Leland Vitter grew up with an autism diagnosis, but grew up to become a popular news anchor — not a job usually associated with autism. Leland joins the show to talk about his upbringing and how his dad's unusual-for-the-time parenting methods trained him to get the better of his tics and impulses. It's a fun discussion that offers hope and advice for thousands of parents raising their own autistic children. Plus, "Apostate Prophet" Ridvan Aydemir discusses the civilizational threat of Islam to the West. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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We're about to welcome the apostate prophet, who was a former Muslim, has converted to Christianity.
We're going to talk about that.
We have some breaking news here.
A federal judge has just dismissed indictments against Letitia James and James Comey, saying Lindsey Halligan appointment was unlawful.
So a federal judge has dismissed the indictments against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
So the finding is that the cause of it is that the U.S. attorney who brought them was an interim appointment, and they've contested that that whole process is not allowed.
So the cases were dismissed without prejudice.
That does mean they didn't actually reject the substance of the indictments themselves.
And so they actually could be rebrought if they later fill that post with a different prosecutor who wishes to bring them.
But we'll probably have more chance to discuss this in the days to come.
Yeah, this was U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Curry and basically saying that Halligan's appointment was unlawful.
And they are, you know, pundits are already ruling this as a massive rebuke of President Trump's efforts to politically target political opponents, which, by the way, is, I think, really, you know, stunning given the fact that President Trump is probably the most politically targeted politician in American history, at least modern American history.
But sure, okay, these cases can be brought again should the opportunity present itself.
We'll see.
We'll see.
Yeah, you can go throw up 145.
This is from the AP just reporting this breaking news if you want.
Ridvan is going to be joining us in a second.
Blake, but there's been a lot of news on the Muslim front.
I mean, first of all, you had Governor Greg Abbott.
We covered this last week.
He basically declared CARE and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations.
And then we had this big story of the Somali.
Yeah, which isn't specifically just like, it's not so much a Muslim thing.
It's a relatively insular tribal community that we've brought in from the third world and transplanted to Minneapolis thing.
Yes.
Which, as we covered last week, we covered the story that was in City Journal from Rufo and the guest we had, crap, Ryan.
Yeah, Ryan Thorpe.
Ryan Thorpe.
Ryan Thorpe.
And it covered that there's one scam after another.
It's like a feeding frenzy on the goodwill of the kind of Scandinavian ethos of Minnesota where they had an autism scam where kids were being falsely diagnosed with autism and getting a cut of dollars that were going to sort of fake autism, culturally appropriate autism treatment centers.
They were scamming the Medicaid fund where it was for, I think, to help marginal people get housing.
And it was budgeted to have maybe cost about $3 million and it ballooned to $300 million.
And of course, we had the Feeding Our Future scam a few years ago.
And so what broke last week and what makes this continue is the Trump administration, in response to this, announced they were going to revoke the temporary protected status on Somalis.
So this is this ridiculous program that we have where, not even a program, ridiculous policy we have where we'll say, oh, this country is in turmoil.
It has a temporary problem.
And so people who are here illegally can stay in America just temporarily, temporarily, until the country's emergency has passed.
It was intended for something like, oh, your country is being hit by a hurricane right now.
We will not force you to fly back into the hurricane.
But it's become just a permanent thing.
Oh, your country is not nice.
So you temporarily can stay here until your country is nice.
So there are countries, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and of course, Somali, where they just get temporary protected status for years, decades on end.
No, they're permanent.
It's permanent.
It's permanent protected status.
And so he revoked that on them.
It looks like only a few hundred people would be affected by this, but it still matters.
It matters for sending the message that you're just not permanently immune from being deported to these countries.
And we do need to really use this.
I mean, if there's an argument for the filibuster to remove it, and again, I don't think we would have the votes even if we did.
But if say you could whip the votes and you could fix immigration, that would be the holy grail of what you would do with nuking the filibuster.
Now, guaranteed, Democrats would get power again and they would just reverse course instantly because they are into unfettered mass migration from the third world.
It's part of the market.
What you're seeing that is valuable is that the right is it's gradually getting more assertive, more confident.
