Full Transcript for 41 - Charlies' in Charge

go, you know, it just wasn't, it wasn't in the cards and I don't. I don't think that's necessarily bad, because the industry of itself is one that's repressed from a money making perspective and that's a big, the big old story, you know, around carriers and the channel and stuff like that. But ultimately, like I want to go to greener pastures and so that's. Charlie Apigian: 3:41 That's actually one of the things that we want to talk about too, because we've we've been dealing with change and I've been dealing with this for almost a year, or actually a year now, from the start and the reason is, in case it wasn't obvious, your company was bought, and, and, as the CEO of a company that gets bought, is then the new leadership's decision on what to do with the old leadership, and it just wasn't a fit and and and they made. Charlie Yielding: 4:14 Well, they just weren't ready for another leader. I think that was more. That was more of the case. They, they didn't like we all thought the same and we all felt the same and stuff like that. But ultimately they had people that they needed to make sure we're okay and they, because they were not okay with bringing in somebody from the outside, and that that does happen and rather than destroy the you know, the cohesion that they currently have, it just you know it's not now. Yeah. Charlie Yielding: 4:41 And so they gave. They gave good reasons, like they want me to build up a reputation with the people, even though they know what I can do, they be in the C suite and even though Nashville knows what we can do and the folks that I work with and you know, in some cases that may have worked, but for now that's it's not what I'm looking for, because I want to have control over where I'm going and what I'm doing, and I can't do that when people in Michigan control what I do, for you know work and whatnot. And so I'm we're getting to this a little bit more, but I'm excited, terrified, all of the things at once about what's happening. But I was telling you before like I feel like if the term turn into page to a new chapter is real, then today I put my fingers on the page and started folding that paper back and then by the end of next week I'll be, I'll have completed that turn. Charlie Apigian: 5:38 Yeah, and you know I actually said it wasn't turning a page, it was closing a book and starting a brand new one. Charlie Yielding: 5:45 Oh, that's a good one too. Charlie Apigian: 5:45 Because I also had kids leaving the house and moving into a new house, moving into a new neighborhood. Everything was happening, and so it was turning into a completely new book and maybe that's you know it's not a new chapter. Why can't it be volume two? Charlie Yielding: 6:06 right I mean that's a fair way to look at it Like I have not dealt with. You know, I've had a job for 15 years and so that's been steady. Sure, I've grown through that job, so I've done the whole thing the whole time,

or the same thing the whole time. But for the past seven years I've been a CEO of a company here at Nashville and it's been, you know, ups and downs, great, my great pleasure watching those around me succeed. I led through the pandemic, which is a whole another thing, and so I picked up a lot of experience that people in my position would not have, and I don't begrudge it. But my change is just like my job. You've changed jobs, cities, responsibilities like empty nested, like I can't even like your life right now compared to like even two, three years ago. Charlie Yielding: 7:00 About three years ago, yeah yeah, it is night and day, yeah. So how are you feeling these days? Charlie Apigian: 7:05 Yeah, I'm not ready to go to me yet. Let's stick with you for a second. All right I figured it out, Because I've got questions Go back 15 years ago. You started there. That whole industry was new for you at that point. Charlie Yielding: 7:26 It was the business side of. It was net new but I'd sold cell phones. Charlie Apigian: 7:30 Okay, and how quickly did it go from, I'm gonna say, entry level, or at least, you know, initially, to any type of leadership? Charlie Yielding: 7:41 Leadership. Charlie Apigian: 7:42 Yeah, management, leadership, whatever. Charlie Yielding: 7:44 Well, I went. So I started acquiring extra responsibilities, almost to me. Charlie Apigian: 7:49 And at that point, how big was the company? Charlie Yielding: 7:51 I was the eighth employee. Okay, so in small businesses like that, like if you're willing to do something and they'll give it to you, yeah, well, hopefully, yeah, and they'll give it to you Because you know you can't one person can't do everything. Charlie Apigian: 8:02 Were they things that you were equipped to do, or that Negative? Okay see. Charlie Yielding: 8:08 I love hearing that. So I had to learn a lot, and I think I've talked about it before when we were talking about the organization stuff, like I got to a point. It took about nine months from when I started to where I was just completely under water as I kept on saying give me, give me, give me, give me, without a thought of like how it's actually gonna get done, and so I could only work from the office at that point effectively, and so I had to do it all in eight hours while taking phone calls. And you know, at the time I was given the room to fail, meaning I didn't get fired or anything like that. But I was also told that I had to get better, and so that's the thing that I've experienced myself. Charlie Yielding: 8:46 And then I've watched other people experience it and I know it's not easy, and so that's one of the things that I told them today was just like it has been my absolute pleasure to watch them grow, because it helps me grow, and so I'm only as good as they can be, if that makes sense, because they've got to fill in for the things that I'm reaching for. Charlie Yielding: 9:08 So if I want to pick up something new, somebody else has to pick up what I can't do because of it. And so as you work your way up, it's constantly like give me stuff and I'm gonna offload stuff, and where people get jammed up is when they they don't know how to offload properly. But that's a whole separate conversation. Yeah, and so it's been something that it's like an identity almost. It's like this is what we do, we grow people and stuff like that, and so letting go of that was really hard, but I started reaching for responsibility really quick and didn't stop. Okay, I never said no, I never said I mean, and that's my mentality, I don't think everybody has to be like that, but if you're gonna grow, you say yes to opportunities, whether they're in your wheelhouse or not. Charlie Apigian: 9:55 And you chose then, as a leader, to build people. Charlie Yielding: 9:59 Yeah, I didn't see another way. It's like you come up in a certain environment. Like you come up and you specifically came up in a different type of work environment than I did. And even when I was younger like the different type of retail jobs, I got to experience a lot Like I got to experience very, very micromanagey type managers and I got to experience people who didn't care enough. And I got to experience all this, all the goods and bads, but it was in these little, you know, like microcosm type jobs. Charlie Yielding: 10:30 It's like you work in a department you never see any kind of big picture or anything like that, and when you get into a position to where you are the leader and you are deciding where the company goes, the you know you've got to decide how you're gonna get there. And just when I started looking at it in the beginning, that's all I saw is like I've got to get these people built up. Because I read a book called Five Star Leadership and I'll look it up and put it in the notes. But the concept of Five Star Leadership is like are you an effective leader is based off of how well things work when you're not around. Charlie Yielding: 11:08 Effective Five Star Leaders could disappear and it wouldn't impede the progress of the business. And so what I like to think is that me leaving G squared is not going to impact the day to day, because AMI didn't need the leadership piece and they didn't need the network. They needed people who would get the job done and would standardize the job and train people and do all the stuff that G squared does. Well, that's not just help desk for mobile devices and whatnot, and so I kind of rambled there for a bit. Charlie Apigian: 11:42 That's okay, that's okay. And again, it's still raw, and I don't care if this isn't the most perfect podcast. Charlie Apigian: 11:50 I probably won't sound as happy as I normally do, because I'm trying to figure out how to say what I want about me, because I've gone through a lot, but at the same time I you know it's the high road idea, so it's

