman brought me back and she said, look, your son
1:29
Speaker 1: has a lot of problems, behavioral problems. It had been
1:33
Speaker 1: years since I'd ever been invited to a playdate or
1:35
Speaker 1: a birthday party because I couldn't get along with kids
1:37
Speaker 1: my own age. But she said, you know, this is
1:41
Speaker 1: a kid who if he's touched in class or in
1:44
Speaker 1: a lunch line or at recess, he'll turn around and
1:47
Speaker 1: slug a kid. So big behavior problems, big sensory problems.
1:51
Speaker 1: If I had socks that I didn't like on, or
1:53
Speaker 1: a jacket I didn't like, I'd melt down in the
1:55
Speaker 1: day would be over. And then she gave me an
1:58
Speaker 1: IQ test, And an IQ test is the average of
2:01
Speaker 1: two scores. My scores spread between the two scores with
2:06
Speaker 1: seventy points. A learning disability is twenty points. So the
2:10
Speaker 1: parlance of the day, I was between mentally retarded and
2:12
Speaker 1: genius in different ways. And she said it's very difficult
2:15
Speaker 1: to understand what's going on inside his head, meaning my head. Now,
2:19
Speaker 1: my wife would say, it's still very hard to understand
2:22
Speaker 1: what's going on inside my head.
2:24
Speaker 2: That's a different thing, though, Yeah, that's a different problem.
2:27
Speaker 1: But my dad, as any father would, goes, what do
2:30
Speaker 1: we do? And the woman says, well, there's not much
2:33
Speaker 1: you can do, and my dad goes, really, because you know,
2:36
Speaker 1: if we meet him where he's at, he's a disaster.
2:38
Speaker 1: And she goes, well, you kind of need to meet
2:40
Speaker 1: him where he's at. And my dad said, well, is
2:42
Speaker 1: there anything we can do? And she said generally not.
2:45
Speaker 1: And my dad then went about to adapting me to
2:48
Speaker 1: the world rather than the world to me and born lucky. Yes,
2:52
Speaker 1: it is, it is my story, but this book really
2:55
Speaker 1: isn't about me. This is about giving hope to every
2:59
Speaker 1: parent of a king. Having a hard time, doesn't matter
3:01
Speaker 1: if it's autism or ADHD or anxiety, bullying, difficulties, growing up.
3:06
Speaker 3: Whatever it is.
3:07
Speaker 1: Born Lucky is proof that the power of parents to
3:11
Speaker 1: help their kid be more.
3:14
Speaker 2: It is Leland vinteror go and get the book. Go
3:16
Speaker 2: to Born Lucky dot com. Christy is a great host
3:18
Speaker 2: of our News Nation. You've seen him on television a
3:20
Speaker 2: long time. Let me go through some of what you
3:23
Speaker 2: just said. Because we in our own brains see the
3:26
Speaker 2: world the way that we see it, and we think
3:28
Speaker 2: everybody sees it the same way. Clearly that's not true.
3:31
Speaker 2: As we get older, we learned that people have different perspectives.
3:34
Speaker 2: But when you talk about autism and reacting like you said,
3:37
Speaker 2: if somebody you had the wrong color on, you would
3:39
Speaker 2: melt down, or somebody touched you in the lunch line,
3:41
Speaker 2: you might punch him. I didn't have that worldview. I
3:44
Speaker 2: didn't see it the way that you saw it. So
3:46
Speaker 2: I'm guessing your dad, Mark, I'm guessing your dad had
3:49
Speaker 2: to figure out what it was that you were seeing.
3:52
Speaker 2: What was the prism through which you saw? I mean,
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Speaker 2: did he have to do that or did he say,
3:57
Speaker 2: let me bring you to where you should be? How
3:59
Speaker 2: did it work?
4:00
Speaker 3: But it was much more about bringing me to where
4:02
Speaker 3: I should be?
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Speaker 1: Right, you know, I think he realized how I saw
4:06
Speaker 1: the world because I acted out in that way he
4:10
Speaker 1: was trying to say to me, and it required an
4:12
Speaker 1: enormous amount of trust that he built up with me
4:15
Speaker 1: to say how you're seeing the world is wrong, right, okay?
4:19
Speaker 1: And I had to trust him to that extent. You know,
4:23
Speaker 1: Born Lucky is that story of adapting me. So it's
4:25
Speaker 1: you know, it started because my dad realized I wasn't
4:28
Speaker 1: gonna have any friends, so he said, maybe I could
4:30
Speaker 1: be your friend. And then it started with two hundred
4:32
Speaker 1: push ups a day, five days a week for months,
4:36
Speaker 1: and then I would get some kind of reward. And
4:38
Speaker 1: the idea was to teach me that self esteem is earned,
4:41
Speaker 1: it's not given. And Dad realized I wouldn't get self
4:44
Speaker 1: esteem from the way most kids do growing up. You know,
4:46
Speaker 1: most kids, it's either being good at school wasn't going
4:49
Speaker 1: to be me, being good at athletics wasn't going to
4:51
Speaker 1: be be and being popular wasn't going to be me.
