Its Easy The Marketing Strategy of the Present
[Music]
[Applause]
okay good morning everyone
so actually i’d like to start off by
doing something real quick so if you
guys could
all participate that would be great on
the count of three i’m going to have
everyone snap their fingers okay one
two three okay so pretty easy for almost
everyone
so i came to this realization the other
day that
there was a point in time where no one
could just
snap granted this was in about second
grade
and and
well it’s just like you
didn’t know how to do this action and it
was something that
it really required a lot of thought to
do but now
moving into the present this is an
action that comes so naturally to you
that you don’t even have to think about
it you just snap
hi my name is jessica lat and today i’m
here to talk about
how some of the things that we perceive
as easy
in reality like snapping it takes a lot
of work
and struggle in order to do it and when
we say that something is easy
this is because of a reaction that is
specifically marketed to the people of
the present
the present so this year it’s 2020
not only a new year but a new decade
and i remember people on new year’s eve
posting their final thoughts for 2019
and their hopes and goals for 2020
and throughout this i remember seeing
this really funny challenge
um called the 10 year challenge and so
the main concept of this
is you take a photo of what you look
like today
and you compare it to a photo of what
you looked like 10 years ago
and to me i remember
just really reflecting and thinking
where was i 10 years ago where will i be
in 5 10 or maybe even 20 years into the
future
what will the world look like and these
are the moments where
i’d already be looking up all of these
inspirational quotes and asking myself
the deep hard-hitting questions like who
am i
and if i were to be approached on this
like up on the street and i had to
introduce myself
what would i say and so
in short this translates to i did my own
ten year challenge
and all i can say is 10 years
is a lot of time and a lot of things can
change
and 2010 to me was a completely
different era
i still remember watching tv with my
family
and sitting in the living room and
watching shows
until i would end up dozing off to sleep
and then magically waking up the next
morning back in my own bed
but some of these other days i remember
waking up to the loud colorful and
abrasive
infomercial shouting at me and what is
the thing that i see
and hear that when i wake up
the thingamajigger3000 is easy to do
easy to use completed in a matter of
seconds and
apparently certified by the ancient gods
of narnia
so at this point i would be sold and i
would be waking my parents up and saying
okay i have the answer to all of life’s
greatest problems
we just need a blanket with sleeves to
do it
and so everyone in life
has a situation where they
are scared of something and
one of these things that i’ve realized
is when someone is
trying to tell you that something is
easy
this is because they are trying to sell
you something
so in life everyone has something that
they’re so
greatly scared of that it gives them
physical
like chills every single time they think
about it
for me this thing was phone calls i
remember
and i just know where to sit in order to
be the farthest from my family’s
landline
when the phone rang however
one day that all changed
it was a dark and gloomy night no i’m
just kidding it was a typical
school night in fourth grade and my
family had just decided on ordering
takeout
this sounds great right but little did i
know
that i would be the one ordering
and so my family is all gathered around
the table extensively discussing what
we’re going to order
and then my dad dials the number
ring ring ring ring all of a sudden
before i could even realize what is
going on my dad goes
okay here you go jess and before i could
even like be confused or utter single
denying response
he throws the phone my way my worst fear
has become my reality
i still remember him saying the words
think fast
yeah i’ll tell you what i’m thinking
take the phone back
dad i can’t order this food dad please
take it back please please
they’re gonna pick up hello
let’s just say that this order didn’t go
exactly
as i have i would have wanted it to
but i still did it and this would
signify
the first time out of many that i would
do something
that i really did not want to do
everyone comes across situations in life
where they have to
face challenges that they
that make them uncomfortable but they do
them anyway
and sometimes all you need is for
someone to pass you the phone
for me like i said before the person to
do this
was my dad my dad
has always taught me to learn
how to find success in the face of
adversity
and of fear and when i was younger these
small successes ranged from those same
phone calls
to even volunteering myself onto a stage
in las vegas
full of clowns actually um but these
were things that were so
nerve-wracking to me but now i consider
embarrassing stories that i can tell my
friends and family
or in this case with all of you
so and coming from a place where
i was too scared to even pick up the
phone
i have found myself becoming better at
communicating
and putting myself in places that i
would have never pictured myself in
we all grow up with the phrase it takes
hard work ingrained into our heads
yet we are still searching for the
easiest
ways of doing something the truth of the
matter is
no one ever just whips up the best thing
that they have ever done
except sometimes we skip straight to
snapping
and forgetting that we spend hours on
the playground just trying to get there
we forget about the pain and the
embarrassment we feel
once in order to get good at something
once it comes more naturally to us
or sometimes we actively try and forget
it
and instead even purposefully tell
ourselves that something was easier
after the fact in order to succeed
because we are searching for the easy
success that is marketed to us
in advertisements however
what i would like to tell you is that
nothing
comes easily without hard work
and reflecting on my last 10 years and
my growth as a person
i have discovered some tips and some
repetition in the things that i’ve done
in order for me to find some of my
success
tip number one
find motivation so
while my father has always told me to
and push me to do things that i really
