Meet Hal Mackenzie

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hal Mackenzie. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hal below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Hal with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

100% my dad. I often think about where I got my work ethic and discipline from. Because it really is my superpower and the primary reason behind any success I’ve had so far in my life and all the future success I will have. But at the same time I’m not sure how much credit I can really give myself for possessing it. I was born with it, or at minimum developed it at a very young age from observing my dad. My dad is one of the best doctors in the world – he’s been a general internist and rheumatologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC for 40 years. For as long as I can remember he was always up at 4:30 AM for work and got home around 8-9 at night, often working the weekends too. With that said he somehow still managed to be very present throughout my entire upbringing. He was right there with my mom at all my hockey games and helped drive me to numerous obscure ice rinks all over the northeast US every weekend. He was able to do it (and is still able to do it – still working his butt off and loving it at 74 years old) because he loves what he does. So he also serves as a great example that if you find something you truly love doing, it won’t even feel like hard work, because you enjoy it. I am rarely the smartest guy in the room. But I know that once I commit to something, there is no one that will work harder than me to achieve it. And therefore I can accomplish anything under the right timeline. I owe that all to my dad. It’s ingrained in my DNA because of him.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Health Coaching with Hal became a business about a year and a half ago after going through a couple prior iterations and being a concept for a while before that. Like many people in the health and wellness space, it all started with my own personal transformation. Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I had no structure to my eating habits, drank way too much, and let the lifestyle temptations of living in NYC get the best of me. But man I had fun. And plenty of amazing things occurred during that period. I solidified friendships for life, spent quality time with all 3 of my siblings, and met my wife. There are zero regrets – I dominated that era and it’s all part of the journey. And I also found a way to keep it all together. I continued to execute at a very high level at some of the most reputable financial institutions in the world, and never missed a professional or social commitment. I lived according to the classic work hard / play hard lifestyle.

With that said, from a health perspective I “peaked” at 242 pounds around August 2020, at which point I concluded it was time for a change. Was there a specific moment that triggered the realization? Yes there was. I’d spent two consecutive weekends at home with my parents which included some beach time, and I woke up Monday morning with a text from my Mom. In the nicest, most mom-like text humanly possible, because my mom is the kindest soul in the world, the text effectively said, “Hal, you’re fat, and you need to clean it up.” It was such a shock to the system, but it was so true. Weight gain happens slowly over the course of months and years. Since you see yourself every day, you often don’t notice it, and most people around you are too nice to say anything. Thank God my mom said what needed to be said.

I’ll fast forward a bit here, but over the course of the next couple years I tried everything in the book to get back in shape. It was a long, winding road, but I eventually figured it out, losing over 70 pounds and keeping it off. Some stuff worked, but not always for the reasons I thought, and other stuff did not. I learned so much along the way, kept track of everything, and started transferring that knowledge to friends and family. I unlocked the power of nutrition and developed a deep passion for it that will remain for the rest of my life.

Towards the end of the fat loss part of the journey, I came across health coaching as a profession. Similar to my mom’s text, it was a very pivotal moment which I remember vividly. I recall being simultaneously frustrated and excited upon this discovery. Frustrated because if I’d only known that health coaching existed as a profession I would have absolutely hired one one during my journey and saved a lot of time effort, and money. Excited because I knew I was going to become one and this would be the start of something big for me. I still believe health coaching is one of the most important services available that no one knows about. I believe there will come a time where just like everyone has a doctor, everyone will have a health coach. They should go together hand in hand.

So I enrolled to receive a Health and Nutrition Coaching certification from the Primal Health Coach Institute in early 2022. After receiving my certification later in the year, I continued transferring knowledge to people via my website and blog and helping those around me in an ad hoc fashion. I slowly started building confidence in my ability to help others, and after helping a friend of mine lose 30 pounds in 80 days, I knew I was onto something. I eventually developed real structure and service to my health coaching program, obtained my first paying client in July 2023, and haven’t looked back since.

I’ve had 20-25 clients in a 1:1 health coaching relationship since then, all on the side while continuing to move up the ranks of Corporate America. As for my finance career, I work at an absolutely amazing company with a great culture, great boss, and great coworkers. But working in finance and corporate America is not what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. I’ve always had this feeling that I’m supposed to do something extraordinary with my professional life, and I believe I am on track now. I am going to figure out how to transition out of a very comfortable, well paying career that most people would settle for to build my own company that provides much less certainty but much more impact (at least to me). I’ve helped dozens of men lose 500 pounds and counting already, and I’m just getting started.

