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Sales call. PowerPoint presentation. Team meeting. Any form of showing up is public speaking.
Showing up is a skill. It doesn’t matter if you’re a speaker, a customer-facing team, a sales rep or a solopreneur on the brink of greatness.
Ultimately, the way you show up - the way people perceive you or your team - has a massive impact on whether you get the gig, keep the client, sign the deal or grow your brand.
Which is likely why public speaking in any capacity is one of the biggest universal fears on this planet. The dry mouth, the racing heartbeat, the sweaty palms. Not being heard at the back of the room. The constant ‘ummms.’ Human beings are terrified of rejection, and by speaking, you put yourself up for that rejection.
Learn to navigate rejection (and the fear of it!) and you’ll learn resilience: confidence, power, grit and groundedness.
Hi, I’m Ashleigh.
Theatre skills trainer, resilience speaker and West End performer. I’ve spent the past twenty-five years of my life becoming an expert at rejection. At showing up time and time again, getting knocked over and over and over (the entertainment world is brutal) - and continuing to get back up.
Now I’m helping teams and customer-facing professionals harness and apply my lessons from the world of professional theatre...
Navigating nerves, speaking with confidence, overcoming stage fright so they can excel in their careers - and their companies can use some of the best-kept secrets in professional development to their advantage.
The distinction between stage presence coaching and just “speaking training” is huge. It’s not just about what you say - it’s about how you show up, how you make people feel, and how you handle those intangible aspects of performance that transform a good presentation into a powerful, unforgettable one.
Speak to connect. Speak to convert. Speak to command the room. This is high-impact speaker and presentation coaching, rooted in stagecraft, storytelling, and performance psychology.
It’s time to own the room in a whole new way.
So, how do I work with audience-facing professionals to show up gloriously next-level?
The Power of No - envelop yourself in rejection to rise up and meet your real life. (keynote talk)
Rejection is a beautiful thing. It’s also one of the most difficult emotions a human being can navigate, conjuring feelings of sadness, depression, shame, anger and frustration - to name a few. So we avoid it with every instinct we have. And yet rejection is the fast-track lane to cultivated resilience.
In this keynote talk, I explore how harnessing rejection breeds unbelievable confidence and grit. A window into my years working in theatre and finally into the West End at the age of forty-two (that’s a lot of rejection right there); the real meaning of never giving up, which has got me into shows like Fawlty Towers and Mamma Mia! And how you and your people can leverage my learnings to learn the same. Only when you face rejection, envelop yourself in it, fall in love with it, and keep seeking it out...only then can you rise up to meet your real life.
Showing Up 2.0 workshop (for teams)
The connection between our head and our voice, and body is broken when we become adults. We’re told to listen instead of speak up. Sit still instead of moving. And in the process, that connection - which is absolutely essential for us to command any room or space we enter - is destroyed.
In this workshop, we begin to rebuild - in a very real way. This isn’t fluff. This is high-impact performance and presence work. We’ll apply theatre skills specifically chosen for the level-up your team needs in order to excel. By rooting in the breath, voice and body, the entire vibe changes. The trajectory from where you are now to where you want to be becomes clearer. And things that once felt impossible start feeling achievable.
Showing Up 2.0 (for entrepreneurs and individuals)
You’re a confidence coach who is having a crisis of confidence.
You’re a speaker (and speaking coach) who gets dry mouth.
You’re a fractional COO and you get so nervous of getting on calls with your client’s stakeholders and teams, that you use the wrong words - and you worry that you’re coming across as inarticulate.
You’re any business owner who gets anxious at the thought of audience-facing engagements - speeches, workshops, pitches, sales calls, and networking events.
In this five-week one-on-one programme, we focus on your specific needs and challenges. For an hour a week, I teach you theatre skills and techniques that actors use all over the world to maintain their confidence, build charisma, and ensure stage presence in front of any audience.
This isn’t fluff. This is high-impact performance and presence work. We build a path that takes you from where you are now to where you want to be, and then we go down that path, one week at a time. All the things that felt far away from you get closer.
What your people will walk away with:
A major competitive differentiator (where deals hinge on presence, pitches, and persuasion)
Speak to persuade, not just present
Show up confidently under pressure
Transform a good presentation into a powerful, unforgettable one (with stage presence, not just good speaking skills)
Turn nerves into energy
Become more ambitious and less constrained in engagements
Any professional who needs to speak to or with people inevitably needs to
show up.
Every interaction is a stage, with serious potential to create an electric experience and atmosphere.
That’s what owning the room means.
The context doesn’t really matter - it can be a West End stage or a conference room in an office - because the principles are the same. When you instil in yourself and your people the skills to generate calm, relaxation and confidence, you can show up the right way.
It’s a vibe. And it’s a killer business advantage.
Let’s figure out how you can create it.