Many of you don’t really know what success is. It is one of those concepts that you are supposed to "just know." Potential humiliation overrules curiosity. Without clear understanding you continuously seek and never find success.

In lieu of clarity you accept the consensus reality definitions thinking that success means greater intelligence, more deserving, and "better than." You assume success entails competing with others and conquering scarcity. Success is concomitant with perfection in action and intention.

Initially this sounds acceptable — even preferable. In time, you realize that you are not meeting these standards. No matter how intelligent you are, there are those who are smarter. You don’t feel deserving. No matter how persuasive you are, no matter how many others you convince, you cannot convince yourself that you deserve — that you really deserve. No matter how tightly you hold on to your "better than’s," they keep slipping through your fingers. Competing and conquering are not only exhaustive, they’re boring. You are not perfect. You are not perfect. No, you’re not.

To stop the erosion, you simplify your consensus reality definitions. Success means having more and better than, being more and better than, doing more and better than. Success means more!

Shuddering at the prospect of failure, you take a deep breath, you steel yourself, and you dive in again. Rather that realizing that the definitions are incorrect, you try again to make them work for you. Some will spend their whole lives on this merry-go-round reaching for a brass ring that isn’t there. Never was, never will be.

"Um-pa-pa, Um-pa-pa." There is no end. What success you do create feels like a fluke that can be snatched away at any moment. As much as failure is painful, success is more frightening. There is no real success on the merry-go-round.

Some reluctantly get off the carousel by being knocked off with the hard edge of failure. They judge, punish, and conclude that they are no good. They feel and are convinced that they blew it — it’s too late.

Then there are those who are forced off the carousel by getting caught in the soft vice of self- delusion or by getting lost in the mirrored maze of grandeur. They convince themselves that they have met the criteria. The euphoria is eventually replaced with the haunting hollowness: "Is this all there is?"

The most effective way to define success in a way that the definition can be your definition, is to lay forth the core — the backbone — the backbone of what success is. The skeleton of success is just that: a skeleton. You must give it life by adding the flesh and blood, the muscle and nerve, and the thinking and feeling of success. You must breath life into these pieces of the puzzle called success.

Not surprisingly, there are seven basic components to being successful. You all know these seven pieces of the puzzle. Often, you just don’t know how they fit together.

First is power. The most elegant definition of power is: the ability and the willingness to act. Power, in truth, has nothing to do with intimidation, control, or manipula-tion. It has nothing to do with the desire to overpower.

Power has become a euphemism for fear. When you confront a scary person you often call them powerful. When you encounter a powerful person you often call them scary! Very strange.

True power is being both able and willing to choose and decide, and to act on those choices and decisions. It is being able and willing to think and feel and act on those thoughts and emotions. It is being able and willing to admit to having attitudes — opinions, eval-uations, and discernment’s — and beliefs and then acting consciously on those attitudes and beliefs.

The second puzzle piece is creativity and productivity. Creativity is generating and stimulating conception and perception in yourself and/or in others. Creativity is not defined by career or label. The artist and the non-artist, both by whatever definition, are creative if they generate and stimulate conception and perception.

Levels of productivity are measured by the amount you learn about yourself. Whatever you are doing, if you learn a great deal about you and who you are, then it is productive. If you learn little or nothing, then it is non- productive. Productivity is a quality, not a quantity.

Then there is awareness, and there is aliveness. Many look for lofty esoteric meanings for these two concepts. In their search they lose sight of success. To be aware, concisely, means knowing you have impact. Some believe that it is impossible to have impact on each other. Some limit it to not being able to have negative impact on each other. Yet others will concede and deal with the impact. Whether they are supposed to have it or not, they actually do have impact on the people around them. Regardless, everyone agrees that you have impact, at least on yourself. When you know this — really know this — that’s when you become aware.

When you combine four very special ingredients, something very special happens. You create the synergy of aliveness. Synergy means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and in this case the aliveness is more than just equal parts of love, trust, ex-pectancy, and enthusiasm.

To become really alive it is important to combine the flexibility and fluidity of love with the fragility and rigidity of trust. Then it is vital to stir in the wonder of expectancy and the sparkle of enthusiasm. Mix will. Be alive.

Happiness is the fulfillment of your needs. Joy is the fulfillment of your preferences. Enjoyment is the elegance with which you do both.

Many make the mistake of assuming that success means having resources. In truth, success means having access to resources. There are those who have money, but no real access to it or to what it can buy them. They do not experience success. Others have loads of access to money as their only resource. They often ex-perience limited or shallow success. The truly successful person will have expansive access to physical and metaphysical resources. Success is within the grasp of anyone who can close their eyes, alter their state of con-sciousness, visualize, and manifest in their reality. If you are willing, each of you has unlimited potential access to all the resources — unlimited potentials for success.

Critical to being successful: the willingness to adventure.

In your "old age" world you learn to be a warrior. You learn to confront, to battle, to conquer, and you dominate. In the "New Age" world you can learn to be an adventurer. You can learn to encounter, to understand, to befriend, and to transmute with dominion. Consciously created success involves, integrally in-volves, being willing to adventure in your reality and in your world.

Dominion is an attitude and a belief. Dominion is a point of view. When you are willing to co-create your success with God/Goddess/All That Is rather than expecting someone to do it for you, you are on your way. When you are willing to stretch and reach for the future rather than grovel in the past, you begin to feel the excitement and the wonder of dominion. When you are able to see and demonstrate that first your world, and then the world-at-large, is a friendly place ready to support you rather than out to get you, you have dominion.

With dominion, you have the final piece of the puzzle called success.

Begin by owning each of the seven puzzle pieces as an attitude first. Feel powerful, creative/ productive, aware/alive. Feel happiness and joy in an enjoying way. Feel that you have access to resources, a willingness to adventure. Feel dominion.

Do not expect to be successful first and then to have the feeling. Feel it first. Feel it first.

Do not aim at being successful. Do not make success the bull’s eye of your target. Don’t "shoot for success." Ironically, the secret to consciously creating success is not to make it the central target of your desire, expectation, or imagination. Rather, accomplish the means. Aim to be powerful, creative/pro-ductive, etc. Aim at the means and allow the ends to follow.

Don’t shoot for the ends. Accomplish the means. The ends will follow.

With love and peace,

In the next issue: Lazaris on The Dimensions of Success: The Success Cube.

Lazaris has more than 250 audio tapes, video tapes and books, and does seminars regularly in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orlando, Atlanta, and Newark, NJ.