Books

The Good Hard Thing. A Field Guide for Exhausted Leaders that Don’t Have Time for Spiritual Journeys.

Querying agents.

A practical, pastoral field guide for burned-out Christian leaders. Not a spa retreat. Not a vision statement. Forty days of brief, honest entries that braid spiritual formation, leadership acuity, and the presence of God. Theology with mud on its boots.

Field-tested during Lent 2025 by 20+ pastors, executives, and seminary staff.

"This leadership devotion became a sacred anchor in my journey... It did not just inspire—it formed me." —Dr. Mycal X. Brickhouse, former Director of Programs and Grants, Leadership Education at Duke Divinity

"A profound achievement. I highly recommend this to thoughtful leaders committed to doing the good hard thing." —Jeff Hirota, Methodist Pastor & former CEO, Boulder Community Foundation

"These are qualities that are, devastatingly, not required for leadership—so to see Nicole drag them back into center stage was thrilling." —Katy Colen, ECC Pastor

C’est What? My Idiotic quest to learn French. And Why People Do Hard Things for Fun.

In revision.

A braided memoir about a 40-year French quest that performs its own thesis: why brilliant people manufacture controllable difficulty when life is uncontrollable.

The Burden of Brilliance

In development.

What happens to the brilliant child when she grows up? A framework for the high-capacity and exhausted. Four leadership archetypes. Co-authored with Makomborero Muropa.