And one of those signs of that confidence is we're actually willing to say there are some immigrant communities who just don't seem to be adding up well for the American people.
And we don't have some moral obligation to let in an infinite number of them when they overwhelmingly go on public benefits, when they overwhelmingly are not integrating that well, and when it doesn't seem to be improving America.
And if we can't make that case for Somalis, we'll probably not be able to make it for any immigrant group anywhere on the planet, frankly.
There's another story that emerged this weekend out of South Florida.
And there's layers to this that I think we need to paint the full picture.
Let me just put it that way.
But this was an imam in Florida crying because as they were praying, somebody ate a bacon sandwich outside of the mosque.
142.
142.
the prayer ended we look up to see them taunting us in our faces with bacon.
I had to relive the whole thing again.
Now, I do just want to say taunting people while they're praying, even with bacon, is probably not the right move optically and politically.
And they are getting charged, apparently, now with hate crimes.
I don't like that.
I feel like you should be able to taunt people, frankly.
Like, a hate crime, I don't think hate crimes are a good category in general.
If it's going to exist, it should apply to things that are a crime, assault, all of that.
But I don't want us to delay on the guest anymore.
We'll go through the breaks with him.
Yeah, here we go.
We've got Ridvan Idemir, and he's also known as Apostate Prophet on both X and YouTube.
He is a great, great guy.
We've had him on the show with Charlie previously.
He was also with us at Student Action Summit in Florida.
Ridvan, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you so much.
So, Ridvan, I mean, in broad terms, let's just set the stage here, a 30,000-foot view.
Is Islam compatible with Western civilization?
No.
And so, Charlie Kirk, when he was with us, also made this very clear.
He was one of the people who was very outspoken about this.
Just a few weeks before he was murdered, he made a very viral post in which he said that Islam is not compatible with Western values.
And he was right.
It is indeed not.
So I am an ex-Muslim, right?
I was a Muslim.
I grew up as a Muslim.
I was raised in a Western country in Germany as a Muslim, among traditional Muslims.
And we were basically taught that we are only in this country because we eventually want this country to become an Islamic country.
And so I learned and we learned and we generally learned that Islam is, that the Western nations are basically filthy and dirty and they follow wicked sick morals and satanic or evil morals that they eat,
as the Imam just pointed out, that they eat pork, which is a very, very evil thing, and that we should abstain from such things and should make every effort to make it as Islamic as possible if we live here, because there is no other excuse for us to live here.
So there are so many layers and so many aspects to this.
There is no freedom with Islam.
Islam commands the execution of people who leave Islam, like myself, for example, commands the complete silencing and punishing and execution of people who blaspheme against Islam.
It covers up women, puts them into the background of society, reduces their status brutally, far beyond what supposedly regressive conservative people would advocate for.
It is in general, so it has values of, I don't know, child marriage, of polygamy, of wife beating, of cousin marriage, of all these things that are just terrible for society.
And it is in no way compatible with Western values.
And we should all be aware of it.
We should all be aware of the dangers of it.
We should all be aware as Europe is becoming aware that when the numbers of it increase, it becomes a huge stab in the back of the society.
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Blake, you are probably one of the more articulate people I know in this talk.
I guess, you know, you mentioned the goal is to make society more Islamic.
That's the justification for being in a Western society.
Why don't you lay out what does that process look like?
What happens when your country is becoming more, what does it mean for your country to become more Islamic?
So what it would mean is, so first off, the goal is to make people comply with what Islam demands of people when it comes to speaking about Islam.
So any conversation about Islam is to be overseen and led by Muslims.
If it gets too offensive, if it gets too uncomfortable, Muslims are supposed to speak up and take control of the situation or demand that it is shut down.
As they increase their numbers, society should have more and more Islamic laws put into place.
Any rules, any laws that counter Islam or that are contrary to Islam need to be eradicated, need to be changed, need to be somehow adjusted.
What it would look like in America, as it does already in Europe, is that immigration would more and more open up.
Muslims would more often, in higher numbers, come into the country, have more and more the right to vote for their own parties, establish their own systems, establish their own politicians in your parties and infiltrate them.
