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Heather Cook

@heddamaven

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Community Connector | Experiential Producer | Storyteller | Speaker | Microsoft | Podcast Host
🏠 LosAngeles

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Some AMSR and Happy Dolly Parton Day in a special secondary curler report of the day. I love this movie. I love Dolly so much. I had the album. I had the 45 of this record. I pretend karaoke’d to the song in my next-door neighbors living room room for all the ladies playing cards. Here’s to pouring ourselves a cup of ambition every flipping day. Sending out big love to all my sisters and queens.

#dollyparton #9to5 @dollyparton #curlerreport #janefonda @janefondaclimatepac @lilytomlinofflcial #lilytomlin taken in Marina del Rey, California by @heddamaven

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24 days ago

Starting a new series: books, authors, and the women who make them unforgettable. First up: Circe by Madeline Miller. 🌿

Perfect week for it. Saturday was National Buy a Book Day. Today is International Literacy Day. One says buy the book. The other reminds us why that matters. Literacy isn’t a given, we have to protect it.

Everyone is talking about the Odyssey right now (haven’t seen the movie yet, I will). But I wanted her story first. Circe, coming into her power. Flaws included. Some pretty big mistakes included. That’s exactly why I loved her.

Bonus love: Perdita Weeks narrated it, and I basically follow her voice into whatever she reads next. I buy the hardcover too, because some books deserve a shelf AND a set of headphones. Currently listening to Jezebel for the same reason.

Go buy a book this week. Then give one away. Literacy is still not a given for millions of women worldwide.

What book changed how you saw your own power? 👇

#BecomeTheExpertOfYourself #Maven #WomenWhoRead #Circe #InternationalLiteracyDay by @heddamaven

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a month ago

As Lady Gaga once said: “You are allowed to change yourself as many times as it takes to feel alive.” 👉 #Maven #BecomeTheExpertOfYourself

Turns out, the girl in the wigs and costumes, and later in the director’s chair, eventually wrote the whole show. 🎭 #AuthorAndDirector #Maven

3. Festival royalty (Burning Man)
Every queen needs at least one era in the desert. 👑🏜️ #FestivalRoyalty #BlackRockCity #MissBRC2005

Turns out my voice didn’t need a spotlight to heard. 🎙️ #PodcastHost #MavensDoItBetter

The boardroom is just a different kind of stage. 💼✨ #MsManager #Microsoft

Community is the whole point. 🙌 #EventOrganizer #CommunityOverEverything

Lady Liberty knew the assignment. So did I. 🗽💚 #Activist #ERANow #Maven

10’s across the board. 💅✨ #Queen #rupaul #Slayallday

Joy is also a leadership skill. 🎧🔥 #DJ #DJHeddaMaven

Sequins on, mic on, mind made up. 🎤✨ #KeynoteSpeaker #Maven #BecomeTheExpertOfYourself

Every Era Still Me:

I love Madonna. Of course I believe in reinvention.
She showed generations of us that changing does not mean you have lost yourself. Sometimes changing is how you reveal more of yourself.
I have been a theater kid, a speech team original orator, a director, an author, a podcast host, an event producer, a community builder, an activist, a keynote speaker, a voice actor a DJ, and quite a few things that refuse to fit neatly into a job title.
I never saw those reinventions as evidence that something had gone wrong. They were evidence that I was still curious. Still creating. Still becoming.
And I never really started over.
Every version of me brought her gifts, her lessons, her people, and her courage into the next one. Reinvention did not erase who I had been. It expanded who I could become.
We are not required to choose one identity and perform it for the rest of our lives.
We are allowed to evolve.
We are allowed to surprise people.
We are allowed to surprise ourselves.
Reinvention is not an admission that you failed to figure yourself out.
It is what happens when you become the expert of yourself.
#Maven #BecomeTheExpertOfYourself #Reinvention #WomenWhoEvolve by @heddamaven

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a month ago

Your voice matters. So does the space we create for others to use theirs. 🗣️

Malala Yousafzai reminds us that speaking up can require extraordinary courage. Her advocacy for girls’ education, even in the face of violence, continues to inspire people around the world.

Most of us will never face what Malala faced. But we can learn from her example.

Ask the question. Share your perspective. Advocate for yourself and others. And just as importantly, listen when someone else finds the courage to speak.

Finding your voice is powerful. Helping someone else feel safe enough to use theirs is leadership.

