"Don't let an old version of yourself decide what is possible for the next one."
Divya's story begins in Garhwal, Uttarakhand, though she was born in Dehri-on-Sone, Bihar, and grew up in Varanasi and Nagpur. Her home was full of books, stories, and music.
Her mother, a gifted singer, mesmerised her with old Bollywood songs, and her father played the mouth organ beautifully. A shy, quiet child, she was happiest with books and carrom, yet intensely curious about the world.
In the 1980s, when becoming a doctor or engineer was the obvious road to success, Divya chose music. She studied it through graduation, alongside economics and mathematics, then completed a postgraduate degree in English literature and a degree in education.
She earned her Sangeet Visharad, learned Indian Classical Music from Shri Suresh Wadkar ji, and later trained as an NLP practitioner. The choices looked unrelated at the time. Today she sees the thread: music taught her expression, literature taught her language, education taught her about people, and NLP deepened her curiosity about human behaviour.
Her career was never a carefully designed plan. After fifteen years as an educator at Study Hall and La Martiniere Girls' College in Lucknow, a move to Nagpur in 2011 made her ask again, "What next?"
Her years in classrooms had shown her that students could be academically strong and still struggle with the real world. So she moved into soft-skills training, then into teacher education with Macmillan Education India and UGC MMTTC, and wrote books along the way, including Teachers! Shine Like Stars!
Over time, her curiosity shifted from what people communicate to what shapes the way they communicate: their beliefs, identity, and inner conversations. That became her present work in Transformational Communication. Her belief is simple: good communication gets the message across, but transformational communication changes what becomes possible.
She hasn't had one dramatic setback that defines her story. Her challenge has been starting again and again, and asking herself, "Am I too late? Will people take me seriously?" She learned that confidence comes after you begin, you take the step, learn, adjust, and let confidence catch up.
Looking ahead, she wants to bring Transformational Communication to a wider audience, keep writing, and speak on larger platforms. At 60, she's less interested in proving what she's done and more interested in discovering what else she can create.
The girl who wanted to be a musician became an educator, then a trainer, then a writer and speaker. None of it was planned, yet each step prepared her for the next.
Her message to anyone wondering if it's too late: we only ever know the next step. She's still taking hers, and there are chapters still waiting to be written.
Her mother, a gifted singer, mesmerised her with old Bollywood songs, and her father played the mouth organ beautifully. A shy, quiet child, she was happiest with books and carrom, yet intensely curious about the world.
In the 1980s, when becoming a doctor or engineer was the obvious road to success, Divya chose music. She studied it through graduation, alongside economics and mathematics, then completed a postgraduate degree in English literature and a degree in education.
She earned her Sangeet Visharad, learned Indian Classical Music from Shri Suresh Wadkar ji, and later trained as an NLP practitioner. The choices looked unrelated at the time. Today she sees the thread: music taught her expression, literature taught her language, education taught her about people, and NLP deepened her curiosity about human behaviour.
Her career was never a carefully designed plan. After fifteen years as an educator at Study Hall and La Martiniere Girls' College in Lucknow, a move to Nagpur in 2011 made her ask again, "What next?"
Her years in classrooms had shown her that students could be academically strong and still struggle with the real world. So she moved into soft-skills training, then into teacher education with Macmillan Education India and UGC MMTTC, and wrote books along the way, including Teachers! Shine Like Stars!
Over time, her curiosity shifted from what people communicate to what shapes the way they communicate: their beliefs, identity, and inner conversations. That became her present work in Transformational Communication. Her belief is simple: good communication gets the message across, but transformational communication changes what becomes possible.
She hasn't had one dramatic setback that defines her story. Her challenge has been starting again and again, and asking herself, "Am I too late? Will people take me seriously?" She learned that confidence comes after you begin, you take the step, learn, adjust, and let confidence catch up.
Looking ahead, she wants to bring Transformational Communication to a wider audience, keep writing, and speak on larger platforms. At 60, she's less interested in proving what she's done and more interested in discovering what else she can create.
The girl who wanted to be a musician became an educator, then a trainer, then a writer and speaker. None of it was planned, yet each step prepared her for the next.
Her message to anyone wondering if it's too late: we only ever know the next step. She's still taking hers, and there are chapters still waiting to be written.
This story was told by Divya Lakhera and published with their permission by the What's Your Story editorial team.