What it would eventually look like is that free speech, first off, that's the major target.
Free speech would be curbed, of course.
It would be cut.
It would be suppressed brutally.
So you would no longer have the right to speak about it.
You would no longer have the right to offend Islam, to speak against Islam.
The majority, the vast majority of Muslims around the world agree that nobody should have the right to speak against Islam, to criticize it.
And one of the most remarkable things about Islam I feel that I've seen is they really like the assertiveness of playing the call to prayer because the call to prayer is broadcast very loudly at 3 or 4 a.m. I believe for the pre-dawn prayers.
And so you hear this in the UK now where people say, I actually can't sleep because they've made a point of loudly broadcasting the call to prayer for everyone to hear in the neighborhood.
And that's a very visible sign that you're being taken over.
Yeah, I mean, it does feel like the whole thrust in pursuit of political power is an in-your-face full frontal attack to say, we are here and we're asserting our authority.
We're going to exploit your Western, sorry, we're getting notes here.
We're going to exploit your Western tolerance and your lack of, I think, what's in modern terms, our lack of cultural confidence in ourselves.
We are no longer a culture that asserts ourselves proudly because we don't want to be racist.
We don't want to be bigoted.
A question I would want to ask is, we do see now where a lot of people are actually converting to Islam.
We hear about people joining it in prisons.
We actually see Westerners joining it in Germany, in the UK.
What's the appeal of Islam, in your opinion?
Why would someone join it rather than leave it?
So I still think that it is very much inflated, the reality of it.
I don't think that there are actually huge numbers of people joining Islam.
I think that, so here is the thing.
Muslim nations and Muslim people generally have a big obsession with white people, with Western people.
So if a Western person comes out and says something favorably about Islam, that is very, very much amplified.
If a Western person converts to Islam, that is very much amplified.
The one place where indeed there is a huge conversion of people to Islam is prisons, which is, I'm not sure if that's a thing to brag about from the Muslim perspective.
But there is something that is indeed appealing to some people, which is that Islam is a very strong religion, right?
And I'm not saying that as something positive or as something praiseworthy, although there is some praiseworthy aspect of it, because in the West, people have become very timid and very tolerant and all that.
So while the West is very tolerant and very timid, Islam has a huge assertiveness.
It is very proud and very firm, but it is also very deeply indoctrinating and very brainwashing.
So it has strong foundations that make it very aggressive and that oppose anyone who speaks against it.
Here's the thing.
You just mentioned the calls to prayer.
The call to prayer is not just a call to prayer.
It's not just something that is played like a church bell or something.
It is a very clear message.
When it is played in a Western nation, in a Western society, in a Western neighborhood, what it says is that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
So it is a direct declaration that Islam is true and all the other religions and all the other ways of thinking around you are false.
So it is a direct assertion of superiority over everybody else.
Ridban, you were talking about the Muslim call to prayer as a public demonstration and an assertion of Islamic superiority, of theological correctness, essentially an exclusivity claim, right?
Christians get a lot of grief for the exclusivity claims about Jesus, that he is the way, the truth, and the life.
I have recently been watching YouTube videos about these missionaries in Africa.
And they talk about the, you know, you see what's happening in Nigeria with the persecution of Christians there and these Muslim armies and these militias coming to hunt them down.
And there is a spirit of fear that goes before them.
And I don't want to make this, you know, too in the clouds or too spiritual, but it occurs to me that when Muslims begin doing the Muslim call to prayer in Western cultures five times a day, that there is a spiritual element to that.
There is like a, you know, they talk about these missionaries in Africa, they talk about this.
You could feel the spirit of fear go in front of the armies almost, in front of these militias before the persecution and the killing starts.
I believe that there is a spiritual element of this that is unleashed when you allow that type of thing into your culture.
Do you agree?
I do agree.
And it also actually goes back to how it is intended to be.
So in the beginnings of Islam, when Muhammad was around, he made it a thing to shout, Allahu Akbar, and La ilahi illallah, and so on.
So that there is no God but Allah and Allah is the greatest in front of his armies.
It was a very, very fierce battle cry, aside from simply being an invitation to prayer.
