I was barely a year out of college working as the sole IT guy for one of the nation's most pre-eminent investment advisers. I was the sole IT guy because no one else wanted to do it. I was the sole IT guy because, despite a degree from a prestigious Ivy League school, it was the only job I could get (it being at the height of the 1981-82 recession. I was the sole IT guy because – they absolutely trusted mind ability to "make magic" when it came to these complicated behemoths of electronic wizardry. They'd constantly ask, "How did you know that?" and I would just innocently shrug my shoulders and coyly answer, "I dunno. I guess it was pretty obvious." Then I regaled them with the story about building my first computer with a box of spare parts from Radio Shack (OK, it was a kit) when I was a sophomore in High School.

I never let them really know how I knew what I knew. But, now some 30+ years distant, I think it's safe to reveal the answer to you. After all, most folks took today off, but you didn't. And for that, you deserve a bonus.

Here it is: I knew all that computer stuff for one simple reason and one simple reason only. It wasn't because I was some sort of whiz-kid genius. It was because I majored in the subject. It wasn't because I had elves come and cobble together everything in the wee hours of the morning after I had fallen asleep at my desk. No. It was because I read the manual.

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Read the manual?! That's blasphemy for every geek-squad hero from here to Kingdom Come. It violates the very manual of the macho-nerd. Why, it's like a guy asking someone for directions when he's lost. It simply never happens.

Well, perhaps I was too young or too naïve to know, but I was definitely too busy to care. Why make rocket science out of something that's not? (Apologies to all those computer scientists out there, but as someone schooled in astronomy and physics, we always felt it was our job to figure out a way to drive those thinking machines absolutely bonkers.) And therein lies the lesson of this fable.

We all want to be the best we can possibly be. We often think the road to this success contains insurmountable obstacles. It doesn't. It's usually just as simple as reading the manual. But not all jobs have manuals. True. On the other hand many fields, like that of providing financial services to retirement plans, have industry journals replete with numerous stories of hands-on reality, up-and-coming issues and hints of discoveries yet to be applied. In effect, this body of literature becomes the manual for the professional.

With that kernel of truth, we know what we must do. We must read what our peers read. That's actually easy. You can do this just by going to a list of most widely read stories in 2013 like this one: "2013's Top 5 FiduciaryNews.com Stories," (FiduciaryNews.com, December 31, 2013). But, while it's one thing to know what everyone else is reading, it's quite another thing to know why they're reading it. Here's a quick rundown of some of the important lessons we learned from analyzing the most widely-read stories of FiduciaryNews.com in 2013:

1)      The search for the perfect fiduciary fee remains the Holy Grail of the industry. Not one, but two, different articles on the subject scored heavily in the top ten last year. One of them was actually written in 2012, which tells you the staying power of the subject. Unfortunately, there will never be a "perfect" answer to this question because: a) Fees come within the context of service; b) Service is a subjectively measured item; and, c) competition between service providers means fee levels and the value of specific services will always be debated in the open market place.

2)      Leading thinkers will always seek the thoughts and opinions of other leading thinkers. Think of this as "a room of our own." It's a safe place where we could enter free from the burden of not speaking in jargon. It's a place we can talk shop, confident it won't come back to bite us. It's a world – either real or virtual – where like-minded folks can gather and extend the overall knowledge-base of the industry for the sole reason of exploring the possible.

3)      No matter how hard we try to honestly express the nature of our business, the mass media will trump our trope with a meme that resonates with the hoi polloi. There is only one appropriate defensive tactic to employ in the case of large scale bullying of this nature, and that is to immediately and unrepentantly confront the bully. Yeah, yeah, I know what they teach you in all that sensitivity training mumbo jumbo, but if you want to survive in the wilds of the jungle that is marketing with the likes of Charlie Daniels and Chuck Norris, then you've got to be brave enough to stand up for what you believe.

And while that last elements promotes a specific tactic, let me leave you with a concept that might become the talk of 2014: A Specific Strategy.

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Christopher Carosa

Chris Carosa has been writing a weekly article and monthly column for BenefitsPRO online and BenefitsPRO Magazine since 2011 and is a nationally recognized award-winning writer, researcher and speaker. He’s written seven books, including From Cradle to Retire: The Child IRA; Hey! What’s My Number? – How to Increase the Odds You Will Retire in Comfort; A Pizza The Action: Everything I Ever Learned About Business I Learned By Working in a Pizza Stand at the Erie County Fair; and the widely acclaimed 401(k) Fiduciary Solutions. Carosa is also Chief Contributing Editor of the authoritative trade journal FiduciaryNews.com and publisher of the Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, a weekly community newspaper he founded in 1989. Currently serving as President of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and with more than 1,000 articles published in various publications, he appears regularly in the national media. A “parallel” entrepreneur, he actively runs a handful of businesses, including a small boutique investment adviser, providing hands-on experience for his writing. A trained astrophysicist, he also holds an MBA and has been designated a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor. Share your thoughts and story ideas with him through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christophercarosa/)and Twitter (https://twitter.com/ChrisCarosa).