Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 2: episode is going to be a longer one part of
Speaker 2: the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
Speaker 2: take their days from great to awesome and any advice
Speaker 2: they might have for the rest of us. So today,
Speaker 2: I am delighted to welcome Deirdre Fitzpatrick to the show.
Speaker 2: She has spent twenty five years as the weekday morning
Speaker 2: news anchor for KCIATV, which is the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, California.
Speaker 2: She is also the host of the Dying to Ask
Speaker 2: A podcast. So, Deirdre, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited to hear about your daily routines and
Speaker 2: how you manage your life. I understand that part of
Speaker 2: the job description of being a morning news anchor is
Speaker 2: that you get up very very early.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean back in my college days, I would
Speaker 3: have said it was very late.
Speaker 1: You just staying up the whole time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty much. I've just kind of completely flip flopped.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so my my responsibilities at Case areas. I'm
Speaker 3: a morning news anchor, and our morning news goes from
Speaker 3: four am until ten am, so there's a six hour
Speaker 3: morning news block. I'm responsible primarily for our five am
Speaker 3: to seven am news, So I get up, depending on
Speaker 3: the day, anywhere from about two am to three am.
Speaker 1: That's pretty early.
Speaker 2: It is pretty early, well, and that's because you also
Speaker 2: have you're responsible for the news reporting. I mean, right,
Speaker 2: you're choosing some of like how you're presenting some of it,
Speaker 2: from what stories you're doing, so you actually have to
Speaker 2: work before you go on air.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's interesting. You know a lot of times
Speaker 3: you can kind of cruise into your day and kind
Speaker 3: of amp up. I have to start, Like, my sharpest
Speaker 3: time of the day is between three and six am
Speaker 3: is when I really need to be at my best,
Speaker 3: which is problematic for somebody who gets up at that
Speaker 3: hour because you know, as humans were not really wired
Speaker 3: to do that kind of on the regular. So my
Speaker 3: job is in the morning is we have producers who
Speaker 3: put together the news all night long. My job is
Speaker 3: to come in and be I always say like the
Speaker 3: eighth grade English teacher who comes in with the red
Speaker 3: pen and goes, yeah, yeah, you can't really say that,
Speaker 3: or that's not correct, or we could do this a
Speaker 3: little bit better, and then so I copy it. I
Speaker 3: try to make things sound a little bit more conversational
Speaker 3: so that somebody who's in their bed trying to wake
Speaker 3: up at six am and has turned the news on
Speaker 3: can really kind of process it in a certain kind
Speaker 3: of way. So we write the news in the morning
Speaker 3: a little differently than we would say in the evening.
Speaker 3: People process information differently at different times of the day.
Speaker 3: So my first hour or two I actually work from
Speaker 3: home for the first hour. I get up, I have
Speaker 3: some coffee, and I get right into our computer. I
Speaker 3: catch up on what's happened overnight, read a couple of
Speaker 3: newspapers online, and then I'm writing into scripts and I'm
Speaker 3: messaging our producers and suggesting things or rewriting things. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they'll say, hey, could you write this for me? So
Speaker 3: my job is very very hands on for the first hour.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the whole team is working at two thirty
Speaker 2: three am while you are you are going with this,
Speaker 2: and then what time do you go into the studio.
Speaker 3: So I typically get into my car at around four am.
Speaker 3: I live about twelve minutes to the studio, so you
Speaker 3: can see everything is down to the minute. Yes, that
Speaker 3: was a process. There's a routine.
Speaker 1: There's not too much traffic.
Speaker 3: Fo there's no traffic at that hour. It's actually not
Speaker 3: too bad. So I go in and then I quickly
Speaker 3: get myself writing. It takes me about twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: minutes to get the mankup on, do the hair, and
Speaker 3: then I walk into our studio at about five minutes
Speaker 3: before five o'clock and then we're on for the next
Speaker 3: few hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you are on air till seven am,
Speaker 2: more or less, right, more or less?
Speaker 1: More or less what happens after that?
