NiCole's Notes
NiCole's Notes: The study guide for adulting. Witty, rigorous analysis of everything that matters: politics, love, illness, friendship, technology, aging, and the contradictions we live with. Sarcastic scholarship for the thinking Gen-X mind. Smart when it matters and Witty always.
A graduate from the University of Calgary, B.A. Political Science '95, B.A.Spanish '08, born with cystic fibrosis, a lung disease that has been trying to kill me since birth. Hanging on to life by the horns with only 26% lung function. I have 20+ years of experience building organizations and understanding how systems actually work.
Founder of the Summit Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis, raising 3.5+ million dollars for local research, Philanthropist of the year for Alberta in 2014, Honoured with the naming of a research lab at the Cumming School of Medicine, Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases, at the University of Calgary in 2013. Featured in a documentary about my journey with CF and being a CrossFit athlete, while owning my own gym in 2018. I have been a part of a 350 million dollar fundraising campaign and had a 50' banner of my mug hanging off the Foothills Hospital for 4 years from 2003-2007.
Currently finishing two programs at the University of Calgary, one in Graphic Design (graduating June 15, 2026) and the other in Integrated Digital Media (graduating May 2027), my friends would consider me the Sassy Smurf out of the group.
I may have been given a cactus, but I don't have to sit on it.
NiCole's Notes
Latest Episodes
I Graduated. Again. A 4.0, Ten Thousand Dollars, and a Marijuana Dog Poster That Nobody Asked For.
Two degrees + Two professional certifications. Thirty-five years. A 4.0 GPA. Nicki Zeller on what changes when you pay for your own education — and a partial inventory of the worst art ever produced at the University of Calgary. Nicki Zeller gr...
I was a Latchkey Kid: My Real Gen-X Childhood
Forget the generic Gen-X nostalgia take — this is the real one, first person, with receipts.Ashtrays were a chore. I was babysitting a newborn at twelve for $20 a week. My brother Neil drove a truck at eleven. I was balancing a till at a...
Intro to the Journal Series
Nicole Zeller opens her private journal for the first time on the podcast. This is a four-episode Nicole's Notes series about strength, heartbreak, self-respect, and what it really costs to feel everything without running. Starts now. What...
Journal Series Ep4/4: I've Got the Perimeter
Nicole reads the journal entry where she stopped white-knuckling it and named what she actually needed — not rescue, but relief. Not someone stronger, but someone strong enough. The episode where self-respect stops being armour and starts being...
Journal Series Ep3/4: Broken Hallelujah
Heartbreak doesn't always diminish you. Sometimes it expands you. Nicole reads the journal entry where she took inventory of who she was in the middle of the pain, and found a rare diamond, a meditation on expansion, self-respect, and the broke...
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