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"This was why you despirately convinced me to come to church with you, thank you 'cos I wouldn't have met the Lord and, maybe, I would have ended up like Kizito and Lanre", Larry said. "You are welcome, but thank the Lord the most for it was He who had it happen that way", I said. "Beyond that",I continued "I believe my first step to personal transformation began when I took a cue from Evangel's boldness to comfront my demons. I was insecure, afraid and selfish. I was a good actor too, all that ruthlessness and rugedity was a venier masking my inadequacies as a person. I could not show weakness in any way. As such, I denied me access to myself!" "Hmmm, that must have been terrible for you", said Larry. "Terrible is an understatement. I learnt on fundamental truth: what lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. I was empty, without a value system, without a core."

Help me Lord, teach me to begin correctly so that I do not stair the wrong feelings, I prayed in my thought. Now the Lord requires that I use my life's testimony to help my dearest friend. Before I got saved, my life was a mess. There was no element of control, I had cast off restraint and was on the fast track of destruction. I had a lot of upsetting experiences while growing up that had defined my values and perception about life. I blamed everyone and every thing except myself for my state. I reduced to a cynical, judgemental and paranoid fellow. My relationships were superficial and characterised by machinations. With elaborate exposure to the life of the streets, I became a master in the art of survival and I could use whatever means necessary to achieve whatever I wanted to achieve. I hurt alot of people but I hurt myself the most, consequence was not an issue for me because I believed that nothing could come back to haunt me. At a point, I was so deep into my terrible lifest

"Well seriously now", I continued, trying to bring seriousness back. "Our souls comprise of our will, emotion and intellect, it's the interface between the physical and the supernatural and our thoughts and attitude derives from paradigms that reside in the soul." "You wanna have me believe that I am defined by something resident in my soul?" Larry asked. "Exactly! Replied Lynn. "You are the product of thought patterns and systems absorbed from your environment. You begin to release these things you have inside as time and circumstances permit." Lynn continued. "This is what Jesus meant when he said that it is out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. He was talking about the abundance of the paradigms residing in the depths of your soul. Apostle Paul calls it 'the spirit of the mind', I said. "This still sounds spookey to me. I should be leery of you guys, you all talk like you've been hypnotised"

The beauty of leadership is comparable to ripples generated when a stone is dropped in still water. Your circle of influence or leadership space refers to the immediate domain of your authority (Ayodolapo Ajao). Immediate in this context is relative because leadership space- like the ripple- is ever growing, so what may be immediate domain of authority for Mr A may not apply for Mr B. It all depends on how well your ability to lead has developed. As a leader, it is your responsibility to develop your capacity to lead. This is achieved in two ways- experience and personal development. The leader is not so much in control of the fact that his circle of influence is growing as he is in determining the rate of that growth and how well he co-ordinates. There are instances of leaders collapsing or crashing because they could not keep up with their growing leadership space. The leader has to be dynamic and flexible. Doing things the same way- monotony and dogma- will cause your space to implo

Larry and Lynn arrived my place later in the evening and we chatted about how we spent the day. My day was not productive physically but I had covered miles spiritutually. I was now feeling better about myself and I could not wait to share my experience with the others, how that pianoist changed me. I had been meditating extensively on God's word in Habbakuk 2:2 and 2Corinthians 3:18, and I have been mirroring my life with the Word. I reached a conclusion to drop the glories of the present and reach for the higher calling. Larry and Lynn had argued back and forth over the issue of how important perspective is to a man and it was my turn to reconcile their views. "What was it you said we had to talk about? I asked at last, trying to bring in the purpose of their visit. "You've known me since school" Larry began. "You know how well I can handle stuff. As long as I could see the two extremes of an issue, is was a settled thing for me." "That'