#MalalaYousafzai #FindYourVoice #Courage #WomenEmpoweringWomen #Leadership by @heddamaven

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4 hours ago

Let’s go voting, let’s go, clap, clap.

V-O-T-I-N-G, that’s the way we have a Demo-cra-cy.

Take me out to go vo….ting. Take me out with the crowd…..

WHAT IF: we brought the same energy to voting that we bring to cheering for our favorite sports teams? 🙌

Ask every person you see and meet instead of “how are you?”
ASK: “Did you vote?”

If they did, put up a high five. If they haven’t, high five and encourage them to make a plan. Offer a ride. Cheer on a first-time voter.

Celebrate the turnout like we celebrate a winning score/goal/touchdown.

Let’s make showing up for our communities something we get loud about.

Change the narrative. Your vote is your voice. 💜 by @heddamaven

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a day ago

A photo taken the year I was born taught me something about torches. 🔥✊

#CurlerReport #Maven #GloriaSteinem by @heddamaven

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3 days ago

A stranger at a birthday party said one sentence to me that changed how I advocate for myself. 🎂

This is my personal experience, not medical advice.

#Menopause #Perimenopause #WomensHealth #MenopauseAwareness #SelfAdvocacy Maven BecomeTheExpertOfYourself by @heddamaven

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5 days ago

California, the deadline to register to vote is October 19th for the November 3rd election. 🗳️

Not sure if you’re registered? Moved recently? Changed your name? Check, and register or re-register in about two minutes at sos.ca.gov, the official California Secretary of State site.

Gloria asked “What are we going to do?” This is the do. Then text one friend who keeps meaning to.

#RegisterToVote #CaliforniaVoters #VoterRegistration #Vote2026 #Maven BecomeTheExpertOfYourself by @heddamaven

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7 days ago

Oct 10, 1911: California voters passed the amendment giving women the right to vote (nine years before 19th Amendment). #womenshistory #19thAmendment

Suffragists celebrating in Los Angeles, via the Los Angeles Herald (Oct 1911). The posters from the LA history account on threads. https://www.threads.com/share/BAWocz4xWR/ by @heddamaven

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9 days ago

I set a book on fire in college. There was a point to it, I promise. 🔥📚

#CurlerReport #Maven #HumansInTheRoom by @heddamaven

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10 days ago

Next in the series: The Girl Who Baptized Herself by Meggan Watterson. And yes, that’s her standing right next to me. 📖✨

This actually isn’t my first Meggan Watterson book. My first was Mary Magdalene Revealed. I was on a plane, reading, and I said out loud, to no one, “I knew it.” That’s the kind of writer she is. She confirms something you already felt but never had language for.

So when The Girl Who Baptized Herself came out, it was immediately in the cart.

She’s Harvard-trained in feminist theology, and here she takes a nearly lost first-century scripture about a teenage saint named Thecla, a girl who refused the marriage she was handed and baptized herself rather than wait for permission, and turns it into a map for anyone still waiting for someone else to confirm their worth.

Thecla’s story got left out of the Bible. A girl deciding her own authority is often viewed as dangerous.

Meggan writes that the body is the soul’s chance to be alive in this moment. This sentence is constantly in my head
Getting to hand her this book in person and tell her what both of her books did to me? That’s the whole reason I started this series.
What’s the book that told you your worth was never something to wait for? 👇

#BecomeTheExpertOfYourself #Maven #WomenWhoRead #MegganWatterson #TheGirlWhoBaptizedHerself by @heddamaven

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12 days ago

This is how I end almost everything I write, and I do it on purpose. Feeling something and doing something are not the same thing, and I think we’ve started treating the feeling as if it were the finish line. It isn’t. It’s the starting snap.

Empathy is what lets you recognize the fear, the exhaustion, the unfairness in someone else’s experience, or your own. It’s essential. It’s also not enough on its own. A warrior isn’t someone who feels the most. A warrior is someone who takes what they felt and turns it into a presentation, a vote, a boundary, a conversation they were avoiding, a letter, a chair pulled out for someone else.

But empathy needs a guardrail. If you’re wired like I am, a producer, a fixer, empathy can pull you into places you were never meant to go. You feel it, you jump in, and suddenly you’re dabbling in problems that aren’t yours to solve. Action without discernment isn’t being a warrior. It’s just being busy. A real warrior knows which battles are theirs.

So this is less a quote and more a standing challenge I give myself: don’t stop at feeling it. Do something with it, and be wise about what that something is.

#Maven #BecomeTheExpertOfYourself by @heddamaven

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14 days ago