easier to just talk about you and again, I don't want to stop on that yet what I do I, and seeing that I'm not going to be, and seeing what you have done, I want to get to, like our future stuff after we go through things. I think it's important to talk about why it's so hard to go, you know, cause it's a safe place. You've been doing something within your silo and I'll say silo, as in your company right. Charlie Apigian: 12:41 And you think what you do is good. Now you got to see if it can happen outside that, and I'm saying it this way because I think that's how I feel too. Charlie Yielding: 12:52 Yeah, so we've been, we've been tested I wouldn't say in a vacuum, but in a certain situation. And to clarify a little bit, it's like we have positions, we have statuses and stuff like that, but we've also both been in those positions with those statuses for a while and so we worked up to it. And so now can you repeat, and can we repeat, Can we be successful in anything? And that's a big question that every single person who wants to try and do something has to answer or has to like. Maybe the answer comes after you put in the effort, and so like, for me, if I just blindly throw the effort at something, I'm way better than if I try to calculate every move. I'll make a mess in the beginning, but it's just the getting started thing that works for me, and so I feel like I can do whatever I want. And then the thing you know, after having the emotional piece just a little bit ago and I intentionally wanted to talk about this after, because, in the context of turning the page, I want to make a declaration that I am going to give whatever I do 100%, and so there are multiple options at this point, you know, do I do something myself? And if I do something myself, you know where does the, you know what is it, what's the product going to be? Do I do something that's more charity based Cause we've got that option, sure, and in all of that stuff is like available. Charlie Yielding: 14:21 But then also what's available is like I could just go get a job. I could just go be told what to do, date and day out, and maybe that would be good for me for a bit. But I think longterm I've just learned how to look up and out and I can't take that away. It hurts to not have the visibility. It's like once you drive a car, you kind of pay attention to the road, and now that I know the road's there and I see things in the road, I want to swerve. And when leadership that exists doesn't line up with that, it bothers me, and so I don't want to be in a situation where I'm not connected to that. And so if I did get a job, it would have to be from that top level perspective. But I'm also kind of hungry to build something as well, because I enjoyed that the most, or that was what I enjoyed the most at G squared was the ability to build something. Oh, we need something to take care of a problem. I got you. Charlie Apigian: 15:16 Yeah, and you know it's, it's okay if you bounce a little bit to get those extra skills that you are confidence, like go do a contract with somebody and things like that. And then while you're doing that, so you know I the one thing you can't do is just sit on your hands forever, right, and so that's, at some point you got to just go do something, and whether that is work for somebody else, which is not terrible, I don't know. Charlie Yielding: 15:47 Actually, yeah, you hear a lot of people talking about like I can't. I can't imagine what it's like to go sitting in cubicle for eight hours a day and stuff like that. I'm here to tell you some people love that. Yeah, some people that's. All they want to do is they want to exchange their time for a predefined amount of work. That happened in a certain way and they're they're good. Charlie Apigian: 16:07 Yeah, and it lets them do their stuff externally that they want to do. And I see I almost envy that now because I got so far away from doing fun stuff because I was working all the time. Charlie Yielding: 16:20 I'm I'm kind of envious of that, but, like I said earlier, I can't put my head down anymore and I'm wondering, you know like, from that position, I'm wondering like I wonder, who these, you know who's, who are they networking with? Who are they getting to know? Are they up on the latest technologies? And you know, that was one of the things that I was worried about at the in this previous situation is like what are they looking at? Because I didn't get. I didn't get the opportunity to see behind the veil, because they were making decisions and they played close stuff, close to the chest, which is not a big deal, and I didn't. I didn't have an expectation that they come to me and like, say, is this plan fine by you? And stuff like that. But I, I made my mind up pretty early on that it was leadership or nothing for me, and so when, whether they didn't get that, that made the, the choice easier. Yeah. Charlie Yielding: 17:06 And I had that. I got the initial news and then I had to have a follow up conversation to advocate for myself and make sure that everything was heard that I wanted to be said. But there's, realistically, things that I planned on doing for them that I can just do for anybody, because I don't know if you heard it or not. Charlie Apigian: 17:21 AI is a thing, and. Charlie Yielding: 17:23 AI, all the things is a thing, and I think that's the way we should go in business. Charlie Apigian: 17:27 Yeah, and so All right, should we hit me up now? Yeah, no All right. Charlie Yielding: 17:35 So so why don't you let me? Let me help you, help pull it out of you, rather than have you just talk because it is. It is pretty heavy. So paint the picture of what you were doing five years ago. Where were you? Charlie Apigian: 17:50 Yeah, so five years ago it would have been 2019, 2018. I was the director of the Data Science Institute at Middle Tennessee State

University and a professor. I would have been in year one or two of starting that after being the chair of my department for that, so I've been in academic administrative roles since, let's say, 2011. Charlie Yielding: 18:17 Over a decade. Charlie Apigian: 18:18 Oh well, yeah, yeah, for sure. Charlie Yielding: 18:20 So that's, that's where you worked, but you, you lived in Murfreesboro at the time. Charlie Apigian: 18:24 Yeah, murfreesboro, and for those out, there is about 30 miles south ish of Nashville. Charlie Yielding: 18:30 Yeah, so about an hour and a half. Charlie Apigian: 18:32 It's an hour and a half on 24. Sometimes, yes. Charlie Yielding: 18:35 A lot of times. Yeah, you would know. Yeah, a lot of people do make that commute, though, like the one remote employee that we have right now. He comes up from Murfreesboro every day, but we he comes up at like early, early in the morning to beat the traffic and then he leaves. He leaves town at like two, so he's good most of the time. Charlie Apigian: 18:54 Yeah, well, you know, murfreesboro for schools is amazing, cheaper homes, yeah, and we raised four kids. Charlie Yielding: 19:03 And so in 2019, how many of them children were still living with you? Charlie Apigian: 19:06 2019. Well for COVID, they all came back you had all, all your kids living with you. So all of I had two boys in high school. Charlie Yielding: 19:16 And then two kids in college. Charlie Apigian: 19:17 I had two kids in college. So for if you look at where we were with COVID, we were in a house in downtown Murfreesboro three bedroom, two bath, built in 1905. Charlie Yielding: 19:30 It's a solid house yeah. Charlie Apigian: 19:32 Yeah, and, and we had four kids, four dogs and and Trisha and I in that house during COVID. Charlie Yielding: 19:41 So chaos, pure feel. Charlie Apigian: 19:44 It was the best time I ever had, because I had my kids every day. Charlie Yielding: 19:47 It doesn't feel like that's you, because you like you. You live in the chaos. Like you, just you let it flow around you. But if anybody stepped into that from the outside, they would be like they would be pushing against the and it would be sure it would be like why is there so many people moving all the time? Yeah, and the dogs and all that kind of stuff. And so you had a. You had a. We'll call it a fast paced, fast paced life. Charlie Apigian: 20:09 Yeah, well, in 2019, or obviously I was, I was. I was very much treated every kid like they were my only child, and so we were at everything. Charlie Yielding: 20:21 Yeah, you mentioned that you didn't. You didn't like missing any of your kids stuff at all possible. Charlie Apigian: 20:25 Never, never missed, for unless I was teaching a class that night, of course I didn't miss that and I usually taught one night a week back then, and it was a priority though. It wasn't a priority, it was a necessity. Oh, there you go. Charlie Yielding: 20:38 You know. Charlie Apigian: 20:39 You know, the only way I would miss is if another kid was playing, and we try to do both. Charlie Yielding: 20:44 So you have so one, that one, and we, we did a lot of the swapping, so for sure, I feel like what to do some of that, and so so, in 2019, you spent a lot of time and effort on family, which is the way it should be, but also you advanced your career. You went from a professorship Is that what you call it, professorship? Uh, faculty, just faculty. You went from being faculty to administrative staff and then from administrative staff to, like you know, the, the chair of your department, to the data. What? Charlie Apigian: 21:14 data science Institute, which is still going strong, and at that time that's Amy's thing. Now, right? No, who's? Charlie Yielding: 21:20 it who's? Charlie Apigian: 21:20 over that Keith Gamble is. Yeah. He was. He was the chair of economics and finance At the time and so not really a data scientist, but just a great guy, really really good guy, and wasn't really involved when I was there. I had others that were, but what I in what happened then is data science was the thing. I was doing a lot of stuff. I was very active in Nashville, so I was kind of this you know, golden boy at the year you were. Charlie Yielding: 21:51 you were everywhere, man. Charlie Apigian: 21:52 I was definitely everywhere, man, and while being family man. And sleeping sometime right, and I did a lot of nonprofit work A lot of nonprofit work. Charlie Yielding: 22:03 Yeah, I mean that's where we crossed, yeah, yeah. Charlie Apigian: 22:06 And especially on the education side. I was still a race director and all that. Oh, yeah, I see, I mean like you have so much going on. Charlie Yielding: 22:13 I forgot that every year you put on a like a big race that I would do three or four a year that. Charlie Apigian: 22:18 I was in charge of yeah, and that's like 3000 people. I was talking to a lot of people. I was talking with police. I would do everything for some of those races. Sometimes I would just be the course director, like the middle half. That's what I did. Charlie Yielding: 22:34 See, now so much stuff is clicking in because ever since I've met you I'm like does he ever stop? But then, like hearing about what life was like before I met you, I was like, oh well, he's just conditioned, I'm just used to that, yeah. Charlie Apigian: 22:44 Yeah, and you know a little of that is the small business mentality, you know and stuff. But you know, shoot, I was when I was getting a PhD. I was also working for 40 hours a week, had two kids taking care of like eight kids at that point. And so that was normal, and so I will say this about MTSU I loved being there. I fit. Charlie Apigian: 23:05 You know, I fit with this public university,

