Live and Learn <b> </b>

In many professions, such as academics, medicine and accounting,continuing education is not only encouraged, but often required.How else, the reasoning goes, can anyone possibly keep up with newdiscoveries, strategies, laws and practices?

But when it comes to entrepreneurship, continuing education isall too often nonexistent. Once someone starts a business,there's frequently no time for or little interest in learning.In fact, some business owners wear their lack of education as abadge of honor--not, as the Seinfeld gang would say, thatthere's anything wrong with that. There are numerous enormouslysuccessful entrepreneurs who never went to college(Entrepreneur owner Peter Shea is one). But our 21st centuryworld tends to move ahead at warp speed, and it's all too easyto get left behind.

I'm certainly not advocating that you drop everything and goback to school, though there are a good number of excellentcontinuing education programs (some of which even offer degrees)specially geared toward entrepreneurs. But that doesn't meanyou can ignore the changes that seem to occur daily in yourparticular industry as well as in the overall businessenvironment.