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Welcome to Dig In, the podcast brought to you by the minds at Dig Insights. We're interviewing some of the most inspiring brand professionals in marketing, innovation, and insights to discover the story behind the story of their most exciting innovations.
Jess (00:00)
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Dig In podcast. I am super enthused for today's conversation. Today, I am joined by Nikkia Reveillac. She's growth guide and consultant, keynote speaker, podcast host and the former insights leader at Netflix, Twitter and Colgate Palmolive. So there is no shortage of expertise and background to tap into today for a very insightful conversation. Thank you so much for being here.
Nikkia (00:25)
Thank you for having me, Jess. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.
Jess (00:29)
Yeah, well let's kick it off with an impromptu question so you have not seen this question from me. But I'd love to know what does your ideal Sunday look like?
Nikkia (00:37)
My ideal Sunday involves sleeping in late
rolling out of bed around 9.30, 10, pure laziness. I'm fortunate enough to have two kids who are semi-self-sufficient, though they're not making their own breakfasts
on the weather, there's often some thing that we're doing outside in Prospect Park. We live in Brooklyn, New York, and the park is very close. Because I no longer have to manage an organization, a function, a team. Fortunately, Sundays are relaxed all the way through. And
some at some point in the evening and now the evening because of daylight savings starts a little sooner there's a little bit of okay kids we need to start thinking about your week so my sunday evenings have moved from me thinking about my week to helping my two girls who are eight and eleven think about what they need to do mentally and close wise prep wise to to have a great week
But that's generally the vibe.
Jess (01:43)
I love that. I love the intentionality of that, you know, Sunday evening for the girls. I'm going to borrow that. I think that I don't prepare my family to go into the week very well. So you're inspiring me already. Thank you for that.
So,
Nikkia (01:56)
You're welcome.
Jess (01:58)
tell us a little bit about your background and what you're doing today.
Nikkia (02:02)
I am a retired insights leader. I'm kidding. I'm not retired. If the right opportunity presents itself, I might find my way back into the corporate space. But I spent decades, two decades in the world of research.
Jess (02:07)
Thank you.
Nikkia (02:19)
and had the opportunity to experience research and the application of it, the understanding of it, the building of it across consumer packaged goods where research and the value is fairly well understood because of how long that industry has been around. And then moved to tech and entertainment where the value of research is strong but has a different application. And I think through it all, have...
one central thing that has driven me and that is my deep love of understanding humans. And so when I was an individual contributor, a lot of that passion and understanding was funneled into the work that I was doing to bring insights back so that the companies could make better decisions. And I think I've never thought of myself as solely a researcher. I think I have showed up in spaces first as a business person who's curious, who happens to be well-versed in
you know, a variety of research tools. But I quickly moved into management of people and I think that's where I found myself and found my joy. So I have many, many colleagues, many of whom I love, who had said to me early on, I don't want to manage people. And I understand that it's a very, very challenging job. And like parenting and teaching, you shouldn't get into it if you don't really love.
Jess (03:42)
Yeah.
Nikkia (03:42)
the part of it that requires being selfless and watching somebody else shine. But I grew quite addicted to that. And I think my new life post Colgate, post Twitter, post Netflix has seen that natural talent, that passion, that energy for understanding people, helping people, connecting. It's people, people, It's been allowed to blossom.
because I think the more senior I became and the more entrenched in the politics of tech in particular I became, I realized how rare it is to find leaders who are both great at delivering results and understand how to develop, motivate, and nurture the talent of not just individuals but teams.
Jess (04:32)
Mm-hmm.
Nikkia (04:33)
And yeah, I I just have seen that skill, that quality of mind be good for me, but even better for business. I've now sort of spread my wings because I do think one of the things that makes it a little bit difficult to be somebody who's so human-centered, even as a researcher in organizations, once you get to a certain level, is the politics, right? And I think...
Jess (04:57)
Mm-hmm.
