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 of 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 was part of a $ 350 million fundraising campaign and had a 50' banner of my mug hanging off Foothills Hospital for 4 years (2003-2007). I am deep into my journey to finding my true self. I am attempting to integrate my conscious and unconscious to allow my authentic self to emerge. See Carl Jung's theory about individuation. I write about how I am doing it on my website: www.cokeontherocks.ca, so go see me there for some tips.
Just graduated with a professional certification in Graphic Design (June 15, 2026) and am working on another in Integrated Digital Media (graduating May 2027); my friends would consider me the Sassy Smurf of the group.
I may have been given a cactus, but I don't have to sit on it.
Episodes
29 episodes
Marriage & Divorce: The Duality of Reality
When you're living your most public life—keynoting in front of CEOs, your face on 50-foot hospital banners, raising millions for your foundation—who sees you disappearing at home?This is the story of the duality. Of building a public per...
The Redemption Arc
Episode 6: I weighed 74 pounds at my wedding. Ten years later, the University of Calgary named a research lab after me. This is how I went from surviving on a feeding tube to raising millions for CF research and discovering that my surviv...
The Feeding Tube
46 pounds lost in 7 years. 74 lbs at wedding. Surgery 6 weeks before marriage. "You'll die without this tube." Walking down the aisle as a skeleton.
When I Closed My Eyes
Trigger Warning: Medical trauma, childhood fear, anxiety, hypervigilanceWhat happens to a child's mind when doctors and nurses repeatedly invade their body and sleep without consent?This bonus episode bridges The Exacerbati...
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The Exacerbation: When the Glass Cracks
This is the story of a 22-year-old who thought she was invincible. Who had survived 10 years of hiding CF. Who had proven to the world that her disease didn't define her.And then her lungs decided to call her bluff.The hamster whe...
Master of Invisibility: Learning to Lie
This is episode 3 of 9. At age 9, something shifted. Nicole joined the swimming team. And for the next 10 years, she became a master of performance. The world saw a varsity captain, a provincial athlete, a girl with no limitations. ...
The Village That Kept Me Alive
Your parents are 17 and 18. You're four years old. You have a terminal illness. The doctors just told them you probably won't make it to first grade.Now what?This is the story of what happens when a village decides that's unacce...
Living After You Planned to Die
Hi, I'm Nicki Zeller. Welcome to Nicole's Notes, where I try to find clear thinking about the messiest things.I'm about to tell you a story that spans 50 years. It's a story about being told, at age four, that you probably won't make it...
Graduation as a Gen-Xer Hits Different
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 happ...
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...
Journal Series Ep2/4: She'll Handle It
She'll handle it. She'll survive it. She'll carry it. She's strong. But nobody asked if she wanted to. Nicole reads the journal entry where she named the loneliness inside the competence, and the isolating shadow of being the one who always han...
Journal Series Ep 1/4: That's Rare
Nicole reads a raw journal entry written under pressure and unpacks what it actually means to be self-aware when it comes at a cost. Real strength isn't performance. And looking at your walls? That's rare. Self-awareness isn't the destina...
Just Me. Choosing Me. Ep. 3 of 3
So if God is out — then what? It's the question Nicole gets every time she talks about faith. And in this final episode of the arc, she answers it plainly.Science replaces God as a method. Medicine replaces God as a practice. Determinati...
Evolution: Successful, not Perfect- Ep.2 of 3
The classic argument for God is complexity: we're too intricate to be the result of accidents. But Nicole Zeller — a woman who has spent five decades inside a body that evolution built imperfectly and medicine rebuilt carefully — has a differen...
Un-Believing in God- Ep. 1 of 3
For most of her life, Nicole Zeller negotiated with God. Struck deals. Prayed during CF exacerbations. Promised to be better, do better, live better, if only her body would cooperate. If only she could breathe again. In this episode, she names ...
The Psychology of The Follower Pt.3 of 5
Smart people fall for false saviours. People with advanced degrees. People who pride themselves on being rational. How is that possible? This episode explores the emotional and cognitive mechanisms that make even intelligent people vulnerable t...
Breaking the Spell Pt. 5 of 5
If someone you love is following a false saviour, what do you actually do? Facts don't work. Shame doesn't work. This episode reveals four techniques that actually rescue people from authoritarianism. Spoiler: they're not what you expect.
The Canadian Saviour Pt.4 of 5
We talk about false saviours like they're an American problem, but Canada has our own version. Pierre Oillievre understands the playbook. He has tried to execute it perfectly, and for a moment, he almost had us. This episode is about how close ...
Techniques of the Tyrant Pt.2 of 5
There's a playbook. A set of five techniques that every false saviour uses to gain and maintain power. The Big Lie. Enemy Focus. Breaking Norms. Attaching Gatekeepers. Loyalty Tests. Trump uses them, so do Putin, Maduro, Erdogan, and dozens of ...
The Archetype of The Tyrant Pt.1 of 5
Every time a society splinters, a certain type of man emerges. He's crude, he breaks all the rules, and he identifies an enemy to destroy. We call them tyrants. But what actually makes them appealing? This episode explores the most dangerous ar...
