Yo welcome into the House of L podcast. I am Lauren Tomes. Thank you so much for hanging out with me.

I guess I should reiterate for people who are just now joining House of L.

We love to talk with people and hear their stories about the whole point of House of L is talking with creatives about how they got to where they are and where they're going next.

So inside the podcast we do a lot of stuff like we do the sports adjacent podcast with the guy who's on this episode and Jason Leisure and Anthony Gil.

We do a baseball podcast and there's baseball season I'm doing some more basketball stuff and kind of popery like all this stuff.

We love to talk with people and hear their stories and media people in Chicago and I know there are a lot of you that don't listen that aren't in Chicago and I appreciate it.

But media people in Chicago carry a big weight. I don't know why it is that the media people here are celebrities but apparently they're celebrities so hearing their stories and I like for them.

I like for people to tell me about the hard stuff when they thought that they weren't going to make it and what are the things that help push them through.

Because I feel that those are lessons that can cross over from one type of job to another.

You can listen to the lessons of Mark Rodi and know that they don't just apply to people that are working in radio and television that there's a struggle for a lot of people when it comes to substance abuse that they have to work through.

You know what I mean?

You can listen to Afiyah Awusu talking about imposter syndrome in our episode and know that that's something that isn't just the business of broadcasting.

So I'm glad that we have this forum and I'm glad that you're listening to this particular episode because this is great.

This is a celebratory episode here.

I had always planned on having Russ Dorsey on House of L where was just me and him and we could just talk about the industry mainly because I think he's really sharp and we have if I could

tap my own phone.

This episode of House of L will sound very much like what a conversation between Russ and I on the phone sounds like.

I don't talk on the phone too many people.

I always pick up the phone for Russ.

I do this for a living.

I talk to people on the phone basically for a living.

So I don't usually talk a ton to folks on the phone.

...