​For generations, retirement followed a familiar script. You worked for 30 or 40 years, paid off the mortgage, collected a pension, turned on Social Security and stepped into a well-earned life of leisure. That model made sense in its time. Today, the structure that supported that version of retirement has largely disappeared, yet many people still think of retirement as a single date circled on the calendar. In reality, many successful modern retirements are a gradual transition.

By David Tepp, Forbes Council Member. For Forbes Finance Council.

Published April 1, 2026