Never Enough

Hey everyone,

If you're new here, welcome to Never Enough, where I brain dump interesting stuff that has been on my mind over the last week.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I’ve always loved this quote by Arthur C. Clarke.

Think back to the first time you saw an iPhone or asked ChatGPT a question.

It felt like pure, unadulterated magic, didn’t it? If you had traveled back in time and shown someone these technologies, they would probably burn you at the stake.

Yet today, we use both without a second thought.

I still have moments with ChatGPT where I gasp in awe—like when it effortlessly analyzes 10 years of a company’s financial statements in seconds, or crafts a flawless paragraph that puts my own to shame. But mostly, it’s just become another tool in the toolkit.

I’m having one of these moments right now, with self-driving cars.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you might remember when I posted a photo of myself grinning like an idiot outside of a Waymo in San Francisco. I had summoned it with an Uber-like app, and moments later, this futuristic taxi rolled up, unlocking itself for us. Zoe and I sat in the back, in complete shock as it expertly navigated left turns and unpredictable traffic.

We couldn’t believe it. We shared videos with everyone we knew—it felt like magic.

But this morning, I got into my Tesla, punched in my favorite café on the map, turned on AutoPilot, and leaned back to listen to a podcast.

I was completely unfazed. Self-driving has become my new normal. I rarely drive manually anymore. What was once astonishing has quickly become just another part of my day.

It reminds me of COVID. During the lockdowns, I remember thinking, “I’ll never take being around people for granted again.” But once the restrictions were lifted, the elation lasted a few weeks before I returned to my baseline, taking human contact for granted once more.

Today, I’ve almost forgotten what that isolation felt like.

Life goes on. But we shouldn’t forget how insanely amazing the modern world is.

A self-driving AI-powered robot car is not something that should be taken for granted.

PS: If you haven’t checked out Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology yet, you should. It’s absolutely incredible. You don’t even need to hold the wheel anymore. As long as you’re paying attention and looking out the front windshield, it does everything. I frequently go 30-minutes or more without any intervention.

When I began writing Never Enough, I made a list of my favorite business books that I wanted to use as a benchmark for my own book.

At the very top were two of my all-time favorites: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight and The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.

The other day, I received a surprising text from a friend: ‘Congrats on the review!’ I had no idea what he was talking about.

Curious, I quickly Googled my name—and my jaw dropped. My book had been reviewed in none other than The Wall Street Journal. THE business newspaper.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I let out a shriek of pure joy.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the final paragraph of the review by Daniel Freedman:

“Never Enough’ succeeds in a way that only a handful of business autobiographies do. It shares with the best of them, like Phil Knight’s ‘Shoe Dog’ and Ben Horowitz’s ‘The Hard Things About Hard Things,’ the virtue of providing valuable lessons in an entertaining format, all while being honest about the writer’s own shortcomings and failures. Mr. Wilkinson joins his entrepreneurial achievements with an informative exploration of what they ought to be aimed at, in the end.”

Made me grin. You can read the review here.

I funded an important study by Dr. Ashley Mason at UCSF that involves sticking thermometers up people’s rectums.

Sorry, that was the only way I could guarantee to keep you reading. But seriously, keep reading, this is really cool.

If you’re a Tech Bro™ type or have ever listened to Huberman Lab or Dr. Rhonda Patrick, then you’re well versed in the benefits of saunas and cold plunge, but it turns out that high temperature saunas may treat severe treatment resistant depression.

Researchers have long known that depression is often accompanied by a slight but consistent increase in body temperature. The question that intrigued scientists was whether changing that temperature could, in turn, alter the course of the depression.

Enter the sauna. Anecdotal evidence has suggested for years that regular sauna use can boost well-being, but only recently have researchers begun to look seriously at its potential to treat depression.

In the study, for 8 weeks, participants with major depressive disorder were fitted with a rectal thermometers (unfortunately the most accurate way to measure body temperature when in a sauna) and exposed to extremely long (140 minute) weekly sauna sessions that raised their body temperature to a feverish temperature of 101.3 F.

What was incredible was that participants saw their symptoms significantly improve after just a few weeks of regular heat sessions. The effect was so pronounced that nearly all of them no longer met the criteria for major depressive disorder at the end of the trial.

This isn’t to say that saunas are a silver bullet for depression—far from it. The studies so far have been small, and much more research is needed to confirm the results and understand the mechanisms at play. But the early findings are promising enough that researchers are calling for more attention and funding to explore this avenue further.

To date, we have committed over half a million dollars to this project, with more to come. If you’re interested in donating alongside us, please donate here (and make sure you specify you want the money to go to Dr. Ashley Mason): https://giving.ucsf.edu/fund/other

If you’re curious to learn more, check out:
- Interview on Found My Fitness‍
- Talk at BrainMind Summit

I used to be a terrible sleeper.

I was an inveterate night owl and would often spend hours trying to fall asleep, anxiously tossing and turning.

When I had kids, I had to get real and figure it out. And for the most part, I did. I posted my key sleep tips on X a few years ago (check them out here), but all this talk about Dr. Ashley Mason reminded me about a sleep tip she gave me that has been a game changer.

A few years ago, over lunch, she mentioned that she used to run the UCSF sleep clinic—the place they send the worst of the worst, the insomniac’s insomniacs.

Curious, I asked her what the number one breakthrough was for her patients.

Her answer surprised me:

She said most people simply sleep with a blanket that’s way too hot.

Time and time again, she found that getting people to switch to a few thin woven cotton blankets (like this one—layered so you can adjust based on temperature) had the greatest impact on improving their sleep.

Interestingly, your body temperature needs to drop by about 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 1 degree Celsius) for sleep to initiate effectively. A hot blanket can prevent this from happening.

I decided to try it for myself and found that I fall asleep much faster. In fact, it works so well that I (embarrassingly) pack one of these blankets to bring with me when I travel.

My first business was an agency, and running one is pure, unadulterated chaos—especially in the early days.

Why? Because the entire business is built around people. And as my business partner Chris puts it:

“There’s no such thing as problems. Only people problems.”

Almost daily, I receive emails or DMs from frazzled agency owners asking for advice on managing their businesses. I usually respond with a shrug.

The truth is, I haven’t been involved in day-to-day agency operations for years.

Metalab now has a fantastic executive team that has grown the company far beyond what I ever could. Honestly, if I worked there now, I’d probably get fired.

I was good at starting an agency but terrible at running one.

That’s why I brought in Mark—my college roommate. You might remember the story from Chapter 4 of my book, but TLDR: Mark saved my bacon. He took over from me a few years in and grew Metalab into what it is today, leading it from 2009 to 2015.

Mark’s a mensch who truly knows his stuff when it comes to agencies.

Last year, he retired from agency life, but boredom got the best of him. Now, he’s decided to share some of his prophetic wisdom with agency owners through his consultancy, Tamaribuchi. If you’re struggling to take your agency to the next level, call Mark—he’ll set you straight.

An innovative use for rectal thermometers.