with the culture. The culture, yeah, the students were first gen local. I had no money. If I needed a budget I had to go get it and actually before I left there I was able to get a allocation of $2.6 million for the Data Science Institute and then I left, all right, but in doing that I always thought gotta stop thinking about college. Only. It's got data and data science has to be at the university level. Charlie Yielding: 23:41 Please explain, because you just said two words that mean the same to me. You said college and university. Charlie Apigian: 23:45 Okay, college is like the college of business. Charlie Yielding: 23:49 So it's the individual like subject matter schools. Charlie Apigian: 23:51 Yeah, so you have university, then you have colleges and then within the colleges are departments. Charlie Yielding: 23:59 Okay, no, no, never mind, I'm dumb, dumb because I forgot, so I was like psychology is not a college, it's a department of human sciences. Charlie Apigian: 24:11 Yeah, and that one at MTSU would have been in the college of basic and applied sciences, I think that's where psychology was so. And then my department was information systems and analytics in the college of business, and I wanted data science to be at the university level. I wanted you know, and everybody was on board until you actually had to figure that stuff out. So, whatever it is, that never bothered me. Charlie Yielding: 24:39 That's a whole different subject. Charlie Apigian: 24:40 Yeah, I just love to work. Yeah. And other people are like, oh, slow down, you know we're, we don't need to go that fast. And I'm like, yes, we do, because I know this data thing is real and we've got to do things. And so I built an undergrad program, with others, of course. Charlie Yielding: 24:55 Yeah, not by myself. You say you mean it like it's a good group of people. Charlie Apigian: 24:59 Yeah yeah, we did a graduate certificate. Four of us built it from the ground up. We built a master's degree and then, within our one of our PhDs, we built a track within that. So we did all of that within like a two year period before I left there. I was very, very proud of it. You know I loved being there and I have to admit, when I left MTSU to go to Belmont because I realized that MTSU it was going to be really hard to do the university wide thing and I had to go back to just my college- OK. Charlie Apigian: 25:31 And I was going to do that. I was, and I would have stayed there for another 20 years. And then Belmont starts asking me how to build this at their university and I'm like, don't do it, it's hard, this is really hard. You need somebody that's willing to be a champion, that go out and do all this stuff, and I think the more I said don't, the more they wanted me, and which makes sense. We all know that kind of. Charlie Yielding: 25:56 Well, I mean for those who don't know. Usually, if somebody is telling you that something is not good, they know exactly why and how to make it better. Charlie Apigian: 26:04 And so I really wanted to do community level projects at Nashville and I wanted to build curriculum at the university level. Yeah. Charlie Apigian: 26:13 And then it was a brand new president coming in. He was all for that, was willing to spend money on it, get staff, all of that. That's great. And so I switched over to Belmont. First time in my life I switched jobs Because I well, I say that- Without changing industries, and what you do specifically, or what do you mean? I went from the family business. Me going and getting a job as a professor was like the pinnacle day of my life. Charlie Yielding: 26:42 I got you, I got you, I got you, and so it wasn't like I left. Charlie Apigian: 26:45 You did tell me he was proud about that he was very proud, still is, and so I didn't feel like I was leaving. I was almost graduating. Ok, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so this was the first time I was leaving, and people were mad. I love it. And when I say mad, in my head they were mad. Charlie Yielding: 27:05 Yeah, I mean some people really do get mad. They feel like they feel abandonment and stuff like that. I mean, emotions are emotions. Charlie Apigian: 27:12 Yeah, and I probably didn't do it perfectly, it was quick. Charlie Yielding: 27:15 I mean, if it was yeah, that makes sense, they would get mad. Charlie Apigian: 27:18 And I went to my bosses, which would be deans and provost level, and said, hey, I'm going to give them six months. And they said you know what, why don't you go now? And it wasn't like really that, it really wasn't that much animosity, but it was like it was in July and I was getting ready to start a bunch of new things. I just finished a bunch of stuff. It's like you can't come in and just start a bunch of new things and then leave. That's true. So why don't you go now? And I'm like, OK, Well, everybody else just took that as boy. Charlie just took off in a week. Yeah. Charlie Apigian: 27:48 And it wasn't that way at all. Well, I'm not going to go back, and so you just move on right, and the guilt was forever, really, yeah, yeah, and I still have it. I love those people, I loved the issue. Charlie Yielding: 28:03 Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like it's a good group of people and stuff. But still, there should be no animosity in doing better for yourself. Charlie Apigian: 28:11 I know, and I think that's why people felt, but I didn't. Charlie Yielding: 28:17 Oh, because you were, I got you. Charlie Apigian: 28:20 And so it was just guilt. I've been the most. I've always said be loyal, be loyal, be loyal. And I think you feel that way too right. Charlie Yielding: 28:28 I do, but that's where what is loyalty to an employer comes into play. Charlie Apigian: 28:35 Yeah, and academia is a little different right, Because you go to a

job to retire. That's why you get tenure right. Charlie Yielding: 28:44 Yeah, sure. Oh, you mean in academia that game? Yeah, Academia. Charlie Apigian: 28:47 Sure, yeah, that's the norm. And nobody left MTSU. It was like you're leaving as a professor, and so anyways went to Belmont. Charlie Yielding: 28:53 Were you tenured at that point. Charlie Apigian: 28:54 Oh yeah, tenured and full professor. Yeah yeah, I had, I was there. Charlie Yielding: 28:59 So you took a big risk. Charlie Apigian: 29:00 Yeah, sure, but I was also ready for a move. I need to grow, I need to continue to grow, and I was not going to grow anymore. Charlie Yielding: 29:12 Well, if you feel like MTSU, if you explain to them why something needs to happen at the university level, and then you see people actively working against you or not accepting it as a reality, that hurts, Especially because I feel the same way. I feel the need to grow and to do things and to move and if I'm not doing that, I feel stagnant and I feel like I'm a big old piece of crap for not getting stuff done and all this other type of stuff. And that's all I've been doing for the past year is just sitting and waiting and all this other type of stuff. So I can definitely feel you and so changing a job in that situation it was beneficial to you and more than just the. You get to do stuff Like it was all around on paper. Good move because it puts you in a way better position than would otherwise, because you're closer to town, your network is nearer that was unbelievable. Charlie Apigian: 30:04 That was different. Charlie Yielding: 30:05 But you get all those Belmont connections too and they'll introduce you to the folks and things like that. Charlie Apigian: 30:09 My connections went through the roof and I'm talking with mayors and governor not the governor himself, but all of those folks. Charlie Yielding: 30:18 Yeah, you're working with folks around the city. Charlie Apigian: 30:19 Yeah, and then I just lucked into a couple of projects. I got a lot of publicity and I had to work my tail off to make those happen. Charlie Yielding: 30:28 As you are want to do. Charlie Apigian: 30:31 And so, going to Belmont, I hit the ground running. At first it was just me for about a year and then I brought on staff, but most of my time was spent external and the university did not have a lot of people doing external stuff and so I did and I knew everybody and whatever my network was, it quadrupled. Charlie Yielding: 30:52 Well, I didn't know, you were pre-Belmont and so you and Belmont hand in hand. Yeah, like as I met you, I was just like, oh, he runs the data collaborative at the Belmonts, yeah. Charlie Apigian: 31:03 And trying to think was I at Belmont? No, I wasn't at Belmont. Oh no, that year I was. I'm trying to think of when. Charlie Yielding: 31:11 We met in January of 2022. Yeah, officially.

