ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: What they don't tell you about entrepreneurship | Mark Leruste | TEDxCardiff

ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: What they don't tell you about entrepreneurship | Mark Leruste | TEDxCardiff

Here’s Great Tip: What they don't tell you about entrepreneurship | Mark Leruste | TEDxCardiff


Here is Something You Should See…


Starting your own business will solve everything that’s wrong about your job, your life and more importantly, about how you feel. Becoming an entrepreneur will give you more flexibility, more freedom, more joy, more recognition, more meaning and hopefully on the long run, more money. Right?

The reality of being an entrepreneur is much harder than most people are willing to open up about. In a culture where successful entrepreneurs are idealised like rock stars it’s easy to feel like we’re not good enough when comparing ourselves to the picture that’s painted by social media.

Mark Leruste exposes the truth behind the life of the every-day entrepreneur and why it’s important that we talk openly and truthfully about the pressures and struggles associated with starting a business and what it actually feels like.

Finding your path isn’t always a straight line. It usually takes hits and misses and trying many things out. This is how it was for Mark, whose journey towards his dream career started when his video CV, ‘A dream job would be nice’, went viral on YouTube and helped him land a position as Country Manager at the Movember Foundation. There, Mark raised €2.8 million for men’s health and inspired 110,000 fundraisers to sign up at Movember.com, winning multiple awards along the way.

Four years into the job, it became clear that Mark couldn’t ignore his entrepreneurial itch anymore, which had been around since he was 12 years old. So, against conventional wisdom, he decided to turn his passion into his full-time job and took the plunge to found The Unconventionalists, a weekly podcast, talk show and coaching & training business helping organisations and individuals find their voice.

From making Nelson Mandela’s right hand man cry to asking Tim Ferris about his fear of failure, Mark is an expert at using his warm manner to tease out the truth & create moments of honesty.

To date, Mark has worked with hundreds of unfulfilled professionals and frustrated small business owners and has interviewed more than 200 world-class leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes, politicians, CEOs, authors and adventurers from around the world, providing him a ring side seat in understanding how ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things.

Visit www.markleruste.com or connect on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at

33 Replies to “ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: What they don't tell you about entrepreneurship | Mark Leruste | TEDxCardiff”

  1. I agree with this. Also I believe entrepreneurship has become so mainstream, entrepreneurs can profit off of entrepreneurship itself. Everyone is given a false impression that you will make it as an entrepreneur going to programs..programs for what? You’re stuck in training. Have you actually started selling something yet or have you been paying for courses. This is just like college except what you pay for now is going to someone’s business and not the government. If there’s anything I learned from school, don’t have people tell you to do your homework. You have to do your own research or else you’ll be paying someone to read books for you..something a majority of us can’t afford but is really convenient for the already rich. But of course you aren’t already rich if you’re looking into entrepreneurship.

  2. I started my software development business in December 2019, after working for 6,000 hours at my craft over the course of a year and a half starting in 2018 outside of working a fulltime job and being married…..I am still working almost 100 hours a week, and I’ve almost gotten to the point where I can quit my day job and do this fulltime

  3. You should leave your job after you make at least half the money in your business consistently and without working overtime. Go get your job back and do whatever business you are doing part time

  4. I know you must get this a lot Mark, but seriously this is one of the best videos about entrepreneurship on the web, I keep watching it over and over again when in need of answers and each time a get a different message, it never gets old. It takes a lot of self awareness to realize that it's a complicated journey and not only realize, but also embracing it. Congratulations on this excellent Talk, a lot of people talk about the DOs and DON'Ts but not everyone talks about what you actually have to go through and the feels. The first step for solving a problem, is recognizing there is one..

  5. Hey everyone, I’m currently trying to find out how one could make the lives of entrepreneurs a lot easier 😉

    Which is why I have two very simple questions:

    1. As an entrepreneur, what are the 2 biggest issues you’re dealing with when it comes to building a social life or social circle besides the business?

    2. Regarding your social circle, what would you wish for more than anything else?

    Thanks so much in advance – looking forward to reading your answers!

  6. Watching this after my first year as an entrepreneur of a mildly successful small business. I am watching this because I needed to know I couldn't be the only one exhausted, isolated and losing hair.
    Here's to business.

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