July 2, 2025 • 55 mins
Chad Michael Hardy shares his transformational journey from being raised in a six-generation Mormon family to discovering his authentic self and creating a life of alignment and abundance.
• Growing up Mormon with ancestors who helped establish the church in the 1800s
• Confronting his identity as a gay man in his mid-20s and breaking free from religious expectations
• Identifying and dismantling the "human story code" – the beliefs and stories that shape our identity
• Experiencing a profound spiritual breakthrough that helped him release limiting beliefs
• Developing the concept of "The Law of Zero" – a state of being untethered from limiting beliefs
• Understanding the five entry points to Zero: awareness, alignment, ownership, release to receive, and engaging your power
• Transforming his relationship with money by choosing abundance mindset over fear
• Pivoting his team-building business during COVID to create unexpected prosperity
• Acknowledging that authentic spiritual growth often creates temporary chaos as old relationships and identities fall away
• Learning to trust the process even when everything seems to be falling apart
Find Chad's book "Law of Zero" and learn about his team-building company at chadhardy.com.
Spiritual guru, two-time #1 best-selling author, and higher consciousness advocate Shaman Isis (aka Cynthia L. Elliott) is on a mission to turn the tide of the mental and spiritual health crisis with mindfulness practices, incredible events, powerful content, and motivational storytelling that inspire your heroes journey! Learn more about her books, courses, speaking engagements, book signings, and appearances at ShamanIsis.com.
Ready for a life transformation? Ready to bring your dreams to life? Then you will want Glowup With Shaman Isis: The Collection of inspiring books and courses filled with life lessons and practices that raise your vibration and consciousness.
Ready for a life transformation? Ready to bring your dreams to life? Then you will want Glowup With Shaman Isis: The Collection of inspiring books and courses filled with life lessons and practices that raise your vibration and consciousness.
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Are you captivated by inspiring personal stories, hero’s journeys, and reflections on spirituality's place in modern life? Tune in to GlowUp with Shaman Isis, the bold and uplifting podcast by spiritual rockstar, 2x #1 best-selling author, and veteran podcaster Cynthia L. Elliott—aka Shaman Isis.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to Glow Up
with Shaman Isis.
I'm your hostess with themostest Shaman Isis, also known
as Cynthia Elliott, to myfriends and family and I am so
jacked for our episode today.
We've got Chad Michael, author,and you're going to introduce
what you do to the audience withus today and I'm so excited to
get to know his spiritualjourney and to talk about the
(00:21):
work that he does.
Welcome, chad.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Thank you, so happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You have a fascinating journey which I'm
really looking forward todigging into.
Can you tell people about whatyou do Give?
Them a sentence or two aboutwho you are, and then we're
going to dig into your journey.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, so I mean, I'm an entrepreneur and I started a
team building company back in2005 that we service the whole
United States.
We work with business tobusiness to do team building
activities to help co-workersbond, build relationships and
have some fun.
And along the way I decided towrite a book, which has nothing
(00:58):
to do about team building, butit's about my spiritual growth
and journey that led me to kindof doing what I'm doing now.
And so a little background.
I was raised Mormon in awonderful family, but six
generations deep on both sides,so our ancestors pretty much
(01:21):
were there from the foundationof the church in the 1800s and
pulled hand carts from Illinoisto Salt Lake City, and so I've
got that pioneer blood andpioneer spirit in me.
And in my mid-20s I finally hadto accept the fact that I did
not fit the mold of what a goodMormon should be and the fact
(01:45):
that I'm gay.
So I had to navigate throughthat, find my authentic truth
and satisfy this need within meto be happy.
And I really truly can say Ifound it and I found this tool
that has helped me, has helpedothers that have actually done
the work.
So I'm excited I found it and Ifound these.
This tool that has helped mehas helped others that have
(02:06):
actually done the work, so I'mexcited to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that you're so frank andhonest about your journey.
If you are new to the show, wewe talk about people's
self-actualization, people'shero's journey.
Everybody is a hero, everyoneis on a hero's journey and the
point of going over them is toallow other people to identify
(02:31):
with different guests that Ihave on the show and I think
religious challenges, religioustrauma I'm not sure if that's
even the case for you, buthaving to break free from the
structures that you're born into, from the thought habits that
are gifted to you by your family, community, church, whatever it
(02:52):
is is one of the most powerfulthings that you can do to
self-actualize in.
Learning self-love and learningto not care what other people
think and to hold your own andto glow as brightly as possible
is really what this wholejourney is about learning to
manage that energy so you cancreate a beautiful experience
for yourself.
So, chad, tell us like give mesome.
(03:13):
Give me some highlights of thisjourney you've been on sure.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So, um, there's something that I talk about in
the in my book, and I call itthe human story code, and this
is the building blocks of allthe stories that we've been told
since we were born, and thesestories build up our identity,
they build up the lens of how wesee the world and how we
perceive ourselves in the world,and all of these building
(03:40):
blocks are built up of just thattheir story and we, um, we
treat them as if they'reabsolute truth, and for me, my
human story code told me that,you know, I'm is as a mormon,
you, you there's a very clearpath on how you live your life.
You get an education, you go ona mission, you get married in
(04:02):
the temple, and then you repeat,and you have children and you
teach them the same thing, andso forth.
And I was born out of thatsystem, and so that was my
perception of the world, andwhen I finally had this kind of
self-actualization that I'm notunworthy, I'm not broken,
(04:23):
there's nothing wrong with me,I'm not unworthy, I'm not broken
, there's nothing wrong with meI had to break down, brick by
brick, each one of those stories, and I had to keep the ones
that felt that I was still inalignment with me and I had to
toss away and discard those thatdon't, and I had to literally
(04:43):
rebuild the lens in which I seemyself and see the world.
So anybody who has gone throughthis knows it is a extremely
heart-wrenching, long experience.
It's nothing that happensovernight, and if it did happen
to you overnight,congratulations.
That's amazing, but I think formost of most of us, no, it is a
(05:06):
journey and and it still is ajourney, I still find myself
stumbling upon old pieces ofthat story code that's still
laying around.
There's still moments of shameor fear or confusion that I
still on occasion, stumble upon,but now I have tools to know
(05:26):
how I deal with those as theycome up.
So my kind of the biggest thingthat happened to me I was in my
mid 20s.
I was, I was a very, veryambitious young person.
I feel like I'm I'm living my20s now, where I'm like I go to
Disneyland all the time and Idon't want to be responsible.
But in my 20s I was very muchthe opposite.
(05:48):
I was very laser focused on,like, building a career.
And I was 25 and I built a newhouse in Salt Lake City up on
the hill overlooking the wholevalley.
It was quite spectacular.
And I moved into that house,thinking this is going to make
me happy, and I was so miserable, I was lonely, I felt broken, I
(06:10):
felt unloved, I felt like shame, all the things right.
So one day I thought I justactually come home from a
funeral my mom's best friend'sdaughter we were the same age,
so she was all.
She was like a cousin, becauseI grew up, you know, with her
and she had passed away in a caraccident.
And I just come back from herfuneral and I remember feeling
(06:33):
how unfair that was and itshould have been me, you know.
I felt like why didn't God takeme?
Because I was just so miserableand unhappy.
And then I had this like, likeinstantaneous, like feeling of
transformation just come over meand I'm like I don't want to be
unhappy anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I want to live.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I don't want to die, I want to live.
So I was, like, stood there, Iwent like this meditation, and I
write about this in greatdetail in my book.
But I I stood there at my tableand I imagined myself holding a
deck of cards and on each cardwas one of these belief systems
(07:13):
or bricks of my story code.
And I sat there and I imaginedlaying them all out on the table
and I stuck back and I lookedat my life, because you have to
understand when you're Mormon,if you, especially if you've
gone to the temple and you'vedone all that ritual stuff you
make all these promises to Godand the church and whatnot they
(07:34):
tell you that if you stray fromthese things, that you'll be in
Satan's power and you will loseall the blessings, satan's power
and you will lose all theblessings.
And I thought, I thought thatthe reason why I had all this
success and happiness is because, even though I was struggling,
being gay, I still was stayingon that path and working to like
discard it or pretend like itwasn't there.
So I felt like this was myblessing, right, but I was still
(07:58):
like, why am I unhappy?
So I looked at all of thesebeliefs on my table.
And then there, this likefemale voice spoke to me.
This voice I've heard before inmy life when I've been in these
kind of moments of crossroadswhere I felt broken or unworthy
or unloved.
And this female voice told methese no longer serve you.
(08:18):
And just like that, like Iimagined, this gust of wind come
and it took all those cards andblew them out the window, down
the hill, into the city lights,and I thought I'm going to do an
experiment.
If I step away from everythingthat I believe in my life, like
(08:42):
they tell me, that I'm going tobecome in Satan's power, my life
becomes, you know, a livingtestament of that.
Then I'm going to go back tothe church, but if I release
this and I find the opposite ofthat, that I'm going to keep
exploring.
And that's exactly whathappened.
I released all of those beliefsand I never once went back to
(09:02):
pick up those pieces of thosebeliefs.
And I never once went back topick up those pieces.
I continued to move forward.
And that doesn't mean, fromthat day forward, that life is
great and I healed all my trauma.
No, that was just the beginningof my journey.
It took many years, probably adecade or more to finally I
would I would probably say,because I was, I would say,
(09:25):
close to 20 years to finally getto a place to be like.
You know what I, I know who Iam, I know where I'm going, uh,
and I have the tools to navigatewhen these cyclones or storms
come and try to knock me out ofalignment.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, uh, I love your frankness and honesty about
that.
First of all, I think thatspiritual journey gets so
glamorized for the highs that wedon't often talk about.
It is not for the faint ofheart, it is not a journey for
the weak of heart.
You're literally ripping yoursoul out and rebuilding every
cell in your body.
I talk about this and I'll justtake a moment to share this
(10:02):
because I think it's importantfor listeners to get a chance to
hear kind of the process forhow you, what that process is
like when you're tearingyourself down, the old version
of you and rebuilding.
I created something called thereality wheel because it was I
was trying to express to peopleas I got to come up with some
way to express to people thissort of process.
And the reality wheel workslike this and you'll find this
(10:22):
in philosophy, but it reallyhelped me to word it like this
for teaching people.
So when we're born into thisworld, we are gifted with our
thought habits and our thoughthabits are given to us by our
mostly our families, but alsoour community, our churches and
our schools and, of course, someof the more traumatic
(10:42):
experiences or extremeexperiences that we have and one
of the hardest things for us tounderstand, because we're
intelligent beings.
Is we really, I mean, like Ihad convinced myself that I
invented my own way of beingbecause I didn't look like the
rest of my family?
I had a successful New YorkCity, you know, glamorous career
, and I thought that meant Ididn't have the same issues or
challenges.
I didn't see the generationaltrauma.
I was running from it anyway,anyway, so we're born into that.
(11:09):
Our thought habits, our thoughthabits, which are subconscious
and conscious, repeatingthoughts, create our mental
state.
Our mental state creates ouremotional state and our
emotional state, which is energyand motion, creates our
frequency and vibration.
It isn't until we begin topractice understanding that it
is within our power, it isn'tuntil we begin to practice
understanding that it is withinour power, only within our power
, to choose how we want toexperience life, that we begin
(11:31):
to understand that it requiresus to be aware of our thought
habits, to become aware, toincrease our awareness so that
we understand when our thoughthabits shift.