Charlie Apigian: 31:14 Yeah, yeah, because I started August of 21. And so, anyways, I was the executive director of the data collaborative. I was working hours that were just not fair and I was so burned out, so burned out, and I just wasn't a fit there. Privacy stuff, yeah, with certain people I was there. Charlie Yielding: 31:38 Well, I think, as a leader of an external group on their side, not being a fit feels extra. Charlie Apigian: 31:46 It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life. Charlie Yielding: 31:50 Really that's a big statement, Seeing as how you've got like four kids, 18 dogs and all that type of stuff. Charlie Apigian: 31:57 How real are we going to be today? Charlie Yielding: 31:59 I mean if you get as much as you can. I don't know if I want to, it's up to you. Charlie Apigian: 32:05 So everybody's listening, I'm going to you know why? Because if I tell my story correctly and I'm transparent, everything I want to do now is be authentic. Charlie Yielding: 32:14 Is be my true self. You have mentioned that before. So if you feel like saying something, you should, as long as it's not disparaging or detrimental to. Charlie Apigian: 32:20 It's all about me at this point and I'm not going to say anything bad about any people. Charlie Apigian: 32:26 On air at least, we'll talk about it, but my son in August October of 2021, went through some really bad depression. He's very vocal about it, very public about it, and it changed our lives. So, as I started a new job, as I'm doing this commute, trying to build something, my only concern was my son at that, and he went through a lot and it was really tough, really really tough, and as that happened, I had to do some introspective type of stuff, but I went into a depression that lasted for about a year and a half. Charlie Yielding: 33:14 What does that look like to you? Just throwing yourself into stuff? Charlie Apigian: 33:18 What do I do? What do I do? Charlie Yielding: 33:20 How do you express depression? You do. Charlie Apigian: 33:24 Well, there's levels of it. Charlie Yielding: 33:25 Well, I mean, how do you specifically in this case then? Charlie Apigian: 33:28 When I got to a certain point, believe it or not, all the work I was doing, there were days I couldn't get out of bed and then I literally would go work 15-hour days, and it was such an emotional toll to sometimes try to smile and people took that as me being mean. Charlie Yielding: 33:50 So things happened. I bet that changed your perspective on the situation. Charlie Apigian: 33:55 So burnout. This is why I want to say this First of all you can't go through it alone. I was trying to get into depression and what I did go to counts tried to do that. It didn't work for me. Charlie Yielding: 34:11 So you couldn't even say that. Charlie Apigian: 34:13 I know I don't want to say it, and it's not that it didn't work for me. I wouldn't let it work for me, yeah. Charlie Yielding: 34:25 You've got to be willing to accept whatever truths you find in there, and if you're not, it's not work and everything bothered my family, everything. Charlie Apigian: 34:33 I took it out on. Charlie Yielding: 34:36 That's what the past few weeks has been like for me. Charlie Apigian: 34:38 Yeah, and so now you know why I'm hitting you up all the time. Yeah. Charlie Apigian: 34:42 And through it and so, with all that being said, I was not out of it in November. It was actually probably the worst it was, and so I'm good at faking. So you're probably like I didn't even realize you were doing it. No, it was bad. I mean, I remember sometimes we would be doing podcasts and I'd be like, how do I act like my normal self? And but for some reason I could, because maybe it was just it's our incredible chemistry. Charlie Yielding: 35:12 So I would challenge that a little bit, because I would say that our conversation over the past or a couple of weeks ago about us getting straight to business and losing that interpersonal connection, I think that's probably a reflection of it. Yeah. Charlie Apigian: 35:25 I think, yeah, we've talked about the fact that we feel like we haven't had the fun that we've normally had, and I think, yeah, that probably was a slow, slow trickle that got us there. Right, it wasn't that it was. We'd never had a blow up, we never did anything like that, but it was just like all of a sudden. Charlie Yielding: 35:46 It was like this is, you know, and there's a lot of reasons for that, but I think we, from my part, we broke habits, like we had habits of meeting in person every at least every other week to cover what we were going to, the content and stuff like that. And then when we did the analytics summit that was like the first week of October we we did that. We changed studios, we changed all of our workflow and we went to this like mostly remote talking every once in a while thing, because we both got busy and then we lost focus on this and like what it meant to be this, and so we just got into like, well, what are we going to do just to make sure that we talk for an hour or something like that? And that's not to say that the guests we haven't had on have been spectacular no, we've yeah, yeah, we've made up for it with good guests. Charlie Apigian: 36:30 Yeah for sure. Charlie Yielding: 36:31 Because I like the next part. Well, from the time of this recording, the next podcast coming out is with an expert in intellectual property and things, and I find it fascinating. And then our conversation with Alex on advocacy. I found that that's fascinating. Charlie Apigian: 36:47 Those are probably our two. Charlie Yielding: 36:48 To me, that was our two most informational Podcasts yeah, interviews, but it's like, yeah, exactly, but it's sit down and let's,

let's draw information out instead of having a circular. Charlie Apigian: 37:00 Tribulator yeah, we, we always said we wanted guests to be contributors, not interviewees. Charlie Yielding: 37:05 And I'll be damned if we didn't turn them in it, we did. Charlie Apigian: 37:08 and now With Alex, I wanted his story out there. Charlie Yielding: 37:12 Yeah, for sure. Charlie Apigian: 37:12 Just cuz he's so amazing and but but Franklin, you know who I think he'll be the week before this. It was just too much good information we never got to. We need to bring him back. Charlie Yielding: 37:23 So, yeah, I mean, that's it. That's where it wound up, because that we could. We could break it down. He's so knowledgeable that we could talk about one little sliver of how how Content and the law and getting paid works, and we could talk for an hour and a half, yeah, and so we try to take all of it into one episode, in in just like a let me just shove this Much as possible. And he can do that because he's he's on point with everything. But I feel like if, if we would have taken the time to step back, like I would have liked to get to know him a little bit better, because he will, and we'll do this next time we have him on too, because he feels like somebody that it's good to know and it's good to have a conversation with just to see how things are changing. Charlie Apigian: 38:07 So he was so good. You know, well, I think you know I'd love to do it. Is you know, like, well, we'll talk about it, but we're not. We're not grabbing for Headlines or for clicks, so we're gonna bring people on that are gonna help us create. Continue this discussion. Charlie Yielding: 38:23 Yeah, I mean we do want clicks and comments, yeah, but that's a we're making all this stuff up. Charlie Apigian: 38:29 Actually, we're just wanting you to feel sorry for us, but no, no, this is good therapy. Charlie Yielding: 38:33 No, do you feel? Do feel sorry for us and then click on the videos feel sorry for him, not me, but we were talking about you and you successfully diverted. Charlie Apigian: 38:42 I know I'll let it finish and I'm gonna do it real quick Cuz we're already at 45 minutes and this might go for three hours, and it is what it is. Anyways, in November of last year I was burned out and but at the same time I knew there needed to be some changes, because Belmont had made major changes, because a new president comes in yeah and and now, Person after person being hired. I From really good schools and I'm just little MTSU guys way. I felt you know yeah. Charlie Apigian: 39:16 Right or wrong and different. That's my perception. That's not theirs, right you? Know, so I want to be very clear. I'm not saying reality. I'm saying what my perception is, and and in that I went to people and said there needs to be changes and unfortunately, I was the change. I. Charlie Yielding: 39:33 Feel that, yeah, I feel that a lot actually yeah, regardless. I