Susan Biali, M.D., took a roundabout route to her present incarnation as a wellness expert, life coach, freelance writer, international speaker and flamenco dancer--oh, and author of the recently released Live a Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier More Passionate You. 

Her journey is an edifying one, leaving behind her days as a harried, unhappy Canadian physician for a multifaceted career that provides more income--and far greater satisfaction--than practicing medicine.

Two years into her ER training program, she was suffering from eating disorders, anxiety attacks and severe depression. Luckily, her state of mind didn't go unnoticed. One night the senior emergency medical resident called her at home and suggested she take a seven-week stress leave. "She said she could tell I was having a tough time. She told me, 'I want you to think about who you really are and what you would love to do.' "

That was exactly what Biali needed to hear. "Nobody had ever told me that in life I might get to do what I wanted to do to create success," she says. Out of the blue, she decided to take a trip to Cuba, where she saw "an amazing team" of Cuban salsa dancers.

She remembered that as an 8-year-old child her dream was to be a dancer on the Solid Gold TV variety show. She decided she had to begin dancing.

She resigned from her residency,got her license as a general practitioner, and signed up for her first salsa dance class. "I didn't know what was coming," she says. And in fact, her first dance teacher wasn't particularly encouraging. But when a friend signed them both up with a second teacher, he quickly added Biali to his professional dance team. The remuneration was small, but Biali enjoyed herself immensely.

She discovered flamenco at age 31 and instantly knew it was her milieu. "I had had a number of romantic challenges with salsa partners," she says. "But flamenco is all about female power, and you don't need a man to do it. It's a solo art form."

Another trip to a foreign country changed her life again. While working on her book in Cabo San Lucas, she met Armando Martinez, the man who would become her husband. That started what she calls "the Mexican chapter of my life and my business." It didn't happen overnight--it took a year and a half to get the proper papers for her to perform in Mexico. Then she solicited dozens of clients before getting her first break--a chance to dance at a restaurant on the marina in Cabo San Lucas in 2006.

She gathered a crowd up and down the marina the first night she performed, but when the owner offered only $50 a night for her to perform, she said no. Nevertheless, he called a few weeks later and offered her $300 to dance for his daughter's wedding, a huge society event in Cabo. As a result, "By December I was dancing for Sean Penn and the owners of the Lakers and the owner of the Cowboys. It went bonkers," Biali says, still sounding amazed more than two years later.

"The neat thing is how you start with an idea and it ends up transforming. Initially, I wanted to completely stop being a doctor and completely be a dancer. Now I'm getting flown around North America to speak and to dance. It's become a unique offer to entertain, and also inspire and educate [audiences] simultaneously. By doing that, I've gone from making hundreds of dollars an hour to making thousands of dollars an hour," she says.

Biali still works minimally as a physician, "usually 15 hours a week or less," she says. Her freelance writing provides both cash and credibility. She writes on topics ranging from health and nutrition to living well. Dancing provides about 20 percent of her income. Speaking has become her main enterprise. Her speeches, workshops and seminars cover health and happiness, wellness and life balance, and "Make 'Someday' Today!" Clients have ranged from Houston Healthcare to The E-Woman Network and from Soroptimists International to the Canadian Chiropractic Association.

She appreciates having multiple streams of income. She's also anticipating income from her book, and its related products--a workbook and "Your Prescription for Life!" CD.

She's at the stage of her business now where she's benefiting from pull marketing. "I don't have to do a lot of active marketing with most of my speaking engagements. They approach me. And the same thing with magazines asking me to contribute. I have a strong web presence: They find me when they're looking for sources and speakers."

Advice from Biali:

1. Take really small steps toward whatever it is that fascinates you or seems really fun. "All this started with signing up for a single salsa dance course," she says. "You don't necessarily have to have the whole picture figured out. Many times the very best life is the one that's lived one little clue and one step forward at a time; and then every time you take a step forward you get more information about yourself and what you love and what opportunities are out there, and then you take the next step and the next. And the next thing you know, you're living this wonderful, big, fabulous life, and you just pinch yourself all the time.
   
   "Anything that lights you up and increases your energy, it's really important to pay attention to."
    
2. Read books. She wanted to be a freelance writer, so she borrowed a book from the library on how to make money from freelance writing. "I love the library. You can get so much information about running a business without paying a cent," she says.
    
3. Pick up the phone and make the call to the person you're really scared to call. She pitched the biggest women's magazine in Canada, Chatelaine, explaining that she was a doctor who liked to write. At first the editor declined, saying the magazine had a policy against doctors writing for the publication. But when a cover feature for the magazine failed to materialize, the frantic editor contacted Biali, asking whether she could write something quickly. She was a contributing writer at the publication from June 2001 through September 2002.
    
4. Get out of your daily routine. If you can, get completely out of your day-to-day environment by yourself and away from all the usual daily triggers. "When you're in the middle of your life, you can't really see things a lot of the time to make those big leaps forward," she says.
    
5. Learn everything you can on your own. "It's important to bring in experts, such as web designers and marketing people, so you'll present a professional face to the world. It's also really important to learn a minimum of those skills for yourself," she says. She advises entrepreneurs to develop basic skills about finances, taxes, writing copy, marketing, sales, design and branding. How do you go about it? Biali suggests signing up for a lot of teleseminars, many of which are free.
    
6. Keep the bigger picture in mind. "Every day I have immediate things I need to get done, and the things I need to get done to move me toward my bigger-picture projects. As entrepreneurs, we can get totally swallowed just by day-to-day administrative stuff and fires that come up. We always have to keep in mind the bigger picture and what our big goals are to make sure we're moving toward them."
    
7. Delegate. "I've cured myself of Lone Ranger syndrome," Biali says. But she notes that she has to be organized in order to delegate assignments so they'll be ready when she needs them.
    
8. Pace yourself. Biali says her biggest challenge these days is knowing when to stop. "To be doing something on purpose that I'm passionate about and that I love, I could truly go 24/7. And then my whole life would fall apart. I think that's the problem with many entrepreneurs. We can burn ourselves out."
    
9. Focus on cash flow, and use cash, not credit. Because of the credit crisis, Biali made a conscious decision to pay all her providers the day she gets their invoice, to be more cautious about spending, and to focus on generating and maintaining positive cash flow. Since making that decision, she says, "I'm having more success than I've ever had. Since I switched to this way [of doing business], I've had a lot more gigs without doing any more marketing."
   
   Says Biali, "When you have a big line of credit, you spend money more easily. I made a vow that I'm not going to go into any more debt for my business."
    
10. Making mistakes is OK. "Making mistakes in business is kind of like getting an MBA. To be where I am right now, I have to have made the mistakes. It's far better to act and make a mistake than not to act."