This interview was originally published through Audible Sessions.
Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.
Holly Newson: I'm Holly Newson. Welcome to Audible Sessions, a place where we delve into the books, careers and lives of authors and creators. In this chat, DJ, broadcaster and now author Adele Roberts shares how she built up enough resilience to tackle bowel cancer, chemo and living with her stoma. So much resilience that she was able to run the London Marathon only 18 months after her diagnosis, get a world record and a personal best. And it's from there that her book, Personal Best, emerged. We also talked about music, DJing and her fantastic mom, Jackie, and auntie, Maxine. To start with, Adele gave her cancerous tumour an interesting name, Umbriel. So, I asked her how that name came about.
Adele Roberts: When I realised I had a big tumour, I decided to name it after a moon of Uranus, the planet. A silly joke [laughs], a school-level joke. But it's because, at the time, I was trying to find anything I could do to cope. And I think the way I cope with a lot of things is humour. And I just so happened to be practicing for Celebrity Mastermind at the time, because that's what life is like. You get a cancer diagnosis, but then you have to go on Mastermind. And I thought, "How can I fuse the two?" [laughs]. And there you go.
HN: I just have to ask very quickly. On Celebrity Mastermind, do they give you a topic or—
AR: That's a great question. No. So, they say, "What sort of things are you interested in?” And you give them a little list. And they vetoed everything apart from the planets and the solar system. So, that's the one I ended up with.
HN: What would've been your preference, do you reckon?
AR: I wanted to do the Olympics. I wanted to do the 2012 Olympics. I love sport. I love watching sport.
HN: So, back to that diagnosis, in the early stages, I haven't experienced it myself, but I know from family and friends that there's this horrible moment where you know that you have cancer, but you know very little else. And there's so much uncertainty. So, how did you deal with that time when you had the diagnosis, but pretty much no other information?
AR: Yeah. Well said. It's a lot to take in. And you don't always know when you get diagnosed that somebody's going to say those words to you. So, there's the bit in the book where I explain that Kate and I, my partner, just went into a room one day, sat on some lovely chairs, and my whole world got turned around in a second. My whole life changed. When I first got diagnosed, when I heard the words, "You have cancer," I literally thought I was going to die, because I didn't know enough about cancer. And I think the way that it was portrayed in the media, it made me feel like, "That's it. It's over." So, I asked the doctor, "Am I gonna die?" Luckily, he said he felt he could help me.
And then the second question was, "Is it my fault?" Because again, I didn't know enough about cancer and I thought I'd done it to myself. And then after that, he explained a little bit about the operation, that I might get a stoma, but I wasn't really concentrating on that. I just wanted to know really, "Would I survive it?" And unfortunately, they only knew I had cancer. They just didn't know how advanced it was. So, I remember him saying something about stage 2, but again, I didn't really know what that meant. And he said it might be stage 3. So, there was this week while I was waiting to find out the results where only me, Mr. Bond, the consultant, and my girlfriend, Kate, knew I had cancer. And the whole world didn't. And it's really strange how the world just carries on. So, you've changed forever inside, fundamentally, but you go back out of the hospital, back into the real world, and everybody's just getting on with their lives. It's just this strange sort of purgatory that you're in for a week where you don't know if you're going to live or die and all your senses are just going crazy and you just try and wake up every day and get to the next day, really.
HN: Did you stay off Google or did you go on Google?
AR: I stayed off Google. Kate was straight on Google. Which is good. I think that's something that helped me, having a Google buddy. Kate found out as much as she could about bowel cancer. Luckily, she'd remembered a lot of what the consultant had said to me.
HN: You need that other person there.
AR: Without a doubt, yeah. And, luckily, she was in the room, because they didn't tell me to bring anyone. It's just, luckily, she was with me. And she was listening, while I wasn't really. I think I was just, yeah, trying to take it all in. So, she googled bowel cancer. She googled what stage 2 meant, what stage 3 meant. And she also googled what stomas were just in case I needed one. They said I might need a stoma. They weren't quite sure. But at that point, I was like, "I don't care. As long as I live, give me what you need to." You know?
HN: Yeah. And what was it like when you did come to tell your family?
AR: I think that was the hardest bit for me, not finding out I had cancer, but having to tell my mum. That broke my heart. That was a really hard one. And thank God Kate was in the room, because I didn't have to tell Kate. I hope I don't offend my dad by saying it was a bit easier to tell my dad, but I feel like my dad's the sort of person that would just be able to take it. But telling my mum, that really hurt me. And I was very sort of angry with cancer for making me have to do that to her.