am now just back to faculty for the first time and said 12, 13 years well, to round that off, your your a faculty member, which means you teach, you just teach. That's not that. There's nothing wrong with just teaching the way. That's what those two but that's what you used. You just teach, right? But uh, you're also living in Nashville, yep, right down the street from our wonderful soccer stadium. Charlie Apigian: 40:04 Yes, and like within, within and I live in a neighborhood where the average age is about 25. Yeah, I'm not 25 and you don't? Charlie Yielding: 40:13 well, apart from just the, the occasional visiting kid, you're empty nesting, or do you do have? Charlie Apigian: 40:18 no, my daughter lives with us, that's right, but she's, she's finishing her doctorate degree at Belmont and in occupational therapy and and. But we see her, she's got a boyfriend, you know, and yeah, she's an adult, she's 24. Charlie Yielding: 40:33 Yeah, so, for all intents and purposes and much settled down life, and you've only got three dogs only three now at this point, so that that settled down the day after this whole thing started shaking down, or two days after that's. Charlie Apigian: 40:46 My dog got stolen. Charlie Yielding: 40:47 Oh, yeah, no, you were. So I Knew at that point you were a mess. Oh, and when you call like so, this is how ready to roll I was, because I knew it was. It was impacting you so much. Like this man loves dogs, oh, I think more than anything like if you ever want to see true happiness on his face, it's with his squeecher oh, squeecher in his face, licking him and stuff like that. It's like I don't like dogs licking me in the face, but I appreciate that you love dogs so much, but the you were in a bad way and then your dog got stolen from your friend from your front. Charlie Yielding: 41:23 It got out for a little bit and then it was gone. I have never seen you in such a panic, but I was right or die in that case, because when you told me that you were potentially gonna go meet somebody, I geared up and I was ready to go. Yeah. I know we were getting that dog back. Yes, so luckily for you that, and maybe both of us. They just brought it back, right. Charlie Apigian: 41:39 They did. And because of social media. Honestly, because my daughter got out there and created like nine fake accounts. He called one of the fake accounts and said I think I know where your dog is, and because he called my wife's number. Charlie Yielding: 41:53 Yeah, and on my dog's collar and this is how we know it's stolen. Yes, number was there the whole time. Charlie Apigian: 41:59 Yeah, and and we actually saw people and they said a guy grabbed it. And they said hey, is that your dog? Said it's my brothers. Charlie Apigian: 42:05 Hmm and what happened is I left the door a little bit open. My two of my dogs got out. One is very fast, one is

an English bulldog yeah, cutest thing in the world, oh, but highly desirable by, and she loves everybody too. So somebody came up and she grabbed and so that it's a one night. It's all we went through. I know people that have gone through a month of that. Charlie Apigian: 42:28 I one night almost killed my wife and you were definitely a mess oh all of that happening at the exact same time, and so the end of 2023. I went 45 days without sleeping. You know, it was just when I say you know, I would every night spend up having to go to the couch because I just couldn't get thoughts out of my head and the worst kind of stress. Charlie Apigian: 42:57 Yeah, yeah, and and I didn't know really what to do about that and, as Every day that now goes by, what I'm noticing is a couple of things. Getting rid of burnout has changed my life. Mm-hmm, you know I'm smiling again. Charlie Yielding: 43:19 Okay, what do you mean? Getting rid of burnout? Charlie Apigian: 43:22 So when you have burnout to the point of like I just I work myself to death, yeah, you're so unhappy. Mm-hmm. Charlie Apigian: 43:30 You can't do things when people talk to you. You know so it's, it's, it's real, it's it. And with depression, if you're, if you're, if that's part of your life which, by the way, everybody has depression, it's just some people have more highs and lows and they're prone to it in the prone to it. And I am, I am, I just know it, and that that is what it is. Then the best part really wasn't even my family, mm-hmm, first of all, my wife's been amazing. Charlie Yielding: 43:58 Yeah, you, you, that's worth saying like she stepped up in a big way like. Charlie Apigian: 44:03 Just you know, if you ever want to help your marriage go through adversity and if that other person is a rock and is there and supportive and will do anything for you she's more mad about anything that you know that's happened to me than me. Charlie Yielding: 44:18 Um, you know you got a good yeah, like seeing that kind of reaction because you got hurt is uh, yeah, it's very comforting. Charlie Apigian: 44:25 Yeah, and and so that was amazing. So so, aside from that, my friends, Mm-hmm. This is this is what I think is really important if you are above the age of 40, do not. Do not forget about friends, hmm. It's easy sometimes and you know, we, we, you and I have obviously become friends. Don't wait, don't tell, don't tell. Yeah, we are good. I say, we're good friends and and your, mom says we're friends, so we're friends. Charlie Apigian: 44:57 That's right, and you know. And then I would say we've got this little group Zach, gemini, which you all know, and Colin, that we brought on four of us, uh, talk every day. Charlie Yielding: 45:08 Yeah, we got a polo group, or Marco Polo group, for those that don't know coffee on Fridays. Charlie Apigian: 45:13 We we obviously play ping-pong together. We've got a big group that does that. We had 10 people at our last one. I never had that in my life. You mentioned that before, yeah, and in I even mentioned to you earlier today why I'm so guarded and it took me 50 years to get when I feel like I have friends that are equal, and so I've always had people, but I've always been the person in charge. Charlie Yielding: 45:36 Yeah, what we what do you mean by equal? Is they can understand what you're talking about and the things you're going through. Charlie Apigian: 45:41 Yeah, and then here we are two guys named Charlie going through very similar things. Charlie Yielding: 45:46 now yeah, it's in it's. It's Serendipitous, to say the least, that that we both wind up going through something like this at the same time, because you know we can help each other. And so this is a good segue into I Think we can skip like we've talked a lot about the emotional stuff and how the changes impact and impact in us and we can get into. You know, like you talked about burnout and there's there's a whole episode about pulling yourself out of burnout. I'm both mechanically, mentally, like behaviorally, all that type of stuff. Yeah, and you know you hit on. One of the major things is like sometimes to get out of burnout, you got to change your setting. Charlie Apigian: 46:21 Oh, and you know, if you believe in Faith and you know anything where there's karma, I guess I was never gonna get out of burnout, unless some. But something hit me in the face. Yeah and so you're gonna stop and and it would have been either a illness or A situation, and I'm glad of the situation, definitely um well, I mean obviously over the second, yeah, yeah, and. And now I'm sitting here saying, for the first time in over 12 years, I Can actually do the things that I think I'm I can do yeah instant fear. Charlie Yielding: 46:59 Yeah, there's now. You've got so many things to choose from. What are you? Charlie Apigian: 47:03 gonna do and you have the same thing. Yeah, so I think this is exciting to literally talk about that, and you know we've been doing this podcast as a hobby and and that's okay. Right, we can continue to do that. You know, I'm not saying all of a sudden we're gonna quit our jobs and become podcasters. Yeah, but it is part of what we like to do, yeah, and it inspires, and so one of the Well, I want to make sure I'm going where you want to go. I've talked too much. Charlie Yielding: 47:33 Well, I think that's. Charlie Apigian: 47:34 I think you're going the right direction, Okay so I think what is where you're at today? I'm gonna give you a little bit of advice. Charlie Apigian: 47:42 Okay, thanks so because of friends. They have been so supportive. Like you all say, charlie, you're such a good you do the speaking thing. Yeah, you need to pursue that. I'm like I really do love that. I want to do consulting or advisory or I want to create my own educational products to help the right people.