And it's understanding thepower we have to change out the
unhealthy thought habits forhealthy thought habits that
create a beautiful mental state,which creates a beautiful
emotional state, which creates abeautiful energy, emotion and
that frequency and vibrationthat is generated is the lived
(11:52):
experience that we have at anytime and it's really
understanding that.
That is the process that you'regoing through and it's having
to rebuild those, to begin toraise your consciousness is and
this is why I bring this up fora reason, because on the human
consciousness chart, the verybottom of human consciousness,
where depression and anxiety is,really our experience is guilt
and shame, guilt and shame isliterally the lowest vibration.
(12:18):
And I remember when I looked atthe chart, I was about six
months into my shadow work and Iwas like, looking at the chart
and I was like, well, where am Iat?
Of course, thinking because Iwas a perfectionist that somehow
magically been at the top ofthe chart, even though I was in
a 10 year depression that I wascoming out of.
And I look at the chart and Ifinally came to the realization
that I was at the very, verybottom, at the lowest frequency
of vibration.
(12:38):
I was like, oh, oh, my goodness.
Well, I had moved up the charta little bit, but it was that
realization that I started tounderstand that guilt and shame,
um, are incredibly destructivethings that are gifted to us by
the world that we live in.
We've literally built a worldaround fear-based living, uh,
and victim mentality, um, andwould you say that was kind of
(13:00):
the experience that you had interms of, you know, the growing
up in the church?
Did it create this sort of feardynamic?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Oh, absolutely.
I remember the moment when Ihad this actualization that
maybe the church isn't true, andthis terrible feeling of fear
that, like, shuttered my entirebody, because I thought, oh my
gosh, then what's real?
Where am I?
What's going to happen to meafter I die?
Because, you know, I was raisedwith this knowledge that this
(13:28):
is absolute truth and this isthe path and this is what you're
, this is what's going to happento you after you die.
So you don't need to, you don'tneed to fear death, all this
stuff.
And all of a sudden I was likeoh my gosh, what's gonna happen
to me?
what's gonna happen to my soul?
Like you know, it's.
It's shattering and, um, I hadto relearn.
It's like almost like being ina terrible accident, or you lose
(13:48):
all your motor skills and haveto learn how to walk and talk
and all those things again.
That's what I felt likespiritually I had to relearn
everything, um.
And the cool thing about it is,when I started on this journey
of discovery, I started meetingso many other people on their
journey that they discoveredthis knowledge within themselves
(14:11):
.
That was the exact sameknowledge I was finding, but we
didn't learn it in a classroom,we didn't read it in a book, we
weren't taught by our parents.
This was just in like, natural,innate knowledge that came from
within.
And I started finding otherpeople that were discovering the
same thing and I thought, wellthen, maybe that's the truth,
because it's not taught, it justis.
(14:32):
You know, it's kind of likediscovering that the sun rises
every single day in the east Atsome point you're going to
discover that.
But that, discovering that thesun rises every single day in
the East, at some point you'regoing to discover that.
But that's just truth.
It happens every day and that'skind of what my journey looked
like.
And these connections withother people just kept happening
.
And the more and more Idiscovered, the more and more
(15:02):
people that I found in the mostcolorful of situations, in
situations where before I wastaught that those aren't good
people because they smoke orthey drank, or they cursed, or
they were living in sin, or theywere gay or this and that.
And those were the people thatI felt were the most like,
spiritually awake and aware ofthese people that I had this
judgment of before as, oh,they're sinners or, you know, do
not engage.
So I had to rebuild all of that.
(15:23):
And and what the good news ofall of this is?
Because, because I now can seeboth ways of living.
I have a way to, you know,compare.
I am so grateful for my Mormonupbringing because it it taught
me now to have more empathy andcompassion for other people in
(15:45):
their journey and where, where,where there once was judgment,
there now is love, so that Ihave to just be grateful for my,
my path and my journey that gotme here.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I.
You just brought up some reallywonderful points.
You actually inspired.
I was writing down because Iwas like, oh, this is good.
You inspired, like I do, videoseries and you just inspired one
on the great lies of religion,organized religion.
And look, I want to be clear topeople who are listening.
I don't have a problem withorganized religion or you being
(16:20):
religious or you going to church, like I do not care, do
whatever works for you.
As a matter of fact, I thinkone of the biggest issues with
the world right now is that ourmental health crisis is a
combination of the fear-basedliving that's been taught to us
through media, combined with thecollapse of organized religion
that told us what morals andbehaviors to exhibit in the
world, and whether that may havebeen a lot of fear-based stuff,
(16:41):
it still did create a frameworkthat we are not finding a way
to replace fast enough, andsociety, and it's causing us to
have a huge mental health crisis.
But, um, it's interesting theconcepts of heaven and hell,
like you had mentioned thatabout.
Oh, my goodness, did I just saythat?
You know, basically, am I goingto hell?
Uh, for me, and I don't knowabout you, but everybody, you
know, everyone's allowed to havetheir opinion and they're all
(17:02):
right, because it's all aboutwhat we think and believe.
Heaven and hell is a vibrationand that they were basically the
concept was taken to turn itinto a threat of, if you do not
behave a certain way, this isthe eternal life you're going to
experience and that, if you dowhat we say and give us that 10%
(17:22):
, you're going to go to heaven.
And and it's created a lot offear.
It's, it's created that feardynamic.
That is the paradigm, that it'sthe lowest level of human
consciousness and it's thereason why we find ourselves in
living in what is idylliccircumstances, being absolutely
miserable.
That's one of the reasons.
(17:43):
So what was your?
What was there?
A real big epiphany for you,like a really big moment?
Like maybe when, when youdecided to write your book, was
that like a big moment?
Because you know your book wascontroversial, uh, and still
probably is within, uh, acertain um, because you were
telling the truth of yourexperience within yeah, my, my
(18:03):
dad asked me not to publish thebook because I I I just tell
what happened.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
You know, like this is what happened to me within
the constructs of this religion,and my dad felt like it would
shine a negative light on ourfamily.
And I respect that becausethat's his truth completely and
I understand it.
But I told my dad I'm like dad,if the church doesn't want
these stories to be told, thenthey need to behave in such a
way that those stories neverwill be told because they are
(18:31):
not going to happen to people.
And there's two places in ourworld that you should be
absolutely safe to be yourauthentic self, and that is at
home and that is at church.
And sadly for many of us, thoseare the two places where we've
had to mask the most and um, yes, and, and it's unfortunate and
(18:52):
fortunately now I feel like andI, because I meet these young
kids you know that are, you know, in their early twenties and
they're, they're gay and are out, and their parents are
extremely accepting of them andthey don't have the same trauma
that I have, that I had growingup in that world, and that's
great, that's progress and Ithink no one should feel
shameful for for who they are,how they want to live their life
(19:14):
.
But like the epiphany, theepiphany for me kind of came as
a friend.
It was wild.
So I I have this good friend,his name's quinn, and I there's
a dedication to him in the backof the book he called me up one
day because back when I gotexcommunicated from the church
and yes, that happened to me um,and it was.
(19:35):
It was a wild experiencebecause it made international
headlines and I actuallyremember this and byu uh
followed suit and revoked mydegree after the after this
happened.
So it was like this big, likedrama.
It was just really toxic andgross, but at the same time it
(19:55):
was and it was this excitingnews, because back then that was
so like shocking.
Now people don't really seem tocare about, oh, you gotta
explain it.
And but back then it was like,oh, oh, my gosh, um and um.
So I started, I reached thispoint.
My first touch point was I needto like forgive all of this.
So I started writing a book,thinking I wanted to like write
(20:16):
about forgiveness, because thatwas one thing, that that, even
all of the bad experiences thathappened to me in the church,
for every bad experience therewas two good experiences, and
one of those was learningforgiveness.
And so I thought, well, let mekind of talk about this.
So I start like writing, youknow, and I realized I'm not
(20:37):
ready to forget.
So I put those writings away.
That was 2009.
Fast forward to 2019.
My friend Gwen calls me up.
He lives in Los Angeles.
I was in San Diego and he'slike Chad, you've got to finish
your book.
And me and Yayoi, which is hisfriend from college, she's
Japanese, and I say that andI'll tell you why.
I need to tell you she'sJapanese, but in a minute.
(20:58):
But they drive down from LA,two hour drive, sit at my dining
room table and tell me I needto write this book.
I mean, yeah, that to me wasokay.
Message received and, um, Iopened up Mr Google and I typed
in the name of my book that Iwas writing and somebody else
had written it in that 10 yearspan, like the exact title, the
(21:20):
exact concept, everything like.
Well, my grandfather alwayssaid, if you have a good idea,
you better act on it, becausethat information is out in the
universe and someone else isgoing to pick that up and do it.
So it happened.
I thought, well, I really don'twant to write about forgiveness
, so what is?
What else can I write about?
So I started thinking there'sand we had this discussion okay,
well, there has to be somethinggreater and bigger than
(21:44):
forgiveness.
What is it?
And we didn't come to anyconclusion and they left.
They went back to LA and thatnight I was meditating and I was
just kind of asking my naturalknowing and that voice spoke to
me again, a female voice voice,and she said it's called the law
of zero the hair of my wholebody is standing up I get up and
(22:10):
I get mr google, law zero.
Nothing.
There's some weird like mathstuff, maybe some like financial
things, nothing about this.
So I call yayoi, who's japanese, and I'm like, all right, well,
I got the title of my book.
It's called law of zero.
I don't know what this means.
She says oh, in japaneseculture we have this thing
(22:30):
called the enzo.
It's a handwritten circle andit means the nothingness, the
void, wow.
And I'm like, oh, interesting.
So that was my um jump offpoint.
So because I I'm running abusiness, I don't have time to
like, do all this research.
I hired somebody who does a lotof um, like research and
writing for me, for my teambuilding company.
(22:52):
I said do you, do you want anew project?
Can you help me do someresearch?
So she died.
Joe did a deep dive, findingbooks and everything to to
figure out what is this zerothing?
And the only thing we reallycould liken it to is again this
like enzo thing, this, this,this concept, the concept of
(23:12):
nirvana, the void.
There's a goddess named shaktithat was worshipped and she was
the goddess of the void, thenothingness.
And why is there so muchemphasis and power given to this
concept of nothing.
And then I realized it's whenwe are untethered from
(23:34):
everything in our human world,all these stories, this
construct, this make-believefantasy that we've created on
this earth.
If we can detach ourselves fromit, we can then be neutral and
then, at that point, navigatethrough life and create the
things that we want, withoutthat fear that holds us back and
(23:57):
pulls us back out of alignmentand pulls us back into the
system.
So if we can release all ofthose, those stories, those
beliefs, those um, fear-based,um, you know, realities that
we've created, we know nothingwill hold us back.
(24:17):
The only thing that will holdus back are natural law.
Like I'm, just because I I'mgoing to be untethered from the
world, I can't just jump off acliff and think to fly like
there's, there's natural lawsand those are the only laws
really that we, that that needto to um navigate our lives.
Everything else is humanconstruct and um and and this
(24:39):
human construct is designed tokeep us small so yeah, yeah,
yeah if, if we can like, if weunderstand that and understand
that all of the, all of the, thedrama that we create in our
lives is just that drama.
It's like a script.
If we can just um, rewrite that, unwrite that, delete that, we,
(25:04):
we can be completely free.
And the thing is and that'swhat I discovered just what zero
is so.
So zero is, it's a place and astate.
So it's a place, uh, in ouruniverse.
That is that everything, allthought, all creation comes from
(25:27):
this, just nothingness.
Right, when you have a thoughtlike where did that thought come
from?
Well, or if we want to getbiblical, you know genesis, god
said let there be light.