Speaker 3: So after that I work on other things. So sometimes
Speaker 3: I might be filling in on other hours of our
Speaker 3: news if somebody is out or if something else is needed.
Speaker 3: But for the most part, I shift into the second
Speaker 3: part of my day, which is where I work on
Speaker 3: more project stuff. So I work on the podcast that
Speaker 3: you mentioned dying to ask. I work on special projects.
Speaker 3: So I work for First Television MIT that's who owns
Speaker 3: my station, and for the last eleven Olympics, I've been
Speaker 3: covering the Olympics for her. So I helped create Olympic
Speaker 3: content for thirty television stations, and then I've actually traveled
Speaker 3: to the Olympics every two years to go follow athletes
Speaker 3: for these stations and work on stories. So I have
Speaker 3: a very self managed project list. Yeah, when you've been
Speaker 3: in a place for that long, if you're known as
Speaker 3: the one who's really good at just getting stuff done,
Speaker 3: people tend to go hands off and say, hey, when
Speaker 3: do you think you'll have that ready? So I keep
Speaker 3: myself busy, which, you know, I think if you're going
Speaker 3: to stay in a job for that long is really
Speaker 3: crucial because it's really easy if you've been in a
Speaker 3: if you've been at least on the surface in the
Speaker 3: same job for a really long time, it can get
Speaker 3: very road and to not get like that, especially in
Speaker 3: a job that for me is as performance based as
Speaker 3: it is journalism based, you know, in terms of like
Speaker 3: the preparation and the presentation. You have to stay engaged.
Speaker 3: And so having all these other projects for me kind
Speaker 3: of feeds the creative part that I love about being
Speaker 3: a television journalist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how do you come up with your ideas?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I'm thinking of like three things just
Speaker 3: while we're talking I mean, ideas are everywhere. It's kind
Speaker 3: of like it's like writing, Laura. I mean, where do
Speaker 3: great ideas come from? They come from really quiet moments
Speaker 3: that might come when you're out on a run and
Speaker 3: you notice something happening at the corner that you didn't
Speaker 3: notice the other day. Sometimes people are emailing you and
Speaker 3: they're suggesting ideas. Sometimes it could be just within your
Speaker 3: own local community. I mean, I have kids, I'm in schools.
Speaker 3: People are telling me about things all the time. I
Speaker 3: went to a presentation at my son's high school last night,
Speaker 3: and I think I walked away with at least six
Speaker 3: story ideas from it, you know that about a subject
Speaker 3: that I knew nothing about before I walked in. I
Speaker 3: thought I got to file that away. So ideas come
Speaker 3: from everywhere if you are open enough to see them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. So, and when does a work day
Speaker 2: sort of end for you?
Speaker 3: So the workday technically ends, I'm usually done by about lunchtime,
Speaker 3: so about eleven twelve, I've put in my eight or
Speaker 3: nine hours, you know, on the clock. The reality is
Speaker 3: that with a job like this, probably similar to a
Speaker 3: job like yours, you know, never really done done there's
Speaker 3: always that straight email that probably needs to be looked at.
