Before starting with my text, I want to thank you for allowing me into your home or workplace. For me, was a special year regarding my health and personal growth and I think it shows; I can appreciate it in every facet of my life and in the daily contact I have with other people, both personally and digitally (it is a new era indeed). In this sense I have much to thank Life and in particular to my Mentors and new friends who have come to enrich my existence.
This year also marked the growth of my businesses, in particular my Cortez Pearl Farm. After some very difficult years – due initially to the global economic crisis of 2008 and later due to the collapse of tourism caused by the 2009 "Mexican Narco War"- in which there were moments where I really believed that I had lost everything, I am finally able to see an Illuminated landscape: the light at the end of the tunnel is left behind, and the world opens up with opportunities. Our beloved Mexican Gem -the Sea of Cortez Pearl- is finally in the taste of our National buyers and they acquire them with pride and the certainty that they are acquiring an authentic Family Treasure. It took us nearly 20 years to achieve this, so there is no doubt that tenacity eventually gets rewarded.
2016 marked another great moment for us: we had a historical investment in pearl production equipment, so the ground is prepared -or, better said, the sea is- for the growth of our company and a re-launching of our unique organic gem to the world’s gem markets. In the area of promotion and advertising we also had an explosive growth, particularly in Social Media, where Facebook marked a spectacular growth, publicizing the pearl farm and its jewelry mainly throughout Mexico; also, more than 9 articles were published in magazines (mainly from Sonora and Mexico City, but also in a peer reviewed Gemological journal from the United States). I want also to thank all my followers on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and the blog that bears my name. Without you and your comments these efforts have no taste nor emotion.
But this year also had its painful moments, as it was with the departure of two great friends of mine; they left this world untimely... but during their stay they made it a better place to live in, two men who believed in Tikkum Olam and that Helped me with their words and example in some of the most difficult moments of my life, and with whom I shared tears and laughter, discussions about life and everything important in it: family, children, food and passions. Farewell to my friends and perfect Mensch: Eliyahu Gur and Carlos Cabral. Thank you for all that we shared.
I can not pass up the opportunity to also thank my wife Elizabeth, she has always supported me and her strength and vision have been crucial for me at all times, especially in those difficult moments in life where a decision to be made was not the cerebrally correct, but the best one for a more complete and fulfilling life.
So ends this year 2016 and a new year is born, and for many people it begins with a very negative emotional charge (at least in Mexico): tax and gas price increases, a new President of the United States with an apparent grudge for Mexico and its inhabitants, a complicated Worldwide economy and the eternal series of problems that the media gladly remind us at all times. True, there are indeed problems and challenges ahead, but what would life be without them??? An insipid world, boring and without the opportunity to grow and develop. That is why today I also thank those challenges that life offers us all.
I invite you to be grateful for everything that life throws at you: behind the seemingly "bad" can come a blessing. In a very similar way, this is the way an oyster produces its pearls: if a small and noble animal can carry out this process of beautifying a life-threatening situation, all the more reason we can do the same. Let us produce our own life-pearls this 2017, and I wish them to be the most beautiful in the world.
I thank you and I wish you all the best this new year 2017.
Douglas Mc Laurin-Moreno
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