Speaker Spotlight
Casting Directors, Tourism Boards and a Dozen Middle School Crushes All Told Her No. She Turned It Into a Sales Method.
Monica Ortega · Award-Winning Speaker & Emcee · Bestselling Author of The Power of Pivoting · Creator of the R.O.C.K.S.T.A.R. Method™
Monica Ortega spent the first part of her career in an industry built on rejection. As an actress and later a travel show host, she heard "no" from casting directors and tourism boards more often than she heard "yes." Then she pivoted into the one field she had sworn she would never touch: sales.
Four years later, she had helped take the business from $600K to $4M. The mindset that got her there is now a keynote called Learn to Love "No," built on what she calls the R.O.C.K.S.T.A.R. Method of Rejection™.
Her argument is simple and a little uncomfortable. Most people do not have a skills problem. They have a rejection problem, and it quietly decides how many calls they make, how many ideas they pitch and how many changes they are willing to try.
A Career Built on Pivots
Monica’s path reads like a case study in her own material. She started out acting, then in 2014 created the online travel show Monica Goes to push people out of their comfort zones and into adventure. Her company, Pivoting Productions, has since produced more than 200 episodes, the show earned her recognition as an award-winning travel host, and her work has been featured in Thrive Global, Medium and USA Today’s 10Best. Along the way she appeared in more than 20 commercials.
In 2021 she put the lessons into a book, The Power of Pivoting: How to Embrace Change and Create a Life You Love, which became a bestseller. The through-line of the book, and of every talk she gives, is that change is only frightening until you have a method for it.
That is also why she lands with audiences that are not in entertainment at all. Bankers, sales teams, association members and tourism professionals all live with some version of the same problem she did: a job where the outcome is not fully in your control and the word "no" comes up every day.
What R.O.C.K.S.T.A.R. Actually Stands For
The acronym is the spine of her sales keynote: Rejection Opens Confidence Knowing Strong Tactics Accumulates Resilience. Read it slowly and it is a sequence. Rejection is the input. Confidence and tactics are what you build from it. Resilience is the result that compounds over time.
On stage, Monica sets it to a soundtrack of classic rock anthems and mixes data with stories that range from cave kayaking to channeling your inner Beyoncé. The energy is deliberate. She wants people to leave feeling like rockstars, but she also wants them leaving with tactics they can use before their very next call, not a mood that fades by Tuesday.
It is built for the rooms where rejection is part of the job description: sales kickoffs, team offsites, revenue meetings and conferences that want a session that is equal parts data, story and stage energy. For planners who have booked sales speakers before, Jason Ferguson makes a related case about speakers who have actually carried a number, and Monica has.
More on rejection and confidence in sales: Troy Sandidge on becoming a rejection rockstar, Juan Bendana on confidence by choice and Precious Williams on winning thirteen pitch championships.
Two More Keynotes on Change and Fear
The Power of Pivoting draws directly from her book. It is aimed at organizations going through transitions and at career and women’s events, and it tackles the habit of reacting to change with comparison and a long list of "shoulds." Audiences learn where the fear of change comes from, how to tell when it is time to pivot, five steps for turning a vision into reality and how to build a Mental Health Toolkit for the next pivot.
Facing Fears to Build Resilience takes the same idea one step further. Monica’s view is that you rarely get rid of fear. You get better at walking toward it. The keynote introduces her Resilience Recycle Framework and four steps to building confidence, and it shows people how to stretch out of their comfort zone in small steps so they are ready when the big moments arrive. It sits well alongside Anne Gillaspie’s SHARE YOUR FEAR™ work and Michelle "MACE" Curran’s story of flying through fear.
The Festival Stage Advantage
Monica is not only a keynote speaker. She has spent more than 20 years on stage and emcees some of the biggest music festivals in the country, including Stagecoach, Country Thunder and Country 500. That matters to planners in a practical way. Festival crowds do not sit politely, and an emcee who can hold them can hold a ballroom after lunch.
Beth Santos, CEO of Wanderful, booked her to emcee the WITS Travel Creator Summit in Utah:
Hilary Van Messel of Reach and Toyota, who has worked with her for more than a decade, pointed to consistency as the quality that sets her apart, and tourism clients from Tempe, Billings and Traverse City describe the same thing in different words: professional, prepared and genuinely fun to work with. At Women in Banking, one attendee said she could relate to Monica’s words and gained a new perspective on her life and career.
For a planner, that means one booking can cover two jobs: a keynote that gives people something to use, and an emcee who keeps the whole program moving. If you are weighing that option, our guide on how to introduce a keynote speaker shows how much of an event’s flow lives in the emcee’s hands, and Trisha Miltimore’s spotlight covers the same keynote-plus-emcee model. Full topic descriptions, video and testimonials are on Monica’s speaker profile.
Book Monica Ortega
Available for keynotes on rejection and sales mindset, change and pivoting, and facing fear, and as an emcee for conferences, festivals and awards programs.