No, I mean, I love. I love teaching and, by the way, I'm teaching a class right now where I have students that are MBA students and accelerated MBA class. It's the best experience I've ever had that's awesome. Charlie Apigian: 48:17 I just and I'm gonna get you to meet them next week and it's, I don't. I don't know why we've clicked, but it's, I can be myself. And so this authentic Charlie is back and I went a few years without laughing, being goofy. You know, I really am just a goofy dude and I Happen to know data science. Yeah. And so now I have this incredible network and I can start seeing if I can do what I've been preaching. Charlie Yielding: 48:47 Yeah, I think that we both have. You know, we mentioned earlier. There's the apprehension of like, can I repeat success? Sure, but then Intellectually, like that's easy to look at, and say, yeah, yeah, I can, because I know, I like I'm actively looking at the landscape. I see, like you know, in the industry that I've, that I've worked in for so long, I see their needs, sure, and if I wanted to build a product towards that, I could Mm-hmm, and then I've got a network that exists that I could take that to, and then that's that's literally how you start businesses, yeah, and so do we do that? Yeah, you know, do we do? Charlie Apigian: 49:22 I need to get back to my advice, I mean oh yeah, yeah, you're vice, sorry, sorry, sorry vice, no matter what, is go through a process that allows you to truly know who you are, mm-hmm. And so I have a very good friend, ernest Chapman, and I'll just go ahead and mention him. He's got a marketing company Not Black Labs is the name of this company and he has this thing called brand therapy. He does for businesses and he goes why don't I do that for you and think of you, charlie Epiglian, as a business? Charlie Apigian: 49:55 Okay, so we went through this brand therapy stuff and it is all about identity really getting to the core of who you are, what you want to be, what you want your future self to be and your core behaviors. To get there and you go through a process where you create a creative brief, you do a morning routine. I've got you, gotta see it. It's a lot of fun to go through. But what I would have never gotten to, where I am today with this, my new identity of where I want to be, and it goes to I want to be authentic 100% genuine. Charlie Yielding: 50:33 How do you present your authentic self versus what you think people? Charlie Apigian: 50:37 Yeah, and I think for me it's gonna be informally talking about complex topics. That's literally what we do on this right, so this is one of the and I think most people. If you've been listening, you're getting the authentic me here, but I have had to be something else in other areas and I probably didn't have to, but I was and it was not comfortable. Charlie Yielding: 50:59 I agree with that last sentiment. I think you put that on yourself, based off of what you thought others thought. Charlie Apigian: 51:06 And that's true, and that was not feeling like a fit probably. Charlie Yielding: 51:10 And so the advice is find a way to be true to my authentic self while accomplishing what it is I want to accomplish. Charlie Apigian: 51:17 Yeah, and then for me, I need hooks, I need like almost like a slogan, and so what I look at is I've said I want to inspire, educate and advise. Inspiring is this. Charlie Yielding: 51:30 I saw you working on that earlier. Charlie Apigian: 51:32 Yeah, yeah, and it's inspire is all about things that are public facing. It's speaking engagements, it's this, it's writing a blog, it might be doing a YouTube video. Any of that kind of stuff is my inspire stuff. Education is what I do. Right, I know how to do education, but does that also mean I can do education in other places? And I'm already talking, actually, at the Nashville Technology Council, which we didn't mention. We're there. This is our home. Yes, we've got it behind us here, as well as our. Charlie Apigian: 52:08 we finally found our we finally brought ours here as well. But with the NTC, I've been talking about how can we take this idea of a data mindset and create a course out of it and, as we've talked to C-level people, they want their employees, their middle managers, to go through that. Charlie Yielding: 52:28 Well, I mean, I think that's where a lot of this stuff lies is like we sit in a position to where we see what the workforce is gonna need in the next three to five years, or actually, technically, in the next 12 to 24 months, whereas well, and not to go too far into it Like we see where things are going and what's needed, and workforce re-skilling and education is paramount, because every single person that exists in the workforce right now is about to have to learn something, whether they like it or not. And this has started from us saying that, like, maybe you need to get your learning head on and get ready to like. If you're not already doing it, you're behind. Charlie Apigian: 53:07 But before you can do that, you gotta have the right mindset, and there's this way. We have to just understand that AI is gonna be in everything. Data is gonna be part of every decision. We've gotta stop thinking about it as a nice bonus. No, it is a necessity and the right way to think of it. Charlie Apigian: 53:24 I feel I have that process and the NTC has been really, really great about listening to what my thoughts on an educational program and what they're doing this year and I'm gonna give them the plug, because I think this is great is you know, we've built Nashville. Now We've got this. When I say we've built it, we have a tech community that's pretty big and if it gets any bigger, we're in trouble because we don't know how many more employees we can bring to town, but we've grown very fast here I mean Nashville is a prime spot to be from a tech community

perspective, absolutely, and the NTC grew as well during that time, even with COVID, and things were probably about 600 members and I remember the days when it was 300 and churn was like 65% wouldn't come back. Charlie Apigian: 54:13 The next year, kind of thing, and now retention is so much better, way, way better actually. But they're wanna focus on their members and, as part of that, offer education. And I'm like, yes, yes, and here's what I'd love to do. And they're like, yeah, let's do that. And so there's that part. Then the advice for me is all about probably C-level. I get an opportunity to talk to CIOs, cdos, cisos, ceos all the C's right and when I talk to them, I feel like I can communicate with them in a way that they understand and they need that, they need this other person, and I love doing that. Charlie Yielding: 54:55 We were talking. So we've got a CEO buddy that we were talking to earlier today and he's trying to wrap his head around why AI is important and he's somebody who needs to know everything he wants to know, and I feel like that's been a good challenge to help him understand in a way that he feels complete and total comfort with the idea. And shout out to Colin for being the most inquisitive CEO that I've come across, because a lot of people in his position don't care about the details or the whys, and so they wind up losing a little bit of control because they can't tell if they should be turning hard left or slightly left from a technology perspective. Charlie Apigian: 55:41 Well, is that hype? Because they've gone through how many hype cycles? Charlie Yielding: 55:45 But that's the point. Charlie Yielding: 55:46 It's like they may make a molehill out of a mountain and vice versa, but now I feel like now it's more like the molehill out of a mountain thing, because there's a gross underestimation of how much AI is going to be impactful in the very, very near future. Charlie Yielding: 56:01 And that's the but to your point, like you're advising people on just that, like you're telling the Collins of the world who are curious but maybe not completing the like, adding it to their complete picture, cause that's exactly what executives do is they build a complete picture of what it is that they're doing and they don't see how AI fits into it, or data or technology or whatnot. And so you come in and you say, okay, so this part of the painting or your picture is now changed in this kind of way and this is how and you know each executive is going to take their own personalized communication because their experiences. You have to connect what exists to their experiences and that's an individual approach right now In a lot of ways. Like maybe you could throw out big blankets and stuff like we do on here and it clicks. But if you're coming into focused efforts on the advice part, like you really need to dig deep with that person. Charlie Apigian: 56:55 Yeah, and be the calm and the chaotic and yeah, yeah yeah, landscape, like do you? Charlie Yielding: 56:59 see me, I'm not worried. Things are about to change, but I'm not worried because everybody's going to be dealing with this, and so I don't feel like that's. One solace that I can take is that I don't feel so alone, because even though I've left what I've been doing, like everybody is going to be in this, in this kind of constant state of change. Charlie Apigian: 57:18 But if you did not keep growing over the last couple of years, you branched out right. This podcast is a good branch out for you. I mean no data. You