And of course, you might anticipate that there is a spiritual aspect to it, that when you invoke something like that and invoke something, to be very frank, evil, that it has wider implications.
It is also, so it has psychological impacts as well.
Think about a Muslim society that comes into a Western nation or that is in Nigeria, which has a conflict between Muslims and Christians.
So think about a group of Muslims that simply settles in an area and practices their religion privately without having any calls for anything at all.
And then think about how Muslims do it.
Muslims come into a place, establish their community, establish a mosque, a minaret, that then shouts out, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
It is not only a declaration of superiority over others.
It is also a declaration to the Muslims who are around to say, hey, wake up, guys.
You are right.
All others are wrong and they are the enemy.
I'm very sure that despite the, so together with the psychological impact and the social impact, there is something evil going on with that as well.
So we had President Trump.
He's revoking the temporary protected status for Somalia.
But what else would we, what would your pitch be to Republicans or to President Trump, lawmakers in Washington?
Are there any actions, concrete ones you think should be on the table for our government for avoiding the Islamization of America?
Well, I think so.
When I was at the last event and spoke at Turning Point USA, I also pointed out a few things that need to be done, that should be done.
First off, the Muslim Brotherhood needs to be seriously countered and seen as a terrorist organization with all its elements and all its connections.
It is an organization that infiltrates countries, that infiltrates Western nations, that infiltrates non-Western nations.
And certain Muslim-majority nations in the Arab countries have taken large steps against the Muslim Brotherhood because they know that it is a terrorist organization that wants to subvert societies.
Another thing would be to seriously curb and shut down immigration from Muslim countries.
I know we have taken steps, but they are not enough.
Immigration from Muslim countries needs to be shut down.
It needs to be taken seriously.
We need to stop being so tolerant.
We need to stop being so weak and so meek.
And finally, another thing would be information and education about Islam, what it is, what it teaches, what it preaches, and what happens wherever Islam goes needs to spread among the common people.
Maybe, I know it is always a conflict, and it is kind of problematic when the government steps in and does something like that, but maybe it is upon us to do something about that, as Charlie also wanted us to do, and to inform everybody in America about what Islam actually teaches.
And maybe the government can help us at some point to reach more people and educate people who are in charge and educate the officers on that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And yeah, Charlie cared a lot about this, especially in the last weeks and months of his life.
He went to the UK.
He saw what it was very rapidly becoming, and he knew it was only going to get more extreme.
Whenever you see this, you have to realize it's going to get a lot worse in the years to come because they're young.
They're still coming into the country.
They have more kids than us.
They can transform a society, and we can't afford to just ignore it.
Stop being so tolerant.
Thank you, Ridvan.
I love it.
We'll see you soon, my friend.
Thank you.
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Very excited about our next guest, Leland Vitter, author of the new book, Born Lucky, felt very, very appropriate for this week of Thanksgiving.
You can find him on X at Leland Vitter, and he is also the chief Washington anchor for News Nation.
Leland, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
Andrew, nice to be with you.
Yeah, you know, Leland, I was just thinking about it.
I remember, I think I first met you briefly in a Fox green room in around 2018 with Charlie.
We were all in the Fox News.
It was in the D.C. Bureau, Fox News Green Room, and you were very, very kind, very, it was, you know, and I'd seen you on TV.
I knew exactly who you were, and you were very gracious to Charlie.
And anyway, so it's great to have you on the show.
And congratulations on your new book.
Thank you.
Appreciate you being here.
Yeah, I first met Charlie back in 2015 as so many things happen in the Fox News Green Room in Washington, D.C.
So some wonderful memories.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, so Born Lucky, okay, I'll be honest with you.
I think you even say it in the description of the book.
Most of your friends and colleagues had no idea of these childhood struggles that you went through with autism being a little bit socially awkward, struggling to fit in.
But it sounds like it was even worse than what I'm describing.
And your dad is just such a hero in this book, and you are thankful for him, which is, again, why I thought it was appropriate for this week with Thanksgiving.
Tell us your story, Leland.
It's fascinating.
Sure.
Yeah, I think my wife would say that I'm still socially awkward.
