- When Wine Breathes with Love
- From Refugee to Football Star
- The Brothers Who Live One Life
- The history of a legendary American family: how they built and lavished their fortune
Amorim — When Wine Breathes with Love
Behind every good wine stands a quality cork. With these words, the Portuguese corporation Amorim Group welcomes visitors to its website. When you get to know the company better, you realize that it’s not just empty rhetoric. The Amorim family entered the business back in 1870. Over the course of 150 years, a small winery producing cork stoppers has transformed into a global industry leader. Today, Amorim Group controls 65% of the world’s natural cork market. Throughout this time, four generations have passed in leadership, yet the values remain steadfast: caring for nature and consumer comfort.
Corks are crafted from the bark of cork oak trees. The bark can only be harvested once the tree reaches 20-25 years of age. The following 10 years are dedicated to regeneration. The best-quality bark comes from a 150-year-old oak, yielding 1000 corks per tree at a time. So, the next time you discard a wine cork, it’s worth contemplating. It’s certainly worthy – if not for becoming a decorative element, then for repurposing. It could turn into things like a surfboard or a Birkenstock sole. By the way, the company itself recycles raw material leftovers, producing floors and other construction materials. But let’s return to the market.
Natural cork holds 70% of the global market share, leaving screw caps and synthetic alternatives far behind. Today, natural corks seal around 13 billion wine bottles out of a total of 20.5 billion produced annually. Amorim sells over 6 billion corks per year.
Since the beginning of our century, the company has invested over 50 million euros in research and innovation, successfully overcoming the issue of TCA contamination that affects the taste of wine. To explain simply: the cork reacts with the wine, causing the product to acquire a wet cardboard smell. Thanks to the innovative ROSA system, the risk of wine being affected by TCA has dropped from 7% to less than 1%.
Amorim went public in 1988. In 2022, for the first time in the company’s history, sales exceeded 1 billion euros. In the first six months of this year, cork sales alone increased by 5.4% (almost 424 million euros).
Cork is a renewable, zero-waste, and recyclable natural material. Cork oak forests lead in terms of biological diversity in the Mediterranean, preventing desertification, they “breathe.” However, if cork oak stops justifying its existence economically, sadly, there might be little to save it. There was a time when, due to economic reasons, cork forests in the Algarve region in southern Portugal decreased by 28%. Every time we choose wine with a natural cork, we’re choosing the health of the planet.
The Remarkable Journey of Nadia Nadim: From Refugee to Football Star
The Early Years: An Unsettled Childhood
As the sun rose over the city of Herat, Afghanistan, a young girl named Nadia Nadim was born into a world of unpredictability and strife. The year was 1988, and this was a time when Afghanistan was fraught with warfare, leaving little room for dreams, especially for a girl. Yet, Nadia was destined to shatter these norms.
She was the youngest of five girls in a family that prized education and sports. Her father, an Afghan National Army general, was a firm believer in the power of education and believed that his daughters should have every opportunity to learn and grow. But the political climate of the country was not favorable for these ideals. The rise of the Taliban regime brought an end to the dreams of many, including the Nadim family.
The unthinkable happened when Nadia was just ten years old. Her father was summoned to a meeting with the Taliban and never returned. Presumed to be murdered, his absence left a gaping hole in the family. In the midst of this despair, Nadia’s mother bravely decided to escape the oppressive regime with her five daughters. A perilous journey across borders awaited them, but the dream of a better life fueled their courage.
A New Home: Embracing the Unknown
The family made their way to Europe, initially landing in Italy. From there, they were smuggled in the back of a truck with the promise of reaching England. However, the journey ended in Denmark. While it wasn’t their intended destination, Denmark offered them something they hadn’t had in a long time – safety and the freedom to dream.
Life in a refugee center was challenging, but it also offered Nadia an unexpected gift – football. Watching boys play in a nearby field, Nadia was instantly attracted to the game. She convinced her mother to let her play, and with that, a spark was ignited. Football became her refuge, a means to navigate her new life. The game brought her joy and a sense of belonging in an otherwise unfamiliar land.
