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.
Episodes
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 graduated from the University of Calgary's Graphic Design and Integrated Digital Media program with a 4.0 GPA — her third post-secondary credential, and by far her b...
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 happens when the thing that kept you alive starts keeping you lonely? Nicole opens the journal. Raw and uncensored.
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 bingo hall at thirteen in a room so thick with smoke it could cure a ham. And somehow, none of this was considered unusual.
In this episode of Nicole's Notes, I'm walking throu...
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 a standard.
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 broken hallelujah of loving fully.
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 handles it.
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 destination. It's the price of admission
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 what she's been circling for years: she doesn't believe anymore. Not in anger. In clarity.
Nicole unpacks the question she was asking wrong; why does God allow suffering? and e...
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 different read.
In this episode, she breaks down what evolution actually does and doesn't promise. She uses her own CFTR gene mutation as a case study in how biological tra...
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. Determination replaces God as a source of strength. And purpose? You build that. You don't receive it.
Nicole walks through her two races — the frenzy of accomplishing everything bef...
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 to authoritarianism, and why we can't argue our way out of it.
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 archetype in politics and why it keeps recurring.
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 others. Let's understand the techniques and become immune to them.
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 we came to electing an authoritarian, and why we pushed back.
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.
Nice guys aren't always right guys. Chemistry matters less than alignment. The lesson learned at 50+ about generosity, values, and what actually counts.
Chemistry is a liar. This is the story of the intelligent, attractive man who was emotionally broken underneath, and why I had to choose myself.
Kindness is normal, not a superpower. The gap between "good person" and "right person", and why ambition needs a partner who gets excited about it.
The most dangerous people aren't the obvious ones. This is the story of the lie, the obsession, and why that 'off' feeling is your internal radar going off.
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