Every career has a shape: a rise, a peak, and a descent that’s usually much longer than the climb. Most financial advice is built for careers that don’t peak — steady raises for forty years. That’s not the shape we plan around.

The work isn’t predicting when the peak happens. It’s making sure the plan doesn’t assume it never will. A portfolio built for a forty-year climb and a portfolio built for a five-year peak followed by a sixty-year plateau are not the same portfolio.