Canadian motivates others to improve their lives

Keenan Joseph posts motivational content. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Keenan Joseph elevates others through content that causes positive change.

The Canadian explained the purpose of his YouTube channel.

“My content is really made to inspire overall,” he said. “The most effective thing that helped me get out of this crazy rut in my life of maybe seven, eight years is finding someone that resonated with me, that I connected with and consuming their content. I'm trying to make my own content in that way for people who resonate with myself, which will then eventually lead to stuff like mindset coaching, fitness coaching.”

Keenan, 22, of Southern Ontario already was helping people he knew.

“I know a lot about weight training and I really love teaching,” he said. “I teach all my friends how to do it, so that is really what it is. So I'm just here to try to inspire and change positively.”

Keenan selects topics he cares about.

“I know a lot of people go online and use applications like vidIQ or they see what's trending,” he said. “But I think the most effective way to make valuable content is just talk about what resonates with you in the moment. I don't really know what's trending. I don't really know what people even want to see. I just talk about what I can most effectively talk about in the moment.”

Keenan’s routine was impeded by injury, using crutches for a while.

“I sprained my ankle really badly,” he said. “It's a grade 2 or grade 3. But I go pretty aggressive because I find I'm closest with God or the universe when I'm doing something difficult. I get up at 4:25 and I have light therapy. I have a cold shower and then I come back and I work until breakfast. I work after breakfast. Usually at around 3 or 4 p.m., I'll lift weights. I have adjustable dumbbells and a bench in my room so I can do it more effectively. After that, I'll usually take one of the stationary bikes and drag it outside. But then after, I'll have another cold shower and then I'll just work the rest of the day.”

Keenan started self-improvement with physical fitness.

“I've already built a lot of muscle when I was obsessed in that high school state where you're just worried about packing on muscle, eating as much as possible and lifting optimally,” he said. “But now I'm at the point where instead of being more of a physical activity, it's shifting more towards a mental activity.”

Keenan said embarking on self-improvement was inevitable.

“I feel it's always been a part of my identity,” he said. “Maybe because my family life was abnormal and I use the self-improvement stuff online to get me out of it. I tried improving through gym. The most common rut I see people in now is they do self-improvement, but the self-improvement ends at just going to the gym because most people actually enjoy working out. It's probably the easiest part of it for high schoolers now with how glamorized it is.”

Once Keenan realized there’s much more to self-improvement, he desired to help others do the same.

“I felt this overwhelming urge,” he said. “Once I did get out of the rut of self-improvement, I felt the urge I got to get other people out of it. That's my purpose. I think about it all the time. I dream about it.”

Keenan said a vital aspect of having a good mindset is not allowing problems, including an ankle sprain, to feel overwhelming.

“I genuinely thought how blessed am I to be given an obstacle to overcome that'll make me be able to relate with people more and elevate them higher,” he said. “People pray for strength and then curse the world for getting problems. The biggest mindset switch was just how blessed am I to have problems. Life wouldn't have a purpose if we didn't have problems to overcome.”

Keenan experienced many problems facing other young people today.

“I've been blessed to have pretty much every single problem ever,” he said. “When I say problem, I mean every sort of personal challenge with binge eating, with not working out, with being unmotivated, with doing poorly in school. I've been blessed to struggle with every facet of self-improvement.”

Keenan started content creation knowing many people’s attitudes are bad.

“The overall issue is seeing how weak people are and how negative they are around me, especially when we're forced to be around these people in high school,” he said. “I set out to improve wholly with your relationship with God, with your habits. The main issue I want to talk about is just being as good as possible.”

Keenan’s content has a target audience.

“I don't make my videos to connect with everyone,” he said. “I make them to resonate with people who are in the position I was in. I remember someone commented on one of my videos: it's weird that you think everyone would want to be like you or would want to be on this path. My response was: that's like going on a cooking YouTube channel and saying you really think everyone wants to cook an omelet? People, hopefully, find my channel because they want to lead this life and they resonate with me.”

Keenan helps anyone, but has a mission to help young men.

“Specifically masculine improvement,” he said. “Even though, ironically, the first person who I really strongly affected in person was actually a female. But I do sort of seek out to connect with a younger me.”

Keenan said part of his journey is stronger faith.

“I make my videos towards a specific person,” he said. “I make it towards the person who wants to be close with God. I've more recently identified it personally as Jesus, the Roman Catholic God. I don't shy behind that. I wouldn't deny my faith. So I'm talking specifically to people who want to be with that God and everything that goes along with that.”

Keenan has no issue with males who choose not to be masculine.

“I would say that for the people who don't want to be totally masculine, you can find someone else to resonate with,” he said. “Personally, I want to resonate with those people who want to be wholly masculine.”

Keenan said real masculinity is not being a bully and/or violent.

“Part of being masculine is not doing that stuff and having emotional control and being dependable and being resourceful,” he said. “I think masculinity is important. I speak with people who want to strive and achieve masculine excellence is the term I used to use.”

Keenan said being masculine with a mature mindset is a positive attribute.

“People will sometimes say that you are being oppressive in some way,” he said. “Women are powerful enough and are strong enough to be able to choose who they want to be with. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I'm just trying to find someone to match my energy.”

Keenan developed a coaching program to help others.

“I was struggling to create my offer for one-on-one coaching since the available software on the market was not very good, so I spent a ton of time working on a custom and exclusive one-on-one client dashboard that is truly better than anything else on the market,” he said. “I have even been using myself for the last two months to track my own goals, weight, habits, etc. It works on desktop and mobile, and I am immensely proud of it.”

