ZP Journal (CHOSEN SOLO) - Ichiban is going up the ladder

I’m starting a journal to share my experience with ZP, focused on CHOSEN and RICH. My goal is simple, get promoted in the next evaluation (~3 months). Tagging @King since we pretty much share goals and career.

As I explain below, I had Limitless too as part of this stack. However, I decided to keep it more focused, sticking with CHOSEN and RICH going forward.

To avoid repeating what I’ve shared before, I’ll link my first post from when I ran CHOSEN x2 here:
Continuing the discussion from Main Disc. Thread - CHOSEN [Now Available!]:

This has been my schedule:

  • Dec 1: CHOSEN x2
  • Dec. 3: CHOSEN + RICH
  • Dec. 5: CHOSEN + Limitless

As I’ve said before, CHOSEN is a masterpiece and irreplaceable. Out of the three days, I felt the best after the first one. Of course, being the first time I ran any ZP program this could be expected, so I’m not going to assume this only has to do with CHOSEN.

Having said that, below is a summary of my experience the other two days:

Dec 3:
I ran CHOSEN and RICH back to back, during my “lunch break”. I’m using quotes here because I don’t have official breaks in my job, but I take time between meetings if the workload is manageable that day. I didn’t feel as calmed or focused this time while listening to the programs. If anything, I felt anxious, but this was probably due to being in the middle of the day. I kept thinking important emails were coming in, and that I was going to get a call and thus ruin the listening. None of that happened, but I ended less than satisfied because of all these distracting thoughts.

An interesting thing happened later that day when I was walking my dogs and journaling this experience on my phone (I use a voice recognition app that captures what I say in writing). I was describing the perceptual shift that I have experienced so far, and I realized that I have been like this before. When it comes to how I interact with others, since running ZP I behave just the same as I do when I’m in my safest place. What came to mind immediately was my baseball team. I’ve played baseball all my life and have always been very good at it. I started when I was 5 and reached the highest level of competition in my country by the time I was 15. Maybe because of this, I always felt my most confident there. On the one side, my coach is like family to me - like a big brother. I’ve known him and some of the team members for 35 years. Also, I’ve always excelled, so I feel in a position of supporting others without questioning whether my help is valuable or appreciated. When I’m interacting with others there, I have this unshackable confidence that nothing or no one can change. I feel completely at home, among family and long-time friends, respected and appreciated. With ZP, I get into this mindset in any situation. This is by far what I enjoy the most and I think it is at the center of why people respond well to me. By feeling this way, I must be radiating a strong positive energy that people pick up on. By the way, this feeling is never coming from feeling superior. When interacting with others I feel an important part of the group, but never more or less than anyone else.

Aside from that realization, the way people responded to me at work was incredible. You know these movies where someone changes bodies and so everyone around them is confused because they are acting weird? Well, no joking, some people are reacting to me so different now, that this is what I feel. It’s like they’ve been possed or something. A client who typically doesn’t give a f*ck about his job kept apologizing to me because he made mistake on some calculation he shared with me. Then, another client of mine said thank you repeatedly for something I did, even though the week before I would’ve swore that word wasn’t in his dictionary. Mind blowing.

Dec 5:
I ran CHOSEN + Limitless back to back, this time as soon as I woke up. I stood in bed and started running these two programs before getting up. The problem here is that I fell asleep, so can’t remember much of how I felt. I don’t even remember the switch from CHOSEN to Limitless. In any case, I woke up refreshed and was in a great mood all day.

A common theme I’m experiencing is that almost nothing bothers me. I don’t get irritated to the levels I would before. So, for example, that day someone cut me in traffic and I thought “what a d*ck!”, but that’s it. I didn’t feel it in my chest as I typically would. I could see he was endangering everyone around him, and I would’ve had no problem telling him that, but I didn’t get an emotional reaction from it. Almost nothing breaks the positive mindset ZP promotes.

Of course, people kept surprising me throughout the day. I was at a gas station getting myself an energy drink, and they had a $3 limit to pay with a credit card. The drink was $2.5, so when I saw the sign, I got one of those small 5h energy shots next to the counter and asked the guy to add it. He looked at me, told me not to worry about it, and charged only the $2.5 on my card. I know it is a very small thing, but it is the first time this happens to me. In my experience, they rarely allow you to use a credit card under the limit, even when you ask them. I didn’t even ask this time, so I was very surprised by his reaction.

