From my experiences over the years I have found that really people do not change unless they have a life changing experience. And I mean at their core.
Especially the older they get. Its like when your born you are this molten steel that can be molded and shaped but the older you get more rigid and less likely to significantly change.
This is one of the reasons that I value core values so much in my employees/partners. Trust, loyalty, passion, confidence, work ethic are all things I cant change in a person.
But there are experiences that can change people.
Military
I have friends who went into the military a complete wreck and came out with incredible character values. I always have a soft spot for the men and women who server our countries and fight for the freedoms we enjoy so casually. I will always thank people in the military for their service when I see them in public.
Religious
I know many people who have had a religious experience of some sort which significantly changed them as a person.
Near Death
My father went under and was resuscitated many times about 12 years ago until he received a heart transplant. This near death experience has absolutely changed the way my father views life in general.
Curious what other ways do you think can change a persons core?
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
Images provided by ShutterStock
The Pursuit Of Happyness 
Are Your Products F’n Nasty (NSFW) 
How To Make $100 A Day With An Info Product (Part 4) 
{ 80 comments… read them below or add one }
Ya… you are right, I went into army for 2 years, and it really change the way I look at my life. The other way I could think of, is breaking of love relationship, could just change the way you look at your own life.
It may not be the nice choice to change but the more obnoxious the way is the bigger the change is…
I think you nailed it. I’ve known some people to have Life Changing Experiences and change for a short time then go back to the way they were before.
It’s so hard to make a life changing decision and stick with it forever, especially if it’s out of character.
People who face thier greatest fear and people who lose everything. Not all of them, but I have seen people who go thru these things and are different people afterwards. Some have no fear because they’ve already seen the worst and some learn to appreciate the little things.
I would add becoming a parent to that list.
Becoming a father has complete changed the way I assess priorities and the value of things.
Thats a good one… I am sure it has changed me in some ways… not sure its changed my core though
I think having a kid would 100% change your way of thinking, also seeing friends and relatives pass away effects you….major..!
Lol seems like you forgot LOVE.
Lots of prople change after that.
The first $100 I made online totally changed my life…yeah, might not be as important as your examples but still made a major impact.
Encounter with a spirit or the supernatural.
I have seen people become more HUMBLE after their said encounter with the unexplained.
SPOOKY.
Loss of a loved one changes you. At least it did for me. You learn to appreciate those around you more
I agree with this …I had many experiences like this
A good ab workout always gets my core.
Love changes people.
Agree on this one.
Kids do too… I changed a lot after I got married and have the kids.
Spiritually, you have to take notice on all the little things that might occur in your day. Are they just coincidences? Or something beyond that. It happens on a daily basis…
Like this post…You would have to be to understand, haha…
be me to**
I had a bad crash in my car a year and a half ago that changed my life
Shoe i totally agree with your saying people do not change unless they have a life changing experience, recently i had a serious bike accident and had multiple fractures in my leg & after this accident i have left driving bike which all were telling me since many years.
Good news is that now i am on my lags and started blogging again..lol
I noticed that your home page title keeps changing? Try to keep up…I see rich people…It’s like fishing with dynamite…
I feel sad for your family.I hope nothing else bad happens too you or your family.
My wife and I were at the beach just relaxing.
We found a spot to lay down and grub. As we are watching the waves I grabbed a chip and the next thing I feel is a thump! A minivan was trying to back up to park in reverse ran over my wife and I.
Next thing you know Im like wft. I got out under the minivan and I see my wife next to the tire with her face in the sand. Luckily the sand stopped the minivan. within seconds tons of people began to push the car forward and my wife was able to come out.
Being close to dying and especially seeing your loved one almost dying is Life Changing and definitely changed our cores.
We both recovered and are doing great.
Ya, the religious thing works in many ways. I know someone who completely changed for the better once they left the church — as bizarre as that might sound.
Getting busted by the long arm of the law (mainly DUIs) have changed a couple of my friends for the better also… but maybe not total life changing because they still party.
Except for one party hard girl friend of mine who went to jail for 8 or 9 months after a terrible DUI accident. She came out completely sober and is DOMINATING life now.
competition.
A race, a fight… something. Anything. You mark it on your calendar, you prepare yourself for it and on the big day, you put everything you have on the line.
As the saying goes: “Competition doesn’t build character. It reveals it.”