I was far more awkward and difficult when I was a child.
Born Lucky is the story of what happened when I was diagnosed with what we now know to be autism at about eight years old.
My parents were told that they needed to have me evaluated, worst thing any parent can hear.
And they took me to one of those medical testing centers, sat there with the stale coffee and magazines and linoleum floors and uncomfortable furniture for a couple of hours.
They were scared.
And the woman brought me back and she said, Look, this kid's got a lot of very serious issues.
He's got behavioral issues.
So if anybody touches him in class in the lunch line, anything, he turns around and slugs them.
Sensory issues.
If I had socks on I didn't like or I had a jacket on I didn't like or something like this, I would just melt down.
And then big learning disabilities.
So an IQ test is two halves of a test, really, and the scores average together.
A learning disability is a 70 point, is a 20 point spread.
I had a 70 point spread.
They said it was the biggest spread they'd ever seen.
So from basically mentally retarded in some ways to genius in others.
And the woman said to my dad, you know, it's very difficult to understand what's going on inside his head, meaning my head.
And fact check, true.
But my parents asked, as any parent would, you know, what do we do?
And the woman said, there's not much you can do.
And my dad goes, is there anything we can do?
You know, he, the desperation is real for any parent.
And he said, or the woman said to my dad, not really.
So born lucky is the story of my dad quitting his job and trying day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute to adapt me to the world rather than the world to me.
You know, he didn't tell anybody about my diagnosis.
There was no accommodations.
There was no extra time on tests or education plans or anything like that.
Dad decided that I would need to learn how to function in the real world, as difficult as that would be.
So we wrote Born Lucky to give hope to every family of a parent, every parent of a kid having a hard time, regardless of why.
Autism, ADHD, anxiety, whatever it is, Born Lucky is hope of what great parenting can do.
Yeah, and there's a crazy story in here.
He was making you do hundreds of push-ups at age seven just to so you could fight back against the bullies.
It was, there was a physical toughness component to it.
But Andrew, you know, you think about when I was a little kid, I had no friends.
Dad's line was, I thought maybe I could beat your friend.
But kids get self-esteem from one of three things: either they're good in school.
I wasn't going to be good in school.
They were going to have lots of friends.
I wasn't going to get invited to play dates or birthday parties, much less have any friends.
And then lastly, from athletics, I wasn't good at athletics.
So dad's whole desire was to try to figure out how to give me self-esteem.
And as his word, self-esteem is not given, it's earned.
So that was 200 push-ups a day, five days a week for three or four months.
And then you got something, but it was trying to get me to have pride in something and to be able to accomplish things, even if it was just something like doing push-ups.
Wow.
What age were you when you first started talking?
I was past three, so three and a half or so, was when I first started talking.
And, you know, there were a lot of other, you know, what we'd now call sort of classic autism characteristics.
I couldn't look anybody in the eye.
I obviously couldn't relate to anybody my own age and had terrible social skills.
And it was actually sort of negative social skills.
You know, some people, and I thought about this actually as we were talking more and more about the book.
Some people like Charlie had a magnetic personality that they just attracted people.
I sort of repelled them like a magnet, like the same poles of a magnet.
So my dad decided he would try to teach me the social construct and he would take me out to lunch or breakfast.
And I had a lot of free time on my hands because I didn't have any kid friends.
And when we would sit down with an adult and I'd start asking the adult questions or interrupt or whatever it is, my dad would tap his watch.
And that was my signal.
One, to stop talking, but to give me that signal without publicly humiliating me.
But two, it was a way to bookmark it.
And then after the lunch on the way home or later that day, we'd role play.
Okay, so when you interrupted to ask this lawyer, you interrupt him.
He was talking about his golf game and you interrupted whatever Mr. Miguel Tetti's profession was to ask him about something.
Why do you think that's what he wanted to talk about?
Okay, what could you have talked to him about?
And then we would role play that.
And this was sort of the very granular teachings of the social equation.
Wow.
I mean, your dad is a real hero here, Leland.
I mean, I feel like we could all relate.
What's so interesting about this to me is, I guess, I think of a lot of what we see today where reports of autism are rising.
