Mark Scott is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Bella & Duke, and now building Torus Tree: a man who left school with no qualifications, spent years selling door-to-door out of a bag, and only found out at nearly fifty why none of that early failure to "keep up" was ever about intelligence.

He was taken from his mother at four, raised by his grandparents, and diagnosed dyslexic only last year — after a childhood of being called dumb, distracted, a daydreamer.

He built Bella & Duke into one of the UK's top 100 fastest-growing companies, sparked by nothing more than reading the ingredients list on a bag of dog food and refusing to accept the answer.

But that's only part of the story. What this conversation gets into is what happened before any of that: the version of Mark who, in his early forties, stopped sleeping, started shaking, and told his business partner he was done.

He describes it without softening it — a storm-felled tree in his front garden that he went out and chopped, day after day, not for exercise but because he needed a reason to get up. Looking back now, he doesn't call it burnout. He calls it "full-blown darkness".

He rebuilt from there, and when Bella & Duke hit its own pressure point, a fast-growing company navigating COVID and a factory that couldn't afford to shut, he didn't repeat the collapse. Not because the stress was smaller, but because, this time, he'd built the tools to carry it.

In this episode:

• Being taken from his mother at four and raised by his grandparents
• Growing up undiagnosed dyslexic, and only finding out last year
• Leaving school with no qualifications (highest grade: a D)
• Learning to sell door-to-door out of a bag at 20
• The moment his body forced him to stop: no sleep, shaking, quitting at 40
• Chopping down a storm-felled tree every day, and calling that period "suicidal dark"
• The idea for Bella & Duke, sparked by reading a dog food label
• Building Bella & Duke into a top-100 fastest-growing UK company
• Navigating a second high-stress period during COVID, without repeating the collapse
• A week at Dan Peña's castle, and what he took from it versus what he rejected
• Breaking generational trauma, and identifying which wounds are actually his
• Why he now works as a coach and mentor through Torus Tree

About The Burnout Files

Hosted by John Glover. Every episode explores the side of entrepreneurship that doesn't make the highlight reel: the setbacks, the sacrifices, and the very human stories behind building something from nothing.

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About Mark Scott

Mark Scott is the co-founder of Bella & Duke, the raw and natural pet food company he built from a door-to-door pitch into one of the UK's fastest-growing businesses.

He is now building Torus Tree, a venture focused on community and entrepreneur support in Perthshire. Undiagnosed dyslexic through his entire school career, he left with no formal qualifications and built his career instead on sales, instinct, and, as he puts it, learning everything the hard way.

Follow Mark Scott on LinkedIn