[Amy]

Welcome to How Leaders Replenish. I am honored to have Niki Cookson with me today. Welcome to the show!

[Niki]

Yes, thank you for the invite. I’m happy to be here. 

[Amy]

Niki and I met years ago. Niki, do you remember what year that was? I was guessing maybe about seven or eight years ago. 

[Niki]

Yes, seven.

[Amy]

So we met at our church. Niki and her family became a part of our church, and I remember Niki being one of the most driven women I have ever met, which is wonderful.

It’s been so exciting to watch your journey in life and all that you do. Would you share a little bit about your family life first so our listeners can know a little bit about you?

[Niki]

Yeah, happy to! I am married. My husband’s name is Adam. We’ve been married for 15 years. Actually, we just celebrated our 15th anniversary earlier this year. We have four children. I have a stepson who’s 23, a daughter who’s 11, and then we have eight-year-old twins.

Life is full, but it’s fun. It’s exciting. There’s never a dull moment. All of our kids are thriving. They’re very active in sports and school. It’s fun to be a part of their lives and watch them grow.

They are adorable kids.

[Amy]

Every one of them are so wonderful. I love them all. Niki’s journey has taken her to Jacksonville, Florida. She used to be at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, but then she transferred positions down to Jacksonville. Why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about what your career has looked like?

[Niki]

Sure! My career has taken actually lots of unexpected turns. I always knew I wanted to be in healthcare. I was drawn to healthcare. Even back as a kid I was in my mind thinking, “I’ll be a physician.” When I went to undergrad, that was what I had in mind. I got a degree in kinesiology and was still on track, thinking pre-med. Then I took a little detour into the fitness industry.

I was an assistant manager for a gym out in Los Angeles. I did that for a couple years. I loved it, but I knew that really wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term. I went back to school and pursued a doctorate in physical therapy. Once I graduated that’s when I joined Mayo Clinic and started patient care.

I was in full-time patient care for about 10 years. Loved physical therapy. Loved the one-on-one interaction with patients. It was such an honor to sit with and just be there through really challenging times with patients as they’re dealing with medical situations. Over those 10 years when I was in practice, I was slowly pulled into more leadership management initiatives, projects; looking at things from a practice level and a department level. Surprisingly, I really liked it.

I did not have management in mind. I thought I would be in patient care going forward. I decided to go back to school again. I got a master’s in business administration and took the jump into full-time leadership management. I took that leap about three years ago.

I am no longer in patient care. I do still have a license to practice in Minnesota and Florida, actually, but I’m not currently practicing. I’m really just 100% in a management role.

[Amy]

What exactly are you doing now? 

[Niki]

I am on the leadership team for a department. I’ve got four direct reports and my team’s about 70 or 80 people. I really am operationally focused. I partner very closely with our physician leaders and look at the department lab level of operations, moving initiatives forward and practice improvement and quality improvement type projects. 

[Amy]

About how many hours do you put in a week?

[Niki]

Currently, I would probably say my average week is about 50 hours. In preparation for our conversation, I was strategically looking at my schedule. I do have a little bit of a commute; about 30 minutes. I am away from the home, away from my family, probably 55 to 60 hours just for work. That’s Monday through Friday.

[Amy]

Then you have your weekends off?

[Niki]

Correct.

[Amy]

You can have some nice family time there. Having three kids in school, two of them being twins, I am curious if you have any recommendations for those who have a full work schedule like yourself as well as family. How do you prioritize things in life?

[Niki]

Great question! I think it’s something that I have struggled with in the past and have, over time, created some systems or approaches to it. I’ve come to realize my scarcest resource or commodity is my time. My attention. Because of that, I really need to be intentional with who and where I place my time; who and where I place my attention. My husband would joke with me when we first met, I was a quote-unquote “game time decision girl.” He would want to plan. “What are you doing next weekend? What are you doing next week?”

I’m like, “I don’t know. It’ll be a game time decision.” Over time, as life fills and my career progresses, I cannot be a game time decision girl all the time, even though that is my natural bent. That’s what I really love. 

I have really grown to appreciate the brilliance of scheduling and planning. I am a master scheduler, I would say, at this point. I schedule not only my work, but family, schedule for my husband, and I incorporate the schedule for the kids into a master schedule. That really helps me stay on track.

[Amy]

If I can ask a question there, where do you keep your schedule? Tell us a little bit about what that looks like.

[Niki]

At work, I really embrace all of digital options. Our organization uses Outlook. I use that to its fullest. At home, I think the kids, because of their age, they want something tangible. They want something that they can touch, that they can update, that they can cross off. We don’t use anything digital at home. It’s a large calendar, and it’s just a month at a time. We keep it in the hallway by our kitchen so that our kids can constantly see what’s on deck for today. What’s the plan, what’s this week, and what can we look forward to this month? They’re part of it. 