Well, what was there beforethere was light?
Well, there was darkness, butthere was also, at one point,
there was an idea of light thatcame from some intelligent
source.
So, whatever that is, we candebate that forever, but it came
(25:48):
from some intelligent source.
So, whatever that is, we candebate that forever, but it came
from somewhere.
And I that that I call zero,and zero is constantly creating.
As we're speaking right now, asyou go back and listen to this
again, in that moment, whenyou're in that moment, right now
, zero is at work creating.
And so the state of being atzero is being in this untethered
(26:11):
, neutral state where we cannavigate through life and
literally open a portal andcreate magic.
Create the things that we want,because when we no longer are
held back by limiting beliefs,nothing can stop us except
natural laws.
You know, like you still got to, you can't go three days
without water.
(26:31):
There's certain things youstill have to do to stay alive,
but other than that, it's justput your energy on what you want
to create and don't and don'tallow any of this building
blocks of shame, fear, anythinglimiting, just release them.
So I discovered, throughthrough this writing process,
(26:54):
that there's five entry pointsto zero and they can be done in
any order.
So and it's, it's like a, it'sa circle.
In fact I have a graph I canshow you right here.
This is actually in my book, Iput it right up.
So it's, it's a circle and um,so they can be done in any order
.
Um, but, but the ones, I'llkind of explain them in the
(27:18):
order that in naturalprogression, as a lot of times
we we discover them.
So awareness is is the first one.
So you got to have awareness ofwhat you want, or awareness
that you're out of alignment, orawareness that your life is not
what you want, because many ofus and for me up until my mid
20s, I was unaware that I was,you know, completely out of
(27:41):
alignment.
And then the next one is is youhave to secure alignment?
So you have to get in alignmentwith what it is that you want.
So you probably notice, if youever want like a new car,
everywhere everything you seeyou start seeing that car
because your brain starts tolike constantly focus on that
thing.
So you've got to get in thatlane with what it is that you
(28:05):
want, if it be a career, arelationship or just healing,
whatever it is you have to getin that.
And maybe, if you want, if itbe a career, a relationship or
just healing, whatever it is youhave to get in that.
And maybe, if you want to dopersonal development, maybe you
start finding some books thatwill help you, or talk to your
therapist or talk to yourfriends, or listen to podcasts
podcasts like this.
That gets you in alignment.
The next one is take ownership,and this is very difficult for
(28:27):
people to do because we live ina fear-based victim society and
we want to point everyone else'sfault, right, you know, and I
always say that everybody'sright and everybody's wrong,
because it just is based on yourpoint of view, based on your
human story code.
so, if you can take ownership ofeverything, even if you were
(28:50):
abused as a child yeah, like Iwas, you were you did not ask
for that, you did not deservethat, and the person that abused
you should not just, you know,shouldn't be, we don't have.
It's not like we don't need tohold them accountable for what
they've done, but we can takeownership of it by no longer
being a victim and blaming thatperson for all of our
(29:12):
misfortunes that have happened.
Because you were traumatized asa child, you can just say that
is my story, that happened to me.
Once you take ownership of itand you name it kind of like
naming Rumpelstiltskin in thatfairy tale you know, once they
were able to discover his name,they were free of his curse,
right?
So it's kind of like if we canname our traumas and bring them
(29:36):
to the light, we then can dosomething about it, which takes
us to the next entry point,which is release to receive.
So you can release that story,you can release that victimhood,
you can release whatever it isthat's holding you back, so that
you can receive what it is thatyou are trying to get in
alignment with.
And I have to say that you needto zero responsibly, because
(30:00):
when you truly start doing thiswork and you get in alignment
with your authentic, true self,there will be a fallout.
You will find people, places,things, careers, whatever, start
to leave your life and it willfeel chaotic.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Oh yeah, I think there's not enough emphasis of
that.
There's so much talk.
I just did another interviewwith Kelly Sparta and we were
talking about this.
We talk so much about the highsof the spiritual journey and
the oh, you're one of the chosenones which I, you know.
That's not even that.
We won't even get into thatright now.
I believe we're all chosen.
I do believe there are somepeople who are called to to help
(30:39):
lead the future.
That's just a.
There's a difference in wording, but there's not enough
conversation about about that.
You know it, there is.
It is painful.
I love my spiritual journey.
I would not go back to theperson I was before.
I was overweight, I wasmiserable, I never went anywhere
and never did anything, didn'thave dreams coming up, I just
did nothing but work.
Um, but I did give everythingup, everything, uh, my
(31:03):
reputation, my career.
I lost almost all of the peoplethat supported me when I was
running an agency because theywere benefiting from our
relationship, which is one ofthose spiritual bitter pills.
You're like, oh my goodness,all these people were around me
because they benefited from me,but they don't want to be around
when I need help or support formy new mission and that's a
(31:25):
whole experience that I thinkbears more conversation.
You will lose a lot of thingsand it will be chaotic and you
will, um, get confused and like,uh, I was just talking to the
previous interview about is likeI, I, I, my old self, would pop
back up because I kept havingto be put in environments where
my old self was thriving and, uh, and it was hard not to pick up
(31:49):
the old habits and and beliefs.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
it's a process it is a process, so, yeah, but you
can't.
It's like designing uh, youryour living room, you want to
get new furniture.
Well, you can't get the newfurniture delivered until you
get rid of the old, and so youreally have to toss it.
And even though in a lot oftimes, we're like emotionally
attached to these things or thisway of life, or it's comforting
(32:12):
, it's a status quo.
This is why people who are inabusive relationships find
another abusive relationshipbecause, even though they say
they don't want it, it's likeembedded in their DNA, because
it's in their programming.
It's kind of like if you playSuper Mario Brothers on video
game, it's like it behaves acertain way.
(32:33):
It's not going to all of asudden be Zelda, it's going to
be Super Mario Brothers and, uh,the only way to change, you got
to recode it, so we have torecode ourselves.
Yeah, there's that reallyuncomfortable time when you're
going through this journey whereeverything feels like, oh my
gosh, everything's falling apart, and that's when you have to
(32:56):
stay firm, which is the fifthentry point is engage your power
.
You've got to plant your feetfirmly on the ground and trust
that the storm will pass andit's going to be a beautiful day
tomorrow, and it will.
Everything will just work out,because when you put your life
to the zero test and youuntether yourself from
(33:19):
everything, everything will justwork out.
It's wild.
I have reinvented myself so manytimes in my life.
Looking back, I think of thosescary moments, and in those
scary moments like, for example,the scary moment for starting
my own business is that youdon't have a steady paycheck.
(33:39):
And now I'm you know, mortgageis coming due and all this and
you haven't gotten any newclients Like, oh my gosh, so
when I'd have this fear aboutmoney you want best way this is
don't take financial advice fromme, trust me.
But let me tell you the waythat I um, I got rid of that
fear of money is I would goshopping anytime I felt like I
(34:03):
didn't have enough money.
I would go to the mall and Iwould buy a new outfit, or I
would go car shopping or I wouldstart house shopping.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I actually, I actually agree with this,
because I believe that you haveto behave in the energy of
somebody who's abundant.
And so when you're, what you'redoing is behaving abundant and
and acknowledging that well,more is clearly coming in, or I
wouldn't be out here shopping.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Right?
No, it's, and it worked everysingle time.
I mean, and there's beenmoments where I was down to $2
in my bank account and then Iwould have that like panic and
fear, and then I would just gofor a walk, or I would go for a
shopping walk or whatever.
I would just get out of thatsituation.
Imagine my life not in thatsituation and then I would come
(34:48):
back and there would be an emailfrom a client wanting my
services.
I mean, every single time Iwould, it would turn a corner
and it's like there.
So I got to the point where I'mlike I'm going to stop fearing
money.
I honestly have not balanced mycheckbook since 2005.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I love that.
It's so true though that's ahuge part of it.
I mean I noticed, like going up, because I grew up in the
system in an orphanage and incare and a lot of you know a lot
of religious trauma there frommy foster families, but the
money for all of them everybodywho had any influence in my life
was, uh had had that fear ofmoney situation, like it was a
(35:32):
constant in my childhood andit's been work as an adult.
Um, having to work through thatbecause you don't really see
how deeply rooted that is inyour experience until you've
gotten healed enough to becomeaware of when your thought
habits are shifting and it'slike, oh, you know you shouldn't
(35:53):
be looking at the bank accountgoing oh no, what am I going to
do?
That is not helping.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, Like I said, well, you have to.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
you know, like I say, don't take financial advice
from me because you should beresponsible.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
But I figured out a way.
I figured out a way to justlike, just be and let it just
happen.
And during COVID, you know, mybusiness was shut down for three
, four months and you know,doing in-person team building, I
mean we were toast, we weredone.
And one day I had this epiphanythat I need to shift from
(36:28):
in-person to Zoom.
And I'd been using Zoom becauseI was having weekly calls with
Emily who was helping me withthe book, and I'm like, oh, this
platform does a lot of coolthings.
So I started looking into itand I realized I can broadcast
my team building experiences andmake them interactive through
Zoom.
So I put a word out newsletterto all of my previous clients
(36:52):
and within months I was back inbusiness and we were doing back
to back programs with peoplefrom all over the world.
And because there was nooverhead, I made so much money
during COVID.
I feel blessed because a lot ofpeople lost everything or lost
their lives even.
And here I was just like, likehaving all of this abundance and
(37:16):
and just because I made, I hada choice.
I could sit around and, youknow, collect my I don't know
money that was coming from thestate every week or I could get
up and do something, and I madeenough money during COVID to pay
my house off.
Wow, that's amazing, that waslike and then even after I paid
my house off now I'm going to becashed for it because I just
(37:37):
paid my house off, but again, Idon't look at the balance, I
don't balance whatever.
After I paid the house off Istill had the same amount of
money.
I don't know how that happened.
I still I told my bookkeeperI'm like, don't tell me what
happened.
I just I want to just trustthat whatever happened was magic
, because I have no explanationfor it.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Oh, that's wonderful.
I love hearing that and I thinkyou know I don't think we're
saying to people beirresponsible, but there's a
fine line between puttingnegative energy towards the
potential negative outcomes of asituation and taking imperfect
action, taking action towardsyour dreams and being in the
(38:16):
energy of success.
That's just a big differencebetween the two.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
It is because everything in our life, in our
world, is just construct ofbelief, right?
So if you can believe infearful things, then you can
believe in magical things.
It's, it's a choice, and zerowas just going to say one thing
to you yes.
So zero doesn't know right fromwrong, it doesn't know between
(38:42):
what you know.
This way of living is betterthan this.
That way of living, all itknows is just to respond to how
you, what you put into it iswhat you get out, and I think
most of us, I think it goes backto that fear-based living that
we're all programmed since birth.
(39:02):
Um, that's where I think mostof us can spend some time in
that find awareness, entry pointto find all of the parts of our
, our dna and our existence, andthe stories and generational
stories of where we, we havefear and I did come from a
family of um fear based aboutmoney oh yeah to this day.
(39:24):
They everyone in my familystruggles except me, because I
released that and I, when Imoved to Las Vegas to start my
company back in 2006, I had ameditation room in this house.
I rented this house.
That was way more money than Icould afford, but I thought that
would get me out of bed.
(39:45):
And it was a huge house.
I had all these extra rooms.
So I had this room that I madeinto a meditation room and every
single day I would get up,because I would wake up every
day with anxiety because I knewI had just like financially, um,
overextended myself.
But I wasn't gonna.
