EXCERPT: 'How to Rule the World from Your Couch'

Read an excerpt from Laura Day's new book.

ByABC News via logo
September 28, 2009, 2:27 PM

Oct. 6, 2009— -- Laura Day's new book, "How to Rule the World from Your Couch," shows you and your company how to use intuition to produce successful solutions. Many exercises can be done right on the couch. Learn how to secure your ideal job, find your dream mate, maintain relationships at a distance, lose weight, make wiser investments, relate to your child and more.

Day, author of "Practical Intuition," has helped people from various fields tap into the power of intuition. Some of her clients are financial investors, scientists, celebrities and doctors.

After reading the excerpt below, head to the "GMA" Library to find more good reads.

How to Rule the World from Your Couch is meant to inspireyou to be fully aware, conscious, active, dynamic, andalive in every single moment of your life. Much of this can bedone in total comfort, from wherever you want to be and withthe people you want to be with, as you move through what weall know as "normal life." The "normal life" you want. You donot have to be full of get-up-and-go to have success, find love,or earn a living. There are tools, innate tools that permit you todo much of the heavy lifting without your feet even touchingthe floor.

For more than twenty years, I have used and taught thesetools to make businesses stronger, to help people find love, healtheir own bodies, communicate with loved ones from afar, talkto their children when their children were unwilling to listen,to make better decisions to change the future in the immediatepresent, and to help people understand how to create their owndreams. Some of these dreams seemed impossible to achieve atthe outset. From challenges such as these, techniques were developedto create dazzling results in less time with less work. AsI will explain, most of the techniques can be initiated from yourcouch—by using every human being's ability to utilize the commonfield in which we all live to transmit and receive informationand motivation and to build a reality that others share. In thesepages are the compiled experiences of what works. Many of thesepractices will not fit into your concept of reality. Try them first,and then judge for yourself. Good scientists are always skeptics,but they do not allow their skepticism to keep them fromcommitting 100 percent to a hypothesis. Commit yourself 100percent for the length of a single exercise, and then, like a goodscientist, document everything. You will be astounded by theresults that you are able to create.

Living as we do in a culture of "experts," my greatest pleasureis to make you become your own best expert. In doing so, youalso become an expert for your families, friends, companies, andculture. Pardon the cliché, but together, we really can create abetter world. This world really, truly starts from your personaland individual experience—your very own power and ability tocreate the world that you want. When you know how easy it isto create this unique world, what is born is not insatiable desire,but rather unstoppable generosity.

I am an introvert. Although I have now, after fifty years oflife, trained myself to look comfortable and animated in public,I am my happiest and most productive on my couch, surroundedby my life and loved ones, where, in my own domain of peace,I can direct my intuitive ability to create and direct the changesthat I want, as well as attract the things/people/experiences I wantwithout having to go out into the world. I am now thankful tobe gifted in skills that allow me to have a full life, replete withfriends, love, work, and entertainment, which is all made possible,for the most part, right from my couch. Now I pass downthese skills to you.

In my first book, Practical Intuition, I presented practicaltechniques to help readers develop their intuitive abilities. In mynext two books, Practical Intuition for Success and Practical Intuitionin Love, I showed readers how to apply these techniques intheir professional and romantic lives, while developing a varietyof advanced intuitive skills such as telepathy and precognition. InHow to Rule the World from Your Couch, I introduce and explainthe various levels on which pure intuition can operate and demonstratehow they are always applicable and alive—even when(especially when!) you're just sitting there.

Let me hit you with something else: Have you ever experienced,in a fully visceral, soul-talking-directly-to-you kind of way,a shockingly clear, unbelievably useful piece of intuitive information,a tiny morsel of data that you simply, for the life of you,could not explain away? Have you ever just known something notjust because you knew it, but more because you sensed it? Manyof my students and clients (from doctors, engineers, and marketanalysts to businesspeople of all varieties, scientists, lawyers, andbeyond) have come to their own sense of intuition just this way—through some unexplainable flash of insight, or perhaps triggeredby something I said that worked for them. Regardless of how orunder what circumstances it occurs, when tapped into purely,intuition and insight become the breath of life. My clients mayhave been skeptical, but as pragmatists, they knew they couldnot ignore what they themselves had experienced firsthand. I believethat intuitively they knew they had tapped into a new wayof navigating. This sense made them hungry to know more andperhaps even led them to me. Though they may still be skeptics,guess what: they use these skills regularly anyway.

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military sage, said, "Every battleis won before it is ever fought"—and this wise and profoundmessage is exactly what this book is about. Engaging in battle isa waste of time. Goals can be achieved and, in fact, are achievedeffectively only when you use your intuition to map the waybefore you start the journey, anticipating and avoiding obstacles,arriving at landmarks in the right order with proper timing, and,when you can, following the scenic route.

We live in a world of constant activity, always doing, inmotion, on task. The reality is that your truest successes comenot only from what you do, but more so from your preparednessand ability to gather needed information in advance. The doingpiece is actually tiny, but only if you have laid down the properfoundation of readiness. Everything is available. Your only taskat hand is to position yourself properly to receive it. Think ofyourself as a perfectly designed state-of-the-art radio. You maybe able to send and receive all the right signals—but only if yourpower is on.

Everything you learn in this book will make your decisionsbetter, your relationships stronger, your actions more effective,and your life easier. Each of these abilities can become part andparcel of every decision you make. You will notice that as youhone your intuition, you will be engaged in a lot of inner work.Try to remember that your subconscious can use your intuitionto punish you, just as it can attempt to help you. That is why it isso important to be as conscious of your process and motivationas possible, which is why I believe documentation of your workis critical. Remember that you have the ability, through intuition,to know what is coming and how to prepare. Your history, pat-terns, areas of self-sabotage, reactions, and even your beliefs arewhat cause you to take the painful path, ignore the obvious, andcreate bothersome or even disastrous challenges. Think of it thisway: even in the most war-torn countries there are people whosurvive and thrive and help others do the same—and they are thetruest intuitives among us.

The goal of this book is to make me, and books like this, obsolete.As you work through each chapter, you will find that yourintuition will start to give you a more accurate view of your targets,and you will become a clearer, more powerful, and more directperson. Intuition itself, as I will explain, gives you the power,the questions, and the answers. It gives you the tools to create,to change, and to teach others, as well as the ability to be taughteffectively by those around you. The main problem that everyoneseems to share is the inability to understand that less work canyield more results. By "work," I mean the energy that we expendon the wrong things, creating the layers of complexity that we (ashuman beings with elaborate psyches) tend to (unconsciously)add to the different scenarios in our lives. Think about it: howcan adding complexity to a situation possibly be effective? Forthis reason, I don't advocate the "no pain no gain" philosophy oflife. Pain consumes time, energy, resources, and attention. I hopefor you to be able to refine your intuition to simplify, enrich, andenergize your life, so that reaching your goals becomes an organicpart of living every day.