“From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to tell me its story.”

—Alberto Manguel

In an age where we’re inundated with words, it's easy to take them for granted; to forget how precious they can be. Joshua Hammer's book, “The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu,” details the story of Abdel Kader Haidara, a collector and scholar who spent much of the 1980s gathering and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were disappearing into obscurity and decay. In 2012, when Al Qaeda militants seized the area and threatened to destroy the irreplaceable collection, Haidara and a network of brave librarians conducted a “brazen heist worthy of ‘Ocean's Eleven’” and snuck all 350,000 volumes out of the city.

History is littered with tyrants, zealots and invaders who understand and fear the power that knowledge represents. In 1258, Mongol armies targeted and destroyed the House of Wisdom, a major intellectual center of the Islamic Golden Age. When Spanish conquistadors invaded the Americas during the 1500s, Catholic priests collected and burned the books and documents of Mayas, Aztecs and others. During the War of 1812, British forces used 3,000 books looted from the Library of Congress to burn down the U.S. Capitol.

Luckily, there are also countless stories of brave people like Haidara, or those who thwarted book-burners, anti-vice crusaders and even the U.S Post Office in the 1920s by disguising and smuggling James Joyce's banned masterpiece, “Ulysses.”

“For the best return on your money, pour your purse into your head.”

—Benjamin Franklin

In the increasingly competitive and volatile benefits world, knowledge becomes more valuable by the day. Marcie O’Dwyer notes consultants “[must separate themselves] from the pack by not only knowing the … laws and their implications, but by being able to translate them so that businesses truly understand what it all means for them.” In Face of Change, John Sbrocoo says: “I’m reading every night and on weekends … I learn in order to win business. That gives me an edge … The more knowledge you have about the system, the more you can help your clients.”

The benefits consultants I talk to every day are curious, passionate and thirsty for knowledge. As we close out another tumultuous year, I look forward to hearing your stories—and learning more about you—in 2018.

Instant Insights /

Reading, knowledge and separating yourself from the pack

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