Nikkia (04:59)
I'm very excited to just be this. Not just, I'm more than just, but to be someone who wants to pay it forward. I think life is too short, too finite, too fragile, not to want to give gifts. It just makes the world happier. And so it's been a joy to parlay some of the things that I've learned into leadership.
conferences and settings, but I think more importantly to share the stories in my podcast, in my coaching, which is like a new side hustle that I
it's also been beautiful to reflect on how central this theme of people has been throughout my life and my career.
Jess (05:39)
Yeah, I find that so important when you are a human centric person, how that plays out as a leader, how it plays out as a colleague, how it plays out as your coaching and mentoring people, and certainly how it plays out when you're, you know, trying to learn from the marketplace and learn from the world and how that can inform different strategies. So that's a great opportunity for you to take a breath and do what is very natural and authentic to you free of maybe the corporate context that
might have felt, I'm going use the word suffocating. I don't know why that just came to mind. Maybe that's a little too extreme. But it's great to see you in this more, you know,
of freedom.
Nikkia (06:18)
Thank you. It certainly been, it wasn't suffocating, but I do think that managing expectations of others and perceptions of others became something that I was like, okay, is this serving me? Is it even serving the business? I'll always have a deep passion for helping people do the best work of their lives.
Regardless as to whether that person is trying to figure out how to develop a research plan or
to help an organization make a better decision.
Jess (06:50)
Yeah, definitely. Well, let's dig into that part of your career and your background because I think there's some really interesting lessons to learn there. And our listeners crave inspiration from other leaders. And I think one of the best ways to inspire is to tell a story. So I love this time in your career where you were the insights leader at Netflix because this was a really pivotal time in the streaming industry. And your role was so integral in reframing how the company thought about the role of
brand, which I think is really relevant to so many people. So take us back to that time. What was the context at the time in the industry? How was Netflix thinking about the role of brand?
Nikkia (07:19)
Mm-hmm.
Thank you for leading me here. It is a fun story to tell because it's amazing how much change happened through the work that my team and I did. When I started, it was October, 2021, and the company was still riding the high from the pandemic boom. Everybody was home watching Netflix. And I don't think all the competition that we have in the streaming market was present yet. We had HBO before it became HBO Max.
Apple TV, Disney, Hulu. And I remember trying to understand why there was this feeling across many leaders that brand was like a dirty word. And...
the role that I occupied was going to cover brand. And so it was important for me to understand how I would be able to move forward, what the issues were, what the opportunities were. But what I encountered was this belief that brand is something that you do when your category or product or service is relatively low involvement and not that emotionally resonant.
And
you think of all of the physical products that have strong brands, whether that's like Pepsi, Coke, or Colgate or whatever. They have strong marketing messages that we remember for years from what they put out on TV.
The feeling was if Netflix had a marketing budget of $100 million, all of that money should go towards advertising and creating awareness for the shows and movies on platform, especially the
And it made
sense, right? Like how else are people going to know about it? But I had this hunch because I'd spent years at a company that understood how to grow and strengthen brands, that it was important, even though
the company is in entertainment and one might argue a more emotionally driven space, the role of Brown is to create an almost irrational loyalty between one human being and something else. And so in a world where competition was already bubbling up and we could see on the horizon there just be new entrants.
it was important for me to find the right way to be able to say, we should pay attention. There began this long but beautiful and often tough journey at Netflix to try and figure out how to make this happen. And this happens for a lot of researchers. You have a goal. Maybe you have like some research, but you have a hunch. You can't just go into a room and say, this is what we should do. And the journey to go from the hunch to I'm trying to persuade people.
depends on a number of factors. For me, it was first understanding that hard to describe culture around brand. So that was like a lot of stakeholder interviews internally. Also a lot of reviewing of past research to understand, well, how far had we gone on brand?
And even to understand some of the organizational decisions that were made, because there were departments that were set up for brand, and then people got let go. And so was like, OK, you're sending a signal here. It's not important. Then I had to understand culture. So the second big thing is you've got to understand the culture of decision making of the organization. And at Netflix, they are extremely data driven. They
After all, built the algorithm that kind of served up options, right? Like before that, I think you had to come do your research and then go pick what show you wanted to watch. And so recommending you might like this was very much part of this data-driven approach that Netflix made popular. So they had whole data science teams that were doing these A-B tests to ascertain what box art to put in front of people.