And I feel there's also, you know, they come with the neurodivergent label for it.
And, you know, another person we guest we had a few months ago, Aaron Siberium, he's actually had a similar account where I think he was diagnosed with like pretty severe autism that he trained, you know, he was trained to deal with better.
And so he's able to have a more functional existence.
And do you think there's good lessons for that, Leland, in just that it's not like you're just locked into one state.
You can improve things and make people more adequately socialized if they have difficulties with that.
A thousand percent.
And the reason Born Lucky has exploded, and I've gotten emails from hundreds of families across the country just saying thank you for telling us we're not alone, for giving us hope, and for proving what great parenting can do and showing what great parenting can do.
And I think there is so many people who feel so helpless and so many parents who feel so hopeless that they can't make a difference.
And this is really proof that you can make an enormous difference.
And, you know, Born Lucky is not how to turn your autistic kid into a TV news anchor.
This is a story about how every kid can be more.
Born Lucky is sort of the story of how every kid can be more if a parent really digs in.
And I think about a young man who I learned about who has profound autism.
So he's in a group home.
He's about 23 years old and had big behavioral issues, you know, very angry and upset all the time and very classic autism characteristics.
But his dad read the reports of him at the rec center because every other day or so, they would go from the group home to the rec center and he loved splashing around in the pool.
So the father said to the folks who ran the group home and helped him, let's teach my son how to swim if he loves the pool.
And the expert said, oh no, you can't do that.
It's hard for him to learn and it could be upsetting to him and he could drown and on and on.
The dad goes, you know, I need to push my son to be more.
He can't.
And they taught him how to swim.
He now swims a mile and a half every morning.
He gets up every morning, gets dressed on his own, which he never did before, is excited, is happy.
Physically, he's totally changed.
His mental moods are totally changed, all because a father did not accept this is just who my kid's going to be, and I am going to help them be more.
And I think you're touching on something which is a sort of a cornerstone of what my dad taught me from the very beginning is you are not a victim.
You can control your character and you can control your work ethic, but you are not a victim.
And victimhood is addictive.
And we're seeing now, there was the Wall Street Journal article last week about they're starting to medicate three-year-olds with very serious adult drugs to try to regulate ADHD.
The New York Times out with a big story just today on the same thing that this over-prescribing, over-medicating, over-diagnosing of kids is basically just a cop-out.
It's not that kids don't need help, but it's that there's real hard work to be done and just a diagnosis and meeting that kid where they're at and just saying, you be you and you're great and let's celebrate you is not a recipe for success and born lucky is proof of that.
And I find this.
So I'm a father of three little kids, seven, five, and two.
And it's like, you know, every parent, Leland, you know, it doesn't matter if they have autism or not, has those moments when they're with their kids and they're like genuinely terrified that they're doing it wrong or that their kid has an issue or that they're going to have problems in school or problems with friends.
And so I think, you know, I'm hearing you, and, you know, as far as I know, my kids are not autistic or, you know, even if they were, though, the point is, is that you have the agency within yourself to be a better parent, to be more engaged.
I find it really, really inspiring, even as I'm thinking about some of the changes in our own family's life because there's a lot just with everything that's happened.
And so I love this story.
I would love to keep you for another segment if you can, Leland, because this is only the first part of it.
You were sort of socially awkward even through college and then into, by the way, these are your words, not mine.
And then something transformed.
You really had some massive breakthroughs.
So I want to get into that.
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All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
Blake, we got an email.
We got an email from Jennifer in the break.
I wanted to read it.
She says, Hi, guys.
I am a current autism support teacher in a public school, 42 years old.
I was misdiagnosed in the 90s as seriously emotionally disturbed.
I found out this year.
Instead, I have autism myself and ADHD.
And she says, My philosophy is to treat 10 kids in my classroom differently from my own childhood, keep them moving, keep them having fun.
And my goal is to teach all of them to read, even the non-verbal ones.
So thank you for that, Jennifer.
Yeah, that's great.
And if anyone else has emails, send them in.
Yeah, freedom at charliekirk.com.
So Leland, so you know, I think I'm probably the usual case here.