HN: Yeah. I completely understand that. We'll go to something lighter. We're going to go to more naming of things. You'd been through the operation, you found out you had got a stoma. Why Audrey? Who is Audrey?
AR: [Laughs] So, Audrey's here in the room. She's hidden at the moment. She's my little stoma. When I was first told I might get a stoma, one of the nurses said to me, "A good thing to do is to name it." So, when I actually got one, I thought, "Right. What name can I give to my stoma? Is it going to be a boy? Is it going to be a girl?" And when I first saw it, it reminded me of the plant of Little Shop of Horrors. The Venus flytrap plant that's called Audrey II. So, her official name is Audrey II, but that's a bit weird. So, I just call her Audrey for short.
HN: You know, when I told my husband that, Audrey, because he absolutely loves Shop of Horrors, he was like, "What number Audrey? Audrey II?" I was like, "I don't know. I can't confirm." So now I can confirm.
AR: Yeah, let him know, Audrey II.
HN: And what was the most unexpected or surprising thing for you about Audrey?
AR: First of all, that it's possible. I couldn't believe that you can have a piece of your intestine on the outside of your body, come through your stomach wall and be on the outside of your body, and be alive. I was like, "Surely, that's not possible." But here I am, living proof that that is how incredible the body is and how resilient it is that, for now, this is how I go to the toilet.
And then the other thing, Audrey moves on her own. She's very independent to me. So, even if I touch it, I can't feel it because it's a different part of the body. I think it's the parasympathetic nervous system. So, it's the bit of your body that works away without you knowing about it, so your heart and your digestion. And if you could see her now, you'd see her moving. And it's weird, I really feel like “gut reaction” is real as well. So, because we're having a nice chat, she'll be dancing merrily right now. She'll be in there dancing. I just can't feel it.
HN: And you write that you have also, as much as you love Audrey, had some Audrey disasters. So, tell me about the worst Audrey disaster.
AR: Oh, my gosh. I don't even think the worst Audrey disaster's in the book because it got cut out. It was that bad.
HN: Ooh. Now, I'm curious.
AR: But hopefully, I think if we do the paperback, it might be in there.
HN: What a thing to look forward to.
AR: I think we just didn't want it to scare people, because I've had some time to get my head around it. And we hope that some people that maybe are getting stomas or are worried about getting a stoma will be able to read the book and understand, "Yes, they're not perfect, but they're lifesaving. And they can help change your life."
But one of the worst ones maybe was when I was listening to Scott Mills's last show on Radio 1, I think. And my stoma decided to go ballistic and do what's called a prolapse. So, essentially, my stoma went from the size of, like, a baby carrot to right down my leg. So, that's how much intestine's inside your body. And it can unravel and come out the front. So, me and Kate had to work out how to get it back in or go to hospital, basically.
HN: And you did work out a method, which has absolutely blown my mind. What worked was putting sugar on it.
AR: I know. Can you believe that?
HN: I genuinely can't.
AR: Google was our friend. And please don't do this. Call your stoma nurse. It was very naughty of us to do it. But I was panicking because I also had a radio show to do that night on Radio 2. I was about to make my debut and I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to do it. So, Kate got a kilogram of sugar – this is what me and Kate get up to in our bedroom – put me on the bed, laid me down, and put a kilogram of sugar on my stoma. And I don't know whether it's magic or osmosis, but it started to go back in my body.
HN: It's crazy.
AR: Honestly, it took about an hour. And we filmed it. And again, that video's been banned, and the pictures of it as well, but you never know, paperback maybe.
HN: [Laughs] That's just incredible. The body is incredible. And how has Audrey and having a stoma and also going through cancer changed how you feel about your body?
AR: It's helped me appreciate my body and fall in love with my body. I had a very bad relationship with it, I'm ashamed to say, before cancer. I'm privileged to have a body that works. I talk a lot about my mum. And she has a condition, or she did have a condition – sadly, she's passed away – that affects her body and slowly ate away at her body. And she lost control of her body. And here's me, yes, I might have had cancer. I might have a stoma, but I can still move about. I can go to the shops if I want to. I can still walk around. And my mum couldn't do that. And also I had people that could help me. Her condition, there's nothing you can do about it. It's called ataxia, and there's no cure. And so yeah, having cancer and having a stoma has given me so much gratitude.
