Mel Macintyre left her corporate lifestyle for a remote Scottish island. Did it help her?

Mel Macintyre has been a business coach for 25 years. She started her career at HSBC at 20 years and landed her dream job in 2011 as she joined the Edinburgh-based company Standard Life. She climbed the corporate ladder quite ambitiously.

On the outside, everything looked perfect, Mal told Business Insider. But on the inside, she struggled. She had this real feeling of making a bigger difference. Her job revolved around getting the best out of people, but only to help a company succeed.

Mal started feeling ‘inauthentic’. In 2014, she left her corporate job, gave up her flat and took a year out to travel. She came back 5 months later, feeling excited to start her coaching business and help business leaders find a more sustainable method to succeed.

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“Modern society has become disconnected from the land”

Mal Macintyre and her partner had a baby in 2018. They decided to permanently move to Eriskay, an island and community council area of the Outer Hebrides in Northern scotland. The place has a population of 143, as of the 2011 census.

In Eriskay, friends drop off lobster for free if they have caught too much, Mal said. Generally, the cost of groceries is higher on the island because they have further to travel. But people tend to spend less money here as there is nothing to spend it on.

“I feel like modern society has become disconnected from the land because so many of us are in the rat race in the city,” she told Business Insider. She said she has got one chance at life and that she doesn’t seek to spend it living to somebody else’s expectations.