You may have your daily functions and business operations down to a science, but in order to continue moving onward and upward, you need to continue developing and learning new skills and gathering knowledge that will keep you current, relevant and stimulated.

The world around us (human development/technology/innovation) is growing and advancing at an alarming speed and in blink of an eye you can be yesterday's news instead of today's headline or tomorrow's superstar if you don't do your part to progress as well.

The industry you are working within may evolve, expand, grow smaller or transform and you need to be ready when that happens. You need to be aware of your industry's position in marketplace and cognizant of where it is heading.

Paying attention to your industry's standing and mindful of future trends will allow you to make decisions that will support strategic action and position you for continued growth and success.

To conduct business with assumption that once change occurs, you will make necessary adaptations could be detrimental to your business, possibly devastating.

A: Gene, I hope that I have never given anyone impression that having your own business is a walk in park. To contrary, I'm like proverbial Chicken Little when it comes to warning readers of obstacles and pitfalls that await those considering entrepreneurial plunge.

To quote myself from a column I wrote earlier this year, "If it was easy, my friend, everybody would do it."

Just to make sure we're in agreement, let me reiterate standard warnings once again. Starting a business is incredibly hard work. It takes long hours and deep pockets. It demands unbridled passion and unquestioned commitment. It requires that you give of yourself until you often feel there is nothing left to give. And sometimes, even after you've done all that you can do and given all that you can give, business fails.

Period.

Blood, sweat, and tears can only carry you so far in business world. Good intentions and grand ideas won't pay office rent. You can not make payroll with Monopoly money.

I certainly don't mean to make light of your situation. In fact, I know exactly how you feel. I failed so miserably my first time in business that I swore I would never think about working for myself again. All I wanted to do was to find a nice, secure 9-to-5 job that provided me with a nice steady paycheck. I yearned for opportunity to grow fat and happy on someone else's payroll for a change.

I never again wanted to have to think about customers or employees or withholding taxes or accounts receivable or anything else even remotely associated with being in business.

I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die because my business had failed, and in my All-American, macho male, "you are what you do" brain that meant that I was a failure, too.

Getting over failure of a business can be extremely difficult, especially if you are one of those entrepreneurs (like I was) who wrongly relates success or failure of a business to success or failure of you as a person.