Today is a rest day, but I’ll continue tomorrow with CHOSEN + RICH and keep updating this journal regularly, as anything worth mentioning happens.

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Dec 6:
I had a call with a prospective client. To add some context, I met with the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) and the VP of Finance of a $20B global manufacturing company. They were interested in a document I prepared discussing the viability of their expansion plans.

During the meeting, and even right after, I didn’t think anything special happened. The call went well, except for the VP having connection issues and eventually needing to drop. There was friendly interaction at the beginning, and then I was able to address all the questions the CTO had. Most I had anticipated, so I had them already addressed in the document, but others I was not expecting, and yet I could answer them without a problem.

Later in the day, I realized the following:

  • I was not nervous at all. I felt totally normal before and during the meeting. I’ve been doing this for a decade now, but meeting with the CTO was a big deal, and I had no one else with me from my company. In the past, in less stressful situations, I would’ve drenched my shirt in sweat. Yesterday, not a drop.

  • I was in control. Even when the meeting was intended for me to address their questions, I always felt in control of the situation. For the questions I didn’t anticipate, I could answer them just as if I had. I didn’t skip a beat or hesitate. I kept the meeting short, sweet and to the point.

  • I felt uninhibited. I shared my background and provided my point of view on certain things without ever second guessing or thinking whether they liked what I was saying. The good thing is there is still a level of self awareness, so I’m not concerned about saying something that would get me in trouble.

Again, really positive results from ZP. These were a bit sneakier, in that I doubt I’d have noticed them without journaling about it. After this, I promised myself to journal as often as possible, even when I think there is nothing important to share.

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Dec 7:

I had a Steering Committee today at the project I’m running right now. These happen once a month and include the client’s CEO and top leadership (CFO, CIO, VP, etc.).

I typically listen in, as it is the partner on my project who runs the show. Today, everything was going as usual until the CEO asked about the financials. The CFO was not too familiar with what went into the analysis, so he started hesitating and saying that he’d find out and get back to him, etc. At that time, out of nowhere, I jumped in to answer the question since I knew the numbers included in the analysis.

What made this situation interesting (to me, at least) is not that I could answer the question, but that I didn’t even think twice before doing it. I typically don’t speak up if I can avoid it. I don’t like to be the center of attention and don’t get into things that don’t directly concern me. Because of this, I only get involved when I need to. I’m good at what I do, but I realize now how my behavior could indicate a lack of interest and leadership potential.

Also, every time I need to speak up at a meeting like this, I usually get nervous. Not a lot and nothing I can’t control, but it’s not uncommon for me to feel my heart rate accelerate and start sweating. Today, just like yesterday, I didn’t sweat at all and was calm. All those nervous body reactions are entirely gone. A similar thing happened again in another team meeting I had later in the day. I was even cracking jokes and making the entire team laugh without feeling any trace of being nervous or uncomfortable with being the center of attention.

Oh, and today I didn’t run any subs yet. I’m waiting to do it close to bedtime to see what difference it makes. Given it takes 7-8 hours to kick in, I figured if I run them later in the day, I can get that nice mood uplift in the early morning.

Finally, I read some comments about ZP increasing mental chatter. For me, it’s the opposite. I’m much less in my head and go about my day focusing on whatever is going on in front of me. I feel more present, which is honestly a blessing because I never find myself mulling over shit that happened in the past or frustrated about something that I need to do but haven’t started yet. Because of this, I keep feeling time flies. Everything flows better, and life is generally more manageable (even though nothing has objectively changed).

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Dec 8:
Yesterday I ran CHOSEN and RICH. One loop each back to back right before bed. In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t get through 5 minutes of CHOSEN before falling asleep. I can’t remember if I dreamt. When I started ZP, I always dreamed, but not anymore.

Woke up feeling pretty well, but nothing out of the ordinary. I can certainly feel CHOSEN is acting. RICH is not something I can discern yet. I had a few meetings already, and everything I shared on how ZP affects me was still there. However, I noticed mood changes better when I ran the programs in the morning. After running them, I can feel a mood shift in a few hours. Today I can’t tell.

