The negative thing about working on a breakfast show is that the alarm goes off at 2:15 A.M., and I get picked up at 2:30 A.M. That's just insanely early.
The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win - you pass the test.
It's not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn't sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?
I've tried many different types of alarm apps, but the tried and true is the iPhone alarm. I like it because you can label your alarms. For my personal amusement, I've labeled them 3 a.m. for 'ridiculously early,' 3:30 is just 'early,' and 4 is 'slacker.'
The freakiest thing about working on a Russo set is that the standards are so insanely high for everyone in every department that they don't police you through stuff. They're like, Here's this insanely difficult thing; do it.' And then they just expect you to be able to do it, because they don't hire folks who can't.
When my alarm goes off between 6 to 6:30 A.M, the first thing I do is reach for my phone. I look at Twitter to see the headlines. It's become my news aggregator. Then I check my Instagram.
I try to do an hour of cardio on the days that I have off, and then I'll do 30 to 45 minutes on show days. That's the first thing I do when I wake up, I have breakfast and then I'll hit the gym.
Basically, I am a night owl. My wife is an early bird, so she goes to bed around 9:30, and my kids are in bed about 8. So, if I am home, I will usually start writing about 9:30 and go till about 12:30 or 1:30, depending on what my energy level is.
Don't think in the morning. That's a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don't think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.
As a child, I had to get up early for school or work. I'd get ready by myself. I'd set my alarm to wake me up very early in the morning, and be off to work, the family driver driving me every morning. I did it alone, my parents never coming in to wake me up.
I was a swimmer growing up, which meant being in the pool at 5 a.m. You get used to it. You get up at 4:15 a.m.; my parents, who were amazing, they were up at 4:15 a.m. or earlier to drop me off at the pool and then go to work. I eventually stopped doing that, but the pattern remained. I like getting up really early. It feels like my time of day.
I usually wake up at 7, 7:15, without an alarm. I hate the sound of an alarm.
The wonderful thing about a TV show is if you get picked up for another season, there's no happily ever after.
I started skating when I was about 10 years old. It was in an alleyway. I picked up my brother's skateboard and stood on it. I started to roll down the alley, and I yelled at my brother asking him how I turn the thing. At the end of the alley, I just jumped off, picked up the board and physically turned it around.
When you are working on a TV show or series, you just get into the routine. You get used to getting up early. It takes a few days, but once you are up and running, you get used to going home late, and it becomes this very repetitive cycle.
One thing I'd like to just keep on doing is I want to educate people about animal behavior and about autism. I've been doing autism talks for the last 20 years and there still are people out there that do not want to, they can't recognize that these sensory problems are real. That, for some of these kids when that fire alarm goes off, that really hurts the ears, it's a really real thing.
When John, my husband, was alive, he had a strict timetable. We would get up at 7:30 every morning and go out to breakfast, and I'd have a little nap in the afternoon if I had a show to do at night.