HN: And with Audrey, you took Audrey on a journey to run the London Marathon, which not only did you have Audrey, you also had just been going through chemo. You were still on chemo when you started to train. I think about running and I think, "Ooh, a slight blister's forming. This ain't for me." Whereas you ran through all of that. So, what mental resilience did you have to have to, a) set yourself such a big target, and b) to run through all of that pain, that discomfort, that uncertainty?
AR: That's something I've worked on, my mentality. I've got it so wrong a lot of times in my life. I talk about losing my auntie. It sent me into a very deep depression. Grief was very hard for me to deal with because in my family we didn't really talk about our feelings when I was younger. I got it very wrong that time. And so when cancer came along, I knew not to make that mistake again. I knew how important and powerful the mind is and the spirit. And I think, for me, I've learned that it's a lot of times stronger than the body. Where the mind leads, the body follows. And it's not the other way around. I think for most of my life, I thought that. And so I wanted to do something every day. Once I'd survived the operation to have the tumour removed, once the cancer was out of my body, I wanted to do a little rebellion every single day to say to cancer, "I don't want you back. I don't want you in my body again. And I'm going to fight you with everything I have."
And that started with me just getting onto the chair next to my bed, and then being able to walk over to the toilet to see my stoma. And then every day since then, I've always made sure that I do at least 20 minutes walking every day. And then eventually the walking led to jogging – well, shuffling, then jogging. And then I thought, "Let's just do something that is almost beyond the realms of possibility. Why not try and run the marathon?" And it happened.
But I think, again, it was the mental strength that I'd managed to build up with everything that I'd gone through and the determination, and the thought, "I'm not letting cancer beat me. I don't want it to." And I think it stemmed from me having to tell my family and tell Kate, and the thought of being potentially taken away from them. It just made me want to fight it and never be in that place again.
HN: Yeah, definitely. And you mentioned your auntie, Maxine. Tell me what she was like and what place she had in your life.
AR: Oh, she was so beautiful, so funny, so clever. She was everything I wanted to be. And when I was younger, I went through a lot of tough times, and my auntie just seemed to be somebody that had come from the same place as me, but she'd managed to make it. You know, she was my hope. And then when she sadly passed away very quickly, she had a short illness, and it was only about three days, and she was gone. I just found that, I don't know, like that was the day that hope died for me. It really sent me into a deep depression, and so deep that I ended up going on Big Brother [laughs] just to escape the feeling. I couldn't control the way that I was feeling inside. And I felt bad for feeling bad because my cousins had lost their mum. I thought, "How dare I be grieving for their mum when it's their mum, not my mum?" I was lucky enough to have my parents with me. I didn't know how to cope. So, I think I just ran away and hid in plain sight on TV. I got it so wrong.
HN: There's also an incident that you write in the book that happened when you were quite a lot younger where an angry neighbour threw a brick and it hit your head.
AR: Yeah.
HN: And you write that you'd completely forgotten about that.
AR: Yeah. Yep, absolutely.
HN: So, when did you remember, and what do you remember about that?
AR: I don't know if you can see the little scar, but that there is where the brick hit me in the head. And I only remembered when Kate was helping me cut my hair because when I started chemo, my hair started to fall out and started to go really bad quality. There was a lady in hospital who inspired me to shave my head because she was such a strong woman. And she had a shaved head. She'd lost her hair because of chemo. And I remember seeing it and thinking, "Oh, I forgot about that."
And in the wild, wild west of the Northwest where I grew up and all the different places that we'd lived, all the different council estates, my mum and dad just had an argument with one of our neighbours, and the neighbour decided to pick up a brick and throw it at my mum, but it hit me in the head. And yeah, that was just one of many things that happened to me as I was growing up. I remember it really hurting. But I also remember not crying. And a lot of what I went through as a kid, I didn't cry. I don't know if in some way, that was the manifestation of the tumour towards the end, because where does energy go? Where does hurt go? It's not healthy not to cry. And I think, looking back, it's a bit weird that I didn't cry. And I don't know why I didn't cry. But a lot of the testing times, all the things that we've been through, our family, I didn't really have an outlet.
HN: Do you feel like you've been able to process, now, that grief that you had?
AR: Absolutely. Yeah. There’s a bit in the book where I talk about my friend, Tina, who told me about a book challenge that she'd done. So, this is why I can't sing books' praises enough, especially Audible books because they're my favourite, where she read 52 books across a year. I remember thinking, "I can't think of anything worse." Because I didn't read at that time. And it just stuck with me and it kept gnawing away at me. I feel like I've been working on myself, trying to get better at self-care, and then eventually, I was like, "Right. I'm going to do this challenge of 52 books." And I did most of mine listening on Audible and then also buying the Kindle version. And you know the Whispersync feature? And then highlighting anything that resonated with me. So, I pretty much listened to 52, well, it was over 52 books in the end, over a year. And that was the change that I needed. Like I say in my book, a good book is like glue. You know, if you put a hand in, something sticks. And those 52 books helped me be here today.
