Passion is the X factor. It the single factor that most influences whether a venture (of any type: artistic, social, commercial, political, or athletic) will be wildly successful.

I am generally happy if I meet one new passionate person per month. This past week I've had the chance to meet 4.

1. James Forsyth --I met James tonight while speaking at Wake Forest University. James is working on creating a documentary on global poverty. He is working to produce an 'Inconvenient Truth' about global poverty, suffering, and global health care. According to him the books The End of Poverty, Naked Economics, and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man changed his life after he read them last summer--and the knowledge gained from them is what drives him. James said in an email to me tonight "I was shocked that the situations in Sub-Saharan Africa actually exist. We were also shocked to learn how little America, the richest country in the world, does about it. Then we realized that it is because there is no demand from the people to do more about it and that the majority of the population doesn’t understand how severe it is. One of the driving concepts of the documentary is that we desire to transfer information from a source that people don’t get exposure to (a book) and present it through a medium that the majority of Americans use: a movie. Although we were familiar with the horrors and travesties that exist in places Sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of the population isn’t educated on the matter because they don’t read, especially the types of books like The End of Poverty."

2. Adam Gilbert from Mybodytutor.com. I have no doubt in my mind that he is going to make it. He sent me a text on Saturday morning at 5:33am that said: "Can't sleep anymore. Sorry to keep texting I really just believe. There is nothing like my program out there." This is the X factor. What were you doing at 5:33am on a Saturday morning when you were 21?

3. Carolina Salas -- I met Carolina on Friday night at the Rainbow room on the 65th floor of the GE building in New York City at the Super Young Entrepreneurs Gathering. Born in Venezuela, Carolina moved with her mom to the States around age 9. She's graduating May 16 from Columbia University with a degree in Women and Gender Studies. Carolina is in the early stages of starting a creme liquor business with a partner of hers, but what drives her is her passion to reduce human suffering on a global scale by improving healthcare and access to education for persons in developing nations. A quote from an email from her today that stood out: "I've learned to accept that we all have different passions, objectives, goals in life, and no matter how distinct they are from one another, whether they are "good" or "bad" these driving forces make the tapestry of our society rich, beautiful, and meaningful."

4. Kimmie Weeks -- Kimmie is a Liberian refugee and founder of the Youth Action Network. He is 26, lived in a refugee camp for six months when he was 9. He saw human suffering on his doorstep and then went through it himself. He saw a mothers' body in the street with a live baby clinging to her while others passed by. His mom said "Don't worry we live in an international community of people who care. Liberia has joined the U.N. and paid our dues. They'll be peacekeepers here soon." But no one came, they were left all alone. With each passing day the children and elderly began to die. "Hope eroded" were his words last night. Kids died in their own excrement. He began eating roots and leaves. The water was brown but he drank anyway to make it to the next name. He went in and out of conciousness, and his body was bundled in a blanket and thrown into a heap of bodies. But his hysterically searching mom knew he was alive and went body to body for hours to find him and when she did, she shook him violently, "Kimmie, Kimmie."

Soon the men stopped burying bodies without enough energy to spend digging graves. He saw and experienced tears and grief. They made it for six months. A West African Peacekeeping force called Equimag saved them. Only then did UNICEF come.

Girls had to turn to prostitution to feed themselves. Children saw prostitution as their way out. They became sex slaves to rebel armies. Bodies were dumped in the waterways. He wondered, "Why is there no massive outcry? Why is there no media attention. CNN covers Paris Hilton losing her Chihuahua which she finds the next day but can't cover 32,000 children dying from starvation and preventable diseases each and every day!"

Kimmie's advice for those who want to help those in Africa--"Create jobs. Invest in Africa." He talked of investment and the ingenuity of people in Sierra Leone who developed a rice cooker which could be turned on by a cell phone and would send a text message when the rice was done. He shared that is cost only $400 to train a nurse in Liberia, and that the average annual college tuition was $100. His organization's average microcredit loan was just $150. We can make a difference through targeted aid to community projects he argued. It's a generational movement. We must be connected, connected to create change.

Kimmie told the story of a playground his organization built in Liberia. People asked him "Why the hell are you building playgrounds?" On the first day the playground was opened, 2000 children showed up. The merry-go-round, which was build on reinforced concrete had sunk into the ground after just one day! Talk about passion!

As Fort Minor so eloquenty rhymes...
"Nobody really knows how or why he works so hard.
It seems like he's never got time.
Because he writes every note and he writes every line
And I've seen him at work when that light goes on in his mind.
It's like a design is written in his head every time.
Before he even touches a key or speaks in a rhyme.
Him and his crew are known around as one of the best
Dedicated to what they do they give 100%."