Yesterday, I was thinking about the effects of CHOSEN, and I recalled a social exercise discussed in one of my MBA classes a while ago. I can’t even remember the class or the purpose of the discussion, but it was about how people in a group tend to wait for others to see how they need to react.

The professor explained that if you are ever in trouble in a crowded city and start shouting for someone to call 911, it is very likely that people will ignore you. He explained that the best course of action would be to grab someone by the arm and ask that person to call. This could be counterintuitive since by crying out for help, you are reaching out to a much larger number of people. However, in an unexpected situation like this, most people would hesitate and look around to see whether they should do something. Many would assume someone else is already helping and not do anything. Regardless, since most people think this way, you’d be better off asking just one person and ensuring that person follows through.

This came to mind because I’m sure this is precisely the trait that CHOSEN aims to break.

When I think of a leader, I picture someone who will see something that requires attention and go after it, regardless of what others think or do. It is not necessarily about having the authority or power of character to move others into action. Instead, it is about going in first and impacting others through inspiration and example. People will willingly follow a leader like this, and he will not need to ask or force anything on them.

CHOSEN is having this effect on me. Maybe I feel it very clearly because my baseline is the absolute opposite. As I explained yesterday, I usually avoid situations that don’t concern me, and I loathe being the center of attention. However, since the first day, CHOSEN has triggered me to speak up and step in without questioning myself or waiting to see what others do.

And the best part is that it is effortless. It triggers the action, not the thought. First, I act, then I think WTF just happened? I process the situation after the fact. I never find myself thinking, “maybe I should say something about this.” I just say it and then realize what happened.

This is the most important distinction that sets CHOSEN apart. Because I can read a book on leadership and understand that I can’t just sit in the middle of a shit storm doing nothing. I KNOW THAT ALREADY. However, just because I know it doesn’t mean I will act any different. I will still feel uncomfortable and too self-aware to act or say anything. And if I do, I will probably look nervous, so the outcome will likely be less than ideal, giving me a reason not to try ever again.

Also, looking back, I never feel that any of these triggered actions are “very unlike me.” Instead, I see them as entirely like me, without baggage, negative social conditioning, or whatever you want to call it. It is me, before getting f*cked by life experience.

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Dec 9:
Super tired and very unmotivated today. I’ve been sleeping very little over the past few days and have noticed a drastic decrease in energy.

This is work related, nothing to do with the subs. Having said that, subs and lack of sleep don’t mix well. I may not even run anything today. I get the feeling it’ll make me feel even worse.

On a positive note, yesterday I could test the limits of CHOSEN once again.

My mother in law slammed the door of one of my cars (the cheaper one) into my other car (the expensive one) and caused a very visible nick in the paint. In the past this would’ve sent me into a fit of rage, particularly because it is not the first time.

Yesterday, however, I remained calm. I was upset with the situation, but somehow I couldn’t feel it internally. It’s hard to explain. I knew I should be upset, but I didn’t feel agitated at all. It’s like there is some sort of armor around my chest that shit like this can’t penetrate.

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Decided to take a nap while listening to CHOSEN and RICH. Woke up feeling a bit better, but still very drained from lack of sleep.

I get the impression that ZP is not going to allow me to run on as little sleep as I’m used to. Today I couldn’t concentrate and kept feeling like closing my eyes and rest.

The good thing is that the results seem unaffected. I feel as solid internally as I’ve been since starting ZP. I feel tired, but not bad. I don’t complain and I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’m just mentally exhausted.

I’m meeting a couple of friends now to drink beer and play some poker. Should be a nice break from the craziness of this week, but it won’t help me get the rest I need. At least tomorrow is finally Friday. Can’t wait to get some decent shut-eye and clear my head.

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Dec 10:
Last night I ended up coming back home at 2am. Had a pretty good night with a couple of buddies, although we ultimately didn’t play poker.

I had work to do, so I was up, coffee in hand, by 4.30am. Despite the little sleep I got, I’m feeling better than yesterday and have been fairly productive so far.