I use color coding at home. They know their colors. They know my color. They know what I’m doing. They can see at a glance. They can see what their plan is. I also color code at work, too. You can do that within Outlook. It’s not as detailed. For my work calendar, it’s typically work is one color. Then I have a prioritization that I’ll use. Then personal or home is another color.

[Amy]

Very nice. Have you found that having that calendar at home brings your kids a lot of security? I think that kids need structure. From my experience, you can see if they seem to be lacking peace, it’s often that they don’t know what’s going on. They don’t have the structure that they need. When they get that, it builds more security in them.

Have you seen that?

[Niki]

Completely agree with that. There’s some ebb and flow with schedules, too. There are times where work really ramps up. Either there’s a project or I’m going to be away traveling for work, and my time with them decreases temporarily, but I do think it’s helpful for them to be able to see, “next week, you actually took two days off. In three weeks, we’re actually going on a vacation for four days!”

We can help manage that ebb and flow. “Yeah, it’s really tough. These next three days, I’m probably not going to see you a lot, but then we have time that’s just devoted to you, and I’m not going to be working at all!” It’s helped to manage that, too.

[Amy]

I would have to say, knowing your husband, Adam, that you two flow very well together. Adam is a very hands-on father as well. Your kids, I’m sure, even though they miss you, Adam is such a hands-on dad that I’m sure they’re not feeling a lot of gaps when you do have busy flows in your work.

[Niki]

Agreed. Honestly, I could not be as personally successful in my career if I didn’t have a husband like Adam. He is so supportive.

He is extremely hands-on. He helps, and as that ebb and flow occurs he fills the gaps that I can’t. Then when he needs it, I fill his gaps.

I would agree with that. We work hard to try to complement and do that for each other.

[Amy]

Adam is still working at Mayo, and he’s able to office from home, correct? 

[Niki]

Yes. 

[Amy]

He’s full-time as well?

[Niki]

He’s a software engineer. He works full-time. He is at home, which is nice. If the kids are coming home from school or things like that, at least he has a presence there, but he is still working. He’s still just as busy.

[Amy]

Yes, but you make it all work beautifully. I remember when your twins were probably around age three, and you were attending the church. There were, I think, right back to back about two or three families that also had twins. I remember they were going to you for advice, and you said, “oh, I have figured out the systems. Let me coach you in this.” You started coaching these young couples who were having their first children.

I remember one of our staff members actually coming to me, Catherine, saying, “I don’t know what I would have done without Nikki and her coaching on how to handle twins.” You are very good at your systems, Catherine has told me as a parent as well.

[Niki]

Well, that’s so nice! Yes, I loved being able to say, “here’s what worked for us! Here’s the tips and tricks. Here’s the equipment that we bought.” I learned very quickly that it’s all about the equipment you have with twins, and just being equipped and having the right number of things to pull from. It was fun to watch both of them bring their twins in and be successful as well. They’re thriving too.

[Amy]

They are! It’s been fun because since then there have been—we just have an unusual number of twins at High Point Church, I think—but there have been a number of other twins born, and now it’s kind of passed in succession from each family to each family. “You need to do what Nikki Cookson taught me.” It still goes on down the list. 

I remember our daughter, when she was in high school, was nannying for twins that were born. She got the whole set of advice on how to handle twins as she was being a nanny and said it was super helpful.

[Niki]

Oh, that’s amazing. Thanks for sharing that with me!

[Amy]

With prioritizing your schedule, are there certain things you have automated in your life that make things more simple?

[Niki]

Yes. Going back to what I’ve mentioned before, my time is really my commodity. I have tried to be very intentional and strategic. If there is anything I can do to free up my own time, it’s worth the investment. It’s worth putting it into place, like cleaning services. We’ve automated all of our bills. I think there’s one bill, our electric bill. For whatever reason down here in Florida, we cannot automate. That’s the one outstanding bill that we have to manually go in and pay, but other than that, everything’s kind of on a monthly system. Obviously, we’re checking for accuracy, but I’m not spending much time on that. We hire out landscaping, and any of the chores around the house. Shopping, groceries. 

You can spend a lot of time doing groceries. There are some great services where you can just set up. I know I’m always going to need milk, eggs, cheese, bread. The things that you’re buying every week, put it on auto fill on a weekly basis. It shows up to your house, and then it’s the one-offs and the specialties you need. That’s what you would actually spend your time going to the store for. 

