There comes a point in your career when the highlights can start sounding a little like war stories.

The business you built. The team you led. The deal you pulled off. Back when you had the big job, the big team and probably a bit more hair.

You should be proud of those things. But you shouldn’t assume they mean the best part of your working life is behind you.

Many experienced businesspeople still want to work, earn well and challenge themselves. They just aren’t particularly excited by another senior role, more internal politics or another decade working towards somebody else’s objectives.

What they do have is years of experience that can be enormously valuable to business owners.

After 20 or 30 years in business, you’ve learned how people behave under pressure, why good plans fail and when everyone needs to stop analysing and make a decision. You’ve seen growing sales disguise a weaker business. You’ve watched owners become the biggest restriction on their own growth.

Because that judgement has become second nature, it’s easy to underestimate what it’s worth.

One of our advisors, Tony, recently presented to a room of local business owners. Afterwards, he described it as the best moment of his career. He had taken what he’d learned over many years and seen how useful it was to the owners in that room.

Sheena’s corporate career took her around the world. Today, she has ten advisory clients, earns more than she did in corporate and doesn’t work Fridays.

Neither of them had to forget what they knew and start again. Business advisory gave their experience somewhere worthwhile to go.

Almost nobody grows up wanting to become a business advisor. It tends to become relevant later, once you’ve accumulated enough experience to be genuinely useful and started thinking differently about what you want from your work.

Your next chapter may not come with the largest title you’ve held or make the most glamorous story.

But it could turn out to be the most meaningful work you’ve done.