Happy Monday, folks.

I started a new job today — and I’m genuinely excited.

It’s a meaningful step for me.
New team. New responsibilities. New problems to solve.

Whenever I go through transitions like this, I reflect.

How did I end up here?
What actions did I take that led to this moment?

What’s interesting is this:

I’m uniquely qualified for this role today. Looking back, my experiences stack almost perfectly for it.

But Dakota five years ago?

He wasn’t.

Five years ago, I didn’t have the reps.
I didn’t have the experience.
I didn’t have the confidence.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this pattern.

If I zoom out, my life seems to change in 4–5 year increments.

College
Graduating senior Dakota was a different person than incoming freshman Dakota. It was the first time I was truly tested — and I walked away with a new worldview and sharper tools to analyze it.

Graduate School
Postdoctoral Dakota was far more independent and capable than college-graduate Dakota.

First Real Job
Consultant Dakota could operate in ambiguous, complex environments far better than postdoctoral Dakota ever could.

The strange part?

Day to day, none of those phases felt dramatic.

There were no fireworks.
No movie-montage breakthroughs.
No single week where everything changed.

It felt incremental. Sometimes even stagnant.

But compare the beginning of each phase to the end of it…

The difference is staggering.

The transformation didn’t happen in one leap.

It happened invisibly.

Until suddenly, it was obvious.

We’re wired to evaluate our lives in short intervals.

We look at weeks and months and ask whether we’re ahead of where we were yesterday — whether our net worth moved, whether our skills improved in any noticeable way.

But compounding doesn’t reveal itself on that time scale.

When you zoom in too closely, the curve looks flat.

That’s the trap.

When long-term processes are measured with short-term tools, gradual progress feels like stagnation.

Long-term investing operates the same way.

In the early years, progress is almost imperceptible. You save, allocate, reinvest — and the numbers move, but not dramatically.

Five years later, the difference becomes noticeable.

Ten years later, the starting point feels distant.

What changed wasn’t intensity. It was duration.

Compounding is quiet at first. It rewards patience — especially during the long stretch when nothing seems to be happening.

And that stretch is where conviction matters most.

Instead of asking:

“What changed this month?”

Ask:

“Who will I become if I stay consistent for five years?”

Then — once you’re aligned with that answer — stop obsessing.

Stop trying to optimize every variable.

Focus on the work in front of you.

Do the reps. Make the investments. Build the skills.

Then stop measuring.

Eventually, you’ll look up and realize the change you wanted already happened.

And then the next five-year block begins.

It doesn’t feel heroic in the moment.

But it reshapes you.

I don’t know exactly what this next phase of my career will become.

But I know the pattern.

If I stay consistent — if I keep allocating, learning, building — five years from now I’ll barely recognize today.

You can’t see compounding day-to-day.

But if you’re patient enough to zoom out…

You’ll see that it was working the whole time.

—

Dakota

Thanks to growing demand, lithium stock prices grew 2X+ from June 2025 to January 2026. $ALB climbed as high as 227%. $LAC hit 151%. $SQM, 159%.

But the real winner may be a stock not listed on public exchanges, EnergyX.

This $1B unicorn’s patented technology can recover 3X more lithium than traditional methods. That’s earned investment from leaders like General Motors.

Now they’re preparing for commercial production just as experts project 5X demand growth by 2040. They’ve announced what could be one of the US’ largest lithium production facilities and have rights to approximately 150,000 lithium-rich acres across North and South America.

Unlike public stocks, you can buy private EnergyX shares alongside 40,000+ other investors. Invest for $11/share by the 2/26 deadline.

Invest in EnergyX Today

_{This is a paid advertisement for EnergyX Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.energyx.com. Under Regulation A, a company may change its share price by up to 20% without requalifying the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.}

He's measuring in gold, not dollars. And that's the point.

The dollar dropped 10% in 2025. So, yeah, your portfolio went up in dollars, but, Dalio says your real return isn’t so exciting.

And the decline is reportedly advancing as macro conditions don’t improve.

So, what investments offer protection against that currency risk?

Well.. billionaires have an answer. And now 70,819 everyday investors have joined in.

This unexpected asset class outpaced the S&P 500 overall with low correlation since 1995.*

Not real estate or PE. Post war and contemporary art. Seriously.

Plus– Art trades globally ;)

And now, you don’t need to be a billionaire–

Masterworks makes it easy to FRACTIONALLY invest in blue-chip art, with a track record of 26 net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8% on works held over a year.

See why investors moved $1.3 billion into 500+ offerings:

Skip waitlist

_{*According to Masterworks data.  Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. See important disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.}