Although she didn’t know it then, football was not just a hobby for Nadia; it was her calling. She joined a local club, Gug Boldklub, where her talent was quickly recognized. From there, she swiftly climbed the ranks of Danish football, joining top-tier clubs and eventually making it to the national team. Nadia was making her mark in a big way, and she was just getting started.
Finding Success: The Rise of a Champion
In 2009, Nadia made her professional debut with the Danish Women’s National Team. Her natural ability to score goals, combined with her tenacious spirit, made her a standout player. Nadia was not just playing football; she was changing the narrative for female athletes, particularly those of immigrant backgrounds.
Her talent caught the attention of international clubs, and in 2014, Nadia signed with Sky Blue FC, marking her entry into the prestigious National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the United States. She continued to impress, earning a spot with Portland Thorns FC, where she helped lead the team to an NWSL Championship in 2017.
In 2018, Nadia’s journey took another exciting turn when she signed with Paris Saint-Germain, one of the world’s most renowned football clubs. Here, she continued to shine, both on and off the pitch.
Beyond her footballing prowess, Nadia became a symbol of determination and resilience. Throughout her career, Nadia has been a vocal advocate for women’s rights and equality in football. She uses her platform to shed light on the issues that matter, challenging the status quo and pushing for change. “I hope to inspire others to believe in themselves and to fight for their dreams,” Nadia once said. A quote that perfectly captures her spirit and determination.
$26000 Nadia Nadim earns weekly at Racing Louisville, according to reports
11 languages Nadia speaks as a multi lingual: English, French, German, Dari, Farsi, Urdu, Swedish, Norwegian Parsian, Arabic and Hindi.
Looking Ahead: Nadia’s Future Plans
After achieving so much in her football career, one might wonder what’s next for Nadia Nadim. Well, she’s not one to rest on her laurels. In 2022, Nadim fulfilled her goal of becoming a doctor, specifically in reconstructive surgery. She attended medical school at Aarhus University remotely during the football season.
When she began playing football in Denmark, coaches at her first club offered to cover transport expenses given how far away she lived from it at the time.
These moments “had a huge impact on me,” said Nadim.
“I know as a doctor, I’ll be able to do that for other people”.
“I know the value of helping a person when they have no hope,” she told The Guardian.
“I know 100 percent that I want to be a surgeon.”
In early 2022, the dream that she had been working towards for all these years came true as she qualified to become a doctor. Nadim shared the news across her social media, saying: “For the haters, I did it again. Kicked a** and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
Lessons from Nadia Nadim’s Journey
Nadia’s life story is a testament to the power of dreams and the indomitable human spirit. Despite the numerous challenges she faced, from losing her father to navigating life as a refugee, she never let her circumstances define her. Instead, she dared to dream big, using her passion for football as a vehicle to change her life.
Nadia’s journey also highlights the importance of perseverance. Success didn’t come easily. She faced numerous setbacks and obstacles, but she never gave up. She worked hard, practiced relentlessly, and never lost sight of her goals. This resilience is a powerful reminder that success often lies beyond the challenges that seem insurmountable at the time.
Perhaps the most important lesson from Nadia’s story is her spirit of service. She used her success not just to benefit herself, but to inspire and uplift others. She became a role model for young girls and refugees, using her platform to advocate for change. This spirit of service is a reminder that success is not just about achieving our personal goals, but also about making a positive impact on the world around us.
In the end, the story of Nadia Nadim is one of courage, resilience, and determination. It’s a story that reminds us that no matter where we come from or what challenges we face, we all have the power to shape our own destiny.
Books
The number one New York Times bestselling authors of Vanderbilt return with another riveting history of a legendary American family, the Astors, and how they built and lavished their fortune.
The story of the Astors is a quintessentially American story—of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention.
From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society.
The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic, one of many shocking and unexpected twists in the family’s story.
In this unconventional, page-turning historical biography, featuring black-and-white and color photographs, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe chronicle the lives of the Astors and explore what the Astor name has come to mean in America—offering a window onto the making of America itself.