Here’s a great example of the impact and fulfillment in my life that I am chasing.

What was the most rewarding part of my work week? My childhood friend and current client Pete hit 10 pounds down after ~3 months of hard work and dedication. I received the text from him during my miserable Tuesday morning commute into the office. My excitement was uncontainable – almost caused a scene on the bus. When I got to work I then plugged into an hour of excruciatingly boring calls. But every time I felt myself getting frustrated, I thought about Pete and what a great day he was having as a result of that well-deserved weigh in. And while I give full credit to Pete, I also know I played a part of it. I’m making a real, tangible difference in a real person’s life. I’m helping someone get healthier so he can live a long, active life with his newborn baby boy and wife. So I need to continue chasing those moments and experiences. I do not know for sure where it all leads, but I know the more of those experiences I can be part of, the closer I am getting to wherever it is that I need to be. Put your head down and keep grinding, Hal. Your hard work will eventually be rewarded. It always is. You just can’t give up. Keep changing lives and the rest will fall into place.

From a certification standpoint, I recently received a Personal Trainer Certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and am excited to build out more personal training features into my business. I am also studying to receive a Nutrition Coaching Certification from NASM, as well as a Pre and Post Natal Nutrition Coaching Certification from the Clean Health Institute (baby girl on the way in August!!!).

From the business perspective, in addition to my 1:1 coaching for which I anticipate bringing on several new clients throughout the year, I am also focused on rolling out some other product offerings. In the very near future I will be creating a Health Coaching with Hal Skool Group, which will be an online community platform that will grant exclusive access to various health coaching services and resources within a community of like minded individuals. I am also launching a Health Coaching with Hal Meal Planning app that will be customized to an individual’s dietary preferences, personal routine, and body composition goals.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I’ll highlight one quality: delayed gratification, one skill: application, and one area of knowledge: nutrition.

The older I get the more I realize delayed gratification is the key to success in life. It applies to your health – losing fat and building muscle takes months and years of consistent dedication to reach an elite level. But if you’re willing to trust the process and put in the work consistently without the expectation of an immediate reward, you will eventually get there. It applies to your finances as well. Can you resist the temptation to spend that end of year bonus on flashy material possessions and instead invest it in boring index funds which will allow it to compound over time? Are you willing to put in hours of work on your side hustle business during mornings, nights, and weekends with seemingly zero progress or recognition while everyone else is sleeping, watching Netflix, or partying? Or if you hold a corporate position, are you willing to perform at a high level for multiple years in a row before expecting that promotion? If you can master the ability to not need an immediate reward for your actions, you will be successful in life. Because if you put in the work over a long enough period, success is inevitable.

An important skill I have developed is the ability to teach real life application within my coaching business. That is the gap in the nutrition and fitness space. While it can be hard to navigate what’s real and what’s fake, all the education and information you need is available for free on the internet. But how to actually apply it to your day to day life and tackle real life scenarios? That’s where the power of a health coach comes into play – especially one who transformed his health living the same exact lifestyle as you. A nutritionist might provide a lot of generic advice like “how to build the perfect plate” or “eat three servings of fruit and vegetables per day”. What about that holiday party at Cipriani on Wednesday night or your week long business trip to London where you’ll be eating out and drinking beers at pubs every night? Cool no problem we can tackle all of that.

I live the NYC lifestyle. I have a very demanding job in corporate America. I love beer as much as the next guy (probably more) . I have a lotta friends and family that I love spending time with. And I still lost ~70 pounds, got jacked, and built a new identity while not giving up all those things. I’ve lived both lives to the fullest and I can tell you from direct experience that the healthier approach is 10x better. And I am proof that it is possible to be a slobby mess OR in elite physical shape within the same exact lifestyle. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s simply a choice you can make. It’s not genetics or your “busy” schedule that is holding you back. It’s simply a lack of prioritization and systems in your life that are holding you back. I can help guide you through the transformation if you’d like. That relatability is what draws people to my brand.

