The Short Version
I’m Jo Blakeley – a trainer, coach, author and creator of The Breakthrough Framework™. For over 20 years I’ve been helping individuals and organisations develop the confidence, communication and leadership skills they need to perform – and feel – at their best. My work is rooted in psychology, behavioural science and real-world experience, but delivered in a way that is engaging, practical and genuinely transformative.
The Longer Story
My career didn’t begin in learning and development. I started out in corporate sales and recruitment – hitting targets, performing well on paper, but quietly feeling unfulfilled, disconnected, and unsure what I was really meant to be doing.
At the same time, I had a huge fear of public speaking. I did everything I could to avoid being seen or heard – turning down presentations, staying quiet in meetings, convincing myself “I’m just not that type of person.” But deep down, I knew that fear was limiting my future, and that realisation was the moment everything changed.
I became curious about how confidence is built, what blocks it, and why some people can appear successful on the outside while silently doubting themselves on the inside. I began studying coaching, NLP, behavioural psychology and neuroscience, and I applied everything to myself first. I didn’t just learn confidence – I built it from the inside out.
And then something unexpected happened.
Once I overcame my fear of public speaking, I didn’t just feel more confident, I realised I actually loved speaking in public. The thing I had avoided for years became the thing that lit me up. That shift didn’t just change how I performed at work, it changed the direction of my life.
I left my career in sales and moved into Learning & Development, where I learned how to design and deliver training for a global professional services firm. While I was there, I kept seeing the same pattern: most professional development focused on skills, not on the human being trying to use them. People were being taught what to do before they understood why they weren’t already doing it, and without that internal foundation, the skills didn’t stick.
That insight eventually led me to leave the comfort of corporate life and set up my own company in 2007. Through years of research, delivery and experimentation, I created The Breakthrough Framework™ – a practical, mindset-first pathway for real and lasting professional growth.
Why I Do This Work
I believe confidence, communication and leadership can’t be taught as standalone skills. They have to be built in the right order – starting with the internal foundation first. When people understand themselves, their emotions and their patterns, everything they learn afterwards has somewhere real to land.
But growth doesn’t stop with the self. Most people communicate through their own internal ‘map’ – their beliefs, assumptions and experiences – without realising that everyone else is doing the same. That’s why so many problems at work are not really skills problems, but human understanding problems: misunderstanding, friction, silence, conflict or defensiveness.
Once people learn to understand both themselves and others, everything changes. Conversations get easier. Confidence becomes natural instead of forced. Influence stops feeling like a performance and becomes genuine connection.
And that’s when leadership stops being complicated. Because when confidence and communication are in place, leadership isn’t a set of techniques, it’s the natural next step.
That’s why I do this work. Not to teach people what to do, but to help them become the kind of person who can do it with clarity, empathy and confidence – from the inside out.
Begin Your Breakthrough
Choose the path that fits you.
The Breakthrough Framework™
For organisations ready to develop confidence, communication and leadership from the inside out
The Confidence Breakthrough
For individuals ready to build confidence, courage and self-belief from the inside out