The Interview: Adele de Caso

John Woodhouse meets a businesswoman who overcame crippling shyness to write a self-help book for other sufferers

As a child, Adele de Caso was always dubbed "the quiet one". The girl permanently in the background. The one not worth bothering with.

"I was very unhappy," she says. "I never had the confidence to speak up. Sadly people mistake that for someone who's got nothing to say."

Two decades on and Adele is unrecognisable from that schoolgirl tormented by low self-esteem. Where once stood a tongue-tied teenager, there is now a confident businesswoman, mother-of-three, and owner of a holiday retreat in Spain.

"Back then," she says, "I would never have believed it if you'd said to me I'd achieve what I have done now."

Thankfully, she's not one to keep the secrets of her transformation to herself – she has also found time to knock out the self-help tome Shy People Can Be Successful Too! But don't mistake her for an in-your-face preacher, a sermoniser of U.S. evangelical proportions. As befits someone whose target audience is, by its very nature, apprehensive, Adele is more of a coaxer, preferring to use her own story to ease people along a gently sloping pathway to personal contentment.

For her, the moment of ultimate realisation that she alone would have to confront her difficulties came as she found herself mired in the nine-to-five.

"I was good at my job and very professional," she says of her time working as a medical laboratory scientific officer, "but I had so little confidence and I would worry about what people thought about me. It was a job I had originally wanted to do but I wasn't enjoying it at all."

Adele's eye was drawn to the plethora of guides, found in any large bookshop, aimed at building self-assurance. She began to realise she wasn't pre-destined to be forever wondering what her peers thought of her – especially if she could begin to think more of herself.

"I discovered that I didn't have to carry on this way," she says.

"I began taking small steps, applying the information that could help me, stepping out of my comfort zone.

"I realised it didn't always have to be that way."

A change of career – Adele, now aged 37, works for Kleeneze, one of the largest home shopping companies in the world – meant more contact with strangers, the necessity to express herself. In fact, having discovered her hidden self, Adele found she had something of a talent for it, to the extent that she was called upon to address 5,000 prospective company employees at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

"I had seen people do it before," she recalls, "but I had no idea what it felt like. It was extremely nerve-racking and took a lot of preparation but the feeling afterwards was amazing. It was incredible to have done it, especially when people were coming up to me congratulating me."

Adele, who lives at Trentham with husband Jaime, and children Sofia, aged nine, Phoebe, six, and Javier, two, is hoping one day she might repeat the experience, only this time addressing an audience eager to learn how they can work towards emulating the orator's confidence.

"People don't always realise they can change. I wanted to write a book so they could realise what happened to me can apply to anyone."

Of course the thing with shyness is, it's not an easy thing to admit to. By definition, anyone who is shy is unlikely to go around telling all and sundry of their problem. But it seems the bashful are far from alone.

"When I did the research for my book, I found out that 45 per cent of the population are shy," says Adele. "It sounds a lot of people but since I've done the book it's surprised me how many people I've never thought of as shy have brought it up with me. It's not as simple as someone being quiet – there's much more to it than that."

Adele can only put her own shyness down to being an only child. Others may have their own reasons. She hopes, whatever the cause, people will find an answer in her book. "My aim with the book was to put together something that anyone could read, even if they were brand new to personal development."

The story would have one final twist, however. As the book was reaching its final stages prior to publication, Adele was told the shocking news that she had a large tumour in her intestine. She had to undergo a seven-hour operation to remove it. The problem put Adele out of action for four months. But this is one woman not short of inner strength and she is now fit again. "I was able to publish the book," she says, "a moment I had been dreaming of for years."

Indeed, life is full of promise for the healthy and self-assured Adele. "I decided I would always live for the day," she says of the new her. "I believe that's how, money allowing of course, life should be lived."

The writer adds a postscript, however. "Just one thing that I forgot to mention is that I haven't changed my personality at all – I am by no means an extrovert! The subtitle of the book," she adds, "is 'Achieve your dreams without changing your personality'."