Season four of "The Chew" premiered Monday following a successful third season where it posted the biggest year-over-year gain in viewers of any daytime TV show. Its ratings jumped 33% from 0.9 to 1.2, matching those of the "The View," which were unchanged.

Much of the popularity of The Chew is due to its celebrity chef hosts: Mario Batali, Michael Symon and Carla Hall, who spoke to Yahoo Finance about her transformation from accountant to top chef.

"I took the CPA test," says Hall. "As soon as I passed I was looking to get out...My biggest fear was being 40 and hating my job."

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Carla decided that following her heart was the most important thing to her and dropped everything. She moved to Paris to work as a model, as she had during college. And, like Julia Child living in Paris years before, she fell in love with food and cooking. Hall read cookbooks, taught herself to cook, and after returning to the states started a lunch delivery service at age 25.

“It was a fluke," Hall says. "I literally was taking lunch to a friend...I was sharing it with other people in the office, and they said 'What's the name of your business?' I looked down. I had put everything into a picnic basket and said 'The Lunch Basket.'

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And then every day thereafter for five years she went to that office and other offices and shops -- as "the lunch lady," followed by culinary school at 30. Hall eventually made it onto Top Chef, the famed cooking contest show where she learned from other chefs "to be yourself" and then on to The Chew.

Her advice to others who want to change careers like she did: "follow your heart" but "don't jump in with both feet," if you have a family, other obligations and expenses. Instead she suggests, "Be a weekend warrior...Step one foot into an industry. See if you like it. Often it's not as glamorous as you think it is."

Another important piece of advice? Find the right partner. Just as powerful women like Sheryl Sandberg do, Hall credits her husband with providing the support she needed to keep going. "He has pretty much taken care of the whole financial support of the family because whatever I made needed to be turned back around into my business," she says. "In terms of my time, he doesn't expect me to be at home if I have an event and it's running long."

Hall admits that her career turnaround wasn't always pretty. "Sometimes it was so hard..." she says recounting decisions she and her husband had to make between supporting her business or paying for her son's school. "I was in the shower just crying...I was trying to follow my heart but it was really hard and I remember thinking 'I cannot do this anymore, I can't do this.'"

But she did, and today it's clear that Hall loves her job.

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