Speaker 3: And because I work these kind of off hours, I
Speaker 3: like to stay in touch, knowing what I'm heading into
Speaker 3: the next day, So you try to be careful about
Speaker 3: how much you're doing that in the afternoons. But I
Speaker 3: would say that I probably work a little bit more
Speaker 3: than I should once I leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, because if you have started working at
Speaker 2: three am and you're you know, a normal work day
Speaker 2: would be done at noon, but the rest of the
Speaker 2: world is not done working at noon. I would imagine
Speaker 2: you have to actually actively put in some boundaries in
Speaker 2: order to create some personal time.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've gotten better about that. I think,
Speaker 3: like most women, once we get to be on a
Speaker 3: certain age, you start realizing that's not a great idea
Speaker 3: to continue doing that, so I do so I will
Speaker 3: set like it. I will purposely not take my work
Speaker 3: I have two different phones. I have a personal phone
Speaker 3: and I have a work phone, and I will leave
Speaker 3: the work phone if I don't think I need to
Speaker 3: have it. I'll leave it at home while I'm out
Speaker 3: running errants in the afternoon, but I might check before
Speaker 3: I go to bed, just to make sure that something
Speaker 3: hasn't changed, so I think, you know, it's really easy,
Speaker 3: and we all definitely fell into this during the pandemic
Speaker 3: of doing things all the time. The truth is that
Speaker 3: that's not really good for anyone, so I try to
Speaker 3: be really careful. The weird thing I run into is that,
Speaker 3: you know, my workday starts at three am, and I
Speaker 3: will send, I'll respond to emails at that time. But
Speaker 3: for people who don't necessarily know exactly what I do
Speaker 3: in the hours that I keep, it comes across as
Speaker 3: very aggressive. So I have recently been told that I
Speaker 3: should really think about sending those emails later. So I
Speaker 3: don't know what the like fine line is because it's
Speaker 3: really clear of my work email what I do for
Speaker 3: a living. But that was a new one that kind
Speaker 3: of came at me this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to take a quick ad break. I
Speaker 2: will be back with more from Dirja. So I am
Speaker 2: back talking with Deirdre Fitzpatrick, who is the morning anchor
Speaker 2: of KCRITV, the NBC affiliate and Sacramento. We've been talking
Speaker 2: about how early she has to get up in order
Speaker 2: to be on air from five to seven in most mornings.
Speaker 2: But with that, I imagine you have to go to
Speaker 2: bed pretty early to be up at two thirty or
Speaker 2: three in the morning.
Speaker 1: What does that look like for you?
Speaker 3: It doesn't look like what it should. I mean, if
Speaker 3: you back time, you know, to get the recommended eight
Speaker 3: hours of sleep, I should be in bed at dinner time.
Speaker 3: But that's not terribly practical. So I try to protect
Speaker 3: sleep as much as I can, particularly these days, because
Speaker 3: I used to be able to muscle through and kind
Speaker 3: of power through anything, and that just stopped working at
Speaker 3: a certain point, you know. So now I'm a little
Speaker 3: bit more careful about it. I always say, if I
Speaker 3: wake up and I've got a six in front of it,
Speaker 3: I feel pretty good. And then on the weekends, I'm
Speaker 3: really good about getting an eight in front of that
Speaker 3: total sleep, maybe even pushing a nine. On the odd day,
Speaker 3: I probably go to bed, I would say by about
Speaker 3: between eight and nine. I prefer to go to bed
Speaker 3: around eight o'clock. But you know, I have teenagers. They
Speaker 3: don't ever want to talk to you until it's late
Speaker 3: and inconvenient, and so I've had to shift that a
Speaker 3: little bit over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to ask about that because of
Speaker 2: course teenagers have the total opposite schedule, like they might
Speaker 2: stay up until two thirty three am, and so you
Speaker 2: would completely be ships passing in the night in your house,
Speaker 2: or even just if they have events in the evening,
Speaker 2: you know that the school concert gets done at nine
Speaker 2: fifteen or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you sort of work that into your life,
Speaker 1: knowing that you do have to be upset.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question because it's not
Speaker 3: just me obviously. I mean, my job comes with a
Speaker 3: certain kind of lifestyle, and it's not a lifestyle that's
Speaker 3: really for everyone, but for my family members, it's the
Speaker 3: lifestyle that affects them as well. So you know, my
Speaker 3: husband and I just celebrate our twentieth anniversary and he's
Speaker 3: never like seen me on a Tuesday at ten pm,
Speaker 3: like to have a conversation. So it is it is
Speaker 3: a bit of an adjustment. And I've talked to people
Speaker 3: in other fields who work, say in emergency medicine, where
Speaker 3: it's also very common to work these odd shift hours,
Speaker 3: and it does take a lot of flexibility from the
Speaker 3: other family members. Now there are advantages for those family
Speaker 3: members too, because if somebody needs to go do a
Speaker 3: doctor's appointment in the middle of the afternoon, I'm your girl, right,
Speaker 3: somebody needs to go run to Costco or pick up
Speaker 3: the dry cleaning. I'm available to do those things. However,
Speaker 3: doing something at nine or ten o'clock at night is
Speaker 3: not really conducive to me being able to do my
Speaker 3: job at full capacity. So not only does it take
Speaker 3: a lot of cooperation I think from your family members
Speaker 3: and discipline for everybody. I really rely on my parent
Speaker 3: network too. I have a group of moms who know
Speaker 3: that for sports pickups and drop offs, I'm great to
Speaker 3: go take the kids wherever, but if there's going to
Speaker 3: be a pick up at eight o'clock, nine o'clock or later,
Speaker 3: I really need some help with that one. If my
Speaker 3: husband's not available to go pick up my sons. So there,
Speaker 3: it takes a lot of planning, obviously, but also I
Speaker 3: think a lot of flexibility with the people in your life.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, I'm curious. I mean, one of the bits
Speaker 2: of sleep advice people always have out there is like
Speaker 2: trying to maintain something near the same schedule into weekends,
Speaker 2: and I imagine that that's also just not something that
Speaker 2: would really happen.
