Life's Golden Ticket: An Inspirational Novel » (Unabridged)

Brendon Burchard is a prominent life coach, leadership speaker, and change management consultant: his clients have included Fortune 500 companies, startups, nonprofits, universities, and thousands of individuals in seminars across the country. Brendon donates a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book to Kiwanis International, Junior Achievement, and the YMCA. He lives in Northern California but still calls Montana, where he grew up, home.

In this moving parable of personal growth and change, Burchard has created a rich, emotional journey of transformation that, by its end, readers feel like they can truly start their lives anew, as if they've received a "golden ticket"--a second chance at life.

Life's Golden Ticket tells the story of a man who is so trapped in the prisons of his past that he cannot see the possibilities, the choices, and the gifts he has right in front of him. At the behest of his fiancée, who is clinging to life in a hospital bed, he takes the envelope she hands him and makes his way to an old, abandoned amusement park to appease her delirious pleadings. But when he steps through the rusted entrance gates, the abandoned park magically comes to life.

He soon meets Harry, an old groundskeeper, and together they set out to uncover what happened to his fiancée Mary. Along the way, the narrator visits a number of caring yet confrontational park employees--a hypnotist, a fortune-teller...

Publishers Weekly

In his debut motivational novel, Burchard (The Student Leadership Guide) narrates a fantasy trip through a ghostly mountain amusement park that offers visitors a "golden ticket," or second chance at transforming their lives. The price of admission to the closed-down park, the narrator discovers, is to be open to possibility, face the truth and give up believing that change equals pain. He also must stick closely to his host, Henry, who serves as wise counselor ("let me reflect back to you what I've heard"). During the narrator's trip, he samples various amusement park rides (all with allegorical meaning) and revisits his past. Each carnie he meets is a motivational guide with spiritual wisdom to impart. The themes are familiar: risk change; forgive; take responsibility; be bold; contribute; look at the other person's point of view. A gimmicky addition: readers are invited to open an envelope (not seen by PW) attached to the inside back cover after completing the story. Burchard is a competent writer and full of earnest enthusiasm for his topic; the introduction tells of a real-life car accident a decade ago that served as a wake-up call and precipitated this fictional message. Readers dissatisfied with their lives but not wild about nonfictional self-help books may find inspiration for change here. (May)