I was gonna get up everymorning and go into that
meditation room and I wouldn'tcome out until I felt like power
(40:08):
and magic.
And that is where I spent a lotof time rewiring all of this
coding from my family about fear, fear about money, fear of
success, all of those things.
But there are times that Iwould be in that meditation room
for hours because I was notallowed to leave until I had
(40:31):
zero anxiety about anything.
And then I would go out thereand I, I started that company
from scratch.
I started just going to meetingplanners and hotels and I, I.
I had done like one teambuilding event for one client
and that was my experience.
And I showed up and, like I'm ateam builder, and I just
(40:54):
pretended like I knew what I wasdoing.
And next thing I knew I knewwhat I was doing.
And I think, yeah, we all, weall might go through this
imposter syndrome, but you wantto know what?
I hate that phrase.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I hate it.
The word imposter, just it'slike fake it till you make it.
But you know newbie phase.
Newbie phase.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, when you're driving down, when you're
driving down the street, drivingdown the highway, look around
at everybody driving around withyou and know that they all feel
the same way.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Yeah, it's so true though, you know, we're sort of
trained into this belief that weneed somebody to tell us that
we are something that we justdeserve a title that we like.
I was talking about this againin another interview where we're
talking about shamanism and theproblem with it.
Most people's perception of itis it was all a based on western
tv, which always showed a drunkhigh weirdo uh the loner.
(41:43):
It was never a good reflection.
Most people don't know.
Shamanism is as old as time andhas existed all over the world
in almost every culture and uh,in that, in some, some sws of of
shamanism that you're not ashaman until a shaman
acknowledges that you're ashaman and it's like it's very
sort of old school way oflooking at things or you need to
(42:04):
go take that course and get thecertification and it's like you
know you.
You need to trust in yourrelationship with spirit and in
your own understanding of whatyou're being called to do, to
just own what that is and don'texplain yourself to other people
.
That is such a weird thing thatwe do in our culture that we
feel we have to explain orjustify or talk someone into
(42:26):
seeing something for a.
That's not going to work.
Um, but you're actually tellingon yourself when you feel the
need to convince somebody elseof what you are.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
It's knowing that you are, yeah, owning that I
remember when I started doingteam building for these, you
know, big companies likemicrosoft and google and amazon,
and I remember thinking Iremember one time I was invited
by facebook to come on theircampus and do a team building
and I've been there a few timeson campus, saw Mr Mark like and
(42:57):
I'm like, wow, if only they knewthat I didn't know what I was
doing.
But then I realized I know whatI'm doing and I had to like,
step into that and own it and ittook me a while to finally feel
like I I'm, yeah, this I'm, I'mgood at this, this is what I do
.
But I still never let anybodyknow that.
But deep inside I felt I wouldI would you know finish a game
(43:20):
and I would think, if only theyknew that.
I'm just this little guy fromdon't know what I'm doing, Don't
even have a college degreeCause I got taken away from me.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Oh, I know.
Yeah, in my case, I never didgraduate, you know.
So I, I I was fortunate, uh, inmy career.
Although I was a bit lost as aperson, I was really successful
in my career and marketing andPR, and I worked with a lot of
really famous people, like a lotof real household names, and I
always tell people, um,especially people who are new at
(43:50):
entrepreneurship or my students, that, um, I've worked with a
lot of famous people intechnology, business, hollywood,
you know, global names, and theonly thing that they had going
for them aside from who theywere related to, the only thing
that I saw consistently acrossthe board, because I was I was
quite astonished at how dumb alot of really famous, successful
(44:12):
, rich, intelligent people werein real life.
I was like you know, you're notthat bright, how did you get to
be so rich?
But it was this attempt, thisopportunity as a young
20-something-year-old,30-something-year-old, to study
at the feet of some of the mostgrand names.
But the thing that I found is Amost of them are not
particularly special.
They just had a radical, almostdelusional belief in their own
(44:35):
abilities and that was really it, and they would even share with
me the stories of like theydidn't know anything, they
didn't have the certificate,they weren't told they were that
person or that title orwhatever it was, they just did
it because, they believed inthemselves, and I think that's
your problem, and hats off tothem.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I mean that's.
I never poo-poo anybody'ssuccess, I don't, even if I feel
like they don't deserve it.
It was like, well, we alldeserve it.
It's just they somehow figuredout the code and they, they,
they cracked the code.
Because you know, to me, I dogames for a living, so I look at
life as a game.
You know, every time you go toCVS, you're like play the game
(45:21):
with the coupons.
You know, there's always somesort of game that we play and a
lot of it is like how we, how wemake it in this, in this world.
You know it's, it's, it's agame and we win some, we lose
some, but I think the what'shelped me navigate all that is
just to be untethered from theoutcome.
So it's, it saves me fromdisappointment, uh, and it saves
me from beginning knocked,knocked off my path.
Because these, these littlethings, you know, like if you
want to become, let's say, youwant to become a famous actor
(45:43):
and it doesn't happen, it's like, well, why?
Well, there's, maybe there was.
If you really get honest withyourself, did you really do the
work?
Because I look at myself withmy business, why, why isn't it a
bigger business?
Why isn't it more of awell-known brand?
And when I'm completely honestwith myself, it's because I
don't want to work that hard, Idon't want to be a slave to my
(46:04):
career.
I want the play.
I want to have fun.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yeah, it's hard for people who haven't gone through
that experience.
Like when you, I get a lot ofthe push from especially
linkedin.
It's like oh you if you're notworking 14 hours a day.
You don't deserve it, and it'slike fuck off.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I mean, honestly, work smarter, not harder, right,
and that's kind of what I did acouple years ago.
I had this epiphany and Ibecause I used to have to travel
and do most of my team buildingprograms, so I was in a plane I
I mean, I've got like status onall these different airlines, I
fly down them and I finally gotto one.
(46:42):
I'm like I am tired, I can't dothis forever.
So I hired a videographer and Ihad him follow me around for a
week and I videoed myself doingeverything.
This is how you do this.
This is how you facilitate this.
This is how this game is played.
Now I have all these trainingvideos, so I don't have to do I
haven't.
(47:02):
I think I facilitated one gamethis year and it was because a
client asked like, specificallyasked for me, because they've
come back, you know, frequently,and other than that, no, I just
say, watch my training videoand we hire these people with
great personalities.
A lot of them are actors, andso if anyone's listening to this
(47:23):
you want to facilitate, let meknow.
We're always looking for goodtalent and they watch the
training videos they show up andmy, my staff is kind of behind
the scenes, helping themremotely If they have any
questions, and they just have tofollow a script, and then our
clients have a great time.
And I figured this out.
I'm like, wow, I now canleverage myself to be a digital
(47:46):
person so I can go out and havefun and write a book, promote
the book, to have time to talkto amazing people like you, and
it's great, and so I think.
But I didn't just discover thatovernight.
It like took me all these yearsof finally going.
You know what?
I'm ready for somethingdifferent and and that's one
(48:07):
thing about that truth.
Um, is that anything that'slike our, our personal truth,
which is just stories andconstruct.
It's going to evolve and change, because there was a time in my
life where I felt like I needto be working 14 hours a day to
be successful.
Now I'm like no, I can work twohours a day and make more money
(48:28):
because I am, I've leveragedmyself, I don't have to
physically be anywhere.
Now, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Oh, I love that, okay , I got to offline, I got to
talk to you aboutentrepreneurship, I've got the
soul tech foundation, so for me,and we go back to religion.
So, because I grew up, I mean Iunderstand the benefits of
spiritual teaching and trainingand, although I'm not interested
in opening up a traditionalchurch per se, the soul Tech
Foundation, which is my 501c3,um, is fundraising for its first
(49:01):
Soul Tech Wellness Center,which is not just about your
physical, it's not just aboutyoga and meditation and moon
rituals, but we will have aSunday service and, uh, in the
same, in in the, with the idealof renewal and community,
because I believe it's somethingthat's actually needed in the
world.
Um, but it will.
(49:21):
It is not religion based per seand fundraising for when you
start the minute you open yourmouth and you start talking
about spirituality or you'relike oh yeah, I want to have a,
uh, and it touches on the woo,woo.
I can just see people's likejust they sort of glaze over,
like oh, she's more.
she's one of those, and it'slike no, I'm actually trying to
address what I think is a reallyimportant challenge in the
(49:42):
world.
We have a massive mental healthcrisis that people under 30,
people, young people under theage of 30, the second leading
cause of death is self-harm andand and yet, you know, we just
keep plotting forward with moretechnology and more, uh victim
mentality and and I believe weneed answers to that.
And if it's not organizedreligion because they sort of
burnt their boats, then what?
(50:05):
What is?
What is an evolved answer tothat?
And for me, it's.
It's that uh kind of thinganyway.
Uh, I'd love to tap into that,your incredible experience as an
entrepreneur, to ask youquestions about that.
So, chad, if people want tolearn more about your work, the
incredible work that you dodoing these adventures for
businesses, or learn about yourbook, where would they go?
Speaker 2 (50:27):
So you, if you want to just know everything that I
do, you can go to my, my website, chadhardycom, and there's
there's links there to adventuregames and to also my book, law
of zero.
So, and from that, from law ofzero book, uh, from the law of
zero book website, you can seewhere you can, um, pick it up,
(50:47):
because it's on amazon, barnesand noble, um, and different
booksellers carry it and theaudiobook is now out and I, I, I
read the whole book into amicrophone and let me tell you,
when you listen to yourself talkfor that many hours, the
english language starts to soundvery weird.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
it does I try to.
It's hard for people to knowthey've never I've recorded my
book memory mention.
I didn't do the other ones.
I actually used kdp justlaunched a beta for their for uh
of the voice, which I hadtested, but the voices weren't
developed enough at the time.
Anyway, the one I did do wasMemory Mansion and it was such a
weird experience.
I had to redo the whole thingbecause I messed up the audio.
(51:28):
I was like what?
Are we doing over here.
It is weird listening toyourself, right?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Yeah Well, just because after a while you get
numb, where your brain just kindof turns off.
You're just reading and thenthe language starts to sound
weird, like is that a word?
This is so funny.
It's funny, but I was justlistening to the playback the
other night and I fell asleep tomy own voice.
(51:55):
Talk about an inflated ego.
I'm like, oh, this is sosoothing.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
I struggle to listen to myself.
Like I re-listen to things so Ican perfect my delivery and
stuff, but I cringe through thewhole thing.
I got to get better at that.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, I performed for so many years.
I'm a trained vocalist so Idon't have a problem listening
to my own voice.
Um, I, actually I don't likelistening to like conversation,
like like I I cringe a littlebit listening to podcasts and
what I've been on and but spokenword, no, because it's, it's a
performance oh, my gosh chad,it's a delight, such a delight,
(52:37):
we have to meet in person,because I can tell you and I
would get on like a house onfire oh my gosh, yes uh, thank
you so much for coming on theshow uh, you guys chad.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
What's your middle name again?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
chad.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Michael hardy is my full name thank you, I knew I
was doing.
I was like I'm gettingsomething off and I've seen I've
been to your website many times.
So, chad Michael Hardy, thankyou so much for coming on and
sharing your fabulous energy andyour incredible story.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
You're awesome.
Thanks for doing what you do sothat we can have these
conversations.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Yeah, no, absolutely All right, you guys, hold on, I
gotta, I gotta bring out mybullets while we're doing this.
If you're not familiar with mywork, I'm Shaman Isis.
All of a sudden it is CynthiaElliott.
I've got three best-sellingbooks out.