know how to operationalize it, but you chose to learn new thing. Would you feel different today with what you went through if you didn't do all that growth? Charlie Yielding: 57:40 I would have quit a long time ago. I wasn't getting like professionally, I wasn't getting the stimulation, which is why I had to do this, okay. Okay, because I've been in a holding pattern. Charlie Apigian: 57:49 You know you just said something that a lot of people that happens right. If your job is not fulfilling, you need to go external and do external things. Charlie Yielding: 58:01 Well, so the number one thing that employee needs to know and this isn't just me, this is every single employee almost ever is that what they do matters and what they do goes towards something, and that's how that's the money. Money is like it's a given in a relationship like this, but if you give somebody money and then just take their work and throw it into the garbage, can, they're only gonna be able to take so much of that. Well, unless the money's right, the money could be totally right and that's fine, but in most cases it's not. Charlie Yielding: 58:32 It's not sustainable, it's not, and I yeah, and so that's the way I felt for the past while, because once we started this, once we decided that we were selling the company, then all innovation stopped, all like they shut down reviews, they shut down any new projects and like everything, and so my main job over the past 12 months has been ensuring the continued employment of everybody that I work with, and so we got to the other side of that and I feel like a mission accomplished, but also I didn't do anything for myself in that time, and so now it's time to do for me. Charlie Apigian: 59:11 And do for you Like I have done. I'm not saying I've done for others, right, I've done for the project, I've done for the school, I've done for the students, for sure. And I cringe at self-promotion, even though it probably looks like I do a bunch. And that goes back to me as a kid. I just my dad was really good at self-promotion, but arrogant a little bit. Charlie Yielding: 59:39 Yeah, well, that goes a long way. Charlie Apigian: 59:41 You know, and so I hated it. Charlie Yielding: 59:43 I got you. Charlie Apigian: 59:44 And so-. Charlie Yielding: 59:45 There's some

Freudian thing in there somewhere that-. Charlie Apigian: 59:48 Yeah, no, seriously I think so and like I can go back to specific times. But like if I win an award, I cringe at it, but I'm like it's good for my school because that we were not known for data at all and now they are right and that was you have to get those accolades. To feel that way. I didn't like that. Now I'm in a situation you're in a situation where you have no choice but to do self-promotion. Charlie Yielding: 1:00:15 Yeah, I gotta sell myself. Charlie Apigian: 1:00:18 Yeah, and for me, I'm having a hard time with that, like still, and, as I said, here I'm looking at a cartoon of me. I'm not a big old thing there, but I did create a website, charlieapigancom. Go to it, folks. I think it might still be up when this comes out. I gotta get used to that. Yeah. And that's gonna be hard, but-. Well, now you're a product. Charlie Yielding: 1:00:44 I guess. So your product was data and let me help you and all this other type of stuff, but now you're like please give me money for these reasons. Well-, and that's a big difference. It doesn't feel as altruistic, does it? Charlie Apigian: 1:00:58 Actually does. Charlie Yielding: 1:01:00 To sell yourself like that no-transcript. Charlie Apigian: 1:01:04 But you get to a point where you feel like it's time to stop giving everything away. Charlie Yielding: 1:01:09 Yeah, no for sure. Charlie Apigian: 1:01:11 Yeah, and I've given everything away. Okay, so you just don't For so many years. Charlie Yielding: 1:01:14 Yeah, you just ready for to not do that? Okay, yeah, that doesn't like. So. I want to be like Mike to your three pillars inspire, educate and advise. Yeah, like you know, I've only got one right now. It's too good and it's too vague, and so I've got to hammer it down. And so one of the things that I wanted to get to in this is like I wanted to make a declaration that I'm going to give 100% to what I do, and I kind of said that earlier. But I mean that, like I want to represent myself in a product that I build in a way that I want to and push towards the future that I like, and what that means for me is like I want to grow a product or an idea to the point where I employ others again and then I turn that into, you know, whatever the next step looks like and you know I've talked about what comes after this and stuff like that, and I'm not ready to talk about that openly just yet. But that's realistically. This is my last thing before that. Charlie Apigian: 1:02:17 Well, let me be very clear on my end. I am a faculty member at Belmont University, yeah, and the students are fantastic. I am going to. I don't see that changing. Charlie Yielding: 1:02:27 But you get summers now. That's just for you, I don't have to. Charlie Apigian: 1:02:29 yeah, and you know, and it because of that going from 12 months to 10 months, that also comes with a pay cut. Yeah. So this idea of making money is so I, my wife, doesn't have to all of a sudden go and get a full-time job and and to try to just. You know, you still have four kids, right? Yeah, and two of them are in college. Charlie Yielding: 1:02:48 Two of them are at Belmont specifically. Charlie Apigian: 1:02:49 Yes and my son just got a house and he's probably going to. You know they're about ready to do the other stuff. Charlie Yielding: 1:02:56 Yeah, but but that's not bad or wrong, like you want to make money and that's fine, and you've got time to make money and I'm allowed to. Yeah, I never felt with. Charlie Apigian: 1:03:05 You know, when you're an admin, it's not. There's definitely more conflict there, right, oh, okay. Because, I really yeah, I mean, you could do other stuff. Yeah. First of all, I will never be full-time somewhere else. It makes sense, but yeah, I, there's no the. The cuffs are off. Charlie Yielding: 1:03:19 Yeah, if you don't, if you're not a 12 month contract, you the expectation is that you can do other stuff. Charlie Apigian: 1:03:24 Yes, and I think Belmont wants you to. Charlie Yielding: 1:03:27 To fill that time with productivity. Charlie Apigian: 1:03:29 No, they want you to practice what you preach. Charlie Yielding: 1:03:31 Oh, like get out there and yeah, yeah, yeah. Charlie Apigian: 1:03:33 And how else am I going to stay up on AI and and data storytelling and all of the stuff I do, than to do it, and I mean I feel like when I was watching you work from the position of executive director, you were doing everything that it was stated. Charlie Yielding: 1:03:51 You know from an external perspective that, like you were out there shaking hands, meeting people, talking stuff up and like everything. You know, like you said earlier, everybody knew you and I knew you and you and Belmont were like like not, that's, that's combative, but you were like this. Charlie Apigian: 1:04:06 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and still, you know the faculty I work with fantastic. Charlie Yielding: 1:04:13 It enabled you to do what Charlie Appetian needs, and that's to get out there and get shit. Get stuff done. Charlie Apigian: 1:04:19 That's right. Charlie Yielding: 1:04:20 Yeah, and you are a community leader and we've talked about this before You're you act as the glue in a lot of those situations. Like you keep it going, you move the ball. It's the same thing we're talking about with Alex. Like you don't drop the ball, you keep it moving, and maybe it's not like you're not rushing for a touchdown or anything like that, but you're getting yards every single time. Charlie Apigian: 1:04:40 And I'm not going to stop that. Like you know, I've already, I'm already doing, I think, one or two projects right now. One is like with playgrounds in Nashville and another one is looking at another one I can't talk about yet. Charlie

