In 1990, King took $3,000 and started Loving Hands, a homecare services business. Her love for helping the elderly and people with disabilities became a thriving million-dollar business that employs 55 workers.

Then three months ago she moved into a new venture--she launched Willow Glen-based Soul magazine, a glossy lifestyle publication with a spiritual focus. She plans to use the magazine's profits to support local service organizations.

"A lot of people think it is soul in the sense of soul music. It didn't quite mean that, but that works too," she says.

The magazine is published under the nonprofit group Fit for the King, also founded by King.

For King, who has no prior experience in the publishing industry, starting the magazine was a huge leap of faith.

She got the idea two years ago while grocery shopping.

"I was standing in line, getting ready to pay and looking at magazines at the counter," King says. "I began to wonder if there was a magazine that has information which is spiritual, uplifting and can create friendship among people."

A futile search down the magazine aisle led her to research conducted by the Barna Group, an organization that specializes in research for churches, and found that people between the ages of 20 and 39 are searching for spiritual answers but were not members of any organized church, King says. She also found that 94 percent of people in this same age group get their most valuable information from magazines. "That was like icing on the cake," King says.

She bounced the idea off her pastor, Hoa Tong, at Freedom Worship Center in downtown San Jose. He encouraged her to pursue her dream. "The magazine is a wonderful bridge between spiritual and social issues," says Tong, who is on the magazine's advisory board.

The magazine plans to address such heated topics as homosexuality, addiction and abortion from a spiritual perspective.

"It gets people to think about issues that may be controversial," he says, "but in a way that they can relate to it."

To help King launch her effort, Tong began talking about the project from the pulpit. Soon, King had a group of eager volunteers.

"We began to meet on a weekly basis and talked about who we wanted to reach, how we wanted to reach them and what their needs are," King says.

Drawing inspiration from her experience as a certified addictions counselor, King decided to name the magazine Soul.

"I'm a church-going individual who reads the Bible and it says a lot of things about the soul," King says. "The soul is your mind, will and emotions."

In the magazine's debut issue, King writes from the publisher's desk: "It is when our soul is healthy, that our spirit is regenerated, and we are taking the necessary steps to take care of our body that we are led into a life of indescribable joy. Living a life of peace and harmony is what Soul Mag is all about."

The staff is already seeing a response. The premiere April 1 issue touched on homosexuality in church, and drew numerous responses, not all of them positive, she says.

While developing the magazine's look, King steered away from the low-grade paper associated with most spiritual publications.

"We knew we needed to go beyond that to appeal to the eye of our target demographics," King says.

The magazine received rave reviews at its April 1 gala launch at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, King says.

"What is most exciting is watching people get excited about the magazine," she adds. "People tell us it's very slick-looking, they like the articles and they can't believe a magazine like that is coming out of San Jose."

The magazine, which currently has a print run of 10,000, has close to 200 subscribers and has just received approval from Barnes & Noble Bookseller at the Westgate Mall in San Jose to sell the magazine.

Rocky Road

But King's road to success wasn't always easy. After graduating from Silver Creek High School in San Jose, she worked her way up from an assembler at a local high-tech company to become a quality assurance technician. At the same time, she fought an on-off battle with drugs and alcohol.

"Having been raised in a Christian home, I always knew what I was doing was wrong," King says. "I allowed myself to get involved because there were needs in my life."

Though it was difficult, King found strength to turn her life around. "By God's grace, I was fortunate to overcome those struggles and went to school to become an addiction counselor, which also solidified my recovery," King adds.

In 1990, she left her job at the high-tech firm and started working as a homecare aide. She soon started a business to help the elderly and people with disabilities with housekeeping, cooking and bathing. But she knew little about business plans, cash-flow analysis or marketing strategies, the basic startup building blocks.

A friend pointed her to the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), an organization that counsels and advises thousands of small business owners across the country. There, retired chemical nuclear engineer Lloyd Michels took her under his wing.

Michel's guidance uncovered the entrepreneurial gift King never knew she had.

"It took this one open door for me to realize that I had what people call a visionary eye," King says. "I can see needs that can turn into potential business successes."

The mantra Michels passed on was, "Don't start a business without a business plan."

"When I started Loving Hands, he made sure every aspect of my business plan was done thoroughly," she says. "It was my roadmap to help me stay on course."

Even after her business took off, Michels remained a close adviser until his death in December.

"He was always very concerned about how I was doing in business and would very quickly let me know if I was running after a rabbit's trail," says King, who in turn provided homecare services to Michels when he fell ill.

Her sister, Runnel Collie, credits King's success to her determination. "Janice has always followed her own tune in life," says Collie, who used to help out with Loving Hands before she moved to Hampton, Ga. in December. "Even as a child, she would never take 'No' for an answer. That word is just not in her vocabulary."

King is so thankful for the opportunity SCORE gave her that she is running ongoing advertisements for the organization in Soul magazine.

"I believe it in so much and the magazine has given me an opportunity to give back to them what they have given me," she says.

"As the magazine grows, we're going to put money back into the community," King says. "We want to reach out to various community groups like the Second Harvest Food Bank and the Emergency Housing Consortium."

Today, King also plays unofficial mentor to her 12 magazine staff members, who come from diverse backgrounds ranging from carpentry to show business.

Associate editor Tamika Bush says she has learned about leadership from King.

"You respect her but you also know she's always looking out for your best interests," Bush says.

Art director Andre Pierre Clemons appreciates King's open-minded approach to new ideas while staying focused on the magazine's main message.

"It's been an eye-opening experience that showed me a lot about my abilities, how well I can communicate with others and how well I can work under different types of pressures," Clemons says.

While the magazine is off to a good start, King knows the road ahead is long. She hopes to turn the magazine from a quarterly to a bi-monthly publication by next summer and turn it into a monthly magazine the year after.

"We want to stay a local magazine, in terms of California, for the first two years but our true hopes are to become an international magazine that's on newsstands everywhere," King says.

King and her team also have plans to hold annual music festivals and to use music to bring different groups of people together.

"We want to bridge the gap between business, churches and the world," King says.

For now, the toughest challenge is waiting on funds. "As the visionary, I've been allowing Loving Hands to be the bigger donor to support this," King says. "At this point, we really need to get sponsors, people who are willing to help us."

It costs about $22,000 a month to publish the magazine.

Watching it all come together has been a dream come true.

"It's been an interesting journey," King says. "I'm blessed and I'm excited about what's ahead."

For more information about 'Soul' magazine, 1777 Hamilton Ave., call 408. 448.4000 or visit www.soulmag.org.