HR BESTIES - Bonus All Hands Meeting with Miss Excel Kat Norton

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

We have a special All-Hands (don’t you love those) with Miss Excel Kat Norton!  Today’s agenda:  Cringe corporate speak: The calculator.  Hot topic: Miss Excel’s origin story How Kat worked on herself before her business Taking “messy action” Which Besties are Excel pros and “no’s” Sneak Peek: Miss Optimize Your To-Do List: Sign up for the special Miss Excel webinar with HR Besties on 2/14 at Noon ET: https://links.miss-excel.com/hrbesties?ref=hr-besties80 If you can’t make it, you’ll get the replay Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at https://www.hrbesties.com. Follow Miss Excel at https://www.miss-excel.com/ and https://www.tiktok.com/@miss.excel and https://www.instagram.com/miss.excel  Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: https://www.hrbesties.com/about.  We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto https://www.hrmanifesto.com Follow Bestie Ashley! https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod  https://www.instagram.com/managermethod https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/ https://managermethod.com Follow Bestie Jamie! https://www.millennialmisery.com/ Humorous Resources: Instagram • YouTube • Threads • Facebook • X Millennial Misery:  Instagram • Threads • Facebook • X Horrendous HR:  Instagram • Threads • Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to our all-hands meeting, besties. We have a special guest today, Kat Norton. Miss Excel is with us, and she is an incredible entrepreneur, CEO, founder, just incredible. Human. Badass bitch. Badass bitch. Badass bitch. I know human being. Oh my gosh. But she's created an empire teaching people like me, people like you all about Excel and other platforms. And she is just amazing. She's amazing. We just absolutely adore her. And we

are so glad she is with us today. Hello, Kat. Hello, ladies, and thank you for the best pump up speech. I'm going to take this part of the podcast and actually like listen to it every morning to hype myself up. Do it. Do it. It's the daily affirmation. I'm amazing. So excited. Well, thank you so much for being here. And,, if you've been to one of our staff meetings, we kick off with water cooler talk. But today, we're going to scratch that and we're going to move into cringe corporate speak.

And guess who's going to own that? That's you, Kat. I'm here for it. What do you got for us? So what I have is an Excel specific one that I get when someone is sitting there looking at their spreadsheets and, you know, they're trying to show me something and they go, wait, let me pull out my calculator. That is the moment I start questioning everything you're about to show me in that spreadsheet. Because you don't realize that Excel is a built in calculator. And I can't tell you the

amount of times that happens or someone like stops me or worse or worse, the pen and paper when they're doing like the side math on the side. That's where I'm like, team, we've got some work to do here. This is where like, I need to step in, I need to hand them some courses and we got to get after it because that's definitely one of my cringe moments. You seem like a much nicer person than us sometimes. You probably, I don't know that you swear in your head like we do in our heads and our mouths, but when you're thinking in your head, like, come on, you dumb ass, like you got it. Like this is, this is here for you. But how do you translate that? Because you are the nicest person. How do you translate that to the person and explain nicest person. How do you translate that

to the person and explain to them, oh, what a delight I have for you here in the spreadsheet? I really always try to come when I teach from a place of love. Because when you're teaching the same thing over and over and over, and a lot of it is very basic, I always try to imagine it's like someone I love, you know, like my grandpa. And he's trying to do his math on his... You know, and I try to come from that angle of like, let me help you, Gramps. I'm here for you. Give me that calculator.

Well, I'll tell you what, I would be one of your Excel dumbasses. You'd be calling me Papa and Grandpa. Because when I'm in Excel excel i'm still on the calculator or my phone literally when you say cat when you say calculator like i don't know that i've ever seen lee so caught in the headlights before like literally she was like fuck guilty wait a second wait don't wait did she say do use a calculator do not what do you mean what do you mean well she must mean pen and paper wait Wait, what? No pen and paper. What is... You are... We as your pupils, your star pupil. I am. I love it.

