#39 - The Man Who Invented The Holiday

Getting sh*t done

Last week was a short post about the mindset of figuring things out and getting shit done.

Another way of terming this is the importance of being “high-agency”.

High agency individuals reject stories given to them by other people about what they can and can’t do.

Being high agency means getting shit done. It means finding a way to get what you want, without waiting to be given it. But more than that, it means bending the world to your will.

My favourite definition sits within the question, "If you were stuck in a third-world prison and you could call one person to help bust you out, who would you call?"

That is the highest agency person you know.

Creating something that literally didn't exist before you is a pretty good example of a high agency act.

Recently, whilst on holiday, my wife asked me - where do you think the concept of a holiday came from? Who decided they needed to take a break from their own lifestyle and travel elsewhere temporarily to sample someone else’s?

Obviously, I didn’t know, but I did not expect the answer to stem from one individual.

One individual with a very recognisable name.

The History of the Holiday

In ancient cultures (think Romans/Greeks), travel abroad was primarily for trade or military purposes. The very wealthy occasionally travelled for health (i.e. visiting a spa).

This was largely unchanged until the "Grand Tour" concept emerged in the 17th-19th Centuries. A Grand Tour was a long trip, often through several countries, taken by the upper-class youth of Europe to finalise their education.

After the industrial revolution, travel became more common. Increased wealth, leisure time, and the development of railroads and the steam engine meant that travelling was more accessible and affordable.

Thomas Cook

However, it wasn't until a Mr. Thomas Cook (born 1808) came along that the idea of a holiday really took off.

Thomas Cook is credited with being the pioneer of modern tourism. He transformed the way people travelled, making it more accessible and affordable for the general public and not just the wealthy elites.

In 1841, Mr. Cook organised the first holiday.

OK, not quite… it was a rail journey for a group of campaigners travelling to a temperance meeting in Loughborough.

He arranged for the rail company to provide a special train, charging one shilling per person for the round trip.

It started something.

Mr Cook later wrote of the journey: "And thus was struck the keynote of my excursions, and the social idea grew upon me."

Building on the success of his initial venture, Cook began organising trips to other destinations. These trips extended beyond just temperance society members and expanded to offerings for the general public. He arranged transport, meals, and accommodation, effectively creating the first package tours.

For the next 33 years, he shuttled tourists up, down and around the country.

Further Afield

He then started taking passengers across the Channel into Switzerland, Italy and France, introducing thousands of people to the Swiss Alps, the Colosseum and the joys of freshly baked croissants.

Later, he shipped travellers to Japan, India, and the USA. He even offered a 222-day world tour, which he named 'China via Egypt'.

Beyond just the trips themselves, Thomas Cook also pioneered several innovations that laid the groundwork for modern tourism. He introduced the concept of 'circular notes', which later became traveller's cheques - making it easier for people to manage money abroad. He also produced travel guides and timetables, contributing to the tourism infrastructure that still exists today.

It is important to remember that whilst Thomas Cook did not invent the idea of travelling, before him, there was no concept of a package holiday. There was no way for an individual to book a trip that included the travel, the accommodation and the activities whilst there.

Travelling abroad would have been a big deal for many people in the 1800s, so providing a way to address these fears was no mean feat.

For his early international tours, Thomas himself coordinated with various transport companies, arranged accommodations, and planned excursions. He often accompanied the tours himself, making sure that the tours ran smoothly.

They didn't always.

On one trip in the summer of 1870, he and a group were in Paris. The political situation in Europe was tense, and whilst they were there, the Franco-Prussian war broke out.

Negotiating with travel companies is a challenging thing to do even today. But doing so in a time of no internet, whilst a country descends into war, will require serious high agency action.

Of course, he manages it.

Legacy

The story of Thomas Cook reminds me of the famous one about Richard Branson and the inception of Virgin Airways.

Frustrated by a cancelled flight to the Virgin Islands, Richard charters a plane, borrows a blackboard and writes "Virgin Airways, $39 one way to the Virgin Islands" to sell seats to other stranded passengers.

The flight fills, and the rest is history.

The rest is history.

This phrase is a common one to mark the end of the beginning of a well-known story - often involving a high agency individual or group of individuals.

High agency individuals like Richard Branson and Thomas Cook write history.

Conclusion - Becoming Higher Agency

We won’t all write history, and we can't all invent airlines from scratch.

But we can all seek to be a little more high agency. Being high agency seems to be a pretty damn good barometer for whether someone is likely to be successful or not.

Sometimes, the best way to become more of something is to think abut the perils of being the opposite.

As George Mack defines - "low agency people accept the story that is given to them. They never question it. They are passive."

That doesn’t sound like something any of us would aspire to be.

Nothing that Thomas Cook did was technically challenging, complicated or anything that required any level of superhuman intelligence. As well as being a fascinating story it’s an inspiring one about high agency, and simply the act of getting shit done changing the world as we know it.

So if in doubt, what would Thomas Cook do?

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What I read this week

There’s been a lot of reaction to Amazon’s decision to bring staff back to the office 5-days a week. The email CEO Andy Jassy sent to employees is worth a read.

If you read the reaction on LinkedIn, you would think that Amazon have just signed their own death warrant. Reactions like this, this and this suggest that the vast majority of the staff are upset about it, that it will backfire and will cost the company dearly.

Why enforce a return to office when you can achieve the same or more from home? A fair question perhaps.

But, I say… bravo, Amazon. I really hope they hold out and this works.

As Jassy wrote in his email, ‘keeping your culture strong is not a birthright’. He talks about the benefits for learning, collaboration and connection. What he doesn’t mention is the benefit of being in the office specifically for young people.

Being in the office creates discipline and connection for young professionals early in their career. These are two things that seem to be decaying. I can speak from experience about the negative impact that unforced remote working can have on motivation and general mental health.

I wrote about how hybrid working was a compromise solution that works for no one back in January 2022. “Rather than the best of both worlds, if done poorly it could end up being the worst of both worlds..”

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I’m not sure the Amazon decision will stick, or pave the way for other companies to follow suit. But I do agree that culture isn’t a birth right, and believe that companies that engage staff in a way that makes people want to be in the office, spending time with other colleagues, will be the ones that win in the long run.

Thanks for reading, see you next week ✌🏻❤️