We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shaylee Ungos. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shaylee below.

Shaylee, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mission is to spread the message “smile at the little things.” This motto means to appreciate ordinary life and create the reality that you desire. Shaping your mindset to seek out the positive things, no matter how small, really changes how you experience daily life. I struggled with my mental health as a student-athlete throughout high school and into my first year of college. There were many challenges I had to overcome in order to even get to the college level.

I grew up on a small military base in South Korea, so getting recruited by college coaches was virtually impossible. The level of play was a lot lower than it is in the States, so I had to train on my own and seek out coaches or mentors who could support me. I also experienced a season-ending injury during my senior year of high school, which led me to a plethora of identity struggles and other inner conflicts. In my freshman year of college, I continued to experience identity issues, imposter syndrome, anxiety, depression, physical health issues, loneliness, and overall stress from moving to a completely different environment. All of these challenges made me stronger as a person and an athlete, but also made me feel very passionate about helping other people overcome their own personal challenges in order to achieve the lifestyle they dream of.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I create social media content to an audience of over 50K on Instagram related to my volleyball journey, student-athlete life, college recruiting tips, and more. This account started when I was in high school and trying to get recruited by college coaches. I hoped that a social media presence could help people get to know me, but also that it might open some doors in the volleyball world. I did not expect it to blow up in the way that it did! I have worked with The Hidden Opponent, a non-profit resource for student-athlete mental health, United Sports Abroad, a company focused on helping military kids play college sports, I’ve spoken on a panel about NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) to college athletic directors across California, and I am starting a clothing brand based on “smile at the little things.”

I also have a more personal account that I started less than a year ago with over 10K followers. It showcases my other passions for food, positivity, and relationships with other people. Through everything I do on social media, I try to have an authentic perspective that might inspire other people to pursue their dreams despite the challenges they will face. I believe that in the end, if you keep shaping your daily life into the reality you desire, you will feel as if you are already living the dream.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When I first started building my volleyball account, I did not know much about going viral or building a loyal audience. It took me over a year of posting semi-consistently to reach 1000 followers. Then all of a sudden, one of my videos went viral, and I started growing like crazy. I learned a lot about providing value to my audience and also the importance of including my face and personality into the account. My account continued to grow rapidly until I stopped posting as consistently in college. I burned out from volleyball for a little bit, so to heal, I focused more on my identity outside of the sport. I started a food and lifestyle account and grew that organically to over 10K in 9 months. I think the biggest key is creating relatable content that people want to share with their friends, produce high quality or aesthetic videos, follow trends and use trending audios, and showcase your personality (or the personality of the brand). People like to follow people. They want to feel connected to the brand. Really digging into research of what your target audience likes will help you form a strong content plan!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

As I mentioned in the previous question, I experienced burnout from volleyball in all aspects (playing the sport, watching it, and creating content for it) during the fall of my first year in college. This burnout made me really question, “who am I outside of volleyball?” I had to decide if I wanted to keep my large audience on Instagram by forcing myself to create volleyball-related content, if I wanted to quit, or if I wanted to pivot my focus. I first tried to create educational content for student-athletes based on college recruiting and social media NIL deals. These subjects are really exciting for me to talk about in a face-to-face context, but I found that it was really uninteresting for me to create social media posts based on those topics. As I was working on self-discovery outside of sport, I realized that I love food and romanticizing life and connecting with other people. I decided to start my second account based on those passions. As a girl on a college-student budget, it has allowed me to eat out very often (for free!) and share those delicious meals with new friends. I think food brings people together in a way that nothing else can. I also dream of building a place one day that focuses on those themes: a physical space where people can gather and share food, host cooking classes, try cuisines from different cultures, foster connections through community events, etc. But for now, I will just continue sharing my love of food and people through the lens of my camera.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @shayleeungosvb, @shaylee.ungos
• Youtube: @shayleeungos

Image Credits

Richard Quinton (volleyball action shot)