HN: And did they impact what you wrote in Personal Best?
AR: Absolutely. I'm sorry if there's any plagiarism, actually [laughs]. But yeah, without a doubt, books, along with Kate, helped save me. That's why I wanted to do my own book just so that I can hopefully help the old version of me that didn't believe, didn't have self-worth, didn't want to read, didn't think that I had much to offer the world. I hope that my book reaches people like that, not only for awareness as well of their body and just making sure that you speak to the doctor if you're worried about anything. But I hope it helps people that maybe struggle with the way that they see themselves, because I definitely did.
HN: And you wrote this book with Kate. So, how did that work, writing it together?
AR: Yeah, that's a great question. So, we kind of knew what we wanted to say once I'd done the marathon. So, this time last year, I didn't know I was going to write the book. It took for me to do the marathon to feel like I'd earned the right to write a book, because I know that books are precious. And you've got to have something to say. And there was already brilliant books about cancer. So, how could my voice add to that? And so once we'd done the marathon, we thought, "Well, that's quite a cool story in a weird way, you know, to be able to, within 18 months, complete a marathon." And we hoped that it would be a inspirational story for people.
So, Kate just sort of gave me a structure. And she'd say, "Tell me about this. Write about this." And I'd be there with the Notes section on my phone. Like, I wrote the book in the Notes app, just with my thumbs. I'd wake up early in the morning sometimes with Audrey if Audrey was being naughty, and just write and try and express myself. I think it was very cathartic. It probably helped Kate as well because we'd both been through it together. But we knew that no matter how tough it was writing those words, we were hopefully helping other people.
HN: Definitely. And so how did you find narrating it for the audiobook?
AR: Oh, my gosh. I was really nervous about narrating it. I actually said to them, "Do you mind if I don't read it?" And they were like, "No, you're reading it." It's like, "Oh." But I just felt like I wouldn't do it justice. And I hope anybody who listens to it thinks I have. I really do. But it was good for me to read it out because even though there were bits where I did end up crying, it was very tough, it was also lovely to read out the bits where things went well. And that made me so happy and just sort of helped me process that 18 months.
HN: Yeah. And there's a lot of positive affirmations or inspirational quotes and things like that in there. So, I guess reading those out loud, I mean, you're saying them to yourself. You're reminding yourself of all those things as you go.
AR: Yeah, because I always forget what I read as well. I love reading books, but then I forget the messages quite a lot of the time because life happens. Doesn't it? And you forget. So, we wanted to make sure that those bits were easy to find in the book. We wanted to make sure that they stood out. But like you say, reading them back myself really helped, and especially because I was doing Dancing on Ice at the time and I was, again, freaking out, doubting myself. And I just kept going back to our book and going, "No, you've done it before. You've been through this before. Just looks different this time."
HN: What was the Dancing on Ice experience like? Because that was a long time in the works for you. You were almost on a previous series.
AR: Yeah, that's right. And without me getting rejected from Dancing on Ice, I wouldn't have done the marathon. And I wouldn't have a book. So, that's another message in the book: When you think things are going wrong, maybe they're falling apart so they can fall into place. I'm a big believer in that. I always feel like you're right where you need to be. It might not be nice. You might not want to tackle what's in front of you, but it's been sent to you, I think, a lot of the time to help you and to help you become a better person. Or that's how I've chosen to see everything. So, getting on Dancing on Ice finally, I was saying to Kate the other day even before I knew the result of Dancing on Ice, even if I knew if I'd be any good, getting to the start line of that show was my prize.
HN: Yes, it is incredible. Like, I'm in awe of anyone on that show. You were great.
AR: Thank you.
HN: And there's a phrase in the book that I love so much. I really want to know where you got it from, "Got the morbs." Where did you guys hear that? It's incredible.
AR: Yeah, Kate told me about it. And apparently it's a Victorian saying. If you got the morbs. It comes from morbid. So, just intense sadness. There was someone we saw on Gogglebox who's not a character who was watching the characters in Downton Abbey talking about, there was some sort of line about, "She's in love with mourning." And I think that when I went into my deep depression, I loved being in there. Even though it hurt, it felt comfortable. I felt numb a lot of the time. You know? I didn't want to stop mourning for my auntie, almost. I wanted time to stand still. And I had a bad case of the morbs. So, yeah, we wanted to put that in the book just to try and give another way to explain how that feels.
