How do I know if my expertise ever really mattered?

You know your sector better than the executives who run it, and after all these years you find yourself wondering whether that deep expertise served anything more than the fees it earned. That is a serious question, and the fact that you are asking it says something good about you. People who never wonder whether their work mattered are usually the ones whose work did not.\nHere is a gentler way to hold it. Knowledge is a tool, and a tool is not good or bad on its own; it takes its meaning from how it was used. Some of your expertise surely went to things that only moved money around. But almost certainly some of it also helped a real person make a better decision, avoid a costly mistake, or see something true. You do not have to judge the whole career by its lowest use.\nSo do the honest accounting instead of the sweeping verdict. Think back on specific times your knowledge genuinely helped someone, and let those count as real, because they are. And if you want the later part of your work to mean more, you can steer it that way now: choose the clients, the causes, the younger people where your expertise does obvious good. It was never only about the fees, and it does not have to be from here. You still get to decide what it serves.