Gisele Bündchen just got emotional while reflecting on her past

Gisele Bündchen teared up while remembering her younger self at a VTEX event in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Monday, June 5. The supermodel, 42, has worked in the modelling industry for most of her life, but she said her rise to fame wasn’t easy. She joined the co-founder of the e-commerce platform VTEX, Mariano Gomide, to discuss the impact of other people’s expectations when she was just a teenager.

Gisele was discovered in 1993 at a shopping mall by Elite Model Management. At the time, she was 14 years old, and uprooted her life to move to São Paulo without her family to pursue modeling. She made her debut at New York Fashion Week in 1996, and from there, her career skyrocketed. Gisele walked notable runways and booked top-tier photoshoots, even gracing the cover of US Vogue three times in 1999.

Fast forward to the present day, and she’s still on top — but it came with a price. Gisele teared up when she recalled her humble beginnings, and how quickly her life was transformed by the all-encompassing attention she received as a teenager. “She still gets emotional when she thinks about leaving her family and her sisters,” a source told People. “She was only 14 years old and she went off to start a new life, a new career. She left everything she knew behind.”

Gisele Bündchen gave a moving speech “about our impact on the world and how this can be positive, despite the challenges” per a translation from Twitter. After regaining her composure, she gave the crowd an inspiring message: “You can do anything if you believe in yourself and your dreams. Everything is possible when we believe, and I am no different from you. I am simply a person who believed.”

This article originally appeared on GLAMOUR’s US site.