I need to be. How about that? Jamie's a freak in the Excel spreadsheets. I am. Yes. Yes, we love that. I love Excel. Oh my gosh, me too. Oh my gosh.

A ton of the people in our courses start off off hating excel and that's really where our company makes it fun and that's the only way i get people to actually like it is when i infuse it with fun and creativity and then literally save them hours in their week and then they're like oh you know i feel empowered with this now i actually like this now but i tell you like 80 of the people that start off like are like oh my gosh, it gives me anxiety or I hate it or all things like that. And that's always my goal is to help them shift that narrative and show them like, hey, this doesn't have to be the most boring subject in the world. We can make it fun. Oh, gosh. So what is the origin story then? I mean, were you just finding

yourself teaching people like me constantly how to do stuff and then feeling sorry for them? So you created an empire? I mean... Like, let me save myself time. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it really all began in my corporate job. When I first came out of school, I worked at a consulting firm doing securitization reviews for banks. And on the side of my day job there for funds is I built out an Excel training program internally for the company because people kept asking me questions. And I was like, wait, I can really help people with this. So I built out this training program and MD looks over my shoulder and

was like, what is that? And I was like, just having some fun here, making a training. He was like, you need to show that to someone. Like, like let's let's get you out here. And next thing you know, they're flying me around the US hosting live Excel trainings at our different offices. And then it went global. So I was doing that for about five years before I started Miss Excel. And then with the start of the pandemic, I had stopped traveling every week for work and was like, back, really back in my childhood bedroom of my parents' house. I was 27 years old, buried in student debt. And now that I wasn't traveling, I had some more time on my hands and I was like, well, what do I actually want to do with my life here? And I had one of those, you know, existential crises. So I spent a lot of time working on myself and studying, you know,

mindset, reading a ton of books and getting myself into a place where I didn't really have these limiting beliefs holding me back anymore. And I was like, okay, if I could do anything, what would it be? And I really loved helping people with Excel. And I also love dancing. And I was like, how can I turn this into a business? Dancing, helping people, and Excel. And I'll never forget, I was on the phone with one of my best friends. And we were talking about side hustle ideas for me because I'm like, yo, I got to get out of my parents' house. I'm very in student debt. My corporate job is barely cutting it. I was helping them out with bills too. And I was like,

I need some more revenue here. And she was like, well, what if you put the Excel tips on TikTok? And I was like, TikTok, you know, I have a corporate job. I can't make a TikTok. Oh my gosh, no way. But at the same time, like my mouth, like my conscious mind was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. But my gut and my brain, it was like, I saw it. I saw the TikTok. It was a screen above my head and I was dancing to that Drake song, left foot up, right foot slide. So the left and the right function. And I couldn't let this thought go. So for like three or four days after, I'm in this internal turmoil because my brain is like, you cannot make this TikTok. And my gut was like, make the TikTok. And I was like, I don't know

what to do. I was like in tears. And I'll never forget, it's the TikTok. And I was like, I don't know what to do. I was like in tears. And I'll never forget, it's Friday afternoon. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do a dry run of this Excel video over my head thing. And I recorded this like dance video. I didn't have any fancy software. I recorded the Excel clicks in Zoom, put the screen above my head and was like,

oh, this is actually pretty cool. I go back in my room and I just whip out like 10 videos. And I'm up until like midnight editing them in my room. And then I launched a few days later, my secret TikTok account. Because the only people I told about Mystic Cell was my mother and my boyfriend. And I was like, no one's going to know. No one's going to know. I'm not going to tell the people I work with. I'm just going to silently post here and just see what happens. Because I looked on TikTok and there was no one posting Excel on TikTok.