And so all decisions relied on data. So they were very data centric. They were also extremely memo heavy. And I love that about them. At some point they were like, listen, we need to document, we need to debate. We need to make sure that there's a record of dissent. And I love that too, right? Because how often do you work in an environment where you're like, well, we just are doing this.
you might
express a dissenting opinion, but where is it documented?
are the steps that
that leads to a decision. these memos were works of art, really detailed, extremely buttoned up in terms of the data that said this is what we want. And inside of the memos, there was a section saying, like, how would you rip this apart? Right? So
loved that. But it was a learning point
Jess (12:16)
you see.
Nikkia (12:18)
me.
And then the final thing is like, what data did we actually have on brand? Because in telling a story, you need to have those foundational points to jump off from, else it's just fluff. And so taking all of these things, the internal sort of pulse on brand, the culture of decision-making, data-heavy, memo-centric, as well as an understanding that there was this brand tracker that the research team had built, not externally, because unlike a lot of CPG companies,
Netflix and Twitter and a lot of these companies and tech will buy talent to do these things internally, right? So there is a leaning away from we hire vendors to we do it ourselves. All right, we brought you in with your PhD in biostatistics, like help us build this. And so there was this kind of like, it wasn't dinky, but it was a tracker that wasn't getting a lot of love.
kind of falling apart at the seams, but enough data from five years and 26 countries and hundreds of thousands of responses that I can analyze exactly what was going on. So I worked with a third party and I was like, okay, foundation point is what are the trends? I have a hunch and I've looked at what's happening by looking at research externally that Netflix is still number one, still dominates.
But there is softness happening because there was other research that my team was responsible for on the reputation side, not brand, but know, it's sister reputation that showed that people were beginning to feel like Netflix wasn't for good people. So it went from Netflix and chill to, you're taking off the shoes that we love. We're very confused about it. You're raising prices. This doesn't feel, you you talked a big game about like, you know, loving the people. This doesn't feel, and so I suspected that that would show up.
in the brand tracker, some softness on some of these measures. So after a few months, and during this process, and from my stakeholder interviews, I was able to glean where I would have the biggest support. So this was not gonna be a story of change by me just like pushing through with a sexy memo. I needed to have a senior ally. And I found that in the chief communications officer.
And she was like, yep, totally agree. Like we need to do something. And the do something wasn't necessarily like we need to launch a brand campaign. It was just like, we need to pay attention. We need to track this. And so what Netflix does is they have these meetings where folks who are, they don't call it the C-suite, but they call it L-staff. So it's 21 or so of the VPs across functions. So they would meet at off sites and discuss the things that were.
really pressing on the company. And this was either like, how do we grow or how do we deal with everything from, you know, return to work? And so she said to the organizer, I want to put brand on the agenda. And it's a big deal to have a topic that you're working on put on the agenda, because it's going to be a focused debating discussion. So when the results came in, and I began to develop a memo, I thought of two things. Okay, this memo needs to be full of charts and data.
Jess (15:19)
Sure.
Nikkia (15:30)
It also needs to be disruptive and distinct, just like any good brand should be. And so I partnered with her and I was like, this is the most interesting thing I've ever done in my career. I've never gotten this much feedback. And I was like very senior, but she was in it. This is the other thing about the culture. didn't matter what your role was. Everybody was in these memos. Everybody felt an equal responsibility for the company's success. And so she gave a lot of feedback, right? I think I started off with more empirical data on like why brand.
is important. And she was like, no, no, you need to focus on the facts. Anything that feels too opinion driven, it won't work. And so while it was uncomfortable, it was extremely helpful because she had the air of the CEOs and had more experience in having these debates in that forum. And so she pretty much not only helped me finish that memo, but decided to take that agenda item. Where are we on brand?
to one of these off sites in partnership with two other strong woman leaders the chief marketing officer and the chief technology officer so the chief and they're all women and so they facilitated a discussion in a debate that led Reed Hastings to see you know I'm still not a hundred percent sold but like there's enough data because the data basically validated the hunch that I have the Netflix continued to be strong on top-of-mind awareness
you all of the sort of key measures. But when you started to look more deeply into the attributes, like cares for customers, you know, is delivering stuff for young people, we started to see some, not major, but some softness. And that was enough to be like, okay, because not only did we look at the view of Netflix, but competition. And so still number one, but like the gap was shrinking.
