DailyJim: Doing what I actually want to do

Hello everyone, welcome to another DailyJim, going back to the audio-only version. Today is Thursday, June 19th, 2025, and today I want to talk about doing what I actually want to do.

Now it seems like a very simple question. Asking somebody, what do you want to do? Asking yourself, what do I want to do? Maybe, how do I want to do it? But I think so often when it comes to work, relationships, family, exercise, so many other things, we do what we think other people want us to do. And not necessarily what we want to do. And again, what we think other people want us to do.

We can get so locked. I can speak for myself. I can get so locked into the certainty that people want me to do it this, do this, and do it this way, so therefore that's how I should do it, because that's what they want, with 100% certainty. But maybe it's not. Maybe people don't actually want those things. Maybe they think they do, or maybe we think they do, but maybe they don't. Maybe they think they want it that way, but maybe they don't actually want it that way. This is where it gets really tricky. I think sometimes it's much easier to ask ourselves, what do we want to do? Because if we continue to do something that we think other people want us to do, or they tell us that they want us to do it, but it may not be the thing that they actually want us to do, then we can neglect what we want to do and we could be doing something that they don't even want. So let me get more specific because I've talked a lot in high level.

I think a lot of people have told me, or I also think, that they want me to do more videos. They don't want me to do audio only, DailyJim  episodes like this. They want video. They want to see my face. And I think people have told me, do TikTok. Do, and when I think of TikTok, I think of Instagram, I think of short videos. Youtube shorts are three minutes long i think reels are the same on instagram three minutes tiktok i think you can go longer and so in my mind i go i need to do a three minute video, about the  DailyJim  or whatever format or whatever topic and put it up on instagram on tiktok and youtube all three bomb bomb bomb this is what people want.

But what do I want to do? Do I really want to do a  DailyJim  episode?

Monday through Thursday with video?

Do I want to do other video? What do I want to do? I don't like recording video all the time. It's a pain. Especially if I'm doing something like this daily gym reflection. It's nice to be able to pace back and forth and talk into my phone from different parts of the world. Instead of having to try to set up good lighting, try to stare into the phone the whole time, try to be static. Now you could say, well, you could do a walk and talk and you can point the camera up. I don't want you seeing my bedroom all the time. You know, I don't want you seeing the airport necessarily where I'm at. You know, I don't want you seeing, you could say, well, but I want to see what's going on in your life. That's okay. Maybe I can show some elements, but I think it's also okay to say what I don't want to show. I think on some of these reflections, they can be quite personal. And so I think there is enough revealing in a way, or a certain level of intimacy that comes from just hearing audio only. You can listen to my voice. You can hear maybe some of the crickets or the creaks of the wood behind me. And you can get a sense of where I am without having to see it, without having to stare at a screen. I'm tired of staring at screens all day, and I think maybe you might be too. Now, I get annoyed because marketing this can be really hard when it's not so visual. We live in a visual world, and it's much easier to get clues about something when we can read it before we have to hear it. But anyways, this is just one example of doing what I want to do, not what I think other people want me to do. And I wonder what impact that'll have, not just on me, but on the work and actually on the growth of the work. Because let's take another example, emotional combat. Still, you know, Imoko, the name kind of rubs me back and forth. I don't know, but I don't care too much about the name if I'm focusing on just building different drills and skills and theory and principles on how to deal with emotional fitness, self-defense, repair, combat, like different exercises, scenarios, attack situations, et cetera, et cetera. If I focus on building that for me, which I've wanted to do for years, and just share it with other people in the way I want to share it, not having this big fancy website or having maybe having these long videos that are overproduced. Maybe it's just a website. Maybe it's a forum website where it's really easy for me to add new things to it. And I'm the one who's mostly adding the stuff. Maybe people can ask questions, but they're there to just read mostly and then maybe participate in a community of people who are trying to teach themselves. And here are some tools to teach yourself instead of me being the instructor with the big shirt coming up in front and saying, this is how I'm going to teach you because I have this many years experience. Maybe that's not what I want to do. I'm not saying it's not a way to do it. I'm not saying it's wrong to run classes of 10 to 20 people in person on a consistent basis. I'm not saying it's wrong to run classes online. I'm not saying it's wrong to have a structured system of like black belts or whatever. I don't think any of these things are wrong. It's asking, how do I or how do other people actually want to do it? What do we want to do?

I think that feels a bit liberating to me, that maybe, maybe, just maybe, if I do what I want to do, other people might want it more than I think they do. Some people have told me, hey, why'd you stop doing your podcast episodes? I'm like, hey, you listen to them?

And so it can be easy to forget that people are doing, you know, people, we can often want people to do the things that they want to do. And when they, when we are doing things that we want to do, we can light up and we can share a certain energy with the world that doesn't happen when we are doing things that we don't want to do. I remember when I first pitched Emotional Self-Defense back in the day to this one guy in Oakland, California. And I had respected that he was doing some really incredible work at Stanford and something called Touchy Feely or Interpersonal Dynamics. Really liked it. And I was talking about Emotional Self-Defense. And after about 30 minute conversation, he says, "Jim, I'm really excited about Emotional Self-Defense." I said, "Yeah, you are? He says, "I'm excited because I can tell you're excited."

Sometimes more often than not, this energy can be very infectious. So if I'm excited to do what I want to do, to record a DailyJim  episode Monday through Thursday, to build out this emōkō HQ, like to really push on this website design and this forum and come up with these different drills and practices and structure and stuff. Then maybe other people be like, oh, this is cool because I find it cool, because I find it motivating and exciting. So that's the reflection for today, thinking more about what do I actually want to do and do it and have faith that other people, whoever other people may want to do it more than I think they do, or may want me to do it that way more than I think they do. So on that note, I hope you enjoyed the episode and I, this is Thursday, so I hope to talk to you on Monday. Have a wonderful weekend wherever you are in the in the world. .