And I was like, okay, do they just not like Excel here? Or like, did I think of something? Because I couldn't find any of it. So I started posting silently on video per day. And then by the fourth video, it gets pushed out and reaches 100,000 views. It gets pushed to all these people I know. I'm getting texts from coworkers being like,

is this you? And I'm like, yeah. Maybe. Maybe it's me. And it was like that like DMX song, X gon' give it to you to the X lookup function. And then by the sixth video, the CEO of an IT company reaches out to me, like literally comments on a video. And it's like, Hey, I love your teaching style. I'm looking to create G Suite training videos. So like the Google version of everything I was doing for students, parents, and teachers, because this is when the schools were all going

digital and they needed training. And clearly I'm a Microsoft gal, but I'm like, I can figure this out. So I take on this side hustle with this guy and I start cranking out 10 hours a week. I'm making videos for his company. He sends me a laptop, a little t-shirt. I'm whipping out these videos. And then at the same time, I'm still working my day job and making them as Excel content, which wasn't making any money. But it was something where I'm like, it's really helping people. It's getting a lot of traction. And this is fun for me. This is my creative expression. So a few weeks go by. And after three weeks, I had my first video go viral. And I will never forget, I looked out of my phone and it's just like buzzing nonstop. I'm like,

what's happening? What's happening? Is my alarm going off? And I pick it up. And every time I refresh, it was like 100 new followers, 100 new followers. And next thing you know, we had 100,000 followers overnight on TikTok. At the same time, too, everything in the news was like, TikTok is getting banned in the US. And I had all these people being like, good luck with your little TikTok. And I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to hedge my risk here to add an Instagram. So I create the Instagram a few weeks later. Next thing I know, I just keep going viral on both the platforms. It grows to a few hundred thousand followers on each. And I have zero product, zero mailing list, zero anything.

And a business coach slides into my DMs and is like, Hey, notice you have a ton of followers and zero business. And I was like, Oh, touche. You are correct. So I quickly whipped out some little automations on the backend, had a little freebie that started growing a mailing list. That's obviously very important to do when you're online. And then I took two weeks off from my day job and I build secretly this Excel course, the most fun course I could possibly imagine.

So if you saw my content, I'm talking like create a drop down menu to drop it like it's hot by Snoop Dogg and like freezer Excel sells to ice ice baby by Vanilla Ice. I'm like this course has to be fun. So I spend two weeks just infusing it with as much fun and creativity as I possibly could. And I launched it Black Friday of 2020. And by January, it was actually bringing in more revenue per month than my day job was per month. And at that point, I was like, I need to rethink my priorities because I would be dangerous with 40 hours back in my week. What am I doing? I just need to take this bet on me. And so I never forget January, it was the end of January, I pinged my managing director and was like, Hey, can we talk?

And I ended up putting in my two weeks and everyone was like, What company are you going to? And I'm like, My company. And it was such a wild quitting experience because it was one of those things where half the people kind of knew and they were like, oh, cute. She has a TikTok. Like, good luck with that. And then the other half, like I was like, I called up like my old magic director and I'm just like, hey, have you seen me on the internet? You know? And they're just like, what? And it was a wild time quitting, but it was the best thing I could have possibly done for myself at the time. Cause that really is where everything opened up And I built out nine more courses and then

scaled it into a multi seven figure company where we're now 17 people working with 250 organizations and the whole thing just like exploded from there. But it really all started with like a TikTok video, which is so wild. Well, it's wild. But one thing I think, shout out to originally, even before the TikTok, when you say that your managing director saw you doing this course and they were like, oh, we should do this to others. Because a lot of people, including I think those listening, will have had the experience where their boss or a boss finds out about something you're doing and is like, stay in your lane. Either one views that as potentially a side hustle to shut down, or this isn't your day job.