HN: I love it. I'm definitely going to use it, 100 percent.
AR: Bring it back.
HN: And so from what you've said so far and what you've written in the book, I wondered, do you believe in fate?
AR: I do now. I never used to. Kate's part of me getting better at self-care and self-awareness and mindfulness. And now I'm saying these words, the old me's rolling my eyes like, "Whatever." But I do believe in fate. I think things are sent to you to challenge you and to help you to achieve your personal best. I know that sounds cheesy because that's the name of the book, but that is the whole point of the book, I think.
Whenever I've looked back over my life, I can promise a lot of the times, with the toughest of times, I've just tried my best. And the reason it's called Personal Best is because that looks different to everybody. And I really believe that no matter what someone's facing, they have the answers inside. You just gotta access them. And as long as you try your personal best, you will get through. I truly believe that.
HN: And in talking about trying your personal best, you write that when you started DJing, you were really bad for a really long time. I really struggle to believe that you were that bad. How bad are we talking?
AR: Yeah, really bad. As I talk in the book about when I used to mix, it sounded like elephants falling down the stairs. Like, it was so bad. But I didn't really have anyone to teach me. This is way, way back when we still had vinyl. We didn't have things like Audible. That's mad, isn't it? So, this is before the internet, guys, when I first started DJing. I was really, really terrible. Do you mean club DJing or radio DJing?
HN: Club DJing.
AR: Well, I've been bad at both. And there weren't many women doing it as well. So, the lads, they didn't want to help because I was a woman. They were almost like, "Women don't DJ. What you on about?" But now that I see the modern world, I'm like, "Yes, girls. Keep smashing it."
HN: What made you want to persevere even when it wasn't going as well as you might've wanted?
AR: I think I've always just known through my life, if you're bad at something, just keep failing. Fail fast and fail forward. So, as long as you keep going, you just chip away at it. If you think about a block of wood, you know, there's a whole statue in there. You just have to chip away and bring it out. That's where I see things. And if you keep carving away, something beautiful will come. I failed all my life and got things wrong, but I just keep persevering. I don't give up. And I think I just love music so much that I was like, "I've got to make this work because it's one of the few things that makes me happy.”
HN: Yeah. It almost reminds me of, to be fair, I've never fact-checked this, but Dame Kelly Holmes. There were people at school who said, "Oh, yeah, at school I was a better runner than her, but she persevered where I didn't." And I always think about that because I think often in school environments, if you're not the best, it's like, "Oh, well, they're way better. I'll stop doing that." But the idea that anything, if you keep going, you're going to get to a really good level.
AR: I totally agree. That's happened to me again and again. I am a very average, bog-standard person, but I just don't give up. And so I managed to get to the other side, you know. I totally agree with Kelly.
HN: So, there's a playlist in the book. And it's full of tracks that go with different parts of it. Describe the playlist to me. And what is your favourite song on there?
AR: That is such a tough question. Yeah, we wanted to make sure music was in the book. So, every single chapter is a song title. It has a lyric from the song that means something to me. And quite often, it's the song that I was listening to to help me get through life at that point. So, that's another way that I cope. I cope with things through laughter and through music. Music just makes me feel incredible. So, there's all sorts of songs on there. There's some for your mums and some for your dads. And then there's some dance music as well, because that's what I absolutely love. We just wanted to make sure that if somebody was reading a chapter and they wanted a little rest, they could maybe go and have a listen to the song that is the header of the chapter.
And we also wanted to almost bring it to life through music. I feel like music can help colour in certain emotions where sometimes maybe words aren't enough. So, I just thought, "If people aren't quite getting the feeling of what I want to say, maybe if they listen to the song, it'll help them." Because I think that's how I express myself, actually, through music rather than words. I'm a bit out of my depth with writing. So, that's why Kate helped me. I don't feel like a reader. But I do hope this book helps people who, like me, maybe don't think books are for them. They truly are. It's just maybe they need to be given to us in a way that works for us. So, maybe the music will help people also understand the sentiment of the book and help build them up as well.
HN: What are the favourite things or anything that you enjoy that you've listened to or read?