Two of them have been packagedtogether in my glow-up
collection Unleash the Empress,which shows my spiritual
practices.
Memory Mansion, which was myfirst number one bestseller,
shares my journey from Catholicorphanage to PR, new York City,
(53:28):
pr diva, to waking up andlearning to love myself.
Certainly an adventure.
It'll have your eyebrowshitting your hairline a few
times, but you've beenforewarned.
I've learned to be guilt-freeand shame-free, so I'm being
shameless.
Anyway, if you want to learnmore about my work or what the
events I have coming up, go toshamanicistcom.
If you want to learn more orpotentially support the Soul
(53:50):
Tech Wellness Centers, wherewe're looking to help raise the
human consciousness on theplanet and help people learn to
love themselves and have strongmental and emotional and
spiritual wealth in their lives,check out soul tech
foundationcom.
We are fundraising right nowfor our first wellness center,
so go check it out and supportus, and I thank you guys for
listening.
If you aren't subscribed, whatare you thinking it's
intelligent, listening, uh,something to uplift you um on
(54:13):
your days when you're strugglingor just when you want to.
Well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to Glow Up
with Shaman Isis.
I'm your hostess with themostest Shaman Isis, also known
as Cynthia Elliott, to myfriends and family and I am so
jacked for our episode today.
We've got Chad Michael, author,and you're going to introduce
what you do to the audience withus today and I'm so excited to
get to know his spiritualjourney and to talk about the
(00:21):
work that he does.
Welcome, chad.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Thank you, so happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You have a fascinating journey which I'm
really looking forward todigging into.
Can you tell people about whatyou do Give?
Them a sentence or two aboutwho you are, and then we're
going to dig into your journey.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, so I mean, I'm an entrepreneur and I started a
team building company back in2005 that we service the whole
United States.
We work with business tobusiness to do team building
activities to help co-workersbond, build relationships and
have some fun.
And along the way I decided towrite a book, which has nothing
(00:58):
to do about team building, butit's about my spiritual growth
and journey that led me to kindof doing what I'm doing now.
And so a little background.
I was raised Mormon in awonderful family, but six
generations deep on both sides,so our ancestors pretty much
(01:21):
were there from the foundationof the church in the 1800s and
pulled hand carts from Illinoisto Salt Lake City, and so I've
got that pioneer blood andpioneer spirit in me.
And in my mid-20s I finally hadto accept the fact that I did
not fit the mold of what a goodMormon should be and the fact
(01:45):
that I'm gay.
So I had to navigate throughthat, find my authentic truth
and satisfy this need within meto be happy.
And I really truly can say Ifound it and I found this tool
that has helped me, has helpedothers that have actually done
the work.
So I'm excited I found it and Ifound these.
This tool that has helped mehas helped others that have
(02:06):
actually done the work, so I'mexcited to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that you're so frank andhonest about your journey.
If you are new to the show, wewe talk about people's
self-actualization, people'shero's journey.
Everybody is a hero, everyoneis on a hero's journey and the
point of going over them is toallow other people to identify
(02:31):
with different guests that Ihave on the show and I think
religious challenges, religioustrauma I'm not sure if that's
even the case for you, buthaving to break free from the
structures that you're born into, from the thought habits that
are gifted to you by your family, community, church, whatever it
(02:52):
is is one of the most powerfulthings that you can do to
self-actualize in.
Learning self-love and learningto not care what other people
think and to hold your own andto glow as brightly as possible
is really what this wholejourney is about learning to
manage that energy so you cancreate a beautiful experience
for yourself.
So, chad, tell us like give mesome.
(03:13):
Give me some highlights of thisjourney you've been on sure.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So, um, there's something that I talk about in
the in my book, and I call itthe human story code, and this
is the building blocks of allthe stories that we've been told
since we were born, and thesestories build up our identity,
they build up the lens of how wesee the world and how we
perceive ourselves in the world,and all of these building
(03:40):
blocks are built up of just thattheir story and we, um, we
treat them as if they'reabsolute truth, and for me, my
human story code told me that,you know, I'm is as a mormon,
you, you there's a very clearpath on how you live your life.
You get an education, you go ona mission, you get married in
(04:02):
the temple, and then you repeat,and you have children and you
teach them the same thing, andso forth.
And I was born out of thatsystem, and so that was my
perception of the world, andwhen I finally had this kind of
self-actualization that I'm notunworthy, I'm not broken,
(04:23):
there's nothing wrong with me,I'm not unworthy, I'm not broken
, there's nothing wrong with meI had to break down, brick by
brick, each one of those stories, and I had to keep the ones
that felt that I was still inalignment with me and I had to
toss away and discard those thatdon't, and I had to literally
(04:43):
rebuild the lens in which I seemyself and see the world.
So anybody who has gone throughthis knows it is a extremely
heart-wrenching, long experience.
It's nothing that happensovernight, and if it did happen
to you overnight,congratulations.
That's amazing, but I think formost of most of us, no, it is a
(05:06):
journey and and it still is ajourney, I still find myself
stumbling upon old pieces ofthat story code that's still
laying around.
There's still moments of shameor fear or confusion that I
still on occasion, stumble upon,but now I have tools to know
(05:26):
how I deal with those as theycome up.
So my kind of the biggest thingthat happened to me I was in my
mid 20s.
I was, I was a very, veryambitious young person.
I feel like I'm I'm living my20s now, where I'm like I go to
Disneyland all the time and Idon't want to be responsible.
But in my 20s I was very muchthe opposite.
(05:48):
I was very laser focused on,like, building a career.
And I was 25 and I built a newhouse in Salt Lake City up on
the hill overlooking the wholevalley.
It was quite spectacular.
And I moved into that house,thinking this is going to make
me happy, and I was so miserable, I was lonely, I felt broken, I
(06:10):
felt unloved, I felt like shame, all the things right.
So one day I thought I justactually come home from a
funeral my mom's best friend'sdaughter we were the same age,
so she was all.
She was like a cousin, becauseI grew up, you know, with her
and she had passed away in a caraccident.
And I just come back from herfuneral and I remember feeling
(06:33):
how unfair that was and itshould have been me, you know.
I felt like why didn't God takeme?
Because I was just so miserableand unhappy.
And then I had this like, likeinstantaneous, like feeling of
transformation just come over meand I'm like I don't want to be
unhappy anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I want to live.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I don't want to die, I want to live.
So I was, like, stood there, Iwent like this meditation, and I
write about this in greatdetail in my book.
But I I stood there at my tableand I imagined myself holding a
deck of cards and on each cardwas one of these belief systems
(07:13):
or bricks of my story code.
And I sat there and I imaginedlaying them all out on the table
and I stuck back and I lookedat my life, because you have to
understand when you're Mormon,if you, especially if you've
gone to the temple and you'vedone all that ritual stuff you
make all these promises to Godand the church and whatnot they
(07:34):
tell you that if you stray fromthese things, that you'll be in
Satan's power and you will loseall the blessings, satan's power
and you will lose all theblessings.
And I thought, I thought thatthe reason why I had all this
success and happiness is because, even though I was struggling,
being gay, I still was stayingon that path and working to like
discard it or pretend like itwasn't there.
So I felt like this was myblessing, right, but I was still
(07:58):
like, why am I unhappy?
So I looked at all of thesebeliefs on my table.
And then there, this likefemale voice spoke to me.
This voice I've heard before inmy life when I've been in these
kind of moments of crossroadswhere I felt broken or unworthy
or unloved.
And this female voice told methese no longer serve you.
(08:18):
And just like that, like Iimagined, this gust of wind come
and it took all those cards andblew them out the window, down
the hill, into the city lights,and I thought I'm going to do an
experiment.
If I step away from everythingthat I believe in my life, like
(08:42):
they tell me, that I'm going tobecome in Satan's power, my life
becomes, you know, a livingtestament of that.
Then I'm going to go back tothe church, but if I release
this and I find the opposite ofthat, that I'm going to keep
exploring.
And that's exactly whathappened.
I released all of those beliefsand I never once went back to
(09:02):
pick up those pieces of thosebeliefs.
And I never once went back topick up those pieces.
I continued to move forward.
And that doesn't mean, fromthat day forward, that life is
great and I healed all my trauma.
No, that was just the beginningof my journey.
It took many years, probably adecade or more to finally I
would I would probably say,because I was, I would say,
(09:25):
close to 20 years to finally getto a place to be like.
You know what I, I know who Iam, I know where I'm going, uh,
and I have the tools to navigatewhen these cyclones or storms
come and try to knock me out ofalignment.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, uh, I love your frankness and honesty about
that.
First of all, I think thatspiritual journey gets so
glamorized for the highs that wedon't often talk about.
It is not for the faint ofheart, it is not a journey for
the weak of heart.
You're literally ripping yoursoul out and rebuilding every
cell in your body.
I talk about this and I'll justtake a moment to share this
(10:02):
because I think it's importantfor listeners to get a chance to
hear kind of the process forhow you, what that process is
like when you're tearingyourself down, the old version
of you and rebuilding.
I created something called thereality wheel because it was I
was trying to express to peopleas I got to come up with some
way to express to people thissort of process.
And the reality wheel workslike this and you'll find this
(10:22):
in philosophy, but it reallyhelped me to word it like this
for teaching people.
So when we're born into thisworld, we are gifted with our
thought habits and our thoughthabits are given to us by our
mostly our families, but alsoour community, our churches and
our schools and, of course, someof the more traumatic
(10:42):
experiences or extremeexperiences that we have and one
of the hardest things for us tounderstand, because we're
intelligent beings.
Is we really, I mean, like Ihad convinced myself that I
invented my own way of beingbecause I didn't look like the
rest of my family?
I had a successful New YorkCity, you know, glamorous career
, and I thought that meant Ididn't have the same issues or
challenges.
I didn't see the generationaltrauma.
I was running from it anyway,anyway, so we're born into that.
(11:09):
Our thought habits, our thoughthabits, which are subconscious
and conscious, repeatingthoughts, create our mental
state.
Our mental state creates ouremotional state and our
emotional state, which is energyand motion, creates our
frequency and vibration.
It isn't until we begin topractice understanding that it
is within our power, it isn'tuntil we begin to practice
understanding that it is withinour power, only within our power
, to choose how we want toexperience life, that we begin
(11:31):
to understand that it requiresus to be aware of our thought
habits, to become aware, toincrease our awareness so that
we understand when our thoughthabits shift.
And it's understanding thepower we have to change out the
unhealthy thought habits forhealthy thought habits that
create a beautiful mental state,which creates a beautiful
emotional state, which creates abeautiful energy, emotion and
that frequency and vibrationthat is generated is the lived
(11:52):
experience that we have at anytime and it's really
understanding that.
That is the process that you'regoing through and it's having
to rebuild those, to begin toraise your consciousness is and
this is why I bring this up fora reason, because on the human
consciousness chart, the verybottom of human consciousness,
where depression and anxiety is,really our experience is guilt
and shame, guilt and shame isliterally the lowest vibration.
(12:18):
And I remember when I looked atthe chart, I was about six
months into my shadow work and Iwas like, looking at the chart
and I was like, well, where am Iat?
Of course, thinking because Iwas a perfectionist that somehow
magically been at the top ofthe chart, even though I was in
a 10 year depression that I wascoming out of.
And I look at the chart and Ifinally came to the realization
that I was at the very, verybottom, at the lowest frequency
of vibration.
(12:38):
I was like, oh, oh, my goodness.
Well, I had moved up the charta little bit, but it was that
realization that I started tounderstand that guilt and shame,
um, are incredibly destructivethings that are gifted to us by
the world that we live in.