Fostering that creativity, that resonated with me with your story about that idea that if managers, if you hear employees doing something, whether it's in their lane or otherwise, how you can like fuel that spark. Totally. And they actually hired me back as a vendor. Now I actually get paid to do that. That's an outlet we love. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Totally. And they actually hired me back as a vendor. Now I actually get paid to do that. That's an apple of my love. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Share with us a couple of your top pieces of advice, career advice for folks that perhaps have a passion or an interest and are thinking

about a side hustle that they would love to make a primary hustle. I mean, you name it. What are some of your top pieces of career advice? Yeah. So first thing that helped me a lot is really working on any limiting beliefs that I had about myself and or that business I was going to create before I started the company. As I equate this where, you know, there's the narrative, right? That everyone says about entrepreneurship, like entrepreneurship has to be hard and it's this struggle and all these things. And like, that's something if, you know, you read anything I say and like the media or things like that was not my experience and everybody's experience is completely different, but I

always like to propose an alternative, you know, thought stream to that, to kind of show people, it doesn't always have to be that way because I feel like that narrative too blocks a lot of people out. Like I remember when I was younger, I was like, I can never be an entrepreneur. I need structure. Like I need a paycheck. Like I need, you know, like I, that would be way too scary for me. And like, that's what I always believed until I was in it and had my own experience with having a very soul aligned business that just flows. But I equate, you know, the hardest part of my business or like what was actually hard for me wasn't growing Miss Excel at all. It was the work I did on myself before starting the business. Because your business can feel like you're

pushing this like box up a mountain of limiting beliefs, like people aren't gonna like this, I can't do this. And if you're not your own biggest cheerleader, this makes the whole process a lot harder, because there's going to be tons of people out there who are not your biggest cheerleader, right? The bigger we get, it's usually a third, a third, a third, a third are going to love everything you do. A third are going to hate everything you do. And you got your third in between. So for me, like first piece of advice, I always say, if you have stuff that's like in your current vision that you can say, okay, like myself as being like, I can't build this business because I don't have enough time or I'm not smart enough to do this or people aren't going to listen to me or like

whatever those beliefs are. I always recommend, you know, there's tons of modalities out there online at this point, like finding something that resonates with you to try working through those beforehand. Cause that's how we've created a company that is just so easy. Like our business has been such a joy to run. Everything we've done has been inbound leads from press opportunities I've never paid for or reached out for press. We've been in 50 global news outlets. Wait, I thought you were paying us, Kat. What is it? Hold on a second. We'll talk about that later, Ashley. Hold on a second. I thought this was a seven-figure interview opportunity. Hold on. Okay. Well, that's fine. That's a limiting belief, I believe.

Well, let me ask you this, Kat. For people that are listening that are like, I feel like I'm busy with work and life. How do I fit these things in modalities? If you were going to say a couple of things people could do, what type of modalities do you think people should look at? Is that like a in-person therapy or reading a book or are there things that have been especially meaningful that people that are short on time might appreciate? Yeah, absolutely. So something that really helped me is there is a program that Lacey Phillips has called To Be Magnetic. And it is a really structured way to work through limiting beliefs. I needed to know like, if I'm going to like clear some limiting beliefs out,

I need to do steps ABCD to get there. Like I have a very logical brain person. And that whole space seemed very like woo to me at first. So for me to have like a structured way really helped. So what that looks like is literally I put in my headphones for 20 minutes a day, there's binaural noises that put you into theta brainwave states where it makes it really easy to reprogram any limiting beliefs that you have. And it's repetition. I did that, I think it was for about two months straight. And I went from a severe anxiety disorder, hated having any attention on me, like imposter

syndrome, people pleasing, like everything to I'm going to dance on TikTok. Yeah. And like, I would not be where I am now if I didn't take that time for me. There's always ways to make room for it. Even if it's 20 minutes, I also did a lot of meditation that helped clear things out. And, you know, studying there's Dr. Joe Dispenza does a really good job of like talking about the science behind all of that. And my logical brain needed that. So I read a bunch of his stuff and really just like finding things out there that work. But I'll say like I'm doing 20 minutes a day. What I hear though, is that you have to be very purposeful and intentful about it and really plan for it. You know, what's interesting is I just left corporate at the end of December to go all in on HR Manifesto. And oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Because this is joy, right? This is totally joy. And it has so much impact. And I just absolutely adore it. People have told me, oh, that's so great. No more toxic bosses for you. Right. And I make the joke back. Oh, except for me, right? I'm the toxic boss now,