AR: Ah, that's a good question. For example, when I'd got onto Dancing on Ice, I did myself a whole playlist. And what I'd do is imagine myself when I couldn't skate, when I was training, being able to skate to certain songs and how that would look in my head. Visualisation's in the book quite a lot. And if I'm going through a tough time, I usually build myself a playlist and then try and imagine better times. Even though I'm going through tough times, I'll use music to help me visualise what it can be like in the future.
HN: Yeah. That's amazing.
AR: But in terms of songs, I'm ashamed to say, even though it did work for Radio 1, it's quite often old songs from when you were younger that make you feel things that you go back to. Like Radiohead, “Creep.” Like, things like that, where you're just like, "I love that song and I could listen to it again and again and again."
HN: Yeah. I think it was just after university, and someone described my music taste as just circa 2008. I was just like, "That's was a good year."
AR: Let me think. So, what was on there? Like, Lady Gaga?
HN: I liked quite a lot of The National and, like, Bon Iver and that sort of thing.
AR: Oh, you're 6 music. You're a 6 music listener.
HN: It was that kind of thing, but all from around 2008.
AR: But you're a classy one. You see, I'm much further down than you.
HN: I feel like my music taste has definitely changed. I feel like now, if Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift or Beyonce are releasing anything—
AR: Poppy bangers. All right, I'm with you.
HN: I listen to it on repeat. So, I would love to give some time to your wonderful mum. Tell me what she was like.
AR: Oh, my gosh. What a beautiful question. Just my everything. And I say in the book, people always ask me about people that I've met, I've been lucky enough to meet through radio. And I have met some incredibly wonderful famous people, but my mum to me is my hero. I say in the book how I'm her little tribute act. I think I've just spent my whole life trying to impress her and show her how much I love her.
She had me when she was very young. She was 16 when she had me. A lot of people tried to get her to give me up or maybe have me adopted or just, basically, she got bad advice. And she just never let me go. I think that she gave me everything she should've had. She's had a very tough life and she just made sure that my life was as good as it could be. And she's the reason I know that no matter what's thrown at you in life, you can get through it. She proved that again and again. And even with her condition, even when she was told she had ataxia, she was so strong to the end and, I think, spirit-wise as well. So, I think I explain in the book, "No matter what your body goes through, never let it diminish your spirit," and she never did. She was strong to the end.
HN: Sounds like she made you know that you were loved and wanted from the start.
AR: Absolutely. Yeah, without a doubt. And I think that's fundamental. There were a lot of people on the council estates and they didn't have that. And I just knew how lucky I was. I think that's why I often had gratitude as a kid, because I just knew I was so lucky to have my mum and dad. You know, we didn't have carpets. We didn't have wallpaper a lot of the time. Our house was an absolute mess, but I had them. And we had each other, me and my brothers and sisters. And that's all you need in life.
HN: Did you read her any of the notes on your phone as you were writing this?
AR: I read her a bit of the book. And towards the end, her condition made it hard for her to concentrate. I think she lasted two sentences [laughs]. And then she was talking something about else. And me and Kate, my partner, were laughing. But that's my mum. She was very funny to the end as well.
HN: Amazing. Do you know which two?
AR: I started at the start. So, you know the opening? The opening where I'm talking about Ian Beale and waffles, even that couldn't hold her attention. She was just like, "I'm bored now." I was like, "Thanks, Mum."
HN: Incredible. Well, I can assure everyone that it is a brilliant read.
AR: Ah, thank you.
HN: From start to finish, it's really engaging. I think I'm going to take your advice as well of having a little notes-to-self app where I can put all those bits of inspiration, those bits of advice, those thoughts that I want to come back to and keep that as something I can return to. So, yeah, it's full of great advice.
AR: Thank you very much, Holly. And was the music okay? Were there some bangers on there?
HN: Yeah, there were. My husband said that if he could guess the track, because I put it on in the middle of a conversation with him, I was like, "Excuse me. I'm actually going to put on this playlist that I need to listen to." And he was like, "Okay. When I can guess the song, will you stop it?" And he wasn't guessing, and I was like, "Do you not know any of these songs?" And he was like, "No. They're actually just quite good. So, you keep it on."
AR: Thank you, Holly's husband. Because you're cool, you know, so he's probably cool as well. I'll take that.
HN: Well, Adele, it's been such a pleasure to chat. Thank you so much.
AR: Thank you for having me.
HN: Thanks for listening to Audible Sessions. If you enjoyed this and want to hear more, search Audible Sessions on the Audible website or on the app. Personal Best, written and narrated by Adele Roberts, published by Hodder & Stoughton, is available to listen to on Audible now.