just
they weren’t necessarily easy he’s also
led by example
in doing this my entire life when i was
two
my family found out that my dad has
leukemia
this is a type of cancer that affects a
person’s blood
and as a result like many cancers it
causes a person to become very weak
what i’ve i remember watching him
fight and persevere every single day in
order for my sister and i
to get to know the crazy and goofy
person he is today
this is my dad after three years since
his final round of chemotherapy
running in an ironman triathlon yeah
let’s just say that the typical
i’m too tired excuse while i was playing
sports wasn’t really valid for me
but i just remember seeing him persevere
through these type of challenges
and coming out of the other end
successful as well as watching my mom
adapt to the situations that were just
thrown at us
has been some of my greatest motivators
in life
moving forward into the future
what my family has taught me is that
life will throw you
these situations and you will have to
find
places to be resilient and to be willing
to endure this type of pain
in order to better yourself because your
story
is based on all the experiences that you
face
tip number two start with the small
steps
so we as viewers and consumers are sold
on the images of end results and final
products
we are sold the rewards and never truly
understand the amount of work it takes
for someone
to get to where they are today when we
see an image
pop up on our screen and this has caused
us to have this perception
that small steps are still failures
that when we take a small step and it
still falls short of that
dream ending that it’s
bad and that we need to or we shouldn’t
even try to do this
however small steps are the key
to success what i have learned in my
life
is that taking these small steps allows
you
right now to allows you in the future
for to find success a little bit more
easy and
the hardest challenge you’ve ever faced
continues to be
your newest one for me
this challenge came last year in my ap
calculus class
at the same time first semester began
was
the same time that my dad began a new
medication and was facing some of the
painful side effects that come with it
i remember seeing a loved one in pain
and that was mixed with the fear of an
unknown future
and i started to feel myself slipping in
this class
i was struggling to find motivation to
learn the material or even
to find enjoyment in the subject anymore
i would and i specifically remember
coming home one day
and him asking so jess how was your day
at school today
and i was searching for something that
i was proud of and i could tell them
about but all i could think about
was feeling failure
in this class when i took it and
at this moment i told myself you know
what jess i really want to understand
what i’m doing
i want to be proud of myself and i want
my parents and my family to be proud of
me
and sometimes in life you feel so stuck
where you are
and that life it it’s there’s no moving
forward past it
however this is where you need to take
the small steps
so i started taking my small steps
by coming into class early in the
morning and teaching myself the material
that i didn’t really understand before
and this allowed me to build up
confidence in
order for me to over time even start
enjoying the subject again
i tried to make calculus fun in any way
possible
even to the extent of becoming the go-to
creator
of calculus-inspired pick-up lines
i would write these on the board for my
entire class to see
and by the end of the class when we had
to take the ap
exam i remember not only feeling like i
was going
in as an individual but really feeling
like i had built
a team around me
and there are a lot of tear shed
throughout this entire process
but i remember one final happy
ugly cry being spent with my mom
as i got the news over the summer that i
had gotten a five on my ap calculus exam
this would mark for me one of
my biggest moments of strength and of
perseverance
and put a big picture idea into a little
bit of perspective
that you can really achieve anything you
want to in life
you just have to start with the small
steps
tip number three recognizing
your hard work so let’s
take this universal slogan it’s
easy and put it into a bit of
perspective
just what is being made easy i mean you
call the 1 800 number and
bam what do you get when you think of
everything that is important to you
whether it be school sports a job
a loved one these are the things that
don’t just come easily to you
but this is a these are the things
that we dedicate most of our time to
there seems to be this common idea that
the most
valuable things are the things
that are made easy for us i mean
logically
why would we want to do something that
is harder
or more awkward or more uncomfortable
instead it seems logical to
invest in the things that are made easy
done for us
and saving us time but it is now that
that i encourage you to take a step back
and think of anything that you take
great pride in
and recognize all of the hard work that
you have taken
in order to get there
easy is an idea that we need to stop
searching for
the hours and hours of practice that you
spend
in order to get to where you are today
is what is important
and it should be taken pride
in your struggles make up your story
because
all of the things that you’ve ever truly
cared about haven’t just been
handed to you what i’ve realized in my
life so far
is that we need to reshape our views of
what is considered valuable
and make them not what is the easiest
we need to realize that everything that
we want
doesn’t come easily
2020 is the very beginning of a new
10-year challenge in 2020
i encourage you to instead of asking
yourself the question
do i have to tell yourself that i can
i want to leave you with this wish it
dream it do it no matter how
big or how insignificant an action may
seem
because in some cases in order to reach
these successes
you need to take a leap of faith into a
state
of uncomfortable and even then
it may be worth more value than a
thousand thingamajigger3000s
but because when you look at the
universal marketing term
easy and look beyond it
and truly learn to rely on yourself to
persevere through the actions and the
challenges that come your way
you will not only be left with the
product of your actions but instead
with the innovations thank you
you