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Speaker 1: So Dad was trying to figure out, how do I
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Speaker 1: give this kid self esteem?
5:00
Speaker 3: That was that.
5:01
Speaker 1: Then it was the social interaction part, and one thing
5:05
Speaker 1: that's really resonated with folks. As we've talked about born
5:07
Speaker 1: Lucky is how my dad would take me to lunches.
5:11
Speaker 1: And I would have loved to go to lunches with
5:12
Speaker 1: say Joe Paggs, because I was a mini me to
5:15
Speaker 1: my dad.
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Speaker 3: I could talk about.
5:16
Speaker 1: Politics, business and news and he would have brought me
5:19
Speaker 1: to lunch. We would have sat down at a diner
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Speaker 1: and before you could look at the menu, I would
5:22
Speaker 1: have been peppering you with questions, how do you choose topics?
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Speaker 1: How do you book your guests? How do you figure
5:27
Speaker 1: out if you're going to get invited? On TV shows?
5:29
Speaker 1: On and on on r And Dad would tap his
5:31
Speaker 1: watch and that was my signal to be quiet without
5:36
Speaker 1: embarrassing me, and then to bookmark that moment and later
5:41
Speaker 1: in the cars we were driving home and say, okay,
5:43
Speaker 1: when mister Peggs was talking about the time he was
5:47
Speaker 1: swatted or about his weekend plans, you interrupted and either
5:54
Speaker 1: talked about your push ups or about this or whatever.
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Speaker 3: Why'd you do that?
5:56
Speaker 1: I said, well, I don't know, Dad, it seemed interesting
5:58
Speaker 1: to me, and he'd go, okay, what could you have
6:01
Speaker 1: asked mister Paggs about that? He would have been interested
6:03
Speaker 1: in And then I would role play that conversation with
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Speaker 1: my dad. So it was, you know, from the very beginning,
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Speaker 1: teaching me the social and emotional fabric that most people
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Speaker 1: see as normal or feel as normal.
6:17
Speaker 2: You know, Leland, it's funny you mentioned self esteem a
6:19
Speaker 2: few times. Get this book, by the way, Born Lucky
6:21
Speaker 2: dot com. The name of the book is Born Lucky.
6:23
Speaker 2: It is Leland Victord. You said self esteem a couple
6:26
Speaker 2: of times. So in your youth before dad said let's
6:29
Speaker 2: devise a plan to help bring him to where he
6:31
Speaker 2: needs to be. Was there a self esteem issue? Did
6:34
Speaker 2: you not like what you saw, what you felt where
6:36
Speaker 2: you were, or did you was there an issue that
6:38
Speaker 2: you didn't know existed. That's why he had to bring
6:40
Speaker 2: bring you to a place where you understood self esteem.
6:43
Speaker 2: How does that work?
6:44
Speaker 1: It's a great question from a little kid. You know,
6:47
Speaker 1: I understood that I was completely ostracized. I knew I
6:50
Speaker 1: had no friends. I knew I wasn't very good at school.
6:53
Speaker 1: I knew the teachers picked on me. You know, did
6:58
Speaker 1: in Born Lucky Star I have.
7:00
Speaker 2: To interrupt the teachers that I was going to tell you.
7:04
Speaker 1: And when I was in eighth grade, and this is
7:06
Speaker 1: just one example, but when I was In eighth grade,
7:08
Speaker 1: I was an art class, and the teacher didn't think
7:10
Speaker 1: I was going to become Picasso. So we're sitting there
7:12
Speaker 1: and there's drawings all over in pottery or whatever, and
7:15
Speaker 1: this teacher goes, hey, BITTERT in front of the whole class, Hey, BITTERT.
7:18
Speaker 1: If my dog was as ugly as you, I would
7:21
Speaker 1: shave its ass and make it walk backwards.
7:23
Speaker 2: Stop it.
7:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was the art teacher.
7:26
Speaker 1: So I mean, if the teachers are doing that, the
7:28
Speaker 1: kids now have license to do whatever. Seventh grade, my
7:32
Speaker 1: parents were called in second week of school. I'd been
7:35
Speaker 1: through four or five schools and at this point my
7:36
Speaker 1: parents were just hoping seventh grade was going to be
7:39
Speaker 1: a restart. And the principal says to my parents, you know,
7:42
Speaker 1: everybody at this school thinks lucky, meaning me is really weird.
7:46
Speaker 3: Arrow number one through my parents' heart.
7:48
Speaker 1: They're sitting there in the principal's office with you know,
7:50
Speaker 1: the desks and whatever else. And then the principal says, uh,
7:54
Speaker 1: and frankly, I do too. And remember I, to be fair,
7:58
Speaker 1: I was weird. I was a very weird kid. But
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Speaker 1: part of my dad's mission was to not tell anyone,
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Speaker 1: you know. He didn't tell any of his friends, no teachers,
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Speaker 1: no counselors, no accommodations, no extra time on tests, because
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Speaker 1: he felt like the world wouldn't accommodate me later.
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Speaker 3: On in life.