I remember when the twins came. We had three kids under three years old. Both Adam and I were working full-time. We would be busy, busy, busy Monday through Friday. We’d finally make it to the weekend, and then we would spend all day Saturday and Sunday mowing the grass, shopping, and cleaning. At one point, I was like, “this is not sustainable! We have zero free time. We have zero flexibility with our own time.” 

I do remember the conversation I had with Adam because he was a little resistant. He didn’t want to spend the money. He was like, “we can clean. There’s no reason to pay someone to clean our house.” I think there came a tipping point where it’s like, “we just can’t do this. We’re too busy. Our life is too full. We need some help.” I think once we crossed that threshold and we started with the cleaning service I won Adam over a little bit. Then he was open to some of the other stuff because I was ready to sign up and hire as much help as we could get. I think he saw how it really freed us up to be able to have family time, go and do things, and not just be working around the house on the weekend.

[Amy]

With getting extra help and you guys not doing, like you said, the landscaping, the lawn mowing, et cetera, have you found that you’re having more time with your kids? In that time, do you get more conversations with them to really impart to who they are?

[Niki]

Yes, absolutely. That schedule, that routine, the beauty of it is for us is that Monday through Friday are really focused on work. We typically use Friday night as a transitional time to move out of that driven mode.

I get in that mode of just go, go, go, and check the box, move to the next, check the box, move to the next. I need a little bit of transition time. We typically don’t plan many things Friday night. It’s just a hangout. We have dinner. We try to do a game night where it’s just our kids and the family.

Saturday and Sunday is really for the family. Very little, if any, work happens on the weekend. We’re very intentional about that. That really allows us to spend time, focus on the kids, have meaningful conversations, and really pour into them.

[Amy]

I think that’s something that a lot of people, like you said, may feel guilt over—having help with, the cleaning the house. “Well, I can clean my house. Why spend the money?” But really what it comes down to is, like you said, time is our commodity. If we are busy cleaning the house or mowing the lawn there are interactions, fun things, and conversations that we’ll end up not having with our kids because we were too busy. They might think, “oh, I’d like to talk to mom or dad, but they’re busy.” Then those conversations that they need to have each week may go unmet because mom and dad are busy and they don’t want to bother them. That’s the opportunity cost, right?

[Niki]

Right. There is the loss of connections and conversations with your kids.

[Amy]

So important and so worth the extra money. In the long run, you will look back and be so grateful that you two did that. 

[Niki]

Yeah. There’s two filters or questions that I ask myself when I’m trying to prioritize. One of them is, will this matter in five years? 

[Amy]

Good question.

[Niki]

And so, you know, obviously there’s a lot of the day-to-day work things that I can’t necessarily put that filter on. Is this project going to matter in five years? Some things you just have to do for work.

But I guess, especially when it comes to some of the after hour things, is this going to matter in five years? And I think the time, the conversations, and anything that you’re pouring into your kids, that’s going to matter in five years. That’s going to matter in 20 years. And so I do think that question helps me to prioritize. They always rise to the top. The time with them, the time with my husband, the time with my kids rises to the top when I look through that question or filter.

[Amy]

And what is your other question that you ask yourself? 

[Niki]

Is this the best “yes”? Sometimes, you know, if you’re asked to do three things at the exact same time, all three might be like an appropriate “yes”. It’s not wrong, but is it your best one? What’s the best out of the three? That’s the one you should say yes to. And then you should say no to the other two.

[Amy]

I love that. Thanks for sharing those. Now I’m curious, with your busy schedule, what do you do to replenish yourself? 

[Niki]

I schedule it. I have to write it. So I have things kind of baked into my own routine on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, and on a monthly basis that are focused more towards me and filling me back up. On a daily basis I have a routine in the morning where I’m listening to worship music and/or a sermon to get the Word, some positivity, and to get my mindset right for the day. I do have a commute, so during my commute home I typically listen to a fun podcast that is purely enjoyment—yours included. It’s on my playlist. But that way I have something that’s fun and kind of mindless or, you know, it’s not like I’m having to think very hard. I can just sit back and enjoy. Then when the kids go to bed at night, I typically will take 45 minutes to an hour to read, pray, or do something that fills me personally. So that’s all kind of baked into my schedule or my routine on a daily basis. 

Weekly, I do have a small ladies group that that I meet with. These are like-minded women. We meet Wednesday nights currently and we just pour into each other. We talk about struggles. We pray. It’s very fluid. It’s different every week, but it has been incredibly helpful. I started that actually when we moved down to Florida, so I’ve been meeting with the same group of ladies for almost three years. We’re really kind of getting to know each other and just being there for each other. It’s a core group of people that I can count on and bounce things off of. 

