The Guru Burns Out

Mark Manson sold 12 million copies of his self-help hit. Then he started taking his own advice.

- By Benjamin Wallace

THE EMPEROR OF NO FUCKS WORE A MAROON T-SHIRT OVER HIS MESOMORPHIC FRAME. He had a light beard and a short ponytail, and he was wearing can headphones and clutching a microphone as he sat in front of a glass wall looking out on a line of wind-rustled trees in his sunny backyard. It was 11 in the morning here in Los Angeles on a Sunday in late May, but Mark Manson’s students had logged on from time zones around the world (Berlin, Capetown, the United Arab Emirates, Winnipeg, India) for the latest webinar from his Subtle Art School (“More life lived, fewer fucksgiven”), itself a brand extension of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, one of the top-ten-selling books of the past decade.