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Speaker 1: And he said, if I'm going to raise my son
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Speaker 1: to be able to function in the real world, I'm
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Speaker 1: going to have to do it without people knowing he
8:25
Speaker 1: has a diagnosis. He never wanted me to be defined
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Speaker 1: by a diagnosis, and he never wanted me to to
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Speaker 1: find myself by one.
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Speaker 2: What's crazy to me is you must have gone to
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Speaker 2: the worst, the worst school on the planet, where the
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Speaker 2: art teacher's saying that the principles saying that it's just
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Speaker 2: unbelievable because it was their job to literally help you
8:43
Speaker 2: through whatever the struggle was, and they didn't do that.
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Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you had your parents that you had,
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Speaker 2: and that your dad, you know, gave you this structure.
8:51
Speaker 2: You know when when you were talking about it earlier
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Speaker 2: with the pushups and tapping the watch, that structure did you?
8:56
Speaker 2: Were you structure less before your dad devised this plan?
9:01
Speaker 3: I don't really know, Joe.
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Speaker 1: I mean, the push up started when I was I
9:04
Speaker 1: think six years old, seven years old, so I don't
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Speaker 1: really remember before that.
9:08
Speaker 3: I think as soon as my dad realized and inn
9:10
Speaker 3: Born Lucky.
9:11
Speaker 1: There's this moment where we're at this family vacation, one
9:15
Speaker 1: of those week long family vacations. Everybody shows up on
9:17
Speaker 1: a Saturday, and I think we're at this like dude ranch.
9:20
Speaker 1: So there was like a big lodge and a sort
9:22
Speaker 1: of big field or lawn out front, and kids were
9:25
Speaker 1: playing soccer and getting to know each other, and I
9:28
Speaker 1: was bumping into people and pushing them down and yelling
9:31
Speaker 1: and you know, trying to make friends but I didn't
9:33
Speaker 1: know how. And my dad looks at my mom and goes,
9:35
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, we got a real problem here. And I
9:38
Speaker 1: think I was five or six years old at that point.
9:41
Speaker 1: So from the very beginning, I think it was very
9:43
Speaker 1: clear to my dad, especially that this was a real issue.
9:49
Speaker 1: And Born Lucky, I think, is the story of Dad
9:52
Speaker 1: realizing what that was and to your point, providing structure
9:55
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, I know where my son is,
9:58
Speaker 1: and I know what my son needs, and I'm going
10:00
Speaker 1: to help him be more. You know, it's not Born
10:03
Speaker 1: Lucky's not a how to cure autism book. It's a
10:07
Speaker 1: story of love by a parent to help their child
10:12
Speaker 1: embrace adversity and hold their hand through adversity rather than
10:16
Speaker 1: trying to take the adversity away.
10:19
Speaker 2: Born Lucky, you dedicated father, a grateful son. In my
10:21
Speaker 2: journey with autism, Leland, when did you find out that
10:24
Speaker 2: it was something called autism? Because again, early on you
10:27
Speaker 2: probably that word was being used.
10:29
Speaker 3: No, so it's a great question.
10:32
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I was in my twenties that my
10:34
Speaker 1: parents told me about this, you know, this diagnosis and
10:37
Speaker 1: these these you know, sort of the names for the
10:42
Speaker 1: difficulties I was having. I was diagnosed at first both
10:47
Speaker 1: I think called pervasive developmental disorder.
10:49
Speaker 3: It's in the book sort of how this went on.
10:50
Speaker 1: It's all things that we now know to be autism,
10:54
Speaker 1: is what I was diagnosed with. So it wasn't until
10:56
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties, and then in my thirties
10:58
Speaker 1: I sort of started, i think, probably realizing more about it.
11:01
Speaker 1: And I still struggle with issues today, you know, eye
11:05
Speaker 1: contact and becoming way too task focused. And I could
11:08
Speaker 1: go through a list, but what Dad always taught me
11:13
Speaker 1: was you can never make an excuse of oh, by
11:16
Speaker 1: the way, you know, that's my autism.
11:18
Speaker 3: It is.
11:20
Speaker 1: What the standard is and how you should act. You
11:22
Speaker 1: got to learn how to adapt, adapt to that.
11:26
Speaker 2: Leland Vinter go and get his book called Born Lucky.
11:28
Speaker 2: I got to ask you. I was a television news
11:29
Speaker 2: anchor for a long time. I've been in broadcasting thirty
11:31
Speaker 2: six years. It's not about me, but I say that
11:34
Speaker 2: because it's not easy, Leland. What we do is an
11:37
Speaker 2: easy looking at a camera, saying words, remembering things, interviewing people,
11:41
Speaker 2: asking interesting questions. I find you to be very, very
11:45
Speaker 2: good at it. So how did you how did how
11:48
Speaker 2: did you become this? I mean again, what you could
11:50
Speaker 2: easily have said, Ah, you know, I'm born in this
11:53
Speaker 2: different way, and I'm not going to apply myself. I'm
11:55
Speaker 2: going to go do a job that doesn't require so
11:58
Speaker 2: much intellectual work. What we do means we have to
12:01
Speaker 2: use our brain in our words. What made you think
12:04
Speaker 2: you could do this?
12:06
Speaker 3: Well?
12:06
Speaker 1: Partly right, because I didn't know I had some kind
12:09
Speaker 1: of diagnosis.