right? As the entrepreneur and business owner, because to your point, the limiting beliefs are just, wow. I mean, they are overwhelming some days. We always have kind of that playing in our psyche and in the back of our minds, right? The imposter syndrome at any level you are at any age, you know what I mean? At any level of success, right? I mean, it's just this constant kind of thing. Any other pieces of advice, you know, on how to find your joy, passion, you name it? I think really following your intuition is another big thing too. I think naturally we get very used to asking for permission for things or asking other people. We get into this habit where for me, I've found that my biggest inspirations and the videos that go viral and making business decisions. I've never owned a company before. Everyone's always like, how'd you know how to do this and scale this? And a lot of it was me just trusting my intuition. I'd get on a meeting and I'd be

like, is my body telling me yes or no? And I use that as like my internal compass now, like, who am I going to work with? Who am I going to partner with? Right. Because it's all like, time is finite. Right. So we're figuring out like what we are actually investing our attention and our time into and really leaning on our intuition. Like I have a lot more faith now in my own ability to guide myself onto the path I want to be on versus needing, you know, someone else to tell me like, Hey, like you should do this or like, yes, mentorship is great. Coaches are great. Like all of it's great, but like also don't discount your intuition in the process. That's something I had to like relearn after being in corporate. I'm curious, Jamie's take on this because I started my business manager method and had, but I kept holding on. So I had fractional roles, which so I was head of legal

and head of people for some organizations. And I was trying to do that between, and actually January was the first month that I've been solely on manager method and just doing the business and just in grist. And I lean in on the group training and all of that. And it's about manager principles. And it's a lot of those feelings, but Jamie's in corporate. And so I'm curious, Jamie's take on it. And also then maybe like how you think about that. And people can also look, find if you're in corporate and you're like, I'm on a meeting and like my body doesn't feel good, but I have to be, I have to be here. Jamie, your thoughts on that If you're in corporate and you're like, I'm on a meeting and my body doesn't feel good, but I have to be here. Jamie, your thoughts on that and finding joy in corporate?

Because I know you've loved some of what you've done. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I actually do enjoy my job in HR. And so that kind of offsets the bad days. This morning has been not a great day for me at work. But knowing that like I got to have this call later, so it's kind of having the best of both worlds, you know. I enjoy what I do and I feel like I'm making a difference. And that's why I enjoy my corporate job.

Ideally, I'd love to leave my corporate job one day and be able to do all my social media and HR besties full time. I would love to do that. I just know that right now I'm not physically there to be able to do that. This is my business. But I am, I'm limiting myself because of my own disbeliefs and I'm not taking enough chances and I'm not betting on myself. So I literally, as just as you were talking, I was like taking it all in going, well, shit, I'm about to flip myself upside down in 2024 because, you know, I mean, like I said, I love my job. I really do. But I know where I want to be in the future. But do you think, Kat, that people can find that level of joy in a corporate environment? And what does that look like? Or do you have people that talk to you that are like, I'm so inspired, but like, this is my situation.

I'm so curious. Yeah, no, absolutely. Like, I loved what I was doing, too, when I was in corporate. It's just when you have the calling to do something else, that is when you know that it is time to pivot. The biggest like lesson here and everything is just knowing that doesn't have to be the way you are forever. And that was the part I was not taught. And that's the part I like figured out and was like, whoa, like I can totally overhaul like the entire way that I was and how I was operating in corporate. And yes, it got me far at my day job.