Speaker 3: I have no we do. I've known people who do that,
Speaker 3: and I don't know how that flies with their spouses.
Speaker 3: That would not fly in my house. But I'm not
Speaker 3: that far off. So if on a weekday, I'm I
Speaker 3: go to bed at eight o'clock, I mean, honestly, Laura,
Speaker 3: I want to go to bed by ten on a
Speaker 3: Saturday night.
Speaker 2: You're really tired. I mean, I'm doti Yeah, yeah, I've
Speaker 2: been working all week.
Speaker 3: Yes, but I'll probably still like to get up early.
Speaker 3: I mean, I still I like mornings.
Speaker 1: I love morning person I'm in. I imagine, with your
Speaker 1: line of work, you kind of have to be. But
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 3: You should be? Not all people are, but I am,
Speaker 3: but yeah I am. I love the quiet of a morning.
Speaker 3: I love the freshness. I love that nothing has gone
Speaker 3: wrong when that alarm clock goes goes off, like nothing
Speaker 3: has ruined the day yet, right, It's all just fresh,
Speaker 3: full of possibility. I love the quiet my favorite hour
Speaker 3: of the day. I used to really hate when that
Speaker 3: alarm went off and I got up and I was
Speaker 3: walking around. I was really resentful of it. And then
Speaker 3: I started looking at it as Wow, this is completely
Speaker 3: my time. And now on the odd occasion that somebody
Speaker 3: is awake in my house. I'm kind of annoyed by.
Speaker 1: It, like I don't know, what are you doing? What
Speaker 1: are you doing? This is why are you here? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, now I'm very curious because a lot of people
Speaker 2: who exercise seriously do that in the morning. And I
Speaker 2: know that you are a competitive athlete, You've done Iron Man,
Speaker 2: Ultra marathons, all that. I don't believe that you are
Speaker 2: training at two thirty am for those things.
Speaker 1: So when does that fit in?
Speaker 3: Not necessarily training for those things at that time, But
Speaker 3: I do get a little bit of movement in the
Speaker 3: morning just to wake my brain up. And I listened
Speaker 3: to before breakfast because it's kind of I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 3: I go into my gym in the garage. We've got
Speaker 3: a garage gym, and I have for years. I've listened
Speaker 3: to you. So you're actually, oddly one of the first
Speaker 3: voices I hear in the day. Quite a lovely but
Speaker 3: you know, just like a couple of minutes. And I think,
Speaker 3: especially for working parents who are really busy, even if
Speaker 3: you're not working odd hours, I think getting a couple
Speaker 3: of minutes of exercise throughout the day is what gives
Speaker 3: you that energy to go deal with whatever schedule you
Speaker 3: have to deal with. So I do a little bit
Speaker 3: of that, but my time is really after work. I
Speaker 3: like a reset because sometimes the news is really it's
Speaker 3: not all happy, right, So I love that little swite
Speaker 3: it out, get it out sessions. So second I'm done
Speaker 3: with work, I either change at work into the workout clothes,
Speaker 3: so it's a lot harder to talk yourself out of
Speaker 3: it when you get home, or I change instantly when
Speaker 3: I get home and I walk out the door. So
Speaker 3: I'm a runner. I run the neighborhood. So I do
Speaker 3: those things almost instantly, and they're non negotiable. They must happen.