12:10
Speaker 3: Okay, you know the fact I think one of the.
12:13
Speaker 1: Great things that my dad gave me is that is
12:16
Speaker 1: the knowledge that I could do anything and I could
12:21
Speaker 1: be anything. Now it's different, right than saying look, kid,
12:25
Speaker 1: you can go be a great tennis player. And one
12:29
Speaker 1: of the great moments in the book right is when
12:31
Speaker 1: I'm playing trying to play tennis to impress this girl
12:34
Speaker 1: with seventh grade I wanted to learn how to play tennis,
12:36
Speaker 1: and I and my dad, who is a great amateur athlete,
12:40
Speaker 1: great hand eye coordination, he saw me. I mean I
12:42
Speaker 1: would miss balls and I was. I still am very uncoordinated,
12:45
Speaker 1: awkward whatever any time of ball moves.
12:48
Speaker 3: I can't really sense it because I have no depth perception.
12:50
Speaker 1: And my dad looks at me one after third or
12:52
Speaker 1: three or four tennis lessons, he goes, look lucky, he goes,
12:55
Speaker 1: I will pay for all your tennis lessons. I will
12:56
Speaker 1: come to all of your tennis matches. You'll never be
12:59
Speaker 1: able to play tennis. Right now, The flip side is
13:04
Speaker 1: is that that brutal honesty meant that when he told
13:08
Speaker 1: me I could do something, or when I was good
13:10
Speaker 1: at something.
13:11
Speaker 3: I believed him right.
13:12
Speaker 1: And I think that one of the things about journalism
13:15
Speaker 1: and Joe you can relate to this is hard work
13:19
Speaker 1: does a lot in journalism. I wasn't going to be
13:22
Speaker 1: a doctor because I couldn't do chemistry and biology and
13:25
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. I wasn't going to be
13:26
Speaker 1: a lawyer because my writing still is very lacking in
13:29
Speaker 1: terms of sort of how we typically think about writing.
13:32
Speaker 1: So there was something when I sort of started and
13:36
Speaker 1: fell into journalism really kind of randomly in high school.
13:40
Speaker 1: It was one of those things that hard work yielded results,
13:43
Speaker 1: and hard work just knocked down a lot of barriers
13:47
Speaker 1: in journalism, and that's why I took to it.
13:51
Speaker 2: So you outworked everybody out. Again, if you're out there
13:55
Speaker 2: on a beat, or if you're out there on a story,
13:56
Speaker 2: and if you stick to it, you will end up
13:58
Speaker 2: with that story. I think that that's a perfect it's
14:00
Speaker 2: actually the perfect realm for you to be in. But
14:03
Speaker 2: what made you think of journalism? Because you played tennis
14:06
Speaker 2: to impress the girl? You know what I mean, You
14:08
Speaker 2: did the pushups.
14:09
Speaker 1: Said so, yeah, I needed an internship one summer and
14:14
Speaker 1: a guy named Charlie Brennan, a great radio guy, had
14:17
Speaker 1: one time said to me, hey, kid, if you ever
14:18
Speaker 1: need an internship.
14:19
Speaker 3: Give me a call.
14:20
Speaker 1: And I gave him a call and I got a
14:23
Speaker 1: lot of coffee after my junior year in high school.
14:27
Speaker 1: But I could see how if you just outworked everybody,
14:31
Speaker 1: you could get to do more. You know, it's very
14:33
Speaker 1: journalism in many ways as a meritocracy, right yeah, And
14:38
Speaker 1: that appealed to me, so I I just started working
14:41
Speaker 1: hard and one thing led to another. Obviously in born lucky,
14:46
Speaker 1: you know, the bullies continued out of high school. The
14:49
Speaker 1: one thing my dad didn't tell me in eighth grade
14:52
Speaker 1: when I was going through everything, was middle school is
14:56
Speaker 1: really great training for a Washington newsroom. Okay, is it
15:01
Speaker 1: took you a second to laugh at that, but it's true.
15:05
Speaker 3: You know.
15:05
Speaker 1: The one thing also that my dad did when I
15:07
Speaker 1: was in eighth grade, you know, he would he would
15:08
Speaker 1: sit there and listen to me every night, and I
15:11
Speaker 1: would take out the emotional torture that I had been
15:15
Speaker 1: through and oftentimes the physical you know, beating that I
15:17
Speaker 1: had taken during the day. He would let me take
15:20
Speaker 1: it out on him. I'd yell at him, i'd cry,
15:22
Speaker 1: do all these things, but he put send me back
15:24
Speaker 1: to school the next day, right yeah. And it was
15:26
Speaker 1: him and I walking through adversity together. And I didn't
15:28
Speaker 1: know this, Joe, until I interviewed my mom for the
15:31
Speaker 1: book that a lot of times after those sessions almost
15:35
Speaker 1: nightly sessions with him. You know, he would walk down
15:38
Speaker 1: to the living room late at night, was all dark,
15:41
Speaker 1: and he'd just sit there and cry by himself. And
15:45
Speaker 1: I think the reason Born Lucky has resonated with so
15:48
Speaker 1: many people, and not just parents of kids with autism,
15:53
Speaker 1: but ADHD and anxiety and physical disabilities and difficulties fitting
15:58
Speaker 1: in and on and on, is because it proves to
16:02
Speaker 1: parents that they're not alone in this struggle.
16:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:06
Speaker 1: And I can't stress enough that idea of you know,
16:09
Speaker 1: so many parents and it's so much easier for the
16:12
Speaker 1: schools right to hey, we're just gonna take the adversity away,
16:14
Speaker 1: no problem, that's fine, And we're seeing now the deleterious
16:19
Speaker 1: effects of that. Columbia University just came out with a
16:21
Speaker 1: huge study that giving kids with anxiety accommodations for anxiety
16:26
Speaker 1: just makes them more anxious. Forty percent of Stanford's popular
16:31
Speaker 1: of student population now gets accommodations for being disabled. That
16:36
Speaker 1: doesn't help kids, right, And that I think was why
16:40
Speaker 1: Born Lucky is resonating in the way that it is.
16:42
Speaker 2: It's it's kind of incredible because, again not about me,
16:45
Speaker 2: but I had a very interesting relationship with my father
16:49
Speaker 2: and it was such that he thought I should dig
16:51
Speaker 2: ditches and drive trucks, both great jobs, by the way,
16:54
Speaker 2: and I did both of those things, but I knew
16:57
Speaker 2: that I had something else in mind, and it would
16:59
Speaker 2: be what I ended up doing. And because he kept
17:02
Speaker 2: telling me that I couldn't do it, man, I was
17:04
Speaker 2: going to show him that I could do it. And
17:05
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think you go through that
17:07
Speaker 2: adversity and either you come out of it, you rise
17:10
Speaker 2: from that, or you're mired in people telling patting you
17:13
Speaker 2: on the head saying oh, you're autistic, so you probably
17:15
Speaker 2: can't do no. No. What you said was I'm gonna
17:18
Speaker 2: find what I can do, and I'm gonna do it
17:19
Speaker 2: the best I can. And again, you're one of the
17:21
Speaker 2: best that we have doing that. Was there any of that,
17:23
Speaker 2: because it sounds like your dad was extremely supportive but
17:27
Speaker 2: at the same time not easy on you, and I
17:30
Speaker 2: think it worked.
17:31
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:31
Speaker 1: I think that that is a really great balance to
17:34
Speaker 1: pick up on Joe, that he was extraordinarily supportive and
17:38
Speaker 1: held my hand through every moment of adversity but pushed
17:44
Speaker 1: me to be more every day. And it's important that
17:47
Speaker 1: you know he didn't push me to get great grades,
17:49
Speaker 1: because he knew that wasn't possible. But he said, you know,
17:51
Speaker 1: when you put your mind to something, you know, when
17:53
Speaker 1: you do whatever you choose to do. And like, you know,
17:55
Speaker 1: I got involved in rowing in eighth grade and it
17:58
Speaker 1: became a push every night of okay, how how can
18:00
Speaker 1: you get better?
18:01
Speaker 3: How can you do more?
18:03
Speaker 1: Same same with journalism, you know, once I picked journalism,
18:06
Speaker 1: it became okay, what's the goals?
18:09
Speaker 3: And in a big part of.
18:09
Speaker 1: This book, obviously, it's about setting goals, whether it be
18:12
Speaker 1: push ups when I was a little boy, or rowing
18:16
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, or then journalism when
18:18
Speaker 1: I got into my professional career, and that was a
18:21
Speaker 1: that's a really big thing. And I think that that
18:23
Speaker 1: it was not setting goals that he thought were important,
18:27
Speaker 1: or not setting goals that he wanted me to achieve
18:29
Speaker 1: or was going to make, you know, give him things
18:31
Speaker 1: to talk to his friends about. It was about things
18:34
Speaker 1: that I wanted and that were going to be good
18:36
Speaker 1: for me. And there's a difference there. It's interesting, Joe.
18:39
Speaker 1: You know, I give speeches now about this book, and
18:42
Speaker 1: I'll ask parents, you know the room, Hey, you know,
18:45
Speaker 1: if your parent put up your hands So I was
18:47
Speaker 1: at a church yesterday and ninety percent of the room
18:49
Speaker 1: their hands went up, and I said, okay, put your
18:51
Speaker 1: hands down now. If your kid is president of his class,
18:56
Speaker 1: on the honor roll, captain of the sports team, never
18:59
Speaker 1: had any problems with bullying, no ADHD or anxiety, never
19:04
Speaker 1: gave you any problems. Has so many birthday party invites
19:07
Speaker 1: you need a Google calendar. Put your hand up, and
19:10
Speaker 1: in the room of two hundred people, one hand went up,
19:12
Speaker 1: and I looked at the guys that you must have
19:13
Speaker 1: a great wife. But I think it shows how difficult
19:20
Speaker 1: of a time every kid is having right now. Yeah,
19:23
Speaker 1: and therefore how much parents are able to do. And
19:30
Speaker 1: that story really resonates.