We've literally built a worldaround fear-based living, uh,
and victim mentality, um, andwould you say that was kind of
(13:00):
the experience that you had interms of, you know, the growing
up in the church?
Did it create this sort of feardynamic?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Oh, absolutely.
I remember the moment when Ihad this actualization that
maybe the church isn't true, andthis terrible feeling of fear
that, like, shuttered my entirebody, because I thought, oh my
gosh, then what's real?
Where am I?
What's going to happen to meafter I die?
Because, you know, I was raisedwith this knowledge that this
(13:28):
is absolute truth and this isthe path and this is what you're
, this is what's going to happento you after you die.
So you don't need to, you don'tneed to fear death, all this
stuff.
And all of a sudden I was likeoh my gosh, what's gonna happen
to me?
what's gonna happen to my soul?
Like you know, it's.
It's shattering and, um, I hadto relearn.
It's like almost like being ina terrible accident, or you lose
(13:48):
all your motor skills and haveto learn how to walk and talk
and all those things again.
That's what I felt likespiritually I had to relearn
everything, um.
And the cool thing about it is,when I started on this journey
of discovery, I started meetingso many other people on their
journey that they discoveredthis knowledge within themselves
(14:11):
.
That was the exact sameknowledge I was finding, but we
didn't learn it in a classroom,we didn't read it in a book, we
weren't taught by our parents.
This was just in like, natural,innate knowledge that came from
within.
And I started finding otherpeople that were discovering the
same thing and I thought, wellthen, maybe that's the truth,
because it's not taught, it justis.
(14:32):
You know, it's kind of likediscovering that the sun rises
every single day in the east Atsome point you're going to
discover that.
But that, discovering that thesun rises every single day in
the East, at some point you'regoing to discover that.
But that's just truth.
It happens every day and that'skind of what my journey looked
like.
And these connections withother people just kept happening
.
And the more and more Idiscovered, the more and more
(15:02):
people that I found in the mostcolorful of situations, in
situations where before I wastaught that those aren't good
people because they smoke orthey drank, or they cursed, or
they were living in sin, or theywere gay or this and that.
And those were the people thatI felt were the most like,
spiritually awake and aware ofthese people that I had this
judgment of before as, oh,they're sinners or, you know, do
not engage.
So I had to rebuild all of that.
(15:23):
And and what the good news ofall of this is?
Because, because I now can seeboth ways of living.
I have a way to, you know,compare.
I am so grateful for my Mormonupbringing because it it taught
me now to have more empathy andcompassion for other people in
(15:45):
their journey and where, where,where there once was judgment,
there now is love, so that Ihave to just be grateful for my,
my path and my journey that gotme here.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I.
You just brought up some reallywonderful points.
You actually inspired.
I was writing down because Iwas like, oh, this is good.
You inspired, like I do, videoseries and you just inspired one
on the great lies of religion,organized religion.
And look, I want to be clear topeople who are listening.
I don't have a problem withorganized religion or you being
(16:20):
religious or you going to church, like I do not care, do
whatever works for you.
As a matter of fact, I thinkone of the biggest issues with
the world right now is that ourmental health crisis is a
combination of the fear-basedliving that's been taught to us
through media, combined with thecollapse of organized religion
that told us what morals andbehaviors to exhibit in the
world, and whether that may havebeen a lot of fear-based stuff,
(16:41):
it still did create a frameworkthat we are not finding a way
to replace fast enough, andsociety, and it's causing us to
have a huge mental health crisis.
But, um, it's interesting theconcepts of heaven and hell,
like you had mentioned thatabout.
Oh, my goodness, did I just saythat?
You know, basically, am I goingto hell?
Uh, for me, and I don't knowabout you, but everybody, you
know, everyone's allowed to havetheir opinion and they're all
(17:02):
right, because it's all aboutwhat we think and believe.
Heaven and hell is a vibrationand that they were basically the
concept was taken to turn itinto a threat of, if you do not
behave a certain way, this isthe eternal life you're going to
experience and that, if you dowhat we say and give us that 10%
(17:22):
, you're going to go to heaven.
And and it's created a lot offear.
It's, it's created that feardynamic.
That is the paradigm, that it'sthe lowest level of human
consciousness and it's thereason why we find ourselves in
living in what is idylliccircumstances, being absolutely
miserable.
That's one of the reasons.
(17:43):
So what was your?
What was there?
A real big epiphany for you,like a really big moment?
Like maybe when, when youdecided to write your book, was
that like a big moment?
Because you know your book wascontroversial, uh, and still
probably is within, uh, acertain um, because you were
telling the truth of yourexperience within yeah, my, my
(18:03):
dad asked me not to publish thebook because I I I just tell
what happened.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
You know, like this is what happened to me within
the constructs of this religion,and my dad felt like it would
shine a negative light on ourfamily.
And I respect that becausethat's his truth completely and
I understand it.
But I told my dad I'm like dad,if the church doesn't want
these stories to be told, thenthey need to behave in such a
way that those stories neverwill be told because they are
(18:31):
not going to happen to people.
And there's two places in ourworld that you should be
absolutely safe to be yourauthentic self, and that is at
home and that is at church.
And sadly for many of us, thoseare the two places where we've
had to mask the most and um, yes, and, and it's unfortunate and
(18:52):
fortunately now I feel like andI, because I meet these young
kids you know that are, you know, in their early twenties and
they're, they're gay and are out, and their parents are
extremely accepting of them andthey don't have the same trauma
that I have, that I had growingup in that world, and that's
great, that's progress and Ithink no one should feel
shameful for for who they are,how they want to live their life
(19:14):
.
But like the epiphany, theepiphany for me kind of came as
a friend.
It was wild.
So I I have this good friend,his name's quinn, and I there's
a dedication to him in the backof the book he called me up one
day because back when I gotexcommunicated from the church
and yes, that happened to me um,and it was.
(19:35):
It was a wild experiencebecause it made international
headlines and I actuallyremember this and byu uh
followed suit and revoked mydegree after the after this
happened.
So it was like this big, likedrama.
It was just really toxic andgross, but at the same time it
(19:55):
was and it was this excitingnews, because back then that was
so like shocking.
Now people don't really seem tocare about, oh, you gotta
explain it.
And but back then it was like,oh, oh, my gosh, um and um.
So I started, I reached thispoint.
My first touch point was I needto like forgive all of this.
So I started writing a book,thinking I wanted to like write
(20:16):
about forgiveness, because thatwas one thing, that that, even
all of the bad experiences thathappened to me in the church,
for every bad experience therewas two good experiences, and
one of those was learningforgiveness.
And so I thought, well, let mekind of talk about this.
So I start like writing, youknow, and I realized I'm not
(20:37):
ready to forget.
So I put those writings away.
That was 2009.
Fast forward to 2019.
My friend Gwen calls me up.
He lives in Los Angeles.
I was in San Diego and he'slike Chad, you've got to finish
your book.
And me and Yayoi, which is hisfriend from college, she's
Japanese, and I say that andI'll tell you why.
I need to tell you she'sJapanese, but in a minute.
(20:58):
But they drive down from LA,two hour drive, sit at my dining
room table and tell me I needto write this book.
I mean, yeah, that to me wasokay.
Message received and, um, Iopened up Mr Google and I typed
in the name of my book that Iwas writing and somebody else
had written it in that 10 yearspan, like the exact title, the
(21:20):
exact concept, everything like.
Well, my grandfather alwayssaid, if you have a good idea,
you better act on it, becausethat information is out in the
universe and someone else isgoing to pick that up and do it.
So it happened.
I thought, well, I really don'twant to write about forgiveness
, so what is?
What else can I write about?
So I started thinking there'sand we had this discussion okay,
well, there has to be somethinggreater and bigger than
(21:44):
forgiveness.
What is it?
And we didn't come to anyconclusion and they left.
They went back to LA and thatnight I was meditating and I was
just kind of asking my naturalknowing and that voice spoke to
me again, a female voice voice,and she said it's called the law
of zero the hair of my wholebody is standing up I get up and
(22:10):
I get mr google, law zero.
Nothing.
There's some weird like mathstuff, maybe some like financial
things, nothing about this.
So I call yayoi, who's japanese, and I'm like, all right, well,
I got the title of my book.
It's called law of zero.
I don't know what this means.
She says oh, in japaneseculture we have this thing
(22:30):
called the enzo.
It's a handwritten circle andit means the nothingness, the
void, wow.
And I'm like, oh, interesting.
So that was my um jump offpoint.
So because I I'm running abusiness, I don't have time to
like, do all this research.
I hired somebody who does a lotof um, like research and
writing for me, for my teambuilding company.
(22:52):
I said do you, do you want anew project?
Can you help me do someresearch?
So she died.
Joe did a deep dive, findingbooks and everything to to
figure out what is this zerothing?
And the only thing we reallycould liken it to is again this
like enzo thing, this, this,this concept, the concept of
(23:12):
nirvana, the void.
There's a goddess named shaktithat was worshipped and she was
the goddess of the void, thenothingness.
And why is there so muchemphasis and power given to this
concept of nothing.
And then I realized it's whenwe are untethered from
(23:34):
everything in our human world,all these stories, this
construct, this make-believefantasy that we've created on
this earth.
If we can detach ourselves fromit, we can then be neutral and
then, at that point, navigatethrough life and create the
things that we want, withoutthat fear that holds us back and
(23:57):
pulls us back out of alignmentand pulls us back into the
system.
So if we can release all ofthose, those stories, those
beliefs, those um, fear-based,um, you know, realities that
we've created, we know nothingwill hold us back.
(24:17):
The only thing that will holdus back are natural law.
Like I'm, just because I I'mgoing to be untethered from the
world, I can't just jump off acliff and think to fly like
there's, there's natural lawsand those are the only laws
really that we, that that needto to um navigate our lives.
Everything else is humanconstruct and um and and this
(24:39):
human construct is designed tokeep us small so yeah, yeah,
yeah if, if we can like, if weunderstand that and understand
that all of the, all of the, thedrama that we create in our
lives is just that drama.
It's like a script.
If we can just um, rewrite that, unwrite that, delete that, we,
(25:04):
we can be completely free.
And the thing is and that'swhat I discovered just what zero
is so.
So zero is, it's a place and astate.
So it's a place, uh, in ouruniverse.
That is that everything, allthought, all creation comes from
(25:27):
this, just nothingness.
Right, when you have a thoughtlike where did that thought come
from?
Well, or if we want to getbiblical, you know genesis, god
said let there be light.
Well, what was there beforethere was light?
Well, there was darkness, butthere was also, at one point,
there was an idea of light thatcame from some intelligent
source.
So, whatever that is, we candebate that forever, but it came
(25:48):
from some intelligent source.
So, whatever that is, we candebate that forever, but it came
from somewhere.
And I that that I call zero,and zero is constantly creating.
As we're speaking right now, asyou go back and listen to this
again, in that moment, whenyou're in that moment, right now
, zero is at work creating.
And so the state of being atzero is being in this untethered
(26:11):
, neutral state where we cannavigate through life and
literally open a portal andcreate magic.
Create the things that we want,because when we no longer are
held back by limiting beliefs,nothing can stop us except
natural laws.
You know, like you still got to, you can't go three days
without water.
(26:31):
There's certain things youstill have to do to stay alive,
but other than that, it's justput your energy on what you want
to create and don't and don'tallow any of this building
blocks of shame, fear, anythinglimiting, just release them.
So I discovered, throughthrough this writing process,
(26:54):
that there's five entry pointsto zero and they can be done in
any order.
