After many successful years in the retail game, you could argue that Michael Hill has made it. King of the castle; top of the pyramid; winner of the race. But he would argue that is far from the case, and is in fact a very dangerous way for anyone to think.

“You can easily get yourself into a situation where you think you’ve arrived. And then follows the tendency to start doing a lot of things you don’t need to be doing, things that actually take a lot of energy. The secret is to be able to set a goal, then to just do the 20 per cent that will make a difference and discard the rest.”

By ‘discard’, I suggest, Hill actually means ‘delegate’.

“Yes! Delegation is so important! Someone said to me the other day, ‘well, you can’t really trust people can you?’ And I think we’ve just got to! If you don’t trust someone, you have probably put the thought into their head that you can’t. Also, a lot of people feel that if they let others do everything, they’ll work themselves out of a job, but they’ve got it totally the wrong way around, because they are now even more valuable. I try to delegate everything, the whole lot.”

Indeed, after picking Hill up from the airport he glances through his diary and realises he’s double booked himself, and is supposed to be in another city entirely, due to start a speech in 45 minutes. Out comes the cellphone, and after a quick call to a protesting employee (who also happens to be his daughter, Emma Hill), he has delegated the speech to her.

He’s also turned off my car radio (objecting to the “squawking” coming from it), answered a million of my questions and helped read the map while I’ve got us hopelessly lost in Mt Eden. Does nothing faze this man?

Actually, things do. Life hasn’t always been so smooth for Hill. When he was young, he wasn’t academically successful in the slightest and was told he was impossible to teach. In his book Toughen Up he says he doesn’t want to sound too Dickensian, but “I was widely regarded as a dud, and nobody hesitated to let me know.”

He worked for his uncle for 23 years as a salesman and store manager and thought that was as far as he’d ever get. Though he describes his life as “lovely” at this time, he also says he didn’t have any real aspirations.

“I never felt I was ever any good at anything and life was just a fog. It was a very small-time view and I just couldn’t see any bigger, I never thought I would own my own shop let alone go any further than that.”

And then he watched his brand new but underinsured house burn to the ground.

“It completely made me make a choice. I really knew something had to happen. It can go either of two ways you know – you can decide not to do anything or youan jump at it. It would have been really interesting to have seen me if it hadn’t been for the house fire.”

He decided to buy his uncle’s business, and when his uncle wouldn’t sell he became a competitor with the goal of opening seven shops within seven years. After achieving that goal, he says, it was time to adjust the dream. “This is another key part of my system. As soon as you have achieved your dream, it’s time to get out another piece of paper and write down a new set of dreams.”

Hill did: 70 shops in seven years, and then one thousand shops in the 20 after that. The last is a work in progress.

He says New Zealanders are not short of the same sort of opportunity he has made the most of.

“Generally speaking, a lot of people, particularly in New Zealand, have an opportunity to do something at some stage in their lives, but whether it’s taken up is another thing. The thing in life is actually deciding to do something. Once committed, everything becomes totally effortless and it’s amazing. It’s that first move, making that jump.”

“New Zealand has this problem you see, it’s almost too good a place and everything is too easy. And when I see young people after work, out for a meal and two or three big chardonnays and all they’ve been doing is looking forward to the end of the day, it’s become sort of a narrow view of success really, which is quite disappointing, because there is so much more out there to pursue.”

It was after making the move to expand his brand overseas that Hill discovered how ‘easy’ the New Zealand market was in comparison. “I compare it to fishing. In New Zealand you can put a piece of green string down with three hooks, and every time you pull it out you get three fish. If you do that all day successfully, you might ask yourself why you would bother doing any more.

“Whereas if you put the same hooks down in Australia the baits have to be perfectly positioned and the hooks can’t show and then you’ll maybe get one or two fish. Do the same thing in Canada and you may sit there for an hour before you pull one up. Do it in the states and you could sit there all day and maybe not even catch one fish.”

Hill feels that a lot of businesses here are completely under-utilising their potential. Possibly even, he admits, his own. “I think there is so much more we could pull out with a different mindset. We are creatures that like to take the easy route, and of course people don’t like change. They want to do what they’re doing and think they are secure and safe with that. But in fact it’s the total reverse! It’s hopeless! Because everything’s going to be changing around them every year, every day, every minute, and it’s only going to change quicker. We absolutely have to be prepared to change with it.”

Speaking of dramatic change, we have to mention the colossal failure that was Michael Hill Shoes. After opening nine shoe shops in rapid succession, they realised they were confusing the customers with the brand and that they knew nothing about the product. They soon decided to close all the stores down. Hill says that, despite losing a huge amount of money, some valuable lessons were learned and it wasn’t a complete failure.

Despite this particular incident, there is no doubt that Hill is unbelievably good at sales. As we wrap up our interview, a gentleman approaches to ask if he could have a signature in his book. Hill notices the copy is second hand and the man explains he has actually borrowed it from a friend.

“That’s a bit weak!” exclaims Hill, and whips out a copy from the suitcase he’s been trundling along behind him since the airport. “Here, you can have mine, the $40 goes straight to Cure Kids!” No argument from the fan, the exchange is made and the salesman has struck again.

Philosophy is important to Hill, and his book gives us a pretty good idea of how he ticks. The 16 lessons are illustrated with examples from his own career, and on the final page there is a subtle yet unusual call to action. Simply: “If you have what it takes to be a winner, I want to hear from you.”

He admits the book is aimed at recruitment, and claims it has worked so far.

One final pearl of wisdom from the quirky jewellery chain owner: “If you really think about it, and have a vision of what you want to achieve, it’s amazing. Once you have that vision, it will happen. Yes, you have to have some skill set to achieve these goals, you have to be realistic, but goal setting is such a vital part of any- thing you do, and it should never ever stop.

“The biggest fear I have is that you feel you are invincible and you’ve arrived. And of course you never arrive, you are always arriving.”

With that, he’s off to practise what he preaches, onto the next speech, the next thing, the next opportunity.