19:33
Speaker 2: I think a lot of parents throw their hands up,
19:34
Speaker 2: and I'm glad that you're remotivating them. Whether it was
19:36
Speaker 2: the intention or not, this book will motivate them that
19:39
Speaker 2: you can make a difference in your kid's life. And
19:40
Speaker 2: it's not about letting society label the child and saying
19:43
Speaker 2: this is what the person is, this is what they
19:45
Speaker 2: can do. Don't even try to help him or her
19:47
Speaker 2: out of that. I'm glad that you wrote the book
19:49
Speaker 2: and people can actually get that inspiration it's born Lucky
19:52
Speaker 2: dot com. Get the book called Born Lucky. It's Leland Vendor.
19:55
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this. In what you do, you're
19:58
Speaker 2: the authority, and what you you do, you have to
20:01
Speaker 2: be completely in charge of the information or else I
20:03
Speaker 2: will trust you. Why put this book out there? Any hesitation?
20:08
Speaker 1: It's a fantastic question. And yeah, there was a lot
20:11
Speaker 1: of hesitation by both me and my dad. You know,
20:14
Speaker 1: going to therapy on national television is like sitting in
20:17
Speaker 1: a bathtub full of scissors. It won't kill you, but
20:20
Speaker 1: it's not exactly fun. I never went to therapy as
20:23
Speaker 1: a kid. So as we started writing the book, I
20:26
Speaker 1: was interviewing my dad and every time i'd interview him,
20:29
Speaker 1: he goes, do we really want to tell this story?
20:31
Speaker 1: Is this a little too personal? On and on and on,
20:34
Speaker 1: and I said, Dad, this isn't going to work. I said,
20:36
Speaker 1: you got to just level with me on everything, and
20:38
Speaker 1: I'll write the manuscript. If you don't like it, we
20:40
Speaker 1: won't turn it into HarperCollins. So to be fair, I
20:45
Speaker 1: didn't have a plan if he said no, because I
20:46
Speaker 1: had a book contract. And it was a huge day
20:48
Speaker 1: when I gave him the manuscript and the book was
20:51
Speaker 1: due on Friday, and on Thursday he calls me and
20:54
Speaker 1: he goes, I don't know about this. He goes, Born
20:56
Speaker 1: Lucky is this? This is everything about our family. You
21:00
Speaker 1: know how I felt. You know the letter that he
21:03
Speaker 1: got from his father when he was sixteen and his
21:06
Speaker 1: dad died, and letters that my dad wrote me when
21:08
Speaker 1: I went to the Middle East.
21:09
Speaker 3: He says, I don't know about this.
21:11
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, I've got a book deal. I've
21:15
Speaker 1: got a book contract tomorrow and I'm not gonna have
21:17
Speaker 1: chat gpt do this.
21:19
Speaker 3: So I said, Dad, let me turn this around.
21:22
Speaker 1: I said, you remember when that woman diagnosed me and
21:25
Speaker 1: he goes uh huh. And I said you remember how
21:27
Speaker 1: hopeless you felt?
21:29
Speaker 3: And he goes uh huh.
21:30
Speaker 1: And I said you remember how helpless you felt? And
21:32
Speaker 1: he goes uh huh. I said, what if that woman
21:36
Speaker 1: had given you Born Lucky, right, she'd given you the
21:38
Speaker 1: book and said, here you go.
21:40
Speaker 3: This isn't a prescription, it's not a cure, but it's
21:43
Speaker 3: the story.
21:44
Speaker 1: Of what a really involved and really loving father can do.
21:50
Speaker 1: And he said I would have read it every week.
21:53
Speaker 3: Okay.
21:54
Speaker 1: I said, I think if we can do that, we
21:57
Speaker 1: can give families hope, then it's worth it.
22:02
Speaker 3: He said, okay.
22:04
Speaker 1: And since then, Joe, you know, I have gotten hundreds
22:08
Speaker 1: of emails and social media comments everything else from families
22:12
Speaker 1: saying you've given us.
22:13
Speaker 3: Hope and it's been so inspiring.
22:17
Speaker 1: And you know, I really thought there was going to
22:18
Speaker 1: be some negative backlash and people are going to come
22:20
Speaker 1: at me over and everything else.
22:21
Speaker 3: Nothing, And I'll leave your you know, just this one
22:24
Speaker 3: story if you have the time.
22:26
Speaker 1: You know, there are so many families that obviously have
22:30
Speaker 1: it much worse than I did, right, you know, kids
22:32
Speaker 1: are in all sorts of different places. But I shared
22:36
Speaker 1: the born Lucky story with this father of a kid
22:39
Speaker 1: who was profoundly autistic, and he said, you know what,
22:42
Speaker 1: You're so right. I'm so glad I heard this. He said,
22:45
Speaker 1: my son was about twenty years old, twenty two years old,
22:48
Speaker 1: living in a group home. Kid has some real issues,
22:51
Speaker 1: and he was angry and had all sorts of personality issues.
22:55
Speaker 3: And the one thing he liked doing was splashing in
22:57
Speaker 3: the pool.
