No matter how much this industry changes and modernizes, it will always be about people. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Benefits advisors spend an enormous amount of time and energy studying those around them. Every day, they ask countless questions, listen closely to people's perspective and challenges, conduct online research, track analytics—all in an effort to learn more about the companies and communities they hope to help.

While it's tempting to believe the secret to it all could be uncovered by gathering enough data, discovering the right tool, or finding a perfect cost-saving strategy, we know that will never really be the case. No matter how much this industry changes and modernizes, it will always be about people. Which means it will always be complicated, changeable, messy and worthwhile.

BenefitsPRO editor-in-chief Paul Wilson reflects on the passion that drives success in the benefits industry.

Related: Exceptional service key to success in benefit broker world

"People want to do business with other people," author Patrick Galvin told attendees at the recent Q4Live conference in Tampa. Galvin admitted that he wasted tens of thousands of dollars on high-end marketing efforts before finally rediscovering this simple truth and shifting his focus to personal relationships.

Throughout the conference, conversations about resilience, curiosity, passion and humanity offered a look into a key part of our industry's people equation: the advisors themselves.

It's endlessly fascinating to sit in a room full of benefits advisors as they share their successes, challenges and mistakes. To hear terms like "obsession," "amnesia," "empathy" and "authenticity" used to describe their quest to fix health care and reduce the pain caused by a broken system that hurts countless people every day.

As Jessica McCool says in her Face of Change interview on page 8: "If you take 10 brokers, they'll each do things a different way, have different resources and recommendations."

A panel of advisors discussing their efforts to create brands that resonate within their communities described a "painful process of discovery" that took months or even years of hard work, frustration and self-reflection. Yet their passion was evident.

The problems facing our industry are enormous and daunting. Helping communities and companies made up of unique, complicated human beings is never going to be easy or straightforward. But I never feel more optimistic than when listening to a room of advisors, unique and complicated in their own right, as they share the ideas and obsessions that consume them as they strive to find the perfect solution for each person they come across. As they combine their individual strengths, ideas and experiences to face the next challenge.

Read more: 

• 3 challenges facing benefits brokers in 2020
• Fear, relevance and the future of brokers
• 3 ways brokers can 'filter out the noise'