Marriage, did a lot for me. I had a very successful young life, and by the time I was creeping up on 30 I had lost my ambition, and was resigned to relax. I met my wife, and realized it wasn’t simply up to me to decide what I did or didn’t do with my life, I had involved someone else. So, I got back into it, got a real job, and have been an upstanding tax payer since. The real change that has propelled me, is the one that came from within, and it was just a need to do something that I could be proud of, as well as make money. Now I am on the never ending hunt for my opus. Hope I never find it, but produce better work all along the path towards it.
A self defendant business like blogging can make a person very confident and thus change the person alot.
Near death experience always changes somebody in some shape or form, i guarantee it.
Dinono.com
you are right Dino. Life/death experiences does change people. I also believe that people don’t change at all unless something dramatic does happen to them. Our brains are wired this way…plus, scientist say that the personality is 100% developed by the age of 5!
trauma. trauma changes everyone for better or worse. And everyone has some form of traumatic experience at some point in their life.
some trauma could be near death but other trauma is not
When I was 17 I spent about 6 hours on top of a house surrounded by flood waters almost up to the roof. It was raining buckets and lightening was striking all around us. The creek behind our house was overflowed and you could see all kinds of debris being taken away – big things like cars, roofs, and cattle. It was as scared as I have ever been and for the first time in my life I actually had a sense of my own mortality. I guess I grew up that night and thought about life a lot differently after that.
It’s been mentioned, but becomming a parent. I seemed to have put my work before most everything before I had him. Now, it all seems less important. The only thing that matters is a happy family, even if I have to give less of myself at work. Maybe there’s a difference between working mom’s and dad’s though.
Well, whatever experience anybody has gone through what counts is the attitude – which shapes the way one sees the world and acts. The power of attitude is everything!
Military – Some people come out more disciplined and with respect for other people. Others come out jaded and full of anger, or as psychotic as when they first went in. Depends on the person.
Religion – Religion is irrational and backward and causes conflict, fights against science and obscures the truth.
All experience which you have told can make you as per the condition but the last will give you the true meaning of life and how to live it.
Relationships ending can change people dramatically, especially if they’d been unhappy for a long time.
Grandfather passing had the most significant impact on my life and didn’t realize it or blocked it out for a few years. I cherish others and hate the state our entire world is in.
Becoming a parent, for sure, though I imagine like anything else, depends on the person. Changed me quite a bit.
Coming across a group of people who do things in a manner that in contrary to normal actions that human beings carry out. I think that allows you to look at everything around you in a better manner and actually acknowledge all the good that is around you. I guess that brings some change.
However, I think near-death incidents are the main ones that really bring a change in a person, like I almost drowned once but actually I didn’t give a damn because I was a young teenager. Now I look at it and go like, whoa!
http://www.walydopts.blogpsot.com
No doubt, Bankruptcy is also a life changing experience. Sadly, many people react very wrongly to this experience, instead of learning the life’s lessons. Also, I am not a father but I guess that having a baby is an experience which is really life changing.
Seeing first hand absolute poverty, human trafficking, war torn lands, etc.
I think that would be pretty life altering for anyone.
I agree with the first commenter…becoming a parent. Once you are responsible for another person you have no real choice but to grow up and mature. For some people it still takes a little time but the changing probably coincides with becoming a parent.
As an Iraq war vet (11B) who earned a CIB (Combat Infantry Badge) I can attest to the fact that military service can change an individual. It will also compound character traits in certain individuals (some good and some bad). I saw some things I would like to forget but never will be able to, I also saw some things I hope I never do forget while I was there., things that have changed my life.
If I had to pick just one positive thing I came home from Iraq with it would have to be perseverance, after seeing individuals on the other side of the world going through so much yet still being able to get out of bed every day.. well, it really made me appreciate what we have here, wether you live in Nebraska, Wisconsin or even California nothing we go throug here on a daily basis compares to what the people of Iraq, men, women and children go throug just to go to work, to vote or to go to school every day.
I was there for the first free democratic elections in 2004 and I saw men and women stand in line for hours while being shot at and blown up, you know what they did.. they stood in line, they voted and when they came out of the polling sites with their purple thumbs they held them in the air proudly, like a father would do with a new child.
Nothing in life can replace pride, if you can wake up every day and be proud, not of what you do but who you are you will be successful in all that you do, if you never accept defeat or failure you will persevere.
Anyhow, thanks Jeremy for appreciating members of the armed forces, I know it meant a lot to me when I came home to feel loved and supported and I know it means a lot to those that are coming home now. I’m going to stop rambling before I get any more off track lol. Great post
I also have a few vids on youtube from my time in Iraq, the kids a few hooah Army things etc.. I think the ones of the children will sum up why I am proud of my service there, if anyone gets bored seach for soaknfused on youtube and you can check em out.