Today my boss told me they’ll repurpose me to focus on business development instead of running a project that starts early next year. This is excellent news because business development is just what I need to get promoted. Apparently, this was the reason behind his decision too. I didn’t ask for this change and was not expecting it, but he told me he wanted to put me in a position where I’d have the bandwidth to close the gap in my sales target so they could promote me. Works for me! :wink:

Aside from that, I’ve been toying with the idea of replacing RICH with WANTED. Frankly, I don’t notice anything special from RICH. I know this is not intended to be felt and that manifestations take time. However, I’m also starting to question why I added RICH in the first place. I don’t have any mental barriers related to money that I know of. There is no income ceiling, a concept that money is wrong, or anything like that. At least, that’s what I believe. I already make a pretty good income and feel fortunate that I don’t have to worry about money. All I care about right now is being promoted. I consider the promotion testament and recognition of the value I bring as a management consultant. That’s what matters to me.

I don’t care the least about the sexual attraction benefits from WANTED (as fun as they may be :slight_smile: ). Still, if it could remotely help me attract business opportunities, that’d be something I’d like to explore. I haven’t decided yet, because I don’t want to jump around from one title to the next and don’t want to dilute or alter the benefits from CHOSEN. But it’s something that I’m beginning to consider.

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This is something I should be aiming for.

You mean carving out time from your day to focus on this?

More like I can take on additional work for my business partner/part-time boss.

Right now I am helping him out with social media management, digital marketing, content writing creation as well as the web portal management.

Next year there will be more work from him but I could possibly ask to take up to up a business development role for him in terms of growing his market intelligence business.

In fact, apart from my due diligence consultancy business which is a little bit separate (not entirely separate as I am an associate consultant in his sister company while I run my own independent consultancy), his market intelligence business is the type of business that I wanted to create, but never did…

I credit this to Ascended Mogul.

Got it. I’d think there is a fair amount of overlap between the type of work you are doing now and business development. Everything that you described can be used for business development purposes, so you should certainly be able to position yourself as the best person to take on that activity.

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Dec 11:
I had a good night’s sleep and dreamt quite a bit, although I can’t remember what it was.

I keep noticing ZP’s demand for extra sleep, water, and sweets; my body craves these things like crazy. For example, I don’t ever indulge in sweets, but I’ve raided my children’s stash more than once this week. I believe the results are unaffected, though. Thursday night, I slept 2 hours, and Friday was a great day in terms of how I felt and noticed CHOSEN to work.

In terms of the results, I’m starting to get used to feeling fantastic. I have infinite patience, nothing puts me in a bad mood, and people keep treating me with uncanny niceness wherever I go. It is fascinating when it happens with someone I know who is typically not overly friendly.

That happened yesterday when I got my weekly allergy shot. The person there is polite, but she is pretty dry and doesn’t talk much. I’ve been going there weekly for eight months now, and every time I leave, I say things like “bye, have a great weekend,” or “bye, have a good one,” to be answered by either “bye” or nothing at all.

Yesterday, when she informed me and another person waiting that our time was up (we have to stay for 10 min after the shot in case we get a reaction), she said “Ms (can’t remember her name), you can go now. Bye. Ichiban, you can go too”. So, I stood up, said: “Thanks, bye.” Then she said, “bye Ichiban, have a great weekend.”

I know it seems like nothing, but I swear this person has never said anything other than bye in eight months. In fact, that’s what she said to the other person waiting.

Again, it may not look like much, but it does because situations like this keep reinforcing good results. Admittedly, even though I’m a very open-minded person, I don’t have an easy time believing things like manifestations, auras, influencing people at a distance, etc.… So I always think there must be a scientific or rational explanation.

Since starting CHOSEN, I have continued to experience things that can’t be explained rationally. Over and over, the results keep piling up and never wane.

I don’t try to rationalize these situations anymore and attribute them exclusively to CHOSEN. I figured a good experience is a good experience. I don’t care if it comes from running the sub or if it’s all in my head. The bottom line is, these events have become too obvious and too frequent for me to question them. Do I believe 100% of these come from CHOSEN? Of course not. Do I believe CHOSEN to be responsible for most? Undoubtedly.

And to clarify, I’m exclusively speaking about the “external” results; how CHOSEN influences people around me. When it comes to the “internal” benefits, I’m 100% thanking CHOSEN for those. The negativity, the dread, the pessimistic outlook on life; all of that is completely gone and replaced with positivity, enthusiasm, and hope. I wake up every day expecting it to be better than the day before, and that is pure bliss. I haven’t felt this way (consistently) since my early twenties.

