I AM · A Winner 50 ml

She flew to Abu Dhabi to give a speech. This year, she was honored as Entrepreneur of the Year. Was she nervous? Not at all. She knew that all these people had come mainly to hear her. When she stepped onto the stage, the silence confirmed it. The hall, filled with hundreds of black leather chairs, was filled with black suits and dresses. Here and there were white collars, here and there satin scarves. The decor in the room was austere and elegant—the decorators had decided to adorn the hall with black orchids—which underscored the event’s status.

On stage stood a microphone and a lectern where papers could be placed, illuminated by a single spotlight. She stepped out with three sheets of paper. Two were densely covered on both sides with neat phrases: phrase after phrase. On the third—just one word. When the projector turned on, she began.

“For twenty years, I’ve been told all kinds of ‘no.’ ‘It won’t work. It’s not a woman’s job. We’ve already tried this.’ The two sheets you see are filled with exact quotes of rejections from the smartest people in the world. But I stand before you, and the only thing that helped me reach this point is faith.”

That evening, she and her husband planned to have spiced coffee and desserts while sitting on the terrace of a high-rise hotel.

At that moment, as they were talking to each other, social media was flooded with videos of her speech from various angles in the hall, as all the guests were filming.

The next morning, the newspapers carried reports from the company claiming that this was not just the most successful business of the year, but the most successful business of the last century.