Free Life's Golden Ticket by Brendon Burchard Page A

we need to go back to the booths so you can hear a few voices screaming at you?”
    â€œNo.” I shook my head vigorously. “No.”
    â€œOkay,” Henry said gently. “Think about it. Do you ever hear a negative voice in the back of your head?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œClose your eyes. What does it say?”
    I closed my eyes and thought for a moment. I heard a soft but insistent voice in my head, repeating all the same themes from my life: “Be careful, the world is dangerous. . . . Don’t trust anyone. . . . Stay out of people’s way. . . . You’re an idiot, a pest. . . . You’re not good enough. . . . You’re a real jerk.” A sea of negative voices washed over my mind.
    Henry nodded. “Yep, you can hear them too. And they always talk to you at the least opportune moment—when you’re about to try something new or when you’re falling in love.”
    â€œHow do I make them stop?” I asked.
    â€œYou tell me. If you could have sat down with Mary after she heard all those voices and ran away crying, what would you have said to her?”
    â€œI’d tell her not to listen to them. I’d tell her to argue with them or tune them out. I’d tell her that her mom and dad were just reacting to the situation, that they didn’t mean to blame her. I’d tell her that it wasn’t her fault. I’d tell her that in school sometimes people say mean things about us and we can’t get stuck on them. I’d tell her that her ex-fiancé was a fool and she should forget about him. I’d tell her that I . . .”
    Henry looked at me patiently.
    â€œ. . . that I didn’t mean to be such an awful jerk and a fool too.”
    â€œYou think you behaved that way to her?”
    I lowered my head. “Just like her ex.”
    Henry leaned in close. “Why do you think you acted that way to her?”
    â€œI don’t know. I didn’t know about her past. I didn’t know my words would hurt her like that. I don’t know what I was thinking or doing. I just wasn’t paying attention.”
    â€œAh,” Henry sighed. “Then I know just the person we need to visit next.”

8
THE HYPNOTIST
    H enry and I walked down the midway. The smells of hamburgers and pretzels and pizza and cotton candy wafted from the food huts crammed tightly on either side. I was too sick to my stomach over the things I had said to Mary to feel any hunger.
    At one end, the midway opened into a wide grassy field, with little tents full of trinkets for sale dotting its perimeter. In the middle of the field sat a stage and two sets of bleachers. Recorded music bellowed from speakers on either side of the stage. When a man wearing jeans and a red T-shirt hopped onstage and announced that the show was about to begin, people browsing among the tents ambled over toward the bleachers.
    â€œAre we going to watch a show?” I asked Henry.
    â€œNo,” he replied. “You’re going to be in it.”

    I stood outside a tent to the left of the stage while Henry chased down the man in the jeans and T-shirt. When they returned, Henry took my elbow and, without a word, walked me into the tent, whichwas bare except for a dark, elderly man, Indian perhaps, sitting on a metal folding chair. He wore a red embroidered waistcoat with a long, loose, collarless dress shirt underneath. His pajama-style white trousers were hiked up to reveal red embroidered shoes to match the waistcoat. His gray hair was cut short, and he was clean-shaven. He sat with his eyes closed, drawing in deep breaths.
    â€œHarsh?” Henry whispered.
    The man didn’t respond.
    â€œHarsh?” he said again. “Harsh the Hypnotist, I have an assistant for you.”
    The man opened his eyes and looked up at us. When he seemed to recognize Henry, his eyes opened wider.
    â€œ Henry? Is that you, old man?” he said, his inflection rising with obvious