Retirement used to mean a short, quiet final chapter. For many people today, it's something else entirely. For much of the last century, retirement followed a fairly predictable pattern: work for decades, retire around age 65, and slow down. Today, that picture looks very different. Retirement has evolved from a brief final chapter into something much larger—a stage of life that may span decades and offer more choices than ever before. When Retirement Was Shorter...

Many business owners spend decades building something that works. The team. The reputation. The customers who keep coming back. Then comes a quieter assumption: that when it's time to step away, the rest will somehow sort itself out. Research suggests it usually doesn't. The Businesses That Quietly Run America Small businesses aren't a side character in the U.S. economy. They make up roughly 99.9% of all businesses in the country and employ nearly half of...