22:58
Speaker 1: And I would see on the reports from the group
22:59
Speaker 1: home that he was happy splashing in the pool. So
23:01
Speaker 1: I said, we need to teach my son how to
23:03
Speaker 1: swim and they said, you can't teach a twenty two
23:05
Speaker 1: year old autistic kid how to swim, and he's gonna
23:07
Speaker 1: maybe drown and it's dangerous and everything else. And then
23:09
Speaker 1: Dad guse no, no, I think we should do this. He's
23:11
Speaker 1: happiest in the pool. We're gonna get her in the pool.
23:13
Speaker 1: The kid now swims a mile and a half every morning.
23:15
Speaker 1: Oh wow, he's totally different, physically, totally different, happy, his
23:19
Speaker 1: personalities changed. He's up every morning with a swimsuit on,
23:22
Speaker 1: ready to go. Like that is the story of what
23:26
Speaker 1: involved in dedicated parents can be. And I think that
23:30
Speaker 1: Born Lucky is sort of is telling and showing parents
23:34
Speaker 1: that power that they have.
23:36
Speaker 2: It's Leland Vinner. Go and get his book. It's called
23:38
Speaker 2: Born Lucky. Go to born Lucky dot com. Born Lucky,
23:40
Speaker 2: A dedicated father, a grateful son, and my journey with autism.
23:44
Speaker 2: You said something a few times in the interview, and
23:47
Speaker 2: don't I don't think you were being humble. I think
23:48
Speaker 2: you meant it. This isn't a manual for those who
23:53
Speaker 2: have autistic kids. You didn't intend to be that, but Leland,
23:56
Speaker 2: it sounds like it's starting to become that. Are you
23:57
Speaker 2: okay with that.
24:00
Speaker 3: I'm not in the advice business. When we started.
24:05
Speaker 1: Sending out the book, or you know, proposals for the book,
24:10
Speaker 1: the publishers came back and said, you know, we need
24:13
Speaker 1: we need how tos, we need checklists, we need action items.
24:17
Speaker 1: And I said no, I said, this isn't a how
24:20
Speaker 1: to manual. This is a love story of a father
24:23
Speaker 1: and a son. And the only reason it came about
24:25
Speaker 1: is because Joe, to your point, when I got my
24:27
Speaker 1: show at NewsNation, I was working with this talent coach
24:31
Speaker 1: and she talked to me as I was making the
24:34
Speaker 1: transition for being a reporter to being an anchor, about
24:37
Speaker 1: trying to connect with the audience emotionally, and how do
24:40
Speaker 1: you connect in the two box right, which is what
24:41
Speaker 1: you and I would call this box that you're there,
24:44
Speaker 1: I'm there. He says, how do you match the audience's
24:49
Speaker 1: emotion and the person you're interviewing's emotion? And I said, well,
24:52
Speaker 1: working on that, and she goes, but it seems really
24:54
Speaker 1: hard for you, and I said, well, yeah, because I'm
24:56
Speaker 1: autistic and it's about the hardest thing I could possibly do.
25:01
Speaker 1: And she goes silent for thirty seconds. She goes, did
25:04
Speaker 1: you say you were autistic, and I said, uh huh.
25:07
Speaker 1: And she says, did you tell anybody that, like the
25:10
Speaker 1: bosses or I said no. I said, I've never told
25:12
Speaker 1: anybody that for thirty five years. It's what my dad always,
25:15
Speaker 1: you know, sort of wanted me to just do things
25:17
Speaker 1: on my own. And she goes, I don't understand. Have
25:21
Speaker 1: you ever told anybody ever written about this? And I'd
25:23
Speaker 1: written about seven hundred words one time that I thought
25:25
Speaker 1: would be an op ed as a thank you to
25:27
Speaker 1: my father and maybe put out, and she I said,
25:31
Speaker 1: well the little thing. I said, I'll send it to you.
25:33
Speaker 1: So I sent it to her and didn't hear anything else.
25:37
Speaker 1: And about four or five months later, my phone rang
25:40
Speaker 1: and it was the fellow who I worked with on
25:42
Speaker 1: the book, a guy named Don Yaeger, and he said,
25:44
Speaker 1: you know who I am. I said, yeah, of course,
25:46
Speaker 1: you know. You've got twelve New York Times bestsellers and
25:49
Speaker 1: wrote a bunch of big time books and was worked
25:52
Speaker 1: with Walter Payton Sports illustrated all this kind of stuff.
25:54
Speaker 1: And he said, I really want to turn your story
25:57
Speaker 1: into a book. And I said, I'm not writing a
25:59
Speaker 1: book and I'm not telling anybody about this like that's
26:01
Speaker 1: the whole point. He said no, he said you need
26:03
Speaker 1: to and I said why. He said, well, I'm the
26:05
Speaker 1: father of an autistic child and if I had had
26:08
Speaker 1: this book it would have changed my life, and we
26:12
Speaker 1: need to do this. So we met with dad and
26:16
Speaker 1: sort of got to do this. But to your point,
26:19
Speaker 1: I don't think this isn't.
26:20
Speaker 3: A how to manual.
