I learned to make soap. That's right. The stuff we take showers with. In the scheme of things, it really wasn't anything to write home about. People were politely interested in my new hobby, yet no one seemed particularly impressed. But as for me, well, I just couldn't make enough soap. It was all over my house, along with soap molds, bottles of essential and fragrance oils and plastic bags filled with everything that could be used to add texture and color to soap: ground almonds, oats, crushed herbs, beet powder (for pink color), poppy seeds and more. I was enchanted. If I was not at the office, I was on my way to or from buying soap making materials, or I was in my kitchen making soap.

From somewhere deep down in my soul, I sensed a change within myself. I had no words for it back then, but today, I recognize it as having found my passion. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I knew it was mine to do with as I pleased. I could douse it with the water of normalcy and sensibility or I could light an unexpected and risky fire under it. I could pursue my passion or I could let it die before it was fully discovered. After a few months of soul searching, I decided not only to pursue my passion but also to live it. I quite literally saw the decision as life or death. I decided to live, or die trying.

Before I knew it, I had left a very well paying job to make soap full-time, open a bath and body shop near my home and discover where this odd passion would take me. My parents were a strange combination of disappointed, confused and terrified. They were not alone as I too felt some of those emotions. Yet I was also exhilarated and determined. I had discovered that I was capable of digging deep within myself to find new meaning and purpose in my life. I was unstoppable.

At first, I could think of little else but making soap. Yet as the days passed, I began develop relationships with other people who were also discovering and pursuing their passions. There was the designer who came to my shop on a regular basis to buy massage oil and paint a henna design on my hand. There was the environmental attorney who longed to leave his own job to finish the novel he started writing years before. There was the former telephone sales representative who had left the phone lines to open an African art shop. There was my former co-worker at the law firm who secretly shared her desire to produce a play she had been writing for years. And everyone wanted to know my "secret" for "chucking it all to follow a dream." Clearly what I had done touched a nerve. My life suddenly had richness, texture and depth unlike I had ever known before, and I think that was obvious to the people who knew me best.

I was doing what I loved to do and I was determined to follow it wherever it would lead me. I had broken all the rules. I was building my own corporate ladder. I was creating the life I loved. I stood everything I had been taught about stability and planning on its ear. I took a risk on my own happiness. Since then, I've written books and articles, appeared in many news programs and magazines, married my high school sweetheart, birthed two children, launched several businesses and helped thousands of other people discover and pursue their passions!

And to think it all started with making a bar of soap. That passion lead to another passion, and another passion and so on. My passion for soap making remains in tact, yet it has expanded to include other passions. And I never would have had the opportunity to discover those if I had not taken the very first step. How simple is that? One passion leads to another and suddenly, your life takes on new and more exciting meanings.

I have recently watched my passion expand even further to an Internet Radio Show, a cable television show and a conference. These outlets embody my new passion -- the passion of helping you find and maximize your own passion. Now your passion is my passion and I want to hear all about it.

Everyone has a passion for something (or somethings). What are your passions? Which of them do you long to pursue more than all others? Have you already begun to pursue your passion? How is it going? What would you do differently? What advice and encouragement can you give to others? What's holding you back from pursuing your passions?

Together, we can break all the rules, build our own corporate ladders and create the lives we love!!