This viral mindset hack inspired millions

Hey hey! It’s a new month, which means your girl is cooking up some new webinar ideas to help level up your Excel skills. In the meantime, hit ‘Reply’ if there’s an Excel skill or feature you want to learn more about–I’m here to help you excelerate (pun intended 😉) as best I can!

Tired: Filters. Wired: Slicers. 

Ready to level-up your Excel skills? 🗣️ Ditch the filters and swap them for slicers. 

“But Kat, why would I want to do that?” Let me explain with an example. Say you’re analyzing various team members' sales numbers for January. 

Your goal is to analyze sales by location (North, East, South, and West). Most people would use a filter to do this, but it’s a tedious process.

A slicer is far more efficient. It’s an interactive button that can be placed outside of your Pivot Table, making it easy to toggle through your data. Here’s what I mean: 👇

Best part? You can create one in just three steps: 

That’s it! All that’s left is to move your slicer where it fits best. See how much better that looks? 

💡 Excel Tip: Slicers can connect *multiple* pivot tables. So long, filter clutter. 👋

The Viral Mindset Hack That Inspired Millions 

In 2020, I started posting content for Miss Excel…and it wasn’t long before the trolls came onto my virtual doorstep. I never let them stop me from creating, but sometimes they’d get to me. 

But my POV completely changed when I discovered Mel Robbins's “Let Them” theory.

This mindset tip is so life-altering, it went stratospheric on social media after Robbins first posted it: 30 million views, tens of thousands of comments, features on Refinery29, Business Insider, and more. 

That’s not surprising when you hear Robbins’s opening line: “The fastest way to take control of your life is to stop controlling everyone around you.”  (*mic drop* 🫳🎤). 

The “Let Them” theory is exactly that: Let people act as they will (something you have no control over) and then react accordingly (something you do have control over).

This saves you from the unnecessary emotional and mental distress that comes from worrying about stuff that’s out of your hands. For example: 

• Your co-workers didn’t invite you to happy hour? Let them. 

• People are trolling your content as you grow your brand? Let them. 

• Your boss blames you for not cc-ing someone when you know you did? Let them. 

I couldn’t prevent haters from leaving comments (though I did appreciate their help in boosting me to the algorithm 🙃). So I let them, and focused on what I could do: Ignore them and plot my next batch of content. 

The “Let Them” theory isn’t about allowing people to cross your boundaries or giving up. It’s important to advocate for yourself—especially at the office! Instead, it’s to: 

• Let your co-workers go to happy hour with you…and plan to grab lunch with the new employee. 

• Let your boss send that passive-aggressive email…while you spend your free time learning Excel to strengthen your future job applications. 

As psychotherapist Gloria Zhang puts it: 

“By letting go of attachment to things we can’t control, we become free to focus our attention on things within our control.” And once you realize just how much you’re capable of doing, you reclaim your power in the best way possible. 

• POV: You found out you could hit snooze on your Outlook emails. 😴

• Want to impress people within the first slide of your PowerPoint? Challenge accepted.   

• Did someone say DIY? Here’s how to create your own shortcut in Excel. 

• Are you part of the 75% of people who fear public speaking? Here are my top tips.

• I was today years old when I found out Google had an “executive productivity advisor.” 

Thanks for being here! A quote I heard and loved this week: You can have anything, but you can’t have it all. In other words: Funnel your energy into the things that truly light you up. ✨

Stay Exceling,

Kat