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Dec 12:
Something I haven’t mentioned so far is that I’ve been feeling hornier than usual. This doesn’t seem like something that should be in the scripts, so I think it comes from having less mental clutter and thus more mental energy to engage in these kind of thoughts.

In a broader sense, I feel I have a larger appreciation for beauty in many forms; it can be music, art, or anything. I catch myself seeing the good in many situations. For instance, it’s happened more than once that I see a woman which I would not consider attractive, but I find myself thinking “oh, she has nice legs”, or “she has a beautiful smile, if she lost weight men would be all over her”.

Same with music. I may don’t like a song, but enjoy the voice of the singer. Or something that has happened often is that I may not like a car, but catch myself admiring its color or some aspect of its design.

I wasn’t like this before. I’ve always been more focused on “the package” than the details. Now I can appreciate both separately. Maybe this has to do with finding the good side of all things. I could see this being a way to stay positive, and it’s interesting how it works across many areas.

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Dec 13:
I woke up in a particularly bad mood today, which never happened since starting CHOSEN.

Despite the bad mood I can definitely tell CHOSEN is acting because my kids broke something important to me this morning and I was unaffected. It’s like magic, nothing throws me off these days.

Regarding the bad mood, I’m pretty sure I’m feeling like this because of my diet choices this weekend. I ate all the candy in the world and then some. Like I’ve said before, I watch my diet very closely, so any deviation is rare and typically doesn’t make me feel good.

CHOSEN is making me crave sweets and also tends to make me more “balanced” in my approach to anything. My strict dieting is not a great fit for CHOSEN because I keep justifying “exceptions” to my rules. It could also do with the fact that I’m currently under my normal weight and CHOSEN is pushing me to correct this. I have been training for a triathlon and my weight has dropped significantly. To the point where I don’t like myself in pictures because I look gaunt. I feel great, but I’m definitely more visually appealing with a few more pounds.

In any case, I’m correcting this immediately. I know that results are largely the same whether I give in regarding eating sweets or not, so I’ll control myself and will go back to my regular diet. I’ll drink plenty of water and sleep as much as I can, which are the other two things CHOSEN is pushing me to do.

Also, I decided to drop RICH starting today. Reading through my posts I barely ever mention RICH. It’s probably doing its thing in the background, but I honestly don’t think I need it.

Regarding adding WANTED, I’m still hesitant for three reasons:

  1. CHOSEN and WANTED are two very different archetypes, so I’m concerned results would be diluted. Also, the combination may make me feel unstable, just as I felt when mixing Emperor and Stark. I know this has worked for many people, but it didn’t do it for me.
  2. Questionable application of WANTED to business relationships. I’m not interested in attracting the opposite sex because, being married, this can only lead to trouble. If WANTED has no business application then it’s not worth it for me to add.
  3. I want to add HOM whenever it becomes available. Seeing that Mogul was recently added, maybe it won’t be too long before HOM gets added as well. I prefer to keep only two ZP titles, so WANTED will be replaced anyway and I prefer not to switch too often.

Finally, a big change is that I don’t notice the mood uplift anymore. Except for this morning, I have been in a constant good mood throughout the day. I guess this is my new baseline and the reason why I don’t notice my mood getting better after running CHOSEN.

I’m cautious to consider this permanent change, though, because I’m still running it and I suppose my mood could deteriorate overtime if I stopped. In any case, a “maintenance” schedule whereby I run CHOSEN once a month would probably fix this.

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Dec 14:
I seem to be going through some reconciliation. It’s a shame because everything was going great, but something shifted yesterday and it’s been downhill since then.

I woke up fairly ok, but my mood gradually worsen throughout the day and it’s pretty shitty right now.

Things at home are not helping. My wife is getting on my nerves. I don’t feel like getting into the details here but she is being selfish and asking for too much from me.

I’m very busy all the time, already spread too thin, so being pushed to give more is throwing me off. Particularly when she acts entitled about it.

Also, I’ve been super distracted and unmotivated at work. This doesn’t help, of course, because work is piling up at a faster rate than usual and that makes me procrastinate even more.

