Failure is a cosmic redirect

Happy Thursday, folks! 🌻These past few days, I’ve been thinking about confidence. It’s a skill, meaning we can harness it with preparation and positivity. Looking for a raise? Prepare by collecting previous praise and successes. It wasn’t approved? That’s okay—now, you’re aware of your capabilities (and emboldened to apply elsewhere!). With a dash of knowledge and optimism, you can embody confidence. 💫

Lights, Camera, Action 📸

Excel’s Camera feature is a great tool with no negatives (pun intended).

This tool allows us to take a snapshot of any selected graph, table, or range of data and paste it as a linked picture in a worksheet. The coolest part is if you make a change to your main workbook, it’ll automatically update the data in the picture, wherever it’s pasted.

Think of it as a dynamic screenshot. 💃🏼

But most people aren’t aware this tool exists because you won’t find it on your Excel ribbon. To use it, you’ll have to manually pull this bad boy out. But here's why it's worth the effort:

​​➜ Printing out specific data. Let’s say you only want to present the last two quarters of a company’s earnings. You can copy and paste this data into an individual worksheet that fits on one printable page.

​​➜ Working with large data. If your data are spread across several worksheets, the Camera feature helps you screenshot and pin data you want to keep track of.​​

➜ Keeping data unmodified by other users. Because the Camera feature reproduces a live image instead of the actual data, users can’t make any changes to the image unless they have access to the original source material.

Here’s how you go about adding the Camera feature to your toolbar on a PC: 🧑‍💻

P.S. Depending on the version of Excel you have, you might have to left-click ‘File’ > ‘Options’ > ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ instead! From there, follow the instructions at Step 3.

Woohoo!

But now that it’s downloaded, how do you use it?

Select the cells you’d like to copy, click the Camera icon, and then click on wherever you’d like the data to appear. Yep, it’s that easy.

One last tip: You can use Excel’s Camera feature to paste data into Word and PowerPoint documents! Happy snappin’ 📸

Got Excel tips or tricks on your mind? Shoot me a line! I’d love to hear both your questions and hacks. 🤓

Failure is a Cosmic Redirect

“Unfortunately, we’ll be delaying all promotions until next year.” 

It was March 2020 and my company had just announced the bad news. I was bummed. I’d been pumped (and working like nuts!) to possibly get promoted.

The bright side? Since I didn’t have to learn new skills for a new role, I had lots of extra time.

And this extra time was crucial in inspiring me to create and become Miss Excel. ✨

When it comes to our defeats, roadblocks, or frustrations, we’re quick to label them as “inconveniences” with zero upsides. But as Marie Forleo, entrepreneur extraordinaire, reminds us…

Or as your Millennial manager might put it, “It’s just one flop. It’s not a flop era.”

On a serious note: Whenever I run into the unexpected, I tell myself it’s either a lesson or a blessing.

When the possibility of a promotion disappeared, I could’ve sulked. Instead, I convinced myself it could be a good thing—I just had to keep my eyes peeled for the silver lining. 👀

Because to some extent, “bad things” are subjective. As Shakespeare says, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” It’s our mindset that determines whether an event is an obstacle or an opportunity.

Here’s what I mean…

💰You lose the promotion—but find more time to focus on your passion project. (👋)

🏡The place you wanted is taken—but three months later, you find your dream home.

📈 You get rejected from a job for the 20th time—but realize you’re now one “no” closer to your dream job.

I try to go through life with the mantra that life happens for me, not to me. You get to decide if a disappointment will bog you down—or if it’s a blessing. 

• Looking to deepen your relationships? Try these 99 mindful conversation topics! 

• Dream Job: this person earns $100K from his dog walking business. 🐾

• Here’s a simple (yet underrated) way to rearrange your pivot tables! 

• If you’re looking to level up your data, try this handy percentage calculator. 

• A useful visualization on how to get over fear to move the needle of your life. 

If you feel like giving up, this quote from author James Clear might help:

“This moment when you don’t feel like doing the work? This is not a moment to be thrown away. This is not a dress rehearsal. This moment is your life as much as any other moment. Spend it in a way that will make you proud.”

This moment of your life, reading this newsletter, is just as important as any other. The right time is now—so go out there and make it count. ✨

Stay Excelent, 

Kat