And so
Jess (17:20)
Sure.
Nikkia (17:21)
there was then permission to do a couple experiments in one market and even with like brand campaign language and the materials. And I'm extremely proud of that. think it all culminated for me in, I think it might've been 2023, there was a company town hall and I was asked to present an update on brand and that had not happened before.
Right? Because, you it's a very jazzy thing, right? Like it's like, okay, we just got like Arnold Schwarzenegger or we just whatever. Like those are the updates. Yeah. Look how great Squid Game did. And so for me to be on stage talking about how we were doing on brand and delivering exciting news, but also like very objective, almost sobering news was a win. So that's the whole story. And, know, there's three lessons in there around.
Jess (17:50)
that's tough to compete with, yeah.
Nikkia (18:12)
how one might go about tailoring the story. And I can't understate in closing how incredibly important it is to do the work to understand the culture of decision-making. Like if I hadn't done that work upfront, I might have put a deck together. But you know, the deck wasn't the thing that, it wasn't the currency.
Jess (18:33)
Yeah. Well, there are so many parts to your story that I'd love to like really, really dig into. But what is this idea of I needed to write a sexy memo and what does a sexy memo look like? Right. Like, what's the brief for that? And you said you had to be very data driven. And but also, I love this nuance of
what could be wrong with this? Like, what what assumptions might we challenge? What beliefs?
might we disagree with, like to actually introduce that idea of debate is really interesting. And I would, I'd love to hear a little bit more context around that. Like what that allows you to do as an organization. Does it allow you to actually move to a decision faster? it, does it allow you to, to make sure all the stakeholders feel heard and feel part of it? Like what does that do? Cause I find that to be one of the most interesting things of what you described on the memo front.
Nikkia (19:21)
Yeah, and that is Netflix culture. I don't take credit for that. Netflix has in its culture feedback and freedom and autonomy and language that is basically sending a signal that is clear. We hire senior fully formed adults.
And the purpose of you guys being in this after having made it through this rigorous screening process is to make Netflix better. And in life, to make a thing better, to make a decision better, to decide what you should paint your walls, I think it's helpful to invite another opinion. It doesn't mean that you have to accept it, but I do think what we humans benefit from is just dialogue.
And so what it does, I think, is to say to everybody, your voice matters. And it also spreads this feeling of maturity that is intoxicating. Because it's like, I am courageous enough to ask for you to disagree with me. I am courageous enough to say, I'm going to take in all of these different inputs with humility.
And I'm courageous to say, thank you so much, everybody. I have now evaluated everybody's dissenting points of view and I'm making this decision. And so I think it really imbues maturity and fosters this idea that like you were chosen to be part of this team at Netflix, this sort of elite athlete team so that you can have healthy discussion and debates. If this was a more junior organization,
I think the top down, we said it, this is what you're doing, that would be much more part of the culture, but the entire ethos of the company a few years ago is we hire senior people. And so the last thing a senior person wants is to be told what to do. And of course, as the company scaled and grew, that ability to farm, they called it Farm for Descent, loved it.
it's still there, but I think they needed to put a little bit more guardrails that they're not, not all decisions get opened up to the whole company. Right. So Netflix also was a company that had this culture memo that you could find online if you search Netflix culture memo. But before it got published, it would be a Google doc.
And everybody in the company was invited to challenge and ask questions, right? Like, what do you mean when you use this word? You know, this feels very US centric. We're becoming a global company. Maybe you want to expand the language. And so I think it was great. And then the company started to grow to the point where it became really difficult to open all documents up to everybody. Yeah. But again, with my memo,
Jess (21:51)
No.
