About Nikki — Nicole “Nikki” Ocean | Ocean Dreams Publishing
Ocean Dreams Publishing
Nicole "Nikki" Ocean
Peer Recovery Guide · Creator · Artist · Musician · Author · Entrepreneur
Made by someone in recovery, for those in recovery.
Who Nikki Is Today
A creative life rooted in recovery
Nicole "Nikki" Ocean is a disabled peer recovery guide, smooth jazz electronic fusion musician, visual artist, author, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Ocean Dreams Publishing — a creative ecosystem built around recovery, creativity, and lived experience.
Nikki brings her whole self into her work. Her recovery journey is not a backstory she keeps separate from her creative output — it is woven through everything she makes, every talk she gives, every coin she ships, and every song she records.
She works as a disabled artist and creator, at the pace that is honest, with the energy she has. That is not a limitation she apologizes for — it is part of how she shows up authentically.
“I don't separate who I am from what I make. They're the same thing.”
A Previous Chapter
The entrepreneurial years
Before Ocean Dreams Publishing, Nikki built a career in real estate technology and coaching — a chapter that shaped her deeply, even as it eventually led her somewhere else entirely.
In 2000, Nikki made a life-changing decision: to step into the unknown as a single parent with her infant son, Nick, and build a new life on their own terms. That choice became the foundation for everything that followed — courage, reinvention, and a willingness to create something from almost nothing.
By 2006, she discovered a niche in real estate that would transform her career. What started as an idea grew into multi-million-dollar software products and a thriving coaching business. Those years taught her how to innovate, how to bootstrap, and how to trust her own ability to build something extraordinary.
Past Projects
These are previous businesses — not current offerings. They are part of Nikki's story, not her present work.
A Values-Based Decision
Choosing a different path
In April 2022, Nikki made another bold decision — to prioritize her health and well-being over money. She sold her real estate automation software, her coaching business, and her vacation rental condo in Florida, and stepped back from the career she had spent years building.
This was not a failure. It was a choice — a deliberate, values-based decision to stop running a life that no longer fit, and to create space for something more meaningful.
That space became Ocean Dreams Publishing. The creativity, the music, the recovery work, the coin — none of it would exist without that decision.
“I chose health over hustle. I'd make that choice again every time.”
Recovery and Reinvention
How lived experience became the work
Nikki's recovery journey is not something she keeps in the background. It is the reason Ocean Dreams Publishing exists. Her lived experience — the hard parts, the rebuilding, the slow return to herself — is what makes her work real.
Through Nikki's Recovery Insight on Insight Timer, she offers free audio and video talks, live events, and courses that bring creativity, nervous system awareness, joy, and inner child play into everyday recovery life. Not clinical. Not prescriptive. Just honest, human, and made from the inside out.
My Recovery Coin grew from the same place — a tangible object made to hold meaning, to mark progress, and to remind someone in recovery that they are not alone. It became a real coin in February 2024, and has since grown into a small collection of recovery-inspired art and merchandise.
The music came too. Smooth jazz and electronic fusion — warm, layered, and deeply personal. Music as a way of processing what words alone cannot hold.
“My journey hasn't been defined by obstacles but by the choices I've made to keep moving forward with resilience, creativity, and heart.”
Nikki By The Ocean
Bellingham, WA — a cherished local spot · Sept 2026
Nikki & Her Dad
Family — one of the reasons I keep going · 2026
Nikki & Nick
My son — my greatest pride · 2018
Nick Surfer Ocean
Living his dream in Thailand · 2026
The Person Behind the Work
A few things worth knowing
Nikki lives in Bellingham, Washington, close to the ocean she loves. She is disabled, and she works with the energy she has — which means some days are full and some are not, and she has made peace with that.
Her greatest pride is her son, Nick Surfer Ocean, who at 26 is living his dream — traveling the world, spending most of the year in Thailand, cycling across countries, and carving his own path. Watching him thrive is one of the reasons Nikki keeps going.
She is grateful for her Dad, for a few important friends, and for herself. That last one took a while.
“Looking back, I don't just see challenges. I see breakthroughs and victories.”
Ocean Dreams Today
The creative ecosystem
Ocean Dreams Publishing is Nikki's creative home. Here is what lives here right now.
An Invitation
Come as you are
Nikki does not have a polished brand story with a tidy arc. She has a real one — with hard years, good years, pivots, losses, and a lot of creativity in the middle of all of it.
If you found your way here because you are in recovery, or because you are curious about the coin, or because you heard a song and wanted to know who made it — welcome. You are in the right place.
Everything here was made by someone in recovery, for those in recovery. That is the whole point.
“Life continues to test me, but it also continues to gift me opportunities to create, to heal, and to inspire.”