Born Lucky, Not Easy🍀

From the moment doctors called him “a very lucky baby,” the odds were actually stacked against Leland Vittert. Born severely cross-eyed, nonverbal until age three, and navigating what we’d now call the autism spectrum, he was the kid teachers labeled “weird” and bullies called “retarded.” His parents made a radical choice: no formal diagnosis, no special label, no lowered expectations. Instead, his father’s relentless tough love, breakfast talks about politics, push-ups on the floor, and nightly debriefs after brutal school days became Leland’s real therapy.

In Born Lucky, Vittert traces how that unorthodox upbringing turned a lonely, awkward boy into a war correspondent in Cairo and Jerusalem, and eventually the host of On Balance. It’s a story about parenting without a roadmap, managing autism in a world that wouldn’t bend, and redefining what “lucky” really means.

Read our summary to see how grit, love, and one stubborn family changed the odds.