So and it's, it's like a, it'sa circle.
In fact I have a graph I canshow you right here.
This is actually in my book, Iput it right up.
So it's, it's a circle and um,so they can be done in any order
.
Um, but, but the ones, I'llkind of explain them in the
(27:18):
order that in naturalprogression, as a lot of times
we we discover them.
So awareness is is the first one.
So you got to have awareness ofwhat you want, or awareness
that you're out of alignment, orawareness that your life is not
what you want, because many ofus and for me up until my mid
20s, I was unaware that I was,you know, completely out of
(27:41):
alignment.
And then the next one is is youhave to secure alignment?
So you have to get in alignmentwith what it is that you want.
So you probably notice, if youever want like a new car,
everywhere everything you seeyou start seeing that car
because your brain starts tolike constantly focus on that
thing.
So you've got to get in thatlane with what it is that you
(28:05):
want, if it be a career, arelationship or just healing,
whatever it is you have to getin that.
And maybe, if you want, if itbe a career, a relationship or
just healing, whatever it is youhave to get in that.
And maybe, if you want to dopersonal development, maybe you
start finding some books thatwill help you, or talk to your
therapist or talk to yourfriends, or listen to podcasts
podcasts like this.
That gets you in alignment.
The next one is take ownership,and this is very difficult for
(28:27):
people to do because we live ina fear-based victim society and
we want to point everyone else'sfault, right, you know, and I
always say that everybody'sright and everybody's wrong,
because it just is based on yourpoint of view, based on your
human story code.
so, if you can take ownership ofeverything, even if you were
(28:50):
abused as a child yeah, like Iwas, you were you did not ask
for that, you did not deservethat, and the person that abused
you should not just, you know,shouldn't be, we don't have.
It's not like we don't need tohold them accountable for what
they've done, but we can takeownership of it by no longer
being a victim and blaming thatperson for all of our
(29:12):
misfortunes that have happened.
Because you were traumatized asa child, you can just say that
is my story, that happened to me.
Once you take ownership of itand you name it kind of like
naming Rumpelstiltskin in thatfairy tale you know, once they
were able to discover his name,they were free of his curse,
right?
So it's kind of like if we canname our traumas and bring them
(29:36):
to the light, we then can dosomething about it, which takes
us to the next entry point,which is release to receive.
So you can release that story,you can release that victimhood,
you can release whatever it isthat's holding you back, so that
you can receive what it is thatyou are trying to get in
alignment with.
And I have to say that you needto zero responsibly, because
(30:00):
when you truly start doing thiswork and you get in alignment
with your authentic, true self,there will be a fallout.
You will find people, places,things, careers, whatever, start
to leave your life and it willfeel chaotic.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Oh yeah, I think there's not enough emphasis of
that.
There's so much talk.
I just did another interviewwith Kelly Sparta and we were
talking about this.
We talk so much about the highsof the spiritual journey and
the oh, you're one of the chosenones which I, you know.
That's not even that.
We won't even get into thatright now.
I believe we're all chosen.
I do believe there are somepeople who are called to to help
(30:39):
lead the future.
That's just a.
There's a difference in wording, but there's not enough
conversation about about that.
You know it, there is.
It is painful.
I love my spiritual journey.
I would not go back to theperson I was before.
I was overweight, I wasmiserable, I never went anywhere
and never did anything, didn'thave dreams coming up, I just
did nothing but work.
Um, but I did give everythingup, everything, uh, my
(31:03):
reputation, my career.
I lost almost all of the peoplethat supported me when I was
running an agency because theywere benefiting from our
relationship, which is one ofthose spiritual bitter pills.
You're like, oh my goodness,all these people were around me
because they benefited from me,but they don't want to be around
when I need help or support formy new mission and that's a
(31:25):
whole experience that I thinkbears more conversation.
You will lose a lot of thingsand it will be chaotic and you
will, um, get confused and like,uh, I was just talking to the
previous interview about is likeI, I, I, my old self, would pop
back up because I kept havingto be put in environments where
my old self was thriving and, uh, and it was hard not to pick up
(31:49):
the old habits and and beliefs.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
it's a process it is a process, so, yeah, but you
can't.
It's like designing uh, youryour living room, you want to
get new furniture.
Well, you can't get the newfurniture delivered until you
get rid of the old, and so youreally have to toss it.
And even though in a lot oftimes, we're like emotionally
attached to these things or thisway of life, or it's comforting
(32:12):
, it's a status quo.
This is why people who are inabusive relationships find
another abusive relationshipbecause, even though they say
they don't want it, it's likeembedded in their DNA, because
it's in their programming.
It's kind of like if you playSuper Mario Brothers on video
game, it's like it behaves acertain way.
(32:33):
It's not going to all of asudden be Zelda, it's going to
be Super Mario Brothers and, uh,the only way to change, you got
to recode it, so we have torecode ourselves.
Yeah, there's that reallyuncomfortable time when you're
going through this journey whereeverything feels like, oh my
gosh, everything's falling apart, and that's when you have to
(32:56):
stay firm, which is the fifthentry point is engage your power
.
You've got to plant your feetfirmly on the ground and trust
that the storm will pass andit's going to be a beautiful day
tomorrow, and it will.
Everything will just work out,because when you put your life
to the zero test and youuntether yourself from
(33:19):
everything, everything will justwork out.
It's wild.
I have reinvented myself so manytimes in my life.
Looking back, I think of thosescary moments, and in those
scary moments like, for example,the scary moment for starting
my own business is that youdon't have a steady paycheck.
(33:39):
And now I'm you know, mortgageis coming due and all this and
you haven't gotten any newclients Like, oh my gosh, so
when I'd have this fear aboutmoney you want best way this is
don't take financial advice fromme, trust me.
But let me tell you the waythat I um, I got rid of that
fear of money is I would goshopping anytime I felt like I
(34:03):
didn't have enough money.
I would go to the mall and Iwould buy a new outfit, or I
would go car shopping or I wouldstart house shopping.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I actually, I actually agree with this,
because I believe that you haveto behave in the energy of
somebody who's abundant.
And so when you're, what you'redoing is behaving abundant and
and acknowledging that well,more is clearly coming in, or I
wouldn't be out here shopping.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Right?
No, it's, and it worked everysingle time.
I mean, and there's beenmoments where I was down to $2
in my bank account and then Iwould have that like panic and
fear, and then I would just gofor a walk, or I would go for a
shopping walk or whatever.
I would just get out of thatsituation.
Imagine my life not in thatsituation and then I would come
(34:48):
back and there would be an emailfrom a client wanting my
services.
I mean, every single time Iwould, it would turn a corner
and it's like there.
So I got to the point where I'mlike I'm going to stop fearing
money.
I honestly have not balanced mycheckbook since 2005.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I love that.
It's so true though that's ahuge part of it.
I mean I noticed, like going up, because I grew up in the
system in an orphanage and incare and a lot of you know a lot
of religious trauma there frommy foster families, but the
money for all of them everybodywho had any influence in my life
was, uh had had that fear ofmoney situation, like it was a
(35:32):
constant in my childhood andit's been work as an adult.
Um, having to work through thatbecause you don't really see
how deeply rooted that is inyour experience until you've
gotten healed enough to becomeaware of when your thought
habits are shifting and it'slike, oh, you know you shouldn't
(35:53):
be looking at the bank accountgoing oh no, what am I going to
do?
That is not helping.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, Like I said, well, you have to.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
you know, like I say, don't take financial advice
from me because you should beresponsible.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
But I figured out a way.
I figured out a way to justlike, just be and let it just
happen.
And during COVID, you know, mybusiness was shut down for three
, four months and you know,doing in-person team building, I
mean we were toast, we weredone.
And one day I had this epiphanythat I need to shift from
(36:28):
in-person to Zoom.
And I'd been using Zoom becauseI was having weekly calls with
Emily who was helping me withthe book, and I'm like, oh, this
platform does a lot of coolthings.
So I started looking into itand I realized I can broadcast
my team building experiences andmake them interactive through
Zoom.
So I put a word out newsletterto all of my previous clients
(36:52):
and within months I was back inbusiness and we were doing back
to back programs with peoplefrom all over the world.
And because there was nooverhead, I made so much money
during COVID.
I feel blessed because a lot ofpeople lost everything or lost
their lives even.
And here I was just like, likehaving all of this abundance and
(37:16):
and just because I made, I hada choice.
I could sit around and, youknow, collect my I don't know
money that was coming from thestate every week or I could get
up and do something, and I madeenough money during COVID to pay
my house off.
Wow, that's amazing, that waslike and then even after I paid
my house off now I'm going to becashed for it because I just
(37:37):
paid my house off, but again, Idon't look at the balance, I
don't balance whatever.
After I paid the house off Istill had the same amount of
money.
I don't know how that happened.
I still I told my bookkeeperI'm like, don't tell me what
happened.
I just I want to just trustthat whatever happened was magic
, because I have no explanationfor it.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Oh, that's wonderful.
I love hearing that and I thinkyou know I don't think we're
saying to people beirresponsible, but there's a
fine line between puttingnegative energy towards the
potential negative outcomes of asituation and taking imperfect
action, taking action towardsyour dreams and being in the
(38:16):
energy of success.
That's just a big differencebetween the two.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
It is because everything in our life, in our
world, is just construct ofbelief, right?
So if you can believe infearful things, then you can
believe in magical things.
It's, it's a choice, and zerowas just going to say one thing
to you yes.
So zero doesn't know right fromwrong, it doesn't know between
(38:42):
what you know.
This way of living is betterthan this.
That way of living, all itknows is just to respond to how
you, what you put into it iswhat you get out, and I think
most of us, I think it goes backto that fear-based living that
we're all programmed since birth.
(39:02):
Um, that's where I think mostof us can spend some time in
that find awareness, entry pointto find all of the parts of our
, our dna and our existence, andthe stories and generational
stories of where we, we havefear and I did come from a
family of um fear based aboutmoney oh yeah to this day.
(39:24):
They everyone in my familystruggles except me, because I
released that and I, when Imoved to Las Vegas to start my
company back in 2006, I had ameditation room in this house.
I rented this house.
That was way more money than Icould afford, but I thought that
would get me out of bed.
(39:45):
And it was a huge house.
I had all these extra rooms.
So I had this room that I madeinto a meditation room and every
single day I would get up,because I would wake up every
day with anxiety because I knewI had just like financially, um,
overextended myself.
But I wasn't gonna.
I was gonna get up everymorning and go into that
meditation room and I wouldn'tcome out until I felt like power
(40:08):
and magic.
And that is where I spent a lotof time rewiring all of this
coding from my family about fear, fear about money, fear of
success, all of those things.
But there are times that Iwould be in that meditation room
for hours because I was notallowed to leave until I had
(40:31):
zero anxiety about anything.
And then I would go out thereand I, I started that company
from scratch.
I started just going to meetingplanners and hotels and I, I.
I had done like one teambuilding event for one client
and that was my experience.
And I showed up and, like I'm ateam builder, and I just
(40:54):
pretended like I knew what I wasdoing.
And next thing I knew I knewwhat I was doing.
And I think, yeah, we all, weall might go through this
imposter syndrome, but you wantto know what?
I hate that phrase.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I hate it.
The word imposter, just it'slike fake it till you make it.
But you know newbie phase.
Newbie phase.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, when you're driving down, when you're
driving down the street, drivingdown the highway, look around
at everybody driving around withyou and know that they all feel
the same way.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Yeah, it's so true though, you know, we're sort of
trained into this belief that weneed somebody to tell us that
we are something that we justdeserve a title that we like.
