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. His job is passionless and his relationship with Mary, his fiancée, is falling apart. His reality doesn’t change until a dramatic event forces him onto a journey of personal transformation.

 

After a heated argument about the sorrowful state of their lives, Mary mysteriously disappears. When she turns up forty days later, clinging to life in a hospital bed after having been hit by a truck on a deserted mountain road, his adventure begins.

 

Mary reveals that she went to an abandoned amusement park, where a series of strange experiences changed her. As her final wish, she begs her fiancé to take a bloodied envelope from her jacket, go to the park, and experience the things that happened to her.

 

Though he believes she is delirious, he promises to honor her wish and travels to the park to bury the envelope as a symbolic good-bye. But when he steps through the sagging, rusted entrance gates, the abandoned park magically comes to life.

 

He soon meets a series of guides – a park groundskeeper, a hypnotist, an elephant trainer, a fortune teller, a strong man – who teach him about awareness, acceptance, accountability and action through inspirational metaphors and age-old insights about life and love. In the remarkable events that follow, he must answer difficult questions, overcome obstacles, listen to lessons from those wiser than he, and—toughest of all—take a good hard look at himself. Ultimately, he has a number of miraculous insights into why his life has become stagnant, what happened to Mary while at the park, and what lies within her mysterious envelope.

 

Reminiscent of the soul-stirring mystery in The Alchemist and the heart-warming magic of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, this is an inspirational novel readers will want to share with their friends and family for generations to come.

Read reviews or join in the discussion on Brendon's blog.

New!  Download DISCUSSION GUIDE here!

Chapter Titles and Lessons

Chapter One: The Envelope
For most of us, personal growth begins only when we lose someone…or ourselves.

Chapter Two: Admission Charges
If we want to improve our lives, we’ve got to pay the price of change.

Chapter Three: The Truth Booth
We can’t change what we don’t acknowledge; facing the truth about our lives is always the turning point.

Chapter Four: The Staging Tent
Society has brainwashed us into thinking that there is more wrong with is than there is right; the journey of transformation begins when we stop fixating on our vices and weaknesses and start focusing on our virtues and strengths.

Chapter Five: The Ferris Wheel
Sometimes we lose perspective in our lives because we aren’t viewing our story from a higher vantage point.

Chapter Six: The Park’s Theme
The themes that have woven through our life’s story can help explain why we think and behave the way we do.

Chapter Seven: The Screaming Carnie
We all have disempowering voices looping in our head – silencing them is vital to our mental health.

Chapter Eight: The Hypnotist’s Secret
To become our ideal, we have to consciously monitor and manage our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Chapter Nine: The Elephant’s Leash
Dwelling on the negative events of the past only prevents us from roaming freely in the present.

Chapter Ten: The Pirate Ship
To rediscover our authentic selves, we have to drop our shields and swords (our defenses).

Chapter Eleven: The Merry-Go-Round
Most of us read our personal history as if it were a tragedy, forgetting the positive and beautiful moments in our past that have made our lives a triumphant example to others.

Chapter Twelve: The House of Mirrors
To grow, we must face ourselves as-is, as who we are today, not as who we once were or desire to be.

Chapter Thirteen: The Livestock Pavilion
Our drive to fit in and be accepted often leads us into a stifling cage of conformity.

Chapter Fourteen: The Bumper Boats
On this ride called life, we are either spinning in one place because of our fear of bumping into other people or we are charting our own course and boldly sailing into the future.

Chapter Fifteen: The Loop-de-Loop
Our lives often fall off-track or become boring when we fail to communicate and commit to our true ambitions.

Chapter Sixteen: The Fortune Teller’s Clues
Our future is only as real as we envision it to be; we must work doggedly day-by-day in order to achieve it.

Chapter Seventeen: The Tight Rope
To achieve our greatest goals, we must take step-after-step without fear of falling.

Chapter Eighteen: The Lion Tamer
We should never turn our back on fear or it will consume us; look fear dead in the eye and demand its obedience.

Chapter Nineteen: The Strong Man
We each have more strength and potential than most people could ever imagine; thus, we must work hard to ensure that other’s views of who we are and what we are capable of do not control our lives.

Chapter Twenty: The Center Ring
Life is not about getting, it’s about giving; it’s not about competing, it’s about contributing; it’s not about winning the applause, it’s about putting others in the spotlight.

Chapter Twenty-One: The Last Ride
In the final seconds of our lives a series of scenes will flash before our eyes—moments in our lifetime when we were surrounded by love. If that’s true, why not live life so that the last movie we see on earth is a stirring, unrepentant epic of joy and love?

Chapter Twenty-Two: Opening the Envelope
We were all given a golden ticket at birth, a pass to unlimited possibility that we can redeem over-and-over again at any moment in our lives. The ticket came with a secret message – discover the message for yourself in the last few pages.