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NiCole's Notes

NiCole's Notes

By: Nicole Zeller
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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.

© 2026 NiCole's Notes
Episodes
  • I was a Latchkey Kid: My Real Gen-X Childhood
    Jun 23 2026

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    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 through my actual feral childhood — the games, the jobs, the unsupervised summers, the playground equipment that could legally reach Mach 10 — and making the case that all of it built something specific in us: self-sufficiency, self-regulation, conflict management, and the ability to get things done without calling a meeting about it first.

    We grew up latchkey and feral. We turned out fine. Mostly.

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    11 mins
  • Intro to the Journal Series
    Jun 23 2026

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    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.

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    3 mins
  • Journal Series Ep4/4: I've Got the Perimeter
    Jun 20 2026

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    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.

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    10 mins
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