I was talking about this againin another interview where we're
talking about shamanism and theproblem with it.
Most people's perception of itis it was all a based on western
tv, which always showed a drunkhigh weirdo uh the loner.
(41:43):
It was never a good reflection.
Most people don't know.
Shamanism is as old as time andhas existed all over the world
in almost every culture and uh,in that, in some, some sws of of
shamanism that you're not ashaman until a shaman
acknowledges that you're ashaman and it's like it's very
sort of old school way oflooking at things or you need to
(42:04):
go take that course and get thecertification and it's like you
know you.
You need to trust in yourrelationship with spirit and in
your own understanding of whatyou're being called to do, to
just own what that is and don'texplain yourself to other people
.
That is such a weird thing thatwe do in our culture that we
feel we have to explain orjustify or talk someone into
(42:26):
seeing something for a.
That's not going to work.
Um, but you're actually tellingon yourself when you feel the
need to convince somebody elseof what you are.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
It's knowing that you are, yeah, owning that I
remember when I started doingteam building for these, you
know, big companies likemicrosoft and google and amazon,
and I remember thinking Iremember one time I was invited
by facebook to come on theircampus and do a team building
and I've been there a few timeson campus, saw Mr Mark like and
(42:57):
I'm like, wow, if only they knewthat I didn't know what I was
doing.
But then I realized I know whatI'm doing and I had to like,
step into that and own it and ittook me a while to finally feel
like I I'm, yeah, this I'm, I'mgood at this, this is what I do
.
But I still never let anybodyknow that.
But deep inside I felt I wouldI would you know finish a game
(43:20):
and I would think, if only theyknew that.
I'm just this little guy fromdon't know what I'm doing, Don't
even have a college degreeCause I got taken away from me.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Oh, I know.
Yeah, in my case, I never didgraduate, you know.
So I, I I was fortunate, uh, inmy career.
Although I was a bit lost as aperson, I was really successful
in my career and marketing andPR, and I worked with a lot of
really famous people, like a lotof real household names, and I
always tell people, um,especially people who are new at
(43:50):
entrepreneurship or my students, that, um, I've worked with a
lot of famous people intechnology, business, hollywood,
you know, global names, and theonly thing that they had going
for them aside from who theywere related to, the only thing
that I saw consistently acrossthe board, because I was I was
quite astonished at how dumb alot of really famous, successful
(44:12):
, rich, intelligent people werein real life.
I was like you know, you're notthat bright, how did you get to
be so rich?
But it was this attempt, thisopportunity as a young
20-something-year-old,30-something-year-old, to study
at the feet of some of the mostgrand names.
But the thing that I found is Amost of them are not
particularly special.
They just had a radical, almostdelusional belief in their own
(44:35):
abilities and that was really it, and they would even share with
me the stories of like theydidn't know anything, they
didn't have the certificate,they weren't told they were that
person or that title orwhatever it was, they just did
it because, they believed inthemselves, and I think that's
your problem, and hats off tothem.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I mean that's.
I never poo-poo anybody'ssuccess, I don't, even if I feel
like they don't deserve it.
It was like, well, we alldeserve it.
It's just they somehow figuredout the code and they, they,
they cracked the code.
Because you know, to me, I dogames for a living, so I look at
life as a game.
You know, every time you go toCVS, you're like play the game
(45:21):
with the coupons.
You know, there's always somesort of game that we play and a
lot of it is like how we, how wemake it in this, in this world.
You know it's, it's, it's agame and we win some, we lose
some, but I think the what'shelped me navigate all that is
just to be untethered from theoutcome.
So it's, it saves me fromdisappointment, uh, and it saves
me from beginning knocked,knocked off my path.
Because these, these littlethings, you know, like if you
want to become, let's say, youwant to become a famous actor
(45:43):
and it doesn't happen, it's like, well, why?
Well, there's, maybe there was.
If you really get honest withyourself, did you really do the
work?
Because I look at myself withmy business, why, why isn't it a
bigger business?
Why isn't it more of awell-known brand?
And when I'm completely honestwith myself, it's because I
don't want to work that hard, Idon't want to be a slave to my
(46:04):
career.
I want the play.
I want to have fun.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yeah, it's hard for people who haven't gone through
that experience.
Like when you, I get a lot ofthe push from especially
linkedin.
It's like oh you if you're notworking 14 hours a day.
You don't deserve it, and it'slike fuck off.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I mean, honestly, work smarter, not harder, right,
and that's kind of what I did acouple years ago.
I had this epiphany and Ibecause I used to have to travel
and do most of my team buildingprograms, so I was in a plane I
I mean, I've got like status onall these different airlines, I
fly down them and I finally gotto one.
(46:42):
I'm like I am tired, I can't dothis forever.
So I hired a videographer and Ihad him follow me around for a
week and I videoed myself doingeverything.
This is how you do this.
This is how you facilitate this.
This is how this game is played.
Now I have all these trainingvideos, so I don't have to do I
haven't.
(47:02):
I think I facilitated one gamethis year and it was because a
client asked like, specificallyasked for me, because they've
come back, you know, frequently,and other than that, no, I just
say, watch my training videoand we hire these people with
great personalities.
A lot of them are actors, andso if anyone's listening to this
(47:23):
you want to facilitate, let meknow.
We're always looking for goodtalent and they watch the
training videos they show up andmy, my staff is kind of behind
the scenes, helping themremotely If they have any
questions, and they just have tofollow a script, and then our
clients have a great time.
And I figured this out.
I'm like, wow, I now canleverage myself to be a digital
(47:46):
person so I can go out and havefun and write a book, promote
the book, to have time to talkto amazing people like you, and
it's great, and so I think.
But I didn't just discover thatovernight.
It like took me all these yearsof finally going.
You know what?
I'm ready for somethingdifferent and and that's one
(48:07):
thing about that truth.
Um, is that anything that'slike our, our personal truth,
which is just stories andconstruct.
It's going to evolve and change, because there was a time in my
life where I felt like I needto be working 14 hours a day to
be successful.
Now I'm like no, I can work twohours a day and make more money
(48:28):
because I am, I've leveragedmyself, I don't have to
physically be anywhere.
Now, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Oh, I love that, okay , I got to offline, I got to
talk to you aboutentrepreneurship, I've got the
soul tech foundation, so for me,and we go back to religion.
So, because I grew up, I mean Iunderstand the benefits of
spiritual teaching and trainingand, although I'm not interested
in opening up a traditionalchurch per se, the soul Tech
Foundation, which is my 501c3,um, is fundraising for its first
(49:01):
Soul Tech Wellness Center,which is not just about your
physical, it's not just aboutyoga and meditation and moon
rituals, but we will have aSunday service and, uh, in the
same, in in the, with the idealof renewal and community,
because I believe it's somethingthat's actually needed in the
world.
Um, but it will.
(49:21):
It is not religion based per seand fundraising for when you
start the minute you open yourmouth and you start talking
about spirituality or you'relike oh yeah, I want to have a,
uh, and it touches on the woo,woo.
I can just see people's likejust they sort of glaze over,
like oh, she's more.
she's one of those, and it'slike no, I'm actually trying to
address what I think is a reallyimportant challenge in the
(49:42):
world.
We have a massive mental healthcrisis that people under 30,
people, young people under theage of 30, the second leading
cause of death is self-harm andand and yet, you know, we just
keep plotting forward with moretechnology and more, uh victim
mentality and and I believe weneed answers to that.
And if it's not organizedreligion because they sort of
burnt their boats, then what?
(50:05):
What is?
What is an evolved answer tothat?
And for me, it's.
It's that uh kind of thinganyway.
Uh, I'd love to tap into that,your incredible experience as an
entrepreneur, to ask youquestions about that.
So, chad, if people want tolearn more about your work, the
incredible work that you dodoing these adventures for
businesses, or learn about yourbook, where would they go?
Speaker 2 (50:27):
So you, if you want to just know everything that I
do, you can go to my, my website, chadhardycom, and there's
there's links there to adventuregames and to also my book, law
of zero.
So, and from that, from law ofzero book, uh, from the law of
zero book website, you can seewhere you can, um, pick it up,
(50:47):
because it's on amazon, barnesand noble, um, and different
booksellers carry it and theaudiobook is now out and I, I, I
read the whole book into amicrophone and let me tell you,
when you listen to yourself talkfor that many hours, the
english language starts to soundvery weird.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
it does I try to.
It's hard for people to knowthey've never I've recorded my
book memory mention.
I didn't do the other ones.
I actually used kdp justlaunched a beta for their for uh
of the voice, which I hadtested, but the voices weren't
developed enough at the time.
Anyway, the one I did do wasMemory Mansion and it was such a
weird experience.
I had to redo the whole thingbecause I messed up the audio.
(51:28):
I was like what?
Are we doing over here.
It is weird listening toyourself, right?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Yeah Well, just because after a while you get
numb, where your brain just kindof turns off.
You're just reading and thenthe language starts to sound
weird, like is that a word?
This is so funny.
It's funny, but I was justlistening to the playback the
other night and I fell asleep tomy own voice.
(51:55):
Talk about an inflated ego.
I'm like, oh, this is sosoothing.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
I struggle to listen to myself.
Like I re-listen to things so Ican perfect my delivery and
stuff, but I cringe through thewhole thing.
I got to get better at that.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, I performed for so many years.
I'm a trained vocalist so Idon't have a problem listening
to my own voice.
Um, I, actually I don't likelistening to like conversation,
like like I I cringe a littlebit listening to podcasts and
what I've been on and but spokenword, no, because it's, it's a
performance oh, my gosh chad,it's a delight, such a delight,
(52:37):
we have to meet in person,because I can tell you and I
would get on like a house onfire oh my gosh, yes uh, thank
you so much for coming on theshow uh, you guys chad.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
What's your middle name again?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
chad.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Michael hardy is my full name thank you, I knew I
was doing.
I was like I'm gettingsomething off and I've seen I've
been to your website many times.
So, chad Michael Hardy, thankyou so much for coming on and
sharing your fabulous energy andyour incredible story.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
You're awesome.
Thanks for doing what you do sothat we can have these
conversations.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Yeah, no, absolutely All right, you guys, hold on, I
gotta, I gotta bring out mybullets while we're doing this.
If you're not familiar with mywork, I'm Shaman Isis.
All of a sudden it is CynthiaElliott.
I've got three best-sellingbooks out.
Two of them have been packagedtogether in my glow-up
collection Unleash the Empress,which shows my spiritual
practices.
Memory Mansion, which was myfirst number one bestseller,
shares my journey from Catholicorphanage to PR, new York City,
(53:28):
pr diva, to waking up andlearning to love myself.
Certainly an adventure.
It'll have your eyebrowshitting your hairline a few
times, but you've beenforewarned.
I've learned to be guilt-freeand shame-free, so I'm being
shameless.
Anyway, if you want to learnmore about my work or what the
events I have coming up, go toshamanicistcom.
If you want to learn more orpotentially support the Soul
(53:50):
Tech Wellness Centers, wherewe're looking to help raise the
human consciousness on theplanet and help people learn to
love themselves and have strongmental and emotional and
spiritual wealth in their lives,check out soul tech
foundationcom.
We are fundraising right nowfor our first wellness center,
so go check it out and supportus, and I thank you guys for
listening.
If you aren't subscribed, whatare you thinking it's
intelligent, listening, uh,something to uplift you um on
(54:13):
your days when you're strugglingor just when you want to.
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