262. Melissa Ortiz

The SoccerGirl Podcast

SoccerGirl

Sports

5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we chat with Melissa Ortiz, Olympian & former pro footballer, broadcaster, analyst and entrepreneur. In this powerful conversation, Melissa opens up about overcoming imposter syndrome and learning to fully embrace her authentic self — as a first-gen American, a Spanish speaker, and a proud representative of her culture.

We talk about:

• 🌟 Owning your identity and speaking your truth

• 💬 Embracing culture & language as strength, not limitation

• 🧠 Mental resilience and the road to self-confidence

• 🏅 Advice for young athletes carving their path

• 🌎 Representation matters — and why visibility can change lives

An inspiring listen for anyone navigating identity, ambition, and the power of showing up as you are.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Talker because you know we got some problems
0:04.0	So you don't know where we're talking how to solve them
0:06.0	We may laugh, we might be your game is missing peace
0:15.0	I'm Melissa
0:17.0	How are you guys?
0:18.0	It's been so long.
0:20.0	How's being back in Florida? Amazing. Amazing. What are you guys? It's been so long. How's being back in Florida? Amazing. Amazing. Yeah.
0:24.1	What made you decide that? I was like so surprised. I know. My husband was really the one that wanted to come back to Florida. He was like over the New York hustle and bustle and lifestyle and mostly the shitty-ass cold weather as well.
0:40.4	So it was like right as winter was about to start like in November.
0:44.9	Our lease was coming up as well.
0:47.0	And so it was like around that time.
0:48.4	And he had already been telling me for a few years, like I want to go back to Florida.
0:53.1	You know, he's from Puerto Rico so he's the island
0:56.0	island skin you know he needs that warmth in his life and me too I'm from South Florida but I love New York
1:03.3	you guys love New York I know like you know we met in New York City so anyways we made the
1:08.8	made the jump made the move back. We're in Miami. I
1:12.3	freaking love it. I was going to say it's not like you're going somewhere that's void of
1:16.6	soccer culture. Like it has its own whole soccer culture there too, which is awesome. Yeah.
1:21.4	Were you nervous with work for that or because it has its own culture, it didn't really like
1:26.2	Yes and no. like you can't compare
1:30.2	new york city to anything or anywhere else right like new york there's always going to be so much
1:36.2	work and events and like things pop up it's like hey can you host this can you do that with like
	...

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