An Interview with Melissa Llarena

Meet my first guest Jacques Slade on An Interview with Melissa Llarena — the podcast.

Have you ever been curious about how YouTube international superstars think about their riskiest career decisions? Ever wanted to understand how to create video content that will attract 10M views? Wouldn’t you love to learn how you can snag an invite to visit your childhood hero’s home?

Well, that is exactly what you will uncover in this week’s interview with Jacques Slade. You will hear how Jacques thinks about what it takes to build a YouTube followership and how he thinks about his blessed life — one that he would have never imagined when he was an at-risk teen.

Listen to episode #1 if you’re curious about Jacque’s thoughts on any of the following questions:

• How can you go from a traditional career such as teaching into sneaker vlogging?
• How can criticism, fandom or trolling push you to do better work?
• What does it take to get an invite to Michael Jordan’s house?
• When it comes to earning 11M-plus views on a video: what’s in a vlogger’s control? what’s out of a vlogger’s control?
• How can we as teachers, mentors or influencers or parents support at-risk teens to choose better alternatives?
• What goes on in a star’s mind when he is star struck moment?
• What are today’s top vloggers REALLY like off-camera?
• Where do Jacques’ thousands of sneakers go?
• What’s the difference between marketing and luck?
• What’s missing in the sneaker market? Where’s the profitable opportunity?

In this interview, you’ll also hear how Jacques would answer the following job interview question:

If you were hired to lead a school, how would you think about the best way to address the African American male student achievement gap in the US education system?

Listen to see how Jacques responds to this question, and manages to brings in some of Gary Vaynerchuk’s “bucket vs. well” wisdom.