AmbicaGossain

From the smart kid to the top caller

Growing up, I was the academically accomplished child. I excelled in examinations, collected accolades and felt entirely at home with textbooks. Put me on a stage, though, and it was a different story.

I went on to study Biochemistry at Oberlin College in the United States, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, with minors in French and Computer Science. To support myself, I worked three jobs. One involved calling alumni, complete strangers often decades older than me, and asking them to contribute to the institution.

Yet I became the top caller on the team. Not because I had perfected a sales pitch, but because I discovered the extraordinary power of genuine conversation. Fundraising calls became friendships. Alumni invited me into their homes and welcomed me for holidays. One even offered me a job straight out of college.

Communication doesn’t just open conversations. It opens doors.

A career that refused to follow a straight line

Armed with a Biochemistry degree, I returned to India. Naturally, I began teaching spoken English.

Then I entered the electronic security industry, joining Securico in corporate sales and customer relations, with no technical background whatsoever. During my tenure the company experienced exponential growth, and I made a substantial contribution through sales, customer relationships and business development. It was a collective achievement, but it reinforced something I had begun discovering years earlier.

You don’t have to be the most technical person in the room to create extraordinary value.

Finding another voice through writing

More than two decades ago, I worked as an education columnist with the Hindustan Times. For the past ten years, writing and publishing poetry has been an integral part of my life, exploring language not just to communicate ideas but to give shape to emotions and experiences that resist ordinary conversation.

Along the way, I founded several poetry communities that grew into safe spaces for self-expression, places where people could share their stories, explore their vulnerabilities and discover the courage to be heard.

Sometimes the greatest barrier to communication isn’t a lack of words. It’s the fear of what might happen when we finally use them.

The classroom became my laboratory

For the past three years, I’ve designed and facilitated experiential programmes spanning communication, public speaking, leadership, teamwork, entrepreneurship, creative thinking, language development and soft skills. Games, improvisation, storytelling, role-play, movement and real-world challenges have been my tools of choice.

Take away the fear of being wrong. Replace passive instruction with participation. Give people the freedom to experiment, stumble, laugh and try again. People who were hesitant to speak begin volunteering their opinions. Quiet thinkers discover they have compelling stories to tell.

Confidence isn’t something you can lecture into someone. You create the conditions in which they discover it.

Why I created Gabwise

Throughout my life, I’ve encountered extraordinarily capable people whose abilities far exceed their confidence in communicating them: women returning to work after a sabbatical, entrepreneurs with exceptional ideas, coaches who are brilliant at helping others but uncomfortable establishing their own presence, and professionals whose expertise remains overlooked.

Not to teach people to become louder, more polished versions of someone else, but to help them understand their own strengths, recognise their value and develop the communication skills to make both visible.

How many opportunities are lost, not because people lack ability, but because they haven’t learned to communicate it?

Reinvention isn’t starting over

I don’t see these as disconnected chapters. I see them as different expressions of the same person, constantly learning, adapting and evolving. I don’t know what my next reinvention will look like, and that doesn’t frighten me anymore.

I don’t need to have every answer before entering an unfamiliar room. I need curiosity, the willingness to listen, the courage to participate and the ability to connect.

I can help you become someone who doesn’t need a script to find their voice.

And who knows? Perhaps your next conversation will change the trajectory of your life, just as a few unexpected conversations changed mine.

Ambica Gossain