26:22
Speaker 1: The most important part of the book is the four
26:25
Speaker 1: page afterward by my father, and he has a couple
26:27
Speaker 1: pieces of advice for parents. But he's the one who
26:30
Speaker 1: did all this right. I just really was along for
26:33
Speaker 1: the ride. But I think now telling this story, even
26:36
Speaker 1: though my dad doesn't want to be called a hero,
26:39
Speaker 1: I think so many people are seeing that he has
26:41
Speaker 1: shown them that there is still a lot of hope
26:45
Speaker 1: and that they're not alone.
26:46
Speaker 2: It's not Leland Venner. Go and get this book called
26:48
Speaker 2: Born Lucky. Born Lucky dot com is the website. Just
26:52
Speaker 2: my thoughts as I'm listening to you speak. It doesn't
26:55
Speaker 2: have to be a how too manual to be a
26:56
Speaker 2: really good guide. I'm really fast with the Rubik's cub
27:00
Speaker 2: I can solve it in fifteen seconds. I didn't learn
27:04
Speaker 2: that by by writing down how to, or reading somebody's
27:07
Speaker 2: how to. I watch people do it. I heard their stories.
27:09
Speaker 2: I figured out why they wanted to do it, and
27:11
Speaker 2: then I saw their finger moves and what would be
27:13
Speaker 2: faster and whatever. They didn't intend to teach me, but
27:17
Speaker 2: I learned a lot. And I think you're doing that here,
27:19
Speaker 2: because as you're speaking, there are people in my life
27:22
Speaker 2: that I now know need to read the book. And again,
27:25
Speaker 2: it might not have been in your intention for them
27:27
Speaker 2: to read it and go oh wow, that worked that way. Well,
27:29
Speaker 2: maybe I'll apply that as well. It's a beautiful story.
27:32
Speaker 2: I haven't read the whole book. I've read the forward,
27:34
Speaker 2: but it's a beautiful story between father and son, and
27:38
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful story of struggle to triumph. I get
27:40
Speaker 2: that it might be a great movie one day. But
27:42
Speaker 2: I'm telling you the big cell, the big sell of
27:45
Speaker 2: this book, and you're not pushing it this way I am,
27:48
Speaker 2: is that people one in thirty six are diagnosed as
27:51
Speaker 2: autistic in some form or fashion. In this day and age,
27:54
Speaker 2: people need this leland, So I hope that you'll embrace it.
27:57
Speaker 2: I don't think that you're not embracing it. I know
27:59
Speaker 2: that it was in the intent but I hope that
28:01
Speaker 2: you'll embrace it because a lot more stories are going
28:03
Speaker 2: to be flooding your inbox, I promise you, because what
28:05
Speaker 2: you've just told me in about a half an hour
28:07
Speaker 2: is unbelievable. I'll give you the last word on this.
28:10
Speaker 1: No look to me, this book is a father son
28:14
Speaker 1: love story. I wanted to show my dad that I
28:16
Speaker 1: understood how much I appreciated what he did. And I
28:21
Speaker 1: wanted my dad to understand how grateful I was for
28:25
Speaker 1: all the time and all the hours and all the
28:27
Speaker 1: heartache that he put in to turning me into the
28:31
Speaker 1: man I am. And that's why I think it is
28:35
Speaker 1: resonated so far beyond just autism right right that it is.
28:40
Speaker 1: It is a father son love story, and that is
28:44
Speaker 1: really the important part to me. If it helps people,
28:49
Speaker 1: which clearly it has started to, that's wonderful and I'm
28:53
Speaker 1: so happy and so touched, and it's interesting. I send
28:56
Speaker 1: my dad all the emails of people who write in
29:02
Speaker 1: about this this experience and about what they've got in
29:06
Speaker 1: the book, and it's just meant so much to him,
29:09
Speaker 1: and that that, to me, is really the very the
29:12
Speaker 1: very best part of having done this.
29:15
Speaker 3: So if if baring my soul. If it was.
29:20
Speaker 1: In reliving some of these really dark and awful moments
29:23
Speaker 1: of my life gives others hope, then then it's worth it.
29:28
Speaker 2: I love it.
29:29
Speaker 3: Oh.
29:29
Speaker 2: I think he sounds like a great guy. Hope to
29:30
Speaker 2: meet him one day, and you're certainly a great son.
29:32
Speaker 2: Go and get this book called Born Lucky, Dedicated Father,
29:34
Speaker 2: a Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism. It's Leland Vinnert.
29:38
Speaker 2: Go and get it now, show it full screen. Boom,
29:40
Speaker 2: there it is and at the end to look at that.
29:42
Speaker 3: There you go.
29:44
Speaker 2: We adjusted the camera to make sure we got it
29:45
Speaker 2: in there. It looks beautiful, Leland. Thanks Ci Milion for
29:47
Speaker 2: making it happen. Thank you for having me on your show.
29:49
Speaker 2: When you do and do me fair, come back on
29:51
Speaker 2: here anytime.
29:51
Speaker 1: Okay, anytime, Joe. I'm at your service.
29:56
Speaker 2: I appreciate you and hope you sell two billion books.
29:59
Speaker 2: That's going to do it for this edition of Unshaken
30:00
Speaker 2: and Unafraid with Joe Pegs. Another one dropping very soon.