The Power of Norm Breaking
dreams
consider the power of dreams
dreams are what activate us at a soul
level
dreams are our awakened purpose
dreams are the inner flames in our soul
our inner light that’s meant to be
shared with the world
all great things are born from dreams
dreams have birthed innovative
technology
music art dreams are the things that
this life is made out of
but a lot of us don’t work on our dreams
why is that it’s because we’ve grown
accustomed to following the norm
and when we continue on this path we
eventually lose our individuality
when we follow the norm we eventually
become the norm
usual typical and standard
and our dreams get lost in the process
of conforming to norms
norms keep us in our comfort zone and
that is the dangerous part because when
we’re
limited to being confined to the
parameters of a norm
we’re not unlocking our creativity
we’re not forced to think differently
we’re not
testing our true potential we remain
usual standard and typical
our society has many different norms and
to name a few we have
social norms behavioral norms gender
norms
but the norms i want to focus in on
today are occupational
and cultural norms what end up ends up
happening to a lot of us
is our family friends the media
they project ideas of what a successful
career path is
and they start telling us who we should
become
and when that happens we don’t even get
the chance to dream for ourselves
and when we don’t get that chance how
can we dream
big enough dreams to make other people’s
lives better
how can we dream big enough dreams to
make this world a better place
i’m here to give you a sense of urgency
on the importance of dreaming big
and relentlessly chasing after your
bigger dreams
i’m going to be sharing my story to
disrupt
and to activate the norm breaker in you
i’m here to start pushing you to your
yes
when it comes to your bigger dreams hi
everyone
my name is catherine aguilar and this is
my story
on the power of norm breaking i’m a
filipino american who grew up
in cerritos california and i was raised
by two parents
who immigrated from the philippines and
like many other immigrants
my parents came to america with the
american dream
to start a new life to build a new
chapter of success
and to take grasp of every opportunity
that they wouldn’t
have easily back in her homeland coming
to america
for my parents meant that they would be
the pioneers in our family to pass down
a higher quality of life and that meant
setting my brother and i
up to receive the best education making
sure that we
take grasp of every opportunity that
would lead us to a successful
career and then making sure we manifest
that successful career
but the thing is is in my culture
there are only four occupational paths
that are considered successful
doctor lawyer nurse or engineer
and for anyone who follows one of these
four career paths
they’re given automatic respect and
they’re considered
very successful it’s a cultural
norm for filipino parents to show their
love to their kids by
aggressively pushing them to follow one
of these four career paths
which is exactly what my parents did
but if i was being honest with myself
none of those four career paths ever
really fired me up
instead i felt very pressured
to follow something that i knew already
deep down that i didn’t want for myself
but i wanted to be valued i wanted to be
respected by my parents
i wanted to be considered successful by
anyone in my culture
and i thought the only way that was
going to happen
was if i followed my cultural norm
it’s normal to listen to what other
people tell you to do
it’s normal to pursue a career just to
have a career
but norm breakers they have the courage
to rise above the usual standard and
typical way
of this kind of thinking i remember
learning about
occupational norms as early as
kindergarten i was five years old
and i remember sitting through career
day
through a nice lineup of adults who
talked so passionately about their jobs
of being a firefighter
policeman businesswoman and
my teacher she turned to me and asked me
in front of the whole class
catherine so what do you want to be when
you grow up
so did i become who my child had self
hoped and dreamed of
am i proud of the career path that i
chose for myself
did i choose my career path or did i let
someone else choose for me
well i’m
not who little catherine hoped and
dreamed of
no not even close i am
so much more the old catherine was
defined by
all the rules and the cultural norm that
held
so much power over me was actually a
passed down
way of thinking that to be successful
one must become a doctor lawyer nurse or
engineer
that was passed down to my parents and
then passed down to me
and it was completely suffocating
because
my cultural norm of what success meant
was
no longer just a perception it was my
reality
i entered smith college as an
engineering major
and when i left the house to go to
college my parents were
so proud of me they would gush
to all our friends and family that
oh our eldest daughter just left the
house and she’s
very well on her way to being a
successful engineer
just like her dad i tried
so hard so hard to fall in love with the
idea
that i was well on my way to becoming a
successful engineer
and i tried so hard to love all my
engineering classes
but no matter how hard i tried to fall
in love
and no matter how hard i tried to love
my engineering classes
it wasn’t my truth what i really wanted
to major in
was environmental science and policy
smith gives you this thick
book in the beginning of your freshman
year and it’s filled with all the
classes you can ever take
after completing a full day’s worth of
engineering classes
i would go straight to my dorm room flip
open this book
go straight to the environmental science
and policy section
read through the classes look up into my
ceiling and daydream
how amazing it would be to actually sit
in on one of these classes and
love what i’m learning then
my mind would wonder to how cool the
professors of these classes were
so of course i would go stalk them on
linkedin go on ratemyprofessors.com do a
general google search
and after falling down this rabbit hole
i’d get a rush
