I had the pleasure of hearing John Anderson tell the story of Con-Tiki not so long ago.  He's publishing his memoirs shortly, and I recommend you get a copy - it's a great story and he's a great story-teller.  

The story began when he was a young kiwi on his OE in London in the early 1960s.  He'd been to Paris, fell in love with it and wanted to get back there but had no money.  So he decided to organise a trip for a bunch of other people as a way of reducing the cost.  He put up a notice in Earls Court, which was frequented by young New Zealanders and Australians.  He advertised it as a 3 month camping tour of the continent for 19-25 year olds at 120 pounds.  As he was putting it up a young woman from Adelaide told him that she liked the sound of it and would like to go.  In a flash he said "Well you'd better hurry because there are only two seats left!"  She said she would call her parents that night, and he told her that she would have to pay 50% in advance.  Sure enough she turned up the next day with the money, which he used to buy the bus.  

He sold all the tickets in a few days and was thus able to buy the camping equipment needed.  His book is aptly titled "Only Two Seats Left", and I have no doubt it will be a great read.

There were a couple of other things he said which struck a chord.  The first was that his top priority all through his career was his health.  His observation was that if you didn't have your health you didn't have anything and you certainly couldn't run a business if you weren't physically well. 

The second was that he built the business - which grew at an extraordinary speed - on the people he employed.  But more than that, he would deliberately give them massive challenges.  He described it as throwing his staff "hunks of meat".  He hired people who were ambitious, and he gave them jobs that matched their ambition.  For example when he decided to move into the US market, he charged his trusted operations manager with the job of building it from scratch.  While he was involved in monitoring progress and providing support, the job of launching the company was his manager's responsibility.  That individual went on to head a large organisation, and to this day he put it down to the culture of "hunks of meat".   

It takes a brave person to hand over the exciting bits to someone else.  But then, how else are your people ever going to learn to be as good as you - and ultimately replace you?