Speaker 1: And about how much time are you devoting to that?
Speaker 3: Not as much time as you would think. I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people think it would take hours, you know.
Speaker 3: I like I do marathons. I do not do the
Speaker 3: amount of training you should be doing. I am not
Speaker 3: something you want to come.
Speaker 1: To spend less time on it. Yes, yes, I do not.
Speaker 3: What I do though, is I do try to maintain
Speaker 3: a certain level of fitness so that if there is
Speaker 3: that race or a project or a you know, a
Speaker 3: girlfriend calls and says, Hey, we're going to go up
Speaker 3: to the mountains. We're going to do this. Come do it.
Speaker 3: Then I can pull it off. So am I gonna
Speaker 3: win it? Absolutely not. Am I going to hang in
Speaker 3: there till the end? Absolutely? And I'm probably gonna have
Speaker 3: a pretty good time while I'm doing it, because I do.
Speaker 3: When you have that time to go and exercise or
Speaker 3: be with your friends or just have that free time,
Speaker 3: I really have learned to enjoy it and be in
Speaker 3: the moment. I speak terrible about that, and I am
Speaker 3: not anymore. I really really am there.
Speaker 1: If I'm there and there, Well, what's the longest race
Speaker 1: you've done?
Speaker 3: Fifty kilometers?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's about thirty miles, right, thirty.
Speaker 3: Well, it's supposed to be about thirty one. They're rarely
Speaker 3: measured exact, so can vary a little bit.
Speaker 2: What is I am very curious mentally, like what you're
Speaker 2: doing during thirty one miles where you're running and trying
Speaker 2: to keep yourself moving forward?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm doing? I'm talking, Yes, I'm
Speaker 3: talking NonStop because I run them with my girlfriends. Okay,
Speaker 3: so I have a couple of girlfriends who live in
Speaker 3: different cities will meet up and that's the time that
Speaker 3: we have together. So our joke is the longer we
Speaker 3: take to do this, the more time we get together
Speaker 3: away from the children. We have no responsibilities out here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: unless you're like a super serious person, you're in it
Speaker 3: to win it. You're in it to finish it, which
Speaker 3: means that when you're coming to a steep hill, you're
Speaker 3: really hiking it. And out here, I live in northern California.
Speaker 3: I mean it's very, very beautiful. So these are these
Speaker 3: like incredible vistas and mountains and your nature and it's
Speaker 3: just like a really lovely moment. So even if it's
Speaker 3: a really long day, it still ends up being really fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, more power to you. I think I might
Speaker 1: enjoy the beauty for about three miles with it.
Speaker 3: You know what, With the right people and the right snacks,
Speaker 3: I think you could do it.
Speaker 1: You can do it.
Speaker 2: Well, We're going to take one more quick ad break
Speaker 2: and I'll be back with more from Deerdriff.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I am back interviewing Deerdrif Fitzpatrick for Before Breakfast. She
Speaker 2: has told us that she listens to this show in
Speaker 2: the morning, so that is very exciting to hear.
Speaker 1: So I want to hear a little bit more about.
Speaker 2: Your Olympics experience, because you have been doing this for
Speaker 2: a great many years. You fly off, you cover what's
Speaker 2: going on with there. I wonder if there's a particular
Speaker 2: memory or two that was formative of those experiences that
Speaker 2: you'd be willing to share.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I started doing this back in two thousand,
Speaker 3: so almost twenty five years ago. When we started doing it.