In terms of an area of knowledge that has been most impactful to my journey, the answer is definitely nutrition. I’d go as far to say that nutrition is potentially the most under focused area within American society. Think about all the pointless stuff you learn in school growing up. Our classrooms are packed with completely useless and impractical topics like photosynthesis and the War of 1812. If you’re genuinely interested in those things that’s cool, but for most of us, who cares? And yet no one is taught one of the most important things out there – how to eat properly – a skill that will literally make you live a longer life full of higher quality years. What is more important than that? Nothing. And when you combine the lack of education with all the misinformation that’s out there in the health and wellness space, it becomes such a hard area to navigate. You are not taught the foundational principles in our education system, and then you are often taught the wrong things to do on social media. This is why nutrition coaches are so important. If you’re not where you want to be health-wise, the first place you should look is your nutrition, but few people do.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

I’ll start this response by stating I have not even come close to mastering this. Managing my overwhelm and anxiety has become a big focus in my life. Over the last couple years, I quickly developed this increased level of urgency to figure out how to make my professional life more fulfilling, which has led me to building the health coaching business and trying to figure out how to transition to it full time while managing the burnout from my Corporate job (which again, I am very lucky to have). The route I have chosen (building my business on the side) is going to take time, there is no other way around it, but my deep obsession to figure it out often leads to anxiety and overwhelm. So therefore I have put in some effort to try to manage it, and the most effective strategy I have utilized is reframing. I recently wrote an article to my email list on a similar topic, so I have included it below:

“In 1917 there was an 18 year old boy in Kentucky who fell off his horse and broke his leg.

Two weeks later the draft was instated by the U.S. government for WWI.

The boy was excluded from the draft due to injury.

The broken leg likely saved the boy’s life.”

There are many things in life that are undeniably bad to which I’d never pretend you can apply this psychological reframe that I’ll be writing about today.

But there are some very impactful mental exercises you can go through to alter your mood while in an undesirable state.

Here’s an insane reality to keep in mind: today, in the present world we live in, almost 50 MILLION people across the globe are trapped in slavery. No idea how that’s possible.

So if we keep this exercise focused on small day to day things that often cause frustration (Wifi not working, sitting in traffic, being in the only seat on the entire plane with a tv that doesn’t work), there’s almost no real reason to ever get worked up on a relative basis.

But just like anyone else, I of course often get angry and frustrated about the DUMBEST things.

I went to the DMV this past Friday. Horrific experience. Take every DMV cliche you can think of and multiply it by 10.

Stay as far away as physically possible from the Bayonne, NJ Department of Motor Vehicles. I’d avoid Bayonne entirely, in fact. Never going back there.

During our 2.5 hour “nightmare” where Amy and I were trying to get NJ licenses and our car registered in New Jersey, I got incredibly frustrated. Basically foaming at the mouth.

But at one point during my peak internal fury, I tried to take a step back and recalibrate my mental state.

And you know what I did? I thought about the slaves.

I said to myself:

“You seriously need to relax Hal. What you’re experiencing is not even close to a real problem. In fact, you should be embarrassed that you’re complaining about this at all given the very real problems other people are going through. You’re at the DMV right now because you need to get your car registered in New Jersey so you can get preferential parking near the beautiful new condo you just bought in Hoboken. Talk about first world problems. There are 50 million living people in the world entrapped in slavery, and you’re the one angry right now? You should actually be ashamed of yourself.”

The ending was a little harsh – no need to be that hard on yourself.

I’m not gonna pretend this exercise fully reset my mental state, but it helped a bit.

My frustration level de-escalated from a 10 to about an 8 I’d say. That’s not bad, I’ll take it.

But the next time it happens, maybe I’ll get down to a 6. Or maybe since I’m training my mind to start thinking this way, I won’t let myself get to a 10 in the first place.

But I didn’t stop there. I continued this line of thinking and asked myself if there was a way to turn the current situation into a positive.

And while thinking about that, inspiration for this email struck me all at once, and here I am now writing it a couple days later.

So my terrible DMV experience provided direct inspiration for my weekly email, inspiration that I sometimes have difficulty finding.

And since I jotted down some notes and technically did some work while there – I think that means I can write off my gas mileage to and from the DMV as a business expense?

Wow, I just banked two quick W’s right there.

The WWI example above also demonstrates how there can be a delayed positive that comes out of a situation.

In the moment, breaking your leg is without question a horrible experience. But only a couple days later, it was the best “break” of that boy’s life.

I’m fully aware you can only take this exercise so far.

But the next time you start getting angry or frustrated about a small, day to day item, think about the slaves. Or the boy who broke his leg during WWI.

I bet it calms you down a bit.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.halthehealthcoach.com
• Instagram: @hal_the_health_coach
• Facebook: Hal MacKenzie