of guiltiness over me and i’d quickly
close this book throw it under my bed
and snap out of my wishful thinking
if i already knew that engineering was
not the career path that i wanted to
pursue
then why was speaking up for myself
why was breaking my cultural norm such
an intimidating thing to do
one of the answers to that question is
because
when we break norms it requires us to
break
a pattern and to create a new routine
norm breaking requires us to finally
start thinking for ourself
and if i was going to break my cultural
norm it was going to require
me to be the first in my family to speak
up against the passed down wisdom of
what success meant
and i didn’t know if my heart gut and
intuition were going to lead me in the
right direction
but that wasn’t exactly the scariest
part for me
the scarier part was that
i knew i knew my parents came to
america with a big dream the american
dream
and my parents truly invested everything
they had in me
because i was their american dream
i represent every hope ambition
and idea of what america represents to
my parents
and if i was going to break my cultural
norm i was going to
need to take some big risks of my own
in creating my own path to success and i
didn’t know what i was going to do with
a a major and a degree in environmental
science and policy
would i need to go to grad school where
would i go to grad school what kind of
job would i get
would i be able to sustain myself and it
was just a never-ending list of
questions because i was about to venture
down
a totally new and unfamiliar path
but one thing i did know was that
pushing myself
past the familiar pushing myself past my
comfort zone
and truly following what i wanted was
what was right
i mustered up the courage to come out to
my parents that
i wasn’t going to be the engineer that
they hoped and dreamed of
instead i was going to major in
environmental science and policy
and see where that was going to take me
breaking my cultural norm to this day
has been one of
the best decisions that i’ve made for
myself because once i broke my cultural
norm
i was finally able to discover my true
strengths
passion interests i discovered
that i’m a leader a strategic thinker
a creative analytic and i have a deep
passion for public service
my bigger dream is to engage in public
service beyond the boundaries of my own
community
i’d like to be able to fully utilize the
skill set that i’ve worked hard to
cultivate over the years
of translating technical policies and
technical processes into
public engagement strategies that create
transparency
and inspire the community to take next
steps in making this world a better
place
my norm breaking journey led me to some
amazing opportunities that i never in a
million years thought i’d ever have
i was one of the select few chosen as a
white house intern
under the obama administration and i got
to serve as one of the president’s
scheduling and advanced interns and i
later went on to serve as
his public engagement intern and then
i also was able to be the first in my
family
to get to go to study at an ivy league
and i completed my master’s
at cornell university in public
administration
and that led me to completing
fellowships at the united nations
the environmental protection agency and
it’s just all
so crazy because i used to be the small
town girl from cerritos who was so
scared to break
any kind of rule and stray away from the
visions
and the plans that other people had for
me
but had i not had the courage to break
my cultural norm
i would have never discovered these
strengths passions and i most definitely
would have never had these opportunities
choosing to be a norm breaker is not
easy but it’s worth it
because once you free yourself from the
chain of a norm
you start to discover your higher
calling
and you realize your power within and
once you embrace this kind of freedom
you start to evolve into the person that
you were truly
created to be there are three key
ingredients to succeeding as a norm
breaker
passion persistence and patience
you first need to identify what your
passion is
early on in your norm breaking journey
because that’s going to be
your guiding light so instead of asking
yourself
what is my passion break that down a
little more
and ask yourself the simpler question
what makes my heart flutter if someone
were to ask me
what is my passion it’s public service
but if someone were to ask me
what makes your heart flutter what makes
my heart flutter
is being able to connect with others by
serving my community
to make this world a better place see
the difference there
i need you to dive to that depth
the second key ingredient that you’re
going to need to succeed as a norm
breaker
is persistence as a norm breaker
you’re going to experience severe
pushback
you’re going to experience moments of
doubt
and because you’re different people will
bring you down
but norm breakers they have dreams
that are bigger than the lies and the
severe pushback that they receive from
people
norm breakers choose to press onwards
towards their dreams
because their dreams have always been
bigger than themselves
and their dreams are worth chasing after
no matter what
and the third key ingredient that you’re
going to need to succeed as a norm
breaker
is patience as a norm breaker when you
identify
your bigger dreams but after identifying
your passion
that’s going to call for
pursuing those bigger dreams and that
calls for
manifesting the extraordinary and that’s
certainly
not an overnight process
i promised myself that i’m
not going to let norms define me
instead i’m going to dream big and
relentlessly
chase after my dreams because my dreams
for a better tomorrow
a better world they’re for my family
for you for our future
i’m calling you to join me on this
remarkable journey
of being a norm breaker dare to dream
when the norm says it’s impossible dare
to dream when others live in doubt
and despair i’m asking you
to be outrageous audacious and brave
enough to dream
big dream so big that your dreams
are unbreakable unshakable unwavering
non-negotiable i’m asking you
to join me in rising above the usual
standard and typical and together
let’s dream big thank you