Speaker 3: We launched this project in my company and we send
Speaker 3: every two years. What we've done is we've sent a
Speaker 3: small team eight to ten people to the Olympics to
Speaker 3: do what we call group coverage. So it's a small
Speaker 3: amount of people reporting and producing content for lots of
Speaker 3: different stations, and there are three reporter photographer teams, And
Speaker 3: the illusion for all of these stations as you do
Speaker 3: live shots for them is that I'm there just for you,
Speaker 3: when in fact I'm actually there for thirty stations. So
Speaker 3: you really get a chance to cover and interact with
Speaker 3: athletes from all the different sports and really from all
Speaker 3: over the country, which has been super fun. I would say, like, honestly,
Speaker 3: my favorite thus far would be the Paris Olympics, and
Speaker 3: I think it's because you know, we had this gap
Speaker 3: of two Olympics being just so unbelievably weird during the pandemic.
Speaker 3: Those are the ones I did not travel for. And
Speaker 3: to be in Paris this past summer with these athletes
Speaker 3: and doing these stories and with the Eiffel Tower behind
Speaker 3: me is my office was like a pinch me moment
Speaker 3: all day long because it was so joyous after really
Speaker 3: difficult ears for a lot of people. There was so
Speaker 3: much joy every day, no matter who you met, of
Speaker 3: people who were so grateful to have this experience. I've
Speaker 3: always loved the Olympics, just the wonder of it and
Speaker 3: the magic and the underdogs and the people who you know,
Speaker 3: literally dedicate their entire lives for a couple of seconds
Speaker 3: of opportunity. Sometimes at works, sometimes it doesn't, and I've
Speaker 3: always just absolutely loved it. So to be in that
Speaker 3: environment after COVID, after the pandemic, and to be in
Speaker 3: this international experience where people were really in a great
Speaker 3: mood every single day, it was like this unbelievable professional gift.
Speaker 1: And I love the weird sports, oh right, like the
Speaker 1: ones that you're what's your favorite?
Speaker 3: Like of those people don't know?
Speaker 2: But I mean I just like the random things that
Speaker 2: you don't even hear about for four years. I mean
Speaker 2: like in the winter ones where they're doing the luge
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Like that, and it's like people dedicate their lives to sledding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I love that. I love that fact competitive
Speaker 1: sledding exactly.
Speaker 3: So I've been down the Olympic bob sled track in
Speaker 3: York City twice.
Speaker 1: Wo and how is that?
Speaker 3: The first time was absolutely awful. They give you the
Speaker 3: safety lesson. I did not pay attention, and I suffered
Speaker 3: for it, because if you don't sit in the bob
Speaker 3: sled and do certain things, it's like being in a
Speaker 3: car accident over and over and over again. Second time,
Speaker 3: not only did I listen, I was like in it
Speaker 3: to find out, like could I be good at this?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I could not, But I'm.
Speaker 1: Not going to be your next career.
Speaker 3: Slightly enjoyed the experience a little bit more, but I
Speaker 3: had that same realization and like, wow, somebody does this
Speaker 3: every single day to be the best person on the
Speaker 3: planet and doing this how amazing?
Speaker 1: Just like terrifying, Like throw yourself down a hill.
Speaker 3: Like that a if you're on skeleton, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like oh, the physical courage is amazing, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure that you have many stories of covering that. So
Speaker 2: you also read a lot. I understand you. Sometimes you
Speaker 2: make time in your busy schedule to read. When does
Speaker 2: that happen?
Speaker 3: So I read, you know, kind of like I do
Speaker 3: everything a little bit here and there all the time.
Speaker 3: You know, there are these pockets I guess you have
Speaker 3: highlighted through the timelogs. There are these pockets of time
Speaker 3: in your day that you don't even realize you have.
Speaker 3: So if I'm in the long line at the grocery store,
Speaker 3: I've got a book in my backpack. I will pull
Speaker 3: out a book standing in the grocery store line and
Speaker 3: get through a couple of pages. I am probably because
Speaker 3: of my job, a very very fast reader could take
Speaker 3: into information very quickly, So I will. I really try
Speaker 3: to default to a book over scrolling my phone. Always.