Yeah, it's up to scale.
Nikkia (22:12)
I had to be very deliberate at the beginning in mapping out my sequence of socialization. So I had my key ally, the chief communications officer. Obviously, I had a manager that I would check in with, but I had a lot of autonomy. This was a thing that I was driving. And there were socialization points, but I was very careful to explain to people when I would offer them document for feedback. Thank you so much for your feedback. I may or may not.
incorporate all of your ideas, but I appreciate anything that feels, I appreciate you calling out anything that may feel like it doesn't belong or perhaps you're making a statement that feels like a little bit of a stretch. And so that's one of the beautiful things about the Google suite of tools. Once somebody inserts it or comment, the expectation was let's, let's, let's spar, right? Like, you know, not in a healthy way. And so I, it took a moment for me to like get used to that.
Right? Because when you have worked for a while, it's rare that you have people more junior than you and just like everybody like poking holes at your stuff. But then once I was able to be like, this is the best gift. Like, could you imagine like people put like you poke holes so that I see my blind spots sooner. It was something that I became quite enamored with. So whether it was this brand, memo,
or something else, it was really important to me to be like, okay, who do I need to talk to when? How do I bring people together? And how do I close the loop? Thank you, but I've made this decision. And the sexy part of it, I think I've always been on a mission to make research sexy. When I was working, when I was head of research at Twitter, we kind of rebranded the team because we wanted to try and have even more impact in the company.
And I was like, we're gonna make research sexy again. And the idea was less sexy in its pure terms. It was more magnetic and irresistible. And if you use that term, all of a sudden you're thinking about the appeal of the artifact. And it wasn't just the artifacts, it was everything from how you approached a colleague at the beginning, how you kept them.
satiated or hungry during the course of a research project so that they were like begging for more so that by the time their research came you had like a room full of people who were clamoring for the insights.
Jess (24:36)
There's like a courtship involved there that you as the researcher, you're courting your stakeholders and I love that. I think that that's a really cool way to think about it. So I want to move to the next part of the conversation, which is really about one of your more passionate viewpoints, whether it's about the industry that you have worked in or you're moving forward in or something that you feel passionate about as a leader. What's one thing you would say is really top of mind for you today?
Nikkia (25:05)
For me, it's definitely becoming whole-brained. I am really happy that, I think it was Kantor of Amer came up with that language when they produced the Kantor. I think it was the Insights 2020 report. And the reason why I love it is because it speaks to something that I've been passionate about since I started.
Jess (25:08)
Mm-hmm.
Nikkia (25:27)
I did not come up into the world of insights and research from an academic perspective. So I didn't come in with a PhD in sociology, psychology, statistics. Neither did I come up through the agency. So my orientation was already expansive and strategic. And because I was a former dancer who wasn't like set on research, it was more serendipitous that I found an opportunity that fit with me.
I think I brought a lot of qualities that at that point in the, know, it wasn't early aughts, early-ish aughts
was kind of fresh. So I remember having bosses who were extremely analytical, right? Their view was it's about the work and it should always be about the work. Technical acumen is important, but it's table stakes.
As the world becomes more dynamic, as technology replaces some of the technical contributions of our function, and as decision-making becomes much more based in intuition and gut and who's the bearer of an opinion, the loudest voice, it's become more and more acceptable, right? So I think the things that allowed me to push for change, get people to...
accepted the insights. It was very human. It was like, okay, well, let me understand what your deal is, or let me understand whether or not you are a research supporter or a naysail. And that influenced the way that I would then roadmap my whole research plan and socialization path. But it required so much work. But I loved it, right? I would start week with intention. I'd be like,
Who do I have to convince, right? Like a lot of it was like the people. So I came up with this language when I started to manage people in teams called the three P's. That work becomes less and less about technical acumen and more about managing people, personalities, politics. So as I was coaching people, would be like, you it's not like it's the only thing, but I think as you get more senior, you're spending less time doing research. You're spending more time asking yourself,
How do I get John on my side? Okay, budgets are getting cut and I really need to figure out how to money for a needed head count on my team.