What a deep and thought provoking subject. I’ll probably touch on some that other readers may have mentioned but here are a few that come to my mind:
Getting clean and sober — if you have ever hit rock bottom, been drunk in a gutter or ditch and went through REHAB, that is a life changing event (and if it wasn’t, then it was unsuccessful, they may not be drinking anymore but will still exhibit behaviors of a ‘dry drunk’).
Becoming a Parent — holding your newborn child in your arms the first time, you realize that there is more in the world than … yourself. You put your needs aside for the sake of the infant, your sleep patterns, work schedule EVERYTHING, but it is worth it.
Death of Parent/Spouse — I have not experienced death of a spouse, but I did lose both my parents. I was closer to my dad and when he died I was an absolute wreck. I can’t even describe it but my life turned upside down and on its side. When my mother died, it didn’t phase me as much, but my sister went into recluse, she wouldn’t eat, leave the house, talk on the phone (well she essentially quit living — and this went on for months). My other siblings after the death of our mother flipped their lives around with career changes, moving to new locations, personal relationships.
I could go on, but I will leave you with those 3.
A friend of mine had a very bad car accident 5 years ago. Helicoptered over to the best hospital. Stayed there with a brain injury classified as 9 out of 10. Dr. said his entire brain had microscopic tears and they don’t know what that means for him when he wakes up, may not speak, may not remember anyone, may be a veggie. He woke up 2 weeks ago out of an induced comma and was fine. Recovered quickly and is doing well. He claims that this whole experience changed him but I don’t see a huge change personally. He was a workoholic and still is except he needs to rest more. Last september he was working in a basement (he does hardwood floors) of a townhouse and while putting a sealant something caused an explosion and the entire house blew up. He was lucky that when the fire came out through the vents he was standing behind a wall that was right in between him and the vent and right beside the stairs. The whole explosion hit the wall first and in milliseconds spread through the basement. Him and his worker managed to run up the stairs and only got minor burns. Again he says he’s a different man but I don’t see a very visible change.
Certain people do have a very noticeable change when something dramatic happens, others, they just take life for granted, or they take it as it is, I guess.
I think everyone has had one of those (or two) in their life and yes, it does change things, but you have to admit, most of the time, the change is temporary. Many people revert back to the way they were.
How about the birth of a child or marriage?
People never change, they only reveal…….
Being in a relationship or becoming a parent are definite epiphanies.
I would say my experience with my boss in a previous company that I went to.
He treated me bad. He bullies me a lot. He insults and laughs at me often. He just do that because he loves it and he is super egoistic.
All these things came to a realizations on my part that someday, I will prove myself to him. Someday, he will see the loser person he used to treat like “**it” will someday become a winner.
I don’t think it takes huge issues to change a person, I believe it’s more of a natural thing based on what you see and what occurs to you in day-to-day situations. The problem is that a lot of people get stuck in a routine for years and thus never have any influences which cause them to change until something huge and dramatic happens.
Seeing first hand absolute poverty, human trafficking, war torn lands, etc.
I think that would be pretty life altering for anyone.
Beating a chronic disease…
Huge life and game changer. Changes your perspective on your health and makes you see how much to took your health for granted prior to the diagnosis.
I beat hepatitis c in 2003…I now try to help others with the site connected to my name here.
Jeremy I know you know what that kind of feels like by beating obesity.
Our first-born was preemie (thank God, he came through fine and is now strong & healthy 16 year-old).
After dealing with something like that, you stop sweating the small stuff.
Being pushed beyond your comfort zone shakes people up. The more the person is pushed outside of the zone, the higher the possibility of changing the person’s core fundamentally. One of them would be a near death experience, which your dad underwent. Others can include being bankrupt, going to jail, undergoing a period of disappointment, etc.
I can’t say I have had a real life changing experience. I may have had one but not even notice that I had one.
yea i believe that the military certainly can change a person’s tremendously whether it is good or bad values. nice share
I also believe that goals and the need for achievement can change persons views and his general absorption of the surrounding.
Knock off a prime piece of A** & then come down with a case of Herpes might be one? Just guessing…
Going to jail, loosing the only girl I have ever loved, loosing my degree while I had only one class left to graduate, spending all my savings on lawyers then getting deported all because I was not born with a green card definitely changed my life and my view of the world.
it made me realize that we can lose our sanity if we don’t have god in our hearts.