I saw you on, you know, Fox News.
You were in like the Middle East and you were, you know, at your anchor desk and the White House, the North Lawn.
But you say here in your book that you struggled with this stuff after college.
What changed?
And what was like, was there a breakthrough or was it still a gradual thing?
You know, Andrew, it's a great question.
And I think one of the reasons that Born Lucky has resonated so much with folks is because it has touched this nerve of parents having a hard time with their kids.
And, you know, my dad spent so much time teaching me and so much time working on me and giving me the tools and the discipline to really adapt and to work in the real world.
That said, I would say it's still an everyday struggle for me.
And in Born Lucky, I equate growing up with autism and having autism to a little bit like being an alcoholic.
It's something you have to work at every single day.
And just a couple of months ago, I was at a golf club with my father-in-law.
We just finished a great round of golf.
We'd played with a couple other guys.
And I was running late and stuffing my golf bag into my travel bag.
We were in the sort of cart area and I'm down on my hands and knees trying to get this in.
And one of the classic characteristics of autism is that you become just totally task focused, right?
And I was really focused on getting the golf bag into the travel bag.
And this older gentleman walks over and he goes, Hi, Leland.
And it was actually somebody we had just played golf with.
I totally ignored him.
And my dad, I could hear my dad's voice, right?
He had taught me, stop what you're doing, be able to sort of break out of that task focus, get up, shake hands, say hello, talk for a few minutes, whatever it is.
And I couldn't do it.
I could hear the voice of my dad, like, Lucky, you need to stop.
You need to say hello to this gentleman.
You need to get up.
And I just couldn't do it.
And, you know, he eventually just walked off.
I was so rude to him.
And I thought, you know, God bless it.
I cannot believe.
I'm like eight years old again.
I'm 43 years old.
I'm married and I'm like just an eight-year-old, just, you know, being me.
And I found his phone number and I sent him a note.
I just said, I want to apologize to you, sir.
I was just so rude to you.
And I really feel terrible about that.
And I'm sorry.
What I didn't follow up with was, oh, by the way, I have autism, right?
And say, sort of use it as an excuse.
So remember, you know, in Born Lucky, I tell you why my dad never told me that I had autism, never told teachers or therapists or family members.
He and my mom struggled alone and felt alone for so long because they didn't want me to be defined by a diagnosis.
And that's the lesson of Born Lucky.
You don't have to be defined by a diagnosis.
Nobody does.
But if you let yourself be defined, if you use it as an excuse, it will always, always be there.
And I think it's one of the reasons it was on the New York Times bestseller list.
It's one of the reasons now that Amazon picked it for its Black Friday books because that message of hope and power is really resonating with folks.
Well, I just, every parent has that moment where you go, is my kid weird?
And then, and there is a temptation to just be like, well, this is just the way he is or she is.
And, you know, we were talking about that in the break is that one of our fears of modern, you know, psychology or modern diagnoses or medicine is that our tendency is to just placate the child and pander to the child as opposed to challenge the child to get better, to improve.
I mean, right, Black, you were telling your story.
Yeah, yeah.
As I've aged, I've so much appreciated how you can change how you are, you know, by developing new habits.
And especially as adults, I think we underrate how much that can happen with children.
Children are not, they are not fixed.
They are constantly becoming.
And you can influence what they become.
Yeah.
Leland, tell everybody how they can get the book.
30 seconds.
The floor is yours.
Oh, thank you.
Born Lucky, it's on sale right now on Amazon.
They picked it out as one of their Black Friday books.
So 25% off on Amazon.
Everybody knows how to get on Amazon, but we'll tweet the links out as well.
And then for all the more information on it, it's just bornlucky.com.
I'm on social media at Leland that are just been so honored by so many who have come on this Born Lucky journey of hope with us.
Yeah.
Well, congratulations on the book.
I just, it's perfect for Thanksgiving.
I am grateful for your dad's influence in your life and the fact that he quit his job to pour into you and to help you become the man that you are.
And just congratulations on all the success, both in professionally and with this book, Leland.
It's really important this week as we're grateful for the good things and for family.