And all of that is like negotiation, self-awareness, effective communication, cross-organizational navigation. All of these are like non-research skills or leadership skills. So the concept of the whole-brained leader is basically the encapsulation of what I just shared. The technical excellence is important.
However, it's incredibly important that we figure out how to translate very human skills into the workplace because we deal with humans. We try to influence humans. We try to forgive humans. And so the things that allowed me to be more human, part of it was being a Caribbean woman, being who I am.
being somebody who used to be in the arts field I think helped because I did not also see levels. I remember just being like somebody early in my career was like, wow, you have no problem talking to the CEO or whatever. And I think it comes from growing up in a place where it didn't matter. And so.
Jess (28:45)
Yeah, the hierarchy was not so defined that you had to worry about that.
Nikkia (28:50)
Exactly. So I think that's my big passion point now, Jess. I'm really on a mission to remind people that what is at stake for us as research professionals is an ability to have impact and influence and be insatiably
desirable, more for our expertise or point of view, the way that we can connect a team because we're truth tellers. It requires us to flex our more human skills and approach work with a whole brain, not just here's the research and read these 90 slides that I produced.
Jess (29:26)
Yeah, you want to be necessary. You want to be sought after. You want to be respected, right? It's just there's so many facets. So I'm just curious, what types of skills do you think will be most important for researchers in the coming years?
Nikkia (29:41)
Definitely storytelling. think there are a lot of researchers who I mentor who are like, I'm really good at storytelling. I've pushed them to think of it as story selling. Because storytelling is I have a set of data sources and I'm good at extracting a narrative. Selling, I think, requires you to meet people where they're at and being able to tailor the way that you are delivering your story so that it's even more relevant and persuasive.
Jess (29:50)
Mm-hmm.
Nikkia (30:08)
I think the other is cross-organizational navigation, which is ratcheted up from cross-functional collaboration. So cross-functional collaboration is just, work in a team with people from different functions, and we meet every week, and we're pushing towards the same roadmap. Cross-organizational navigation is to see yourself again as a business person before a researcher and recognize that
The way that a business moves things forward is often in concert with decisions happening across orgs. So I felt that very acutely, both at Twitter and Netflix, where you have teams who are responsible for marketing who aren't necessarily involved in the product development process.
And so rather than waiting until you have a solution and see product marketing, go market this, involve them at the beginning and find a way to make them feel part of the team, but also the usual suspects. Try and make them realize that by bringing them in, it doesn't tarnish their shine. It doesn't take away their glory. It's not a disruption. It's just going to help them move forward. So cross-organizational navigation requires thinking a little bit bigger about like who your immediate team is and who to involve.
And I think the last one I think that is not a surprise just based on what you know about me and what I've said so far is creativity. I think it
to interpretation, but when I use it, it is being able to have a brain that is malleable and adjusts to the culture that you're in.
whether you're working on a well-supported product, initiative, service, brand or not, and being okay with abandoning what may feel like the most robust research plan that you could come up with.
Jess (31:56)
Mm-hmm.
Nikkia (31:57)
So it sort of falls in line with, use your words, Jess, like being necessary. It means being like, okay, instead of me saying, we need to do groups and then do a survey and then hang for a moment and think creatively about what the best way in is, depending on whether you're talking to your design leader or your eng leader. So moving away from the, lead with my research geekiness. And by the way, I'm a research geek too.
and moving towards this more human, like what's on our shared agenda? Like where are we at with this launch? And that creativity sometimes leads with the decision not to do research.
Jess (32:37)
Yeah, which is a totally fair path. But I think if you begin with that end in mind, who am I talking to? It matters to them. Tends to lead you to the right approach. So I love all that perspective. So we're going to go to the final dig. This is just a fun little lightning round to get to know you a little bit better as a person. So what's the last product or service that you bought on impulse?
