There’s a certain irony in the world of self-help—a world built on confidence, success, and the promise that you too can “manifest” your dream life. Behind the perfectly lit YouTube videos and booming conference speeches, some of the loudest voices in personal development have faced financial chaos of their own. The gurus who once sold thousands of copies of “abundance mindset” books quietly found themselves deep in debt, filing for bankruptcy, and doing everything possible to keep it under wraps.
It turns out, even those who preach prosperity aren’t immune to the pitfalls of poor money management. Let’s pull back the curtain on nine self-help figures who fell from financial grace—and what their stories reveal about the darker side of chasing “success.”
