Roads To Success 3

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The Series

Personnel key to the series were scattered across the country; the gentleman who originated the China television idea (he became the executive producer for the project) was located in Iowa, people in charge of placing the series in broadcast systems across China were in Florida, the team responsible for dubbing the shows into Chinese and a handful or other individuals were in locations I can no longer remember.  Scott Hannah and I were located in California.  So, production meetings via telephone conference calls began taking place weekly, every Monday morning.

For the most part everyone on the team was in agreement with what needed to be done, and how it should be done.  The sole disagreement concerned what the focus of each episode should be.  At the time, my way of explaining it was that the executive producer wanted each episode to be an educational video describing how to make widgets.  If the featured entrepreneur owned a window manufacturing company, then my instructions were to write and direct a show that showed the viewer, step-by-step, how to mass-produce windows.

I felt strongly and argued that the step-by-step, how-to concept was going to make for boring television.  My choice was to make each show about the entrepreneurs, the people and their lives.  The businesses, the companies and the success that came with them would serve as backdrops for the story telling.  Scott saw my point and agreed, but we didn’t get our way; at least, not for the first nine or ten shows.

Eventually, the executive producer resigned; I don’t recall ever hearing a specific reason as to why.  The power base shifted with his departure, Scott and I were able to assume more control, and I was able to write and direct the balance of the shows telling the personal stories of the business leaders we featured.  For the record, those first nine or ten shows move remarkably slow; it’s very difficult for me to watch them today.  But slow or not, they did not stop Secrets Of Success from catching on.

As it turned out, the distribution team faced unexpected and difficult challenges in getting the series broadcast on Chinese television.  It did air in China during the first one or two years of production, but only sporadically and never reaching the size of audience that was hoped for.  However, other countries began to discover the series and ask for it on their airways.  Secrets Of Success gradually spread around the world, airing weekly in a growing number of countries.

The program aired only briefly in the United States, broadcast on some obscure cable television station for a single season if I recall correctly.  It was produced for a secular audience; it rarely contained Christian “buzz words” or phrases and it never preached.  But the show still dealt openly with issues of Christian faith, and that certainly made it unpalatable for most American secular television, even cable.  The U.S. may have been uninterested in Secrets Of Success, but requests for the series in other parts of the world continued to increase.  Russia, Romania, South Africa, Latin America and many of the countries of central Europe broadcast the show weekly.  Before production ended on the series Secrets of Success would amass a worldwide audience of over 2 billion.  The weekly audience in India alone varied between 80 and 125 million.

Secrets Of Success featured over thirty-five business leaders in the series.  Among them were Mike and Brian McCoy (co-owners of McCoy’s Building Supply in Texas), Norm Miller (founder and Chairman of Interstate Batteries), John Beckett (Chairman and CEO of R.W. Beckett Corp., manufacturing oil and gas burners for residential and commercial markets), Gene Birdwell (founder and CEO of Birdwell Construction and Remedial Construction Services) and Ed “Skip” Ast (President of Shasta Pools and Spas).

The series profiled successful individuals in the world of sports, as well.  Among them were Penny McCoy, at 16 the youngest person ever named to the U.S. National Ski Team (Penny’s father, Dave McCoy, founded and operated the Mammoth Mountain ski resort), and Catherine “Cat” Reddick, Olympic Gold Medalist in women’s soccer.

These remarkable, successful individuals were all gracious, generous with their time, open and honest in providing the stories of their lives.  As I got to know more and more of them I began to see certain commonalities in the foundation of their lives.  With only one or two exceptions, they had all built their financial success from nothing, or next to nothing.  They all placed a high priority on their families.  They cared sincerely for and valued people, all people.  Finally, they judged their success not on how much they owned or profited, but in how much they were able to give to individuals or charitable organizations in need.  I remember Paul Lindholm, a charming gentleman who owned several banks in Minnesota, beaming proudly as he told me that he had earned $749,000 in personal income the year before but had given away over $800,000.

The people whose stories I am about to relate are my favorites from all the shows we produced.  For whatever reason anecdotes from their lives stood out for me at the time, they stuck with me throughout the years; theirs are the stories I related to friends and family the most often.  I hope you enjoy them.

© 2011 Philip Kassel