We recently just renovated and put together a home gym, so we’ve got, you know, the weights, we’ve got the gym mat flooring, we’ve got the TV all set up. That’s been more of a recent addition. Our goal is for Adam and me to work out together.

Then monthly, I think, is more just the fun, you know? Pedicures, manicures, dinner with friends, date with Adam. Fun stuff.

[Amy]

And what do you and Adam do to stay connected with each other each day and each week? Do you have any examples there?

[Niki]

Gosh, I was trying to think how long have we been doing this, but we pray together every morning before I leave for work. When the kids were younger they were still sleeping. So there was no problem. Now he actually walks out to the car with me. So the kids are out there in the house, but it is truly just the two of us. We pray over each other’s days, and it’s a really nice way to connect first thing in our day. 

Fortunately, we work for the same company, so we’re able to connect via Teams and be chatting throughout the day. So that’s kind of fun. Then at night, when the kids go to bed, that’s really our time to read. Pray individually and/or together throughout the day in the morning and in the evening, especially after the kids go to bed.

[Amy]

And what about vacations? Do you guys do many vacations throughout the year? Do you do just a couple of large ones?

[Niki]

The last couple of years we’ve done one vacation for like a week or more where it’s just Adam and me, and then we’ve done a family vacation to where we bring the kids. We’ve recently—probably the last couple years—gotten into cruising. We took the kids on the cruise, and they loved it. Adam and I are actually scheduled to go on another cruise later this year, just the two of us. 

I think vacationing as a couple is phenomenal, and then vacationing as a family is really needed as well, and so we’re setting time aside for both of those. Being in Florida, there’s so much that’s within two to three hours of a drive, so probably every three to four weeks we have like a two-day or three-day little mini vacation scheduled, because the kids are out of school.

[Amy]

Nice! Do you have any favorite books that have been real game-changers for you that you’d love to pass on to others?

[Niki]

Well, I mentioned the one filter being The Best “Yes”. That’s actually from a book called The Best Yes by Lysa TerKuerst. It’s a great read! It’s very practical. I found it to be challenging and insightful. I’ve really taken that on and I use that all the time of like, “is this really my best “yes”. So I would recommend that book, especially as we’re talking about prioritizing.

[Amy]

Okay. Do you and Adam have any favorite date places? 

[Niki]

We’ve embraced the Florida lifestyle, I’ll say that.

Probably some of my favorite dates since we’ve moved down here in the last three years were just the two of us going to the beach for the day, either when the kids are in school, or like if it’s summer and they’re at their camp or whatever they have scheduled for that day. Just the two of us going to the beach, because we can completely relax. There’s really no distractions, and we can talk the whole time.

[Amy]

That would be a wonderful date to have the whole day. Just enjoying the ocean. I love that.

[Niki]

Yes! Otherwise, you know, we love food, we’ll go to a really good restaurant, enjoy some good food and conversation.

[Amy]

Nice! If you could go back to 20 year old Nikki and give her advice, what would you tell her?

[Niki]

I would tell her to dream bigger. Don’t put any limits on your dreams. And then once you have that dream, break it down into the little parts—the incremental parts—and work on those incremental parts. Don’t get overwhelmed by your big dream.

[Amy]

And of everything we’ve gone through today, are there any questions that I did not ask you that you would have liked me to have asked you?

[Niki]

I think, when I look back over my career, embracing and learning from the adversity that comes your way has been pivotal for me. You know, adversity comes, and there are challenges. Maybe you don’t get the position you want, or you’re in a position and you don’t like it. Things happen. Embrace it, take it on, and learn from it. I think maybe it’s just my personality, too, but when I look back on what were some of my major life lessons, they were all from adversity.

So in some ways, it’s retrospectively been a blessing to have some of these obstacles, because then it’s like you really kind of stand up to the challenge. You grow, you learn, you progress, and you’re better off afterwards. Refined in the fire.

[Amy]

For sure! 

Thank you for sharing your wisdom! We appreciate it.

[Niki]

Thank you for having me. It was such an honor for you to ask. And I’m just excited for your podcast.

I’ve learned so much already from just listening to it personally, so it’s an honor to be on!

[Amy]

Well, thank you so much. It’s an honor to have you with us today, and I know that everyone’s going to glean much from hearing all that you have to say with your busy work life, and all that you juggle with family and how you harmonize it all. You are a very graceful woman in everything that you have on your plate, and you make everything work. It’s fun to listen to people like you, who are really going after your dreams and still enjoying family life.

And your family life isn’t just holding by the threads, but it’s really thriving. So when someone does that well, I think that is an amazing thing that we all can learn from, and you do that very well. So thank you for sharing with us today, Nikki!