Follow your heart and you will find your passion in the world.

When we see successful people we typically see the finished product and we rarely know about what a person had to face that lead to her success. This week we are profiling Susanna Zaraysky, an accomplished author of two books, one called Language is Music and the other, Travel Happy, Budget Low. You will hear about Susanna’s books later in this profile.

Susanna Zaraysky, emigrated with her family from the former Soviet Union when she was three years old, her family left to escape Communist oppression and to experience the freedom to express themselves.

We take communicating with others for granted; none of us have to be worried about someone spying on us when we make phone calls or write letters. If you lived in the Soviet Union during the 1980’s that was something you worried about daily.

The KGB might have read the mail, tapped the phone lines and listened to your conversations. You couldn’t talk with your best girlfriend over the phone because it was dangerous to speak your opinions.

Communication was monitored by the Soviet government all the way through its collapse and when Susanna’s family came to the U.S. they had unlimited freedom to communicate. It opened up a whole new world for Susanna and inspired her to learn other languages and become a world traveler and adventurer.

As young girl in America, Susanna had the responsibility of translating for her parents and sometimes for others in the Russian émigré community who were not fluent in English. She did not like doing this as a young child.

What Susanna was able to realize as she grew up is that she can be the voice for people who are unable to communicate what they need to communicate. She started to see that she could learn different languages and bridge the communication gap for everyone.

What came out of that realization that she could bridge the communication gap was that Susanna started to take language classes in school, first it was Hebrew at the age of 10, then she started to study French in middle school.

It was during this time that Susanna started to place her focus on challenging herself academically. Susanna was living in California at the time and she attended high school in what was considered to be one of the top school districts in the country. But, Susanna was not academically challenged by this school and she remembers a story of when as a 14 year old girl, she went to her high school guidance counselor and asked him to be placed in more advanced classes. What her guidance counselor said was a shock, he said, “We’ll have to see how you do in your current classes and you should wait until your Junior Year (year three in American High School) to pursue advanced classes”.

And this infuriated Susanna: she had high goals and to achieve them she needed to be challenged academically. And after this disappointing confrontation with her guidance counselor Susanna petitioned her parents to send her to a top-notch boarding school in the Northeastern part of the United States. She almost received a full scholarship to study at Milton Academy. Prior to this she studied in France for two months and lived with a French family.

Finally, Susanna got the academic challenge that she wanted. In her earlier education she was taught to memorize and repeat information for tests and assignments, but now Susanna was being challenged to be an exquisite speaker, a great linguist and someone who could effectively communicate her ideas through speaking and writing.

Susanna decided to study Spanish and eventually ended up living in Argentina for a year. Susanna also learned Italian in college, taught herself Portuguese, picked up Serbo-Croatian while living in Bosnia and studied a bit of Arabic.

A woman with a gift of languages and a life full of learning them, but for Susanna something was still missing. She knew that she had a level of linguistic comprehension that other people did not, but she did not know how to impart her brilliance on the world.

Until she read the book, Musicophilia by Dr. Oliver Sachs where Susanna saw that language was like music. Susanna could hear the unique sounds of language just like musicians can hear the unique notes of music and once realized this she knew exactly how she wanted to give this ability away to people. And this was through writing the book, Language is Music.

Susanna saw that learning a language could be more than just memorizing vocabulary words and more than grammar and sentence structure. Susanna transformed languages into something that can be fun, just like singing your favorite song and she published her book to give away her tips on how to learn language.

And now a new world has now opened up for people; Susanna’s mission is to have languages be easy to learn for everyone. Fluency and proficiency can be achieved in a short period of time without struggle.

At the heart of Susanna’s inspiration is her story in high school; she did not want to settle for mediocrity or lose out on the opportunity to pursue her education. Susanna believes that women need to do what they can to get ahead in the world. A woman can truly shine through in life and be seen in a bright light if she has a strong educational background. Confidence can spring from education and a woman has many opportunities that she can take advantage of. Go take a college class, go step out of your surroundings and meet someone from a different place than you are from and grow as a woman.

Besides writing the book, Language Is Music, Susanna is also the author of Travel Happy, Budget Low. One of the things that Susanna got to experience through her passion for language is what it was like to live in and travel to places that she never thought that she could.

Living in Argentina, France, Hungary, Ukraine and Bosnia, Susanna got to explore the world and experience things that most people have not and she encourages all women to go out and do the same.

There are so many ways to be a global citizen nowadays. Be free and pursue what you love and seek the rapture of being alive, the joy of doing what you love and don’t let anyone stop you from pursuing your dreams. Be financially sensible and don’t take out loans for things that you do not know how you will pay back. As someone who graduated college when she was 20 and started investing when she was 21, Susanna recommends that people maintain a healthy balance between being financially solvent and following your dreams.

You have the power to overcome any circumstances that you are facing and craft your life, you truly are at the steering wheel of your life and you get to say which road you will be taking.