Yielding: 1:04:51 Yeah, but that your pro bono play is full. Charlie Apigian: 1:04:54 That's not, and those will become real projects, oh that's good. And so yeah, no, those are not meant to be pro bono, Okay. It'll be real, real work. Charlie Yielding: 1:05:04 Not the advisory stuff. But that's where we're getting at, though. You've been doing real work, if not for free, but not for your own personal benefit. Charlie Apigian: 1:05:11 I've been doing real work that should have been paid, except I was doing it through the lens, I was a Belmont person and it was great marketing. You were a hired gun, yeah yeah, and I loved that because it also got me into rooms that you know I wasn't a vendor. You know I wasn't trying to sell something. Charlie Yielding: 1:05:30 It's a. It's a. It's a big difference. For sure, it's a different conversation. It's like what's your motivation? Oh, you're not trying to immediately shake me down for money. Let's talk some more there. Charlie Apigian: 1:05:38 But you know, I was leaving the house at five in the morning because, again, this is when I lived in Murphy's. Charlie Yielding: 1:05:42 Bay. Yeah, you were doing the commute, yeah. Charlie Apigian: 1:05:45 And, and then I get home at nine at night, and that was five days a week, or maybe at least four, and that's not all Sounds like a bit much. Charlie Apigian: 1:05:52 That got old. Now I'm seeing my dogs in the morning, you know, and I'm spending more time at home. My wife and I were. We're together at night and we've gone like 20 years without like a consistent time together. We haven't been on vacations. I never take vacations. Yeah, you were tired. That's got to change. I was tired this summer on a research internship. It's like the proudest moment I have for my son, for my one individually, for him, my other kids I would have other amazing moments with. I want to go Like. I would never do that if I was the executive director. Charlie Yielding: 1:06:29 Oh yeah, you couldn't. Charlie Apigian: 1:06:31 I well I could, but in my head I can't. Charlie Yielding: 1:06:33 Well, that's what I mean is you couldn't, because the second you walk away things don't happen for like two weeks and then you know it falls apart. Not really, but that's the way you treat things Exactly. Charlie Apigian: 1:06:45 And so you know, and that's not fair to my wife, the one that literally just went through this with me, and proved herself to be right, or down, absolutely. Yeah, you know, and so. I was in this. Charlie Apigian: 1:06:59 Um, yeah, she's frickin amazing, just absolutely. It's one of the reasons, you know, so we've been looking at houses lately, you know why? Because she's cute and adorable when she looks at houses. So I'm like, you know, let's go for it. Um, I, uh, yeah, no, it's. It's been very special and we have been through like we raised four kids in, uh, an area we had no family, all right, and so how long we've been recording A minute seven, an hour 17?. Yeah, all right, you ready to do your declaration? Charlie Yielding: 1:07:32 Yeah, okay, uh, I'm going to give 100% in, whatever it is that I do, and I'm going to take you guys along with me. Who's they they is, who anybody will listen. I want you to understand, uh, the, the many and ever present emotions that come with stepping out on your own, striking out on your own, however you want to say it. Uh, tons of people do this all the time. There's nothing new to it, but I feel like if people see it and the effort and struggle that goes in, then air into it, then you'll better, uh, understand that you can actually do it. Anybody can do this stuff. It's just that once you get started, are you going to stop? And that's what I've got to tell myself is once I take that step, I can't stop. Charlie Yielding: 1:08:15 And when I rejected the, the job offer, that's the first step I took, and I'm just now feeling it in a big way because I'm having to tell people and stuff. But that was me making the choice that is going to lead to what's coming. And so what I want from the community or anybody who's willing to know or to keep up with it, is like how do you want that information? Because I can talk, we can talk about it here on the podcast and stuff every other week. I can also record things and put it up on social medias as well. As far as, like you know, this is what I did today, because I need people to help keep me accountable, and so this is something. Charlie Yielding: 1:08:49 This isn't me doing this for just the community too, because I always work better and I mentioned it earlier when I see people hustling and getting at it. And so if you're somebody out there who's hustling and getting at it and this is helpful and you kind of wait, let's do this together. Uh, I need to learn, I need to get better at my social media, uh, internet chops and also I want to share this stuff, but then, at the same time, I want to see what people are up to, because if you're out there doing something cool, it'll help me do something cool, and I would. I'd appreciate that type of two way transparency. But in, at the very least, uh, you can just point and say, uh, you're not doing what you said you, you were going to do, so what gives? And then I'll be like, oh, I wasn't doing what I said I was going to do, so I best. Charlie Apigian: 1:09:31 Yeah, and that doesn't mean you have to do this particular industry, you have to be on your own for this or that, but giving that genuine uh it's whatever I decide. Charlie Apigian: 1:09:41 Yeah, yeah, and you know I have always said I just want to do good, right, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think sticking to that like that's always going to be, like data for good is is always going to be tattooed on my heart Um and um, and I think that's really important. I see some great about it. My, you know, if I was

to give a little bit of opinion, I think, um, I think this, this podcast you and I together is great. I think you on your own is genuine and great and people need to see that as well. Like, I think I think if you were to branch out a little bit and and can have that public persona. Charlie Yielding: 1:10:19 So you're breaking up with not at all. Charlie Apigian: 1:10:20 No, we're keeping this right. We don't want this to go away, but every other week, uh, 10 minutes is, I think, not enough, charlie, why? Uh? I think this podcast is one way for us to do what you've always said is, peter, people need to hear that. This is important. But I also think our megaphones by ourselves is also good. Yeah, and then, yeah, when, when we're ready to create that product, I'm ready to create the back end and the data part. Charlie Yielding: 1:10:47 Yeah, and so the last thing that that, uh, I wanted to talk about as far as the future state goes, is that we've we've really been considering whether or not to, you know, to do sponsorships with the podcast or to do a Patreon with the podcast, and I think we're going to do some of that. Charlie Apigian: 1:11:03 Yeah, and it's what we're doing. If you're, if you're doing the video part, it costs money. We have like four or five subscriptions to things every month. We have a video editor. Charlie Yielding: 1:11:16 We have a cost per episode. Charlie Apigian: 1:11:17 We do and um, and we have people that have said they would love to sponsor and we've stayed away from it. We technically are a nonprofit, um 501c3. And we did that because we received a grant early from Amazon, um and uh, that has been great. But I think you're right, um, but I also think some of that content can be behind, uh, uh, closed doors kind of thing. Well, we can, and we can do so much more if we do that. Charlie Yielding: 1:11:44 Yeah, we did a recording, uh before, just kind of impromptu, or before I had the conversation with my coworkers, and so that seems like something we put behind, uh like Patreon, because it's not, it's not an episode, but it's just content. That's like, if you want visibility into like how, uh, how like to address nerves before you do something like, uh, you know, nerve-racking a better way to put it but like that's a good thing, it's a good thing to to watch. But if you just want to get be entertained by somebody stressing the hell out, that's also entertaining from that perspective. Charlie Apigian: 1:12:20 You know, and I think we can get real imaginative there, Like like there's going to be times like that was a real, a real, a real, a real, a real raw moment that I think could actually help people, you know, that have nerves. Charlie Yielding: 1:12:29 I don't disagree with that. Charlie Apigian: 1:12:31 And um, and I think it's it's, it's about message, it's about, um, doing things, but we also. The only way for it to be sustainable is, uh, to be a little bit imaginative on our end, I think. Yeah. Charlie Yielding: 1:12:42 For sure. Charlie Apigian: 1:12:43 Yeah, no, I, I like that. All right, charlie, we hit it almost an hour and a half. Charlie Yielding: 1:12:47 Yeah, and. Charlie Apigian: 1:12:47 I was worried I'm going to cut half of this. Charlie Yielding: 1:12:49 I was worried, yeah, and we're going to have to give it really close to listen. Uh-huh. But I I was worried that we'd get 40 minutes into it and not have anything else to say. But you know, like, uh, like we normally are we, we have plenty to talk about. Yeah. Charlie Yielding: 1:13:04 You know, um, no, no, no, that's, this is where you stop. You got to stop here. I don't want to, yeah, but you got to, cause I've got to pee really bad, oh, like like, super bad, like my eyeballs are floating in. So we, we said we were winding up. If you got something to say, you can say it quick. Charlie Apigian: 1:13:18 You know what? I don't even want to do the uh whole thing. Charlie Yielding: 1:13:22 So you just say bye, like we get. We did the intro and the outro. Do you have something else for real that you legitimately want to say Cause? Charlie Apigian: 1:13:29 I think it can easily be on another episode or write it down. I already I know what it is. Okay, cool, yeah. Um so, charlie, I say we sign off. Charlie Yielding: 1:13:39 Yeah, yeah, I do, I do too. Uh, this it doesn't feel like a lot now, but when we're editing it to send out, it's going to be, it's going to feel a lot different, and so I don't know, if you hear this and you have any feedback, let us know. Uh, we're not going to do this exact thing every time, but there's going to be a lot more interpersonal conversation. Uh, that goes into the podcasts, and less straightforward interviews and more like let's have a conversation about this piece. Charlie Apigian: 1:14:09 I think that's great, we're done, all right, bye, bye, bye.