Peace be upon you
Have a look at Womens’ tennis for example.. 8 of the top 10 are from former dictatorship style regions (Russia, Former Yugoslavia etc).
They’ve been through crap and back and have drive and determination you’ll rarely see from other cushy nations..
just a thought…
Great post Jeremy.
Will
Yes, true, my life change when someone close me death, really I see the things very different right now, there is that live the life!
Like you said people only really change when they experience something major in their lives. This is because when they do, they actually take the time to look at their lives. When people are comfortable they just go through life doing the same things and not questioning anything.
Time can change the life, I agree with this …I had many experiences like this
The thing you said about near death was interesting.can you post more about that ?
I had a near death experience and I would say that people can tell you life is short a hundred times and its not till you experience it that you realise it is!
Hmmm…..I’d say a child if raised up in a hard life can be a problem that change them at the core, not bad always though it could give a child strength to do better in life if talked to in a positive manner in different situations.
I’m not a fan of the military, religion or near death experiences!
So I’ll go with something I have experienced… disaster relief work. I’ve volunteered a couple times after natural disasters in Haiti and Bangladesh and, for me, seeing people triumph over tragedies has had a profound effect on me.
Getting to work alongside people as they rebuild their lives has been an amazing reminder that there is much more to live than accumulating wealth and things.
I’m not a fan of the military, religion or near death experiences!
So I’ll go with something I have experienced… disaster relief work. I’ve volunteered a couple times after natural disasters in Haiti and Bangladesh and, for me, seeing people triumph over tragedies has had a profound effect on me.
“who server our countries and fight for the freedoms we enjoy so casually.”
Mhm, yes they totally “fight for freedom”. Yes, the Iraq war was a “freedom war”. Totally. Absolutely.
Introduction Thank you, your methods and software, want to learn more
thats true is almost imposible to change unless that you have a life changing experience. Thats happens to me I´m from Panama and this country is a paradise beautiful islands, reasorts and women. Party all the nights is quite crazy this country and for that reason I just like to party all the time, it was the only thing that I was capable to do party and play soccer. But one day I just realize that all my school friends was inviting me to weddings all of them already finish his university carrer working in big companies and I still party so I feel very bad about my situation and also when we start to speak about our life I was the only one that can say a work and that was very sad so I change I stop party like crazy that helps me with my soccer as well know I am in a good team here in panama in fact yesterday we win 4-2 very good game I score on gol and make one assitant, also I get a good job, get back to the university and also trying to make my life different but by now I already make a big different and I am proud of myself
Mid-life crisis?
Every point in life poses challenges in front of you. These challenges change a person drastically.There are some other times when you face certain incidents like what you have mentioned which results in a change in you. Whatever the kind of incident, these incidents happen so that your course can be changed towards the right path and this is a mode that life follows.
Hey Jeremy,
I was just reading through the various comments in your blog posts and found that there were quite a few ones that were spams. I understand that you would be busy and would not have time to moderate your comments.
But I feel you should put some kind o restrictions on spams.
That was just a thought.
Jeremy, I am a strong believer of success. If I succeed to reach my goal, it does not matter what it is, it can direct my life and actions into better and better results.
Actually, I don`t belive that I could “change” radically and quickly. I believe that I can learn new things step by step, if my attitude is right and if I have realistic goals all the time.
Prison.
Diabetes.
Stabbed.
Major Wrecks.
Major Success.
All have changed me for the better. At 21 Ive lived more than most. Lets see what happens by 31.
“really people do not change” – I agree with this and have been telling my wife this for years.
Saving a life – especially if it’s not your job to do so ( for example you regularly save lives as a Dr. etc).
Marriage (see the other guy’s comment). My husband used to be one of those guys who seemed to hate the “Institution” and it turns he was more surprised by how good & life changing it was to get married than I was (and btw I’m not a traditionally “oooh get married girl” either)
My ex girlfriends mom was terminally ill for 18 months and for the last 4 months my ex started to change.(went the the gym a lot and lost weight) Not long after they had scattered her ashes she broke up with me and had a make over and seemed a totally different person to the one who wanted to buy a house,settle down 8 months earlier. she change wanted to get out about and have to one to worry about, unfortunately i didnt change.
Being pushed beyond your comfort zone shakes people up. The more the person is pushed outside of the zone, the higher the possibility of changing the person’s core fundamentally. One of them would be a near death experience, which your dad underwent. Others can include being bankrupt, going to jail, undergoing a period of disappointment, etc.