Nikkia (32:56)
God,
everything's been very deliberate these days, but maybe the upgraded dinnerware. So, you know, I've had the same dishes and it's not terrible, but at some point I was like, I don't know, I don't think blue is my vibe anymore and proceeded to buy a new set. Also.
we needed eight of everything and I think we had six of everything. So it was a little bit of an impulse. It looks stunning. It's like a peachy pink.
Jess (33:20)
I
Nikkia (33:24)
I think my husband was like, the other ones are fine. He's like, why did you do that?
Jess (33:26)
What's happening? That's what you do, not to generalize, but that is what husbands do. They tend to not appreciate that dinnerware flair. So good for you,
Nikkia (33:34)
Right?
Jess (33:36)
What's a category or a brand that you could rationalize any price point for? You just have to have it in your life. Yeah. Yeah.
Nikkia (33:43)
travel. Yeah, I mean,
to have it in my
rationalized ridiculous prices because I just needed to get out or be in a place. So that's my guilty pleasure, not shoes, not clues. I tend to sort of like mix and match things and people be like, well, that's new. I'll be like, no, I've had this is from a thrift store. This is my child's scarf. So definitely travel.
Jess (34:05)
Brands have distinct personalities as we know. What's a brand that you would like to date and one that you would like to marry?
Nikkia (34:18)
Mm-hmm.
these questions they're so fun.
Wow, a brand that I might want to marry.
is the New York Times. I think strong brand. It's New York and I love New York and so it gives it some cool.
It's a legacy brand that is highly reputable, but not stodgy. A little bit of controversy over like how leaning it's become, but for the most part, it welcomes a lot of perspectives. And I like that when I'm with it, I feel like I can explore all the facets of my personality. So there's something in there for everyone. And like I said, when it's on my arm, I'm like, I'm cool. Like New York Times. Yeah.
Jess (35:08)
Yeah, there's something about you.
Nikkia (35:11)
The close second is like WNYC. No, that was marry.
Jess (35:14)
Mmm.
Nikkia (35:17)
I might date TikTok because it is likely to be surprising.
Jess (35:20)
Okay.
Nikkia (35:24)
and there might be adventure around the corner and I think there'll be a lot of spice and excitement and there might be times where I'm brought to my knees just in frustration but it would be like a cool thing to tell my friends that I'm doing that I'm dating this like crazy relevant cultural zeitgeisty always dynamic
called TikTok that's
Nuts, but super fun.
Jess (35:52)
I feel like I'm your girlfriend that you are describing your date with your latest fling. So thank you for letting me in on that. So finally, I'd love to know what keeps you inspired every day.
Nikkia (36:05)
The thing that keeps me inspired every day, and this might sound like I'm not answering it, but it's the truth, it is life. And the way that over the last few years I've begun to view life in a very pragmatic way, almost spiritual, has enabled me to start my day with a real sweetness. So I think for a long time.
I have been fascinated with how quickly it goes by. So even before, like I had kids, I think I was like, what, this is crazy. Quick, quick story. I was at a Passover Seder and my uncle-in-law, when we were all going around in a circle talking about what we were grateful for, he had just turned 80. And he said, he started to cry, not like sob, but just like get a little bit choked up. You know, I turned 80 this year. I don't know where the time went.
And so all the young people around do what you love. And that was in 2017. And I remember being like struck by that because I'd already been feeling not like life was going by fast, but how precious it is, how unpredictable it is, how finite it is. I think life gets me excited understanding how to put inside of the pocket of every moment a sweetness so that I'm not like, when is vacation?
Even as I speak to you, I'm not feeling well, but I'm feeling so much love and joy for this conversation. What a random thing it
think it somehow impregnates life to feel a teeny bit longer.
Jess (37:34)
That is so well said and seriously, what a pocket of joy that this conversation has been in my day. So I appreciate your perspective and your voice and the time that you gave. This has been a really, really rewarding conversation. So thank you, thank you.
Nikkia (37:49)
Thank you, thank you, same. Love the questions, love the experience. Thank you, Jess.
Jess (37:55)
Thank you for being here.