Since this is the week following the Super Bowl, I bet you think I am referring to San Francisco and Baltimore – right?

Wrong!

I am referring to Paris and London – the two cities Charles Dickens described in his most famous work: A Tale of Two Cities. The storyline depicts the insanity that leads to the French Revolution.

“Christine (you ask in ‘sotto voce’) – what does this have to do with leadership strategy or career transformation?”

Well…

The most memorable characters are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Charles Darnay is a French aristocrat who renounces the whole “let them eat cake” upper class mentality and moves to London.

Sydney Carton is a British barrister who lives a dissolute life. However, Darnay’s wife sees the good in Carton and sees his potential for nobility, selfless humanity and redemption.

And Carton delivers on Darnay’s wife’s expectations. Carton exchanges himself for Darnay and faces imminent death. In the denouement, Carton offers inspiration and consolation to a young girl who faces the same fate.

My message:

Sydney Carton could have stepped aside and allowed Charles Darnay to face the French revolutionaries’ retribution. But he decided to embrace a transformation that changed his life’s path.

The thing about transformation is this: you don’t always know where it is going to take you. However, walking the path to transformation always makes you a better person – regardless of the outcome.

Welcome to my world.

I never know where my client’s career transformations will take them. I do know that I am a better coach and a better person for having the privilege of shepherding them along the way.



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