A masterful, timely, fully authorized biography of the great and hugely influential biologist and naturalist E. O. Wilson, one of the most ground-breaking and controversial scientists of our time—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
“An impressive account of one of the 20th century’s most prominent biologists, for whom the natural world is ‘a sanctuary and a realm of boundless adventure; the fewer the people in it, the better.’” —The New York Times Book Review
Few biologists in the long history of that science have been as productive, as ground-breaking and as controversial as the Alabama-born Edward Osborne Wilson. At 91 years of age he may be the most eminent American scientist in any field.
Fascinated from an early age by the natural world in general and ants in particular, his field work on them and on all social insects has vastly expanded our knowledge of their many species and fascinating ways of being. This work led to his 1975 book Sociobiology, which created an intellectual firestorm from his contention that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is governed by the laws of evolution and genetics. Subsequently Wilson has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity and has worked tirelessly to synthesize the fields of science and the humanities in a fruitful way.
Richard Rhodes is himself a towering figure in the field of science writing and he has had complete and unfettered access to Wilson, his associates, and his papers in writing this book. The result is one of the most accomplished and anticipated and urgently needed scientific biographies in years.
Chronicling 200 years of glamour, hedonism and crime, this rich and vivid history of the French Riviera features a vast cast of famous characters.
A Financial Times ‘Book to Read in 2023’
In 1835, Lord Brougham founded Cannes, introducing bathing and the manicured lawn to the wilds of the Mediterranean coast. Today, much of that shore has become a concrete mass from which escape is an exclusive dream. In the intervening years, the stretch of seaboard from the red mountains of the Esterel to the Italian border hosted a cultural phenomenon well in excess of its tiny size.
A mere handful of towns and resorts created by foreign visitors – notably English, Russian and American – attracted the talented, rich and famous as well as those who wanted to be. For nearly two centuries of creativity, luxury, excess, scandal, war and corruption, the dark and sparkling world of the Riviera was a temptation for everybody who was anybody. Often frivolous, it was also a potent cultural matrix that inspired the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Coco Chanel, Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, James Baldwin, Catherine Mansfield, the Rolling Stones, Sartre and Stravinsky.
In Once Upon a Time World, Jonathan Miles presents the remarkable story of the small strip of French coast that lured the world to its shores. It is a wild and unforgettable tale that follows the Riviera’s transformation from paradise and wilderness to a pollution imperilled concrete jungle.
Discover the official story of In-N-Out Burger––how three generations have created a thriving, family-owned company, why its fans are so wildly loyal, and what led to its explosive growth and evolution into an iconic part of American culture––as told by In-N-Out Burger’s president, Lynsi Snyder.
When Lynsi Snyder’s grandparents founded In-N-Out Burger in 1948, they built it with a passion for quality and service that Lynsi embraced at a young age. After starting as a store associate at age seventeen, she then worked in other departments, gaining first-hand experience with almost every aspect of the family business until she became president in 2010. She has led the company through explosive growth––today, there are three-hundred and eighty stores and counting––and is deeply committed to the well-being of the In-N-Out Burger family.
In The Ins and Outs of In-N-Out, you’ll:
- Gain key insights into why In-N-Out has maintained its very popular and limited menu for more than seventy-five-years and why it has refused to franchise or go public
- Hear behind-the-scenes stories from In-N-Out Associates, including from one gentleman who worked in the very first store
- Learn about the Snyder family’s Christian faith, including her grandmother Esther’s belief in the gospel and her uncle’s “born-again” experience that shaped his life and leadership at the company
- Discover why Lynsi has been ranked as one of the top presidents in the restaurant industry and how her personal challenges have fortified her faith and shaped her dedication to servant leadership
In-N-Out Burger has drawn fiercely loyal fans––from professional chefs and burger aficionados to celebrities and scores of everyday customers––who not only crave the burgers, fries, and milkshakes but also come back again and again for the community.
Video
Links
- The Brothers Who Live One Life — The Incredible Adventures of David and Daniil Liberman
- Chuck Palahniuk Is Not Who You Think He Is
- The man who won the lottery 14 times
- How a Harvard Professor Became the World’s Leading Alien Hunter
- The Complete History & Strategy of Costco
- Rey Flemings: A Different Definition of Success