Based on how I’m feeling, I’m thinking a longer rest period is in order. Today was a rest day, but I’m going to skip tomorrow as well. I’ll return to my listening schedule either the next day or the day after based on how I’m feeling.

Dec 15:
Even though today wasn’t a rest day, I didn’t run anything to limit creeping feelings of reconciliation. Since tomorrow is a rest day, I’m thinking of not running anything either, that way I can go back on schedule the following day. Even then, I’ll probably run only one loop to gauge how I react before going back to my regular plan.

Today I felt I bit better than yesterday, but far from how I felt when I started using Chosen. I’m definitely not in a good mood, but not in a bad one either.

Now that I think about it, I’m in a pretty decent mood considering today’s ups and downs. I’ve been told at work that I may need to start a project early next year, instead of being able to focus on business development. This sucks because it’s a project outside of my practice area, so it doesn’t support my career progression and will take time away from me developing business where I should. Also, it will probably require that I travel to Mexico and I’m not keen on getting back into the dynamic of Monday through Thursday travel.

On the flip side, I found out that I can already pick up my new company car tomorrow, so that is a nice thing happening. Also, I was contacted by a recruiter of a well-known consulting firm asking me to interview with them. That is also good news. I’m not particularly interested in switching companies now, but it doesn’t hurt to have an offer to use as leverage if I need to. Good timing as well. If I end up not getting promoted in three months I can take this exit instead. They are hiring for the next level, so it’d be a promotion even if I leave for this company.

Aside from that, I feel I have more energy. I didn’t sleep much, only about 4 hours, and yet I’m feeling less tired than in the past two days. Running ZP does take a significant amount of mental energy. It’s incredible considering the shorter duration and that I was running only 2 loops every other day.

Last thing to note is that, even though my mood is less than ideal, the increased confidence and gravitas has not diminished despite the reconciliation I’m going through. I’m getting the impression that results have various levels of permanency. I’m assuming this varies person to person. In any case, I’m happy to see not everything is lost.

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Dec 16:
Taking time off was a great decision. I need to stop thinking that more loops lead to faster or better results. With ZP this is certainly not the case.

I’m progressively feeling better and noticing many of the benefits from CHOSEN. Especially that of being almost immune to stress, worry and negativity.

I was in a situation today where I was running a meeting with about 10 people, while I had a technician fixing my spin bike and constantly asking me questions. Somehow I was able to handle it and never felt stressed or out of control. Something like this would’ve been extremely stressful before, now it was a non issue.

With results like this it is always very weird because I can still see how I should feel stressed, yet I don’t. It’s not like I’m a different person who doesn’t think of a situation like that as stressful. I still do, but I don’t feel it.

As planned, I’ll return to my schedule tomorrow, but will only run one loop. I’ll keep it at one loop every other day until I am consistently free of reconciliation. If all goes well I may increase to two loops every other day, since I’m only running CHOSEN. On the other hand, if I go back to feeling reconciliation I’ll follow the latest listening instructions Saint shared today and take two rest days instead of one in between loops.

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Dec 17:
Great results today even though I’m yet to run the loop I had planned.

I was at the dealer because my car was having issues with one of the charging ports. As always, thanks to Chosen I was not even a little upset, although I had plenty of reasons to be.

Also, the treatment I received there was like I’ve never had before. Everyone was super helpful and treated me with a level of respect new to me. This is even more shocking considering I was very casually dressed, so nothing in my attire would indicate that I was a person of high status.

Oh, and I noticed much more attraction from women too. Especially an attractive lady that must’ve been in her early 40s. I was waiting at the dealer minding my business when I realized she was shamelessly staring. By the way she looked at me, there was only one thing in her mind and it was rated R :wink:

So, again, very happy with how things are progressing. After a three-day rest, it seems I’m finally out of the woods. No more signs of reconciliation.

I’ll run a loop before going to bed and will report tomorrow on how that goes.

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Feels good to have the treatment without needing to look the part doesn’t it?…subclub sure knows how to bring the respect flowing from others and consistently too.

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For sure. People should respect others regardless, but the reality is that wearing a suit typically makes a difference in how you get treated. With Chosen it doesn’t matter, it must create some sort of aura that triggers these responses in people around you.

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