Chad Hardy has become a Mormon Exile to No. 2 on Amazon’s Bestseller list
By Debbie Hall
In this inspirational combination between self-help and his memoir, Chad Hardy chronicles his discovery of the transformative Law of Zero in his new book of the same name to get unstuck, find balance and unlock infinite potential. Through his personal story of resilience, he has learned how to reset and navigate chaos with grace, sharing his raw life experiences and the factors that helped him. Hardy outlines five essential tools for managing stress and maintaining emotional control: Find Awareness, Secure Alignment, Take Ownership, Release to Receive, and Engage Power.
Hardy has always pursued the American Dream as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). He pursued several careers, building on the skillsets Hardy developed from another pursuit, until a calendar he would produce would set in motion a dramatic life change that would take years to transform him.
Growing up in California, he first started in entertainment, becoming a theme park performer and studio vocalist. He would eventually become the youngest Entertainment Director for Larry Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz.
“As a young adult, I got to play with the big boys in the corporate world and realized I didn’t want to be in there. I have a knack for team building. I really like this idea of community and bringing people together, especially in the workplace, where we spend so much of our lives with our coworkers,” explained Hardy.
He would start a team-building company in Las Vegas in 2006. “I just started going around to meet with all the meeting planners and broke into the business by using my theatrical skills at an international event organization with a chapter in Vegas. I performed a Britney Spears ‘Oops, I Did It Again’ rendition with a couple of my friends as backup dancers. After that performance, everybody knew who I was, and I was invited to be on the board of directors of that organization.”
Before moving to Las Vegas, Hardy lived in St. George, Utah, and was producing a weekly street fair on Main Street.
“As the event gained momentum, I got what I call ‘hometowned.’ The LDS people in town didn’t like an outsider coming in to run it. They went to the city council with blown-up photos from my social media, showing my house parties, and argued that I didn’t reflect the values of their faith. One even said, ‘We don’t need his kind in our town.’ The council, made up of members of the same faith, revoked my license almost immediately, leaving me without a career, without an income. With nothing but ashes behind me, I moved to Las Vegas to chase my dream of building a team building company with the little money I had left. But I carried anger and trauma for how I was treated,” recalled Hardy.
Months later, while watching Good Morning America, Hardy saw a marine promoting a calendar featuring fellow servicemen. “I thought, why don’t we have one of Mormon missionaries? I was a missionary once, and people used to flirt with us because we were men in uniform. Of course, I was not serious at the time, but my two friends, a married couple, thought it was brilliant and offered to finance it.”
Hardy started recruiting former Mormon missionaries to be in this calendar and released it at the end of 2007. Calendar Club, a major distributor of calendars in mall kiosks across the United States, would order calendars just in time for the holiday season.
Although the calendar became a media sensation, Hardy later admitted that, in hindsight, the calendar was partly a revenge project aimed at the residents of St. George. Initially, the LDS Church offered no comment. But after a leadership change, church officials asked him to stop. Hardy, who had a business partner with a financial stake in the project, told them he intended to continue.
Hardy would first be excommunicated from the LDS Church. He had recently finished his degree in communications from Brigham Young University (BYU) through online classes and even walked across the stage when he graduated to receive his diploma cover.
“They never mailed my diploma, and I found out the university had deleted me from graduation for being excommunicated, which went against the good honor code standing,” explained Hardy.
He made international headlines after his excommunication and the revocation of his BYU degree, a turning point that allowed Hardy to refocus his life. Embracing his identity as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, he transformed his Las Vegas startup, AdVenture Games Inc., into a nationally recognized leader in team building, serving Fortune 500 clients including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
The path wasn’t immediate. It took nearly a decade of resilience and reinvention before Hardy could fully channel his energy into a new purpose, which led him to writing.
“I’ve always wanted to write a book. It just finally came to me through the encouragement of a good friend. I didn’t even know what I was going to write about when I started writing. As I started writing, I started looking back and asked what I did to finally get to this place in my life where I’m finally free of all of this trauma. I’ve healed myself from this trauma. My relationships with my family are so much better now. What is the secret sauce? What did I do? As I’ve stated, I started reevaluating, looking back on my own life and connecting the dots backwards. I started realizing, there are some real lessons here,” explained Hardy.
His book, Law of Zero, outlines five entry points for reaching “Zero,” a neutral state he describes as the source of creation and a pathway for healing trauma. Readers can untether themselves from everything in this world and enter this neutral space, where they can find clarity about what their authentic self truly wants.
Visit lawofzerobook.com to learn more and click here to purchase the book.
He is the best .