Speaker 3: I love going to the library. Love the library. There's
Speaker 3: nowhere more fun to me than going to the library
Speaker 3: on a Friday afternoon. Love to do that. And so
Speaker 3: I've always got a book, and I'm always trying to
Speaker 3: sneak it in. I just I feel better, you know,
Speaker 3: even as a kid, that was always the thing that
Speaker 3: got my brain going and helped me think of those
Speaker 3: new ideas and really calm me down too. And so
Speaker 3: I sneak the reading in like I sneak a workout in,
Speaker 3: or like you sneak anything for yourself in when you're
Speaker 3: a working mom.
Speaker 2: Well, and I love the idea that if you are
Speaker 2: mostly done for the day with work at noon, the
Speaker 2: library is still open. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: The other upside of this schedule.
Speaker 3: Is people always wonder, like, how do you do things
Speaker 3: when you work that schedule? I look at people who
Speaker 3: work a traditional nine to five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you can't go to anything right where where's
Speaker 2: you've got the afternoon?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're up.
Speaker 3: There's some flexibility. You might feel a little jet lagged
Speaker 3: at times, but there is only some flexibility to do things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so du joe.
Speaker 2: One question I always ask guests is what have you
Speaker 2: done lately to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 3: From great to awesome?
Speaker 1: Anything that just made a day a little bit better?
Speaker 3: You know? I I have this year, I have my
Speaker 3: first kid went to college. And that's a really you
Speaker 3: haven't had that yet?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: You still have one?
Speaker 1: And no, my oldest is the senior. So the next
Speaker 1: year will be okay.
Speaker 3: So I'll give you something that happened this morning at
Speaker 3: three am with my college kid. He happened to come
Speaker 3: home last night. He had to drop off a car
Speaker 3: back at our house. You go to college in the
Speaker 3: Bay Area, so he drove the car back home. I
Speaker 3: thought he was bringing one friend with him. Well, as
Speaker 3: it turns out, when I woke up this morning at
Speaker 3: two am, he had brought four friends home with him
Speaker 3: and they were here for like mere hours. Laura, and
Speaker 3: so I wake up at two am and there are
Speaker 3: five college kids, five college freshmen, crashed out in my
Speaker 3: living room while I'm trying to get ready for work,
Speaker 3: and he says, we need a ride to the train
Speaker 3: station at four Is that okay? It's on your way
Speaker 3: to work? And I said sure. I'm really learning to
Speaker 3: go at the flow, and that opportunity to take these
Speaker 3: kids literally just driving them to the train station could
Speaker 3: have been a nothing burger, right. Instead, I chose to
Speaker 3: just really really enjoy the spirit of a nineteen year
Speaker 3: old who thinks that it's a great idea to drive
Speaker 3: two hours at eleven pm the night before, only to
Speaker 3: get up a couple hours later to take a three
Speaker 3: hour train and to go right back to where they started.
Speaker 3: And it put me in the best mood this morning
Speaker 3: because I got to be around and suck in some
Speaker 3: of their energy at a very odd time of the day,
Speaker 3: and that took me from good to great in a
Speaker 3: very unexpected way, because I can tell you when I
Speaker 3: went to bed last night, I did not see that coming.
Speaker 3: It was not on my bigo guard for today, not
Speaker 3: on the big card.
Speaker 1: I love that energy too. I mean, they're kind of nuts,
Speaker 1: but you know it's good. It's good. Maybe they need
Speaker 1: less sleep.
Speaker 2: Than the rest of us, but yeah, I think the
Speaker 2: exactly well, Danjit, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Everyone who is listening to this.
Speaker 2: You can catch her on Casey ra and Sacramento if
Speaker 2: you happen to live around there, or you can listen
Speaker 2: to the Dying to Ask podcast if you'd like to
Speaker 2: hear her talking with various guests talking about self improvement
Speaker 2: in general. And if you have feedback on this or
Speaker 2: any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura
Speaker 2: at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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