It’s well known that some of the most successful companies in the world carve out a good portion of their annual budget for research and development. Some believe that these “expenditures” are expenses while others would make a strong argument that these are “investments” for the future. After all, if a company just milks all of their current profits without developing new products and services while the rest of the world changes around them, how would they compete in the future?
What would happen if a leading manufacturing company in the auto industry stopped coming out with new features and benefits? What would happen if technology companies stopped coming out with new breakthroughs? What would happen if biotech and pharmaceutical companies stopped coming out with new treatments and medicines for all of mankind to benefit from?
What would happen if:
- Ford just stopped coming out with new models of the Ford Mustang after their initial release in April of 1964?
- Microsoft stopped coming out with upgrades and new versions of their Windows 1.0 software back in November of 1985?
- Pfizer stopped coming out with new drugs in their pipeline?
- Apple stopped improving their phones after the original iPhone?
It is not uncommon for major enterprises to allocate between 6% and 19% of their annual revenues right back into research and development to increase the odds of future successes and profits. The moment a company stops innovating, stops improving, or stops adding value to customers their days are numbered.
It’s either change and evolve or die.
So let me ask you this; how much is your personal research and development budget each year? How much are you allocating out of your annual income to reinvest in yourself so that you don’t become obsolete? Are you taking self-improvement seriously? Are you making a focused effort to evolve while the world around you continues to evolve?
If you want to make sure that you aren’t fooling yourself on personal research & development, go back and review your expenditures over the last 12 months. How much did you actually spend on self-improvements and upgrades?
We know that successful and wealthy people make a habit of self-improvement. They all have a personal philosophy of endless learning. They tend to have a voracious appetite for books and learning tools. Below is a picture of my book collection.
If you aren’t building wealth as fast as you desire. If you aren’t accelerating your earnings as fast as you desire. If you aren’t evolving as a leader in your profession or industry as fast as you desire, it may be that you are fooling yourself on the amount of serious effort that you are putting into personal research and development.
Spending 15% to 20% of your annual income on self-improvement may be a bit extreme on the personal level. But if your expenditure level is between 0% and 1%, it’s highly likely that you are fooling yourself and you are destined to be obsolete in only a matter of time.
When you dedicate yourself to lifelong learning, the probabilities of maintaining a high level of happiness go up substantially.