{"id":28592,"date":"2021-11-27T13:12:33","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T13:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/blog\/adobe\/dont-follow-whats-normal\/"},"modified":"2021-11-27T13:12:33","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T13:12:33","slug":"dont-follow-whats-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/blog\/adobe\/dont-follow-whats-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t follow what\u2019s \u201cnormal\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In recognition of Women\u2019s History Month, Adobe employee Mathilde Henry (pictured in middle of photo) talks about defying cultural expectations for women and blazing her own path.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you achieved enough now?\u201d That\u2019s what Mathilde Henry\u2019s mother asked after Mathilde joined Adobe last year as the director of professional services.<\/p>\n

Mathilde has always had big plans for her life. From an early age, she had ambitions to leave the small farming village where she grew up and do \u201csomething entirely different.\u201d The \u201cnormal\u201d thing for girls and women to do, however, was to focus on the home while supporting men\u2019s work and dreams\u2014an attitude that is still present even now, including with her family.<\/p>\n

During Adobe for All Week, Adobe\u2019s annual internal D&I event, Mathilde recounted how she instead has chased her passions, established a successful career and started a family of her own. Her answer to whether she\u2019s achieved enough? \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want to stop here. It\u2019s not the end of my journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

We talked to Mathilde about pushing back against those expectations to find her own way and what it was like to share her story.<\/p>\n

Why did you think it was important to share your story broadly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I really felt like it could inspire and benefit people. To be honest, it was also just for myself, to grow and bring closure to my journey to becoming who I am today. Despite everything I\u2019ve experienced and what others might think of me, this is who I am and this is where I am.<\/p>\n

What emotions did you experience as you prepared to tell your story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I felt exactly what I felt when I was younger. My family, friends and neighbors\u2014what will they think? It was difficult not to feel a little like I\u2019m a traitor. My life wasn\u2019t that bad, and my parents are very nice people, so why am I doing this? They will think I\u2019m criticizing them, but what I\u2019m saying is that this is the right life for me.<\/p>\n

When did you start to realize you were different from the people around you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would say almost from the beginning. I liked reading, writing, studying, and watching movies, and I was really demanding of myself and ambitious. That wasn\u2019t expected for girls. I remember my mom wanting me to settle down and marry a young farmer when I was around 18, and at the time, I thought, \u201cNever, never, never, never.\u201d When I finally went to university in the city and could go out the movies and have access to any kind of books and art I could ever want, it confirmed that this is the life I wanted.<\/p>\n

Were your parents upset that you left and went to university?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh no, they were not the kind of parents to stop me from studying. They just didn\u2019t understand, and they never encouraged it. Even now, they say, \u201cI don\u2019t understand your job. I don\u2019t understand what you\u2019re doing here.\u201d While they never tried to stop me, I wish they would recognize that they don\u2019t have to understand my job to know that I\u2019m successful and they can be proud of what I\u2019ve accomplished.<\/p>\n

Did your sister take a similar path to yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My sister is very supportive of me and the path I took. She chose to stay in the countryside, married a farmer, and assumes traditional farming gender roles at home. She is modern in that she has a job, but she also does all the work within the home, so she has a foot in each world.<\/p>\n

What kind of response did you receive from people who listened to your story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I received so much feedback! I heard from people who liked my story or related to it. I even heard from someone who reached out after and asked if I would consider being a coach. So now I\u2019ve been working as a mentor, and it\u2019s something that I really love.<\/p>\n

Do you have advice for women who might be in a situation similar to yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t listen to your fear. The more I\u2019ve grown as a person, the more I\u2019ve realized that what limits us is fear. You\u2019ll always be scared about things, but when you jump in, you\u2019ll see that you can make it. If you don\u2019t take that leap, you\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n

What about advice for other potential storytellers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone has a story. I think like many people I initially minimized my own story, thinking it wasn\u2019t important. But my husband always says to me, \u201cLook at what you have achieved. Look at where you started and where you are now.\u201d And when telling this story, I can see how far I have come. So go out and tell your story, then take a step back and acknowledge, \u201cWow, I really have come a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source : Adobe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recognition of Women\u2019s History Month, Adobe employee Mathilde Henry (pictured in middle of photo) talks about defying cultural expectations for women and blazing her own path. \u201cHave you achieved enough now?\u201d That\u2019s what Mathilde Henry\u2019s mother asked after Mathilde joined Adobe last year as the director of professional services. Mathilde has always had big …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28595,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592\/revisions\/28595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}