“I was definitely really nervous. It was hard at first to talk with a camera, but now I'm at the point where I can just talk as if there was someone in front of me and it is just me.”

Keenan works out to stay fit as part of self-improvement.

Keenan wants to expand his reach.

“My long-range goal is to set up an online community where people grow,” he said. “People don't pay for fitness coaches because they have info. They pay for it because the mindset rubs off on them. I've finally built this character, which was proven when I helped my one friend, that I have a character that is contagious, that can elevate people.”

Keenan initially felt trepidation about recording himself.

“The current videos I have up right now is when I successfully finished killing off my previous self and being reborn through Christ,” he said. “But there are three or four months where I didn't show my face. It was because I was scared of failure. I was definitely really nervous. It was hard at first to talk with a camera, but now I'm at the point where I can just talk as if there was someone in front of me and it is just me.”

Keenan wants to dispel people’s negativity.

“The biggest problem is they're all negative,” he said. “They all give up too easily, and they're all together and they all feed off each other.”

“I make the offer, and then it’s up to them to stop flailing, open their eyes, find my hand and grab it.”

Keenan cited the impact negative people have on others, such as a friend of his.

“I knew that he was being influenced negatively by other people,” Keenan said. “I talked to God and I was saying, I'm so sorry that I stopped spending time with him. I just want to serve my purpose, please. I was able to see him and we talked for a bit. I asked them if he wanted to talk more in my room and he said, no, they're going to go talk with someone else. This other person was one of the people who are more negative.”

Keenan felt like he failed.

“I was praying that God give me one more chance because I know I'm ready,” he said. “I just need one more opportunity. And then I said maybe I'll go to bed. And then right then when I checked my phone, he messaged and said he would talk. Through some divine energy or something, I was able to perfectly weave this two-hour conversation that turned out great. And now I eat three meals a day with them. I teach them how to work out every day.”

Keenan said reaching out to that friend paid dividends.

“What they are right now is someone I've never ever seen them be,” he said. “I used to think they were cold, but they were just depressed.”

Keenan wants his career path to impact others.

“When I charge for a course, it's not because I have this crazy intellect,” he said. “I'm going to charge so that they can have repeated exposure to me and it can help them as it helped my friend, as it helped pretty much everyone around me.”

Keenan acknowledged not everyone can be helped.

“I always thought of it as you're looking down at a pool of people and they're drowning,” he said. “If they're flailing, if you jump in after someone who's just flailing, they're just going to grab your ankle, they're going to grab your wrist, and they're just going to pull you down with them. So I put out my arm from a safe distance, I make the offer, and then it's up to them to stop flailing, open their eyes, find my hand and grab it.”

Keenan isn’t bashful about his religious faith even though it’s disparaged in some quarters of society.

“The thing that really cemented that was when I was able to successfully elevate my friend who was in the trenches,” he said. “It was November 26. That was the most significant day of my entire life without a shadow of doubt. That was the day that I knew God was real. I'm not going to deny my faith. That would be unchristian.”

Keenan stays motivated.

“It all comes from internal and my relationship with the universe,” he said. “I feel blessed because I'm able to take whatever enters my mind and transmute it.”

Keenan isn’t discouraged by negative feedback to his plans.

“I'm grateful for all this because it made me be more resilient and it made me have to derive my motivational internally, which made me develop a relationship with God,” he said. “It was all a big blessing. I was given all these challenges and I was put in that big rut of self-improvement and I kept breaking promise after promise to myself. It was a big beautiful stepping stone to be being able to better serve other people.”

Keenan is motivated to be disciplined.

“I like this one quote that about discipline where discipline is having so much belief in the importance of your actions that the rest of the world feels like an unnecessary distraction,” he said. “I resonate with that a lot. I'm not disciplined because I want to be a sigma male or an alpha chad that takes cold showers and does all this hard stuff because I'm a man. I do it because I have a purpose and I want to be closer with God and I want to help people.”

Keenan said those wishing to start self-improvement need to align how they think.

“I like to split up sort of the way your brain operates into your paradigm, which is how your brain operates and views the world into your mindset and your beliefs,” he said. “If your mindset and your beliefs were dialed in, you would be a totally different person. You could be the same person with the same set of circumstances. Just swap out the brain and everything's different. You just view everything differently.”

Keenan said self-improvement begins with finding another who sets a good example.

“You have to start consuming content of someone who resonates with you,” he said. “To get that mindset where instead of thinking about the most recent funny video you watch or randomly having these useless thoughts into your mind when it's silent, you have thoughts of improvement and thoughts that are conducive to having a good mindset.”

Keenan said the ensuing results will be beneficial.

“Hearing these people talk reaffirms the beliefs you should have and crushes your limiting beliefs,” he said. “If you just surround yourself with people who are actually on the same path of self-improvement, find them online. You find someone that resonates with you, try to adopt their mindset through listening to their videos, try to adopt the beliefs they have, develop a relationship with the universe, which I think is best done through hard effort. That's what self-improvement is.”

Keenan said people then have to act.

“You can't think your way out of a hole,” he said. “Eventually you're going to have to take the uncomfortable step of doing something, doing an action and just work on something, anything. I'm still every day trying to refine that concept, trying to better understand it so I can better help others.”

Keenan’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KeenanJK/featured

Kennan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keenan.jk/