And it was great. All the people-pleasing and take you on extra stuff and all that. And it helped me get promoted and things. But was I that happy or fulfilled? No, because I was burning myself out. So I think it's really important to not just go heads down autopilot mode and actually take a little inventory on yourself and be like, am I happy doing this? What can I do to make this a little bit better in certain situations? And how can I push myself to grow? Because I definitely

wasn't pushing myself to grow as much either. Like now as an entrepreneur, every quarter, I do something that scares the shit out of me. Because that's the only way I'm going to push myself out of my comfort zone. It's all different types of things. I took a massive keynote after never giving a public live talking person. I was like, oh, let's start with 2000 people and just come out as the keynote and give it a go. Because that was something that pushed me. And now I hit that level. It's up to us to push ourselves. And as sticky and as uncomfortable as that feels, I loved to be in my comfort zone and be in my little calm nervous system bubble. But I realized the only way I was growing is if I push myself. So whether it's in

corporate or whether it's an entrepreneur, as it can be, it's so good on the other side. I mean, that's so true. You mentioned a phrase earlier, which, you know, in my mind, I was laughing when you said existential crisis. And I use that often. And I've hit a few of those myself. And I wanted to tell you that that won't be your first one that you had there in your 20s. Just FYI, you know, you're gonna hit a few more of those, you know, speaking from the 40 plus crew, maybe daily. I know, you're going to, you're going to hit a few more of those, you know, speaking from the 40 plus crew, maybe daily. I know exactly. We're literally all the exact same age, um, the three of us. And so, um, we have, we have, we've, I was talking about something and, uh,

and they were like, yeah, Kat was probably not born when that happened. I was like, Oh God. But that's a good point. That's a good point, Lee. Exactly. But, you know, coming from the 40 plus crew, you may have a couple more crises, you know, but I'll tell you what, the ones that I had and, you know, in my time during my corporate career were the best things for me. I mean, I look back on those moments and I'm like, I am so thankful and grateful that I was in crisis because it actually pushed me to do things that I actually wanted to do or to be more my authentic self or to live my joy and purpose. Right. I mean, so that's the thing is that I think people love feeling cozy and comfortable because they're trying to avoid crisis. But it's in the crisis that we really do flourish post. I hope you don't have a lot of existential crises down the road for you, but you may hit a few and it's not such a bad thing. I had another one recently, literally about all this.

I was like, all the stuff I'm talking about now, I'm like, I only talk about this on podcasts. Like nobody, but I've had companies reach out and bring me in to speak about mindset and energy management. And I've had companies reach out and bring me in to speak about mindset and energy management. And I've spoken at like Freddie Mac, Microsoft. Companies are finding this because people are hearing me on a podcast. And I was like, imagine how many more people I could help with this if I actually talked about this. So I'm starting another company, Miss Optimize, that launches in the next few weeks. We're doing all the filming

for it. It's a dawn over the next few days. And it's going to be an online account sister company to Miss Excel, where I'm going to be talking about productivity hacks, business hacks, and mindset optimization for getting to that next level. So that is coming soon. Misoptimize. Whoa. A modality. A modality that people... This. Whoa. Oh, a modality. A modality that people, this is awesome. Look at this breaking news. This is exciting. Yeah, that was my latest existential crisis.

I'm like, why am I not talking about this? And I'm only talking in spreadsheets. I was like, there's more to say. No, that's amazing. And you're using your platform for something good. So I was speaking in the fall to a group of about 250 engineers. And I'm super vibrant, didn't quite know what to expect. But I realized because I actually did, a lot of them had never met in person. And they're all managers and up through senior leadership. And I'd done one of those like, square in the box, find someone who... And it was like business

and personal related, find someone who... And I had written like manage as a team of, I meant to write like greater than or whatever. And I did, I did less than, and I only realized it after I arrived in Chicago for this talk. And I had, you know, 250 printed and I had my spreadsheet and I was like, God, who's going to notice is a bunch of engineers. And I was so embarrassed. And so I started the exercise. I was like, all right, we're going to start with this. And you know, it did it. And everyone did the exercise. And I was like, all right, before we start with like what we learned is who noticed the mistake. And of course, like, you know, a variety of people. And I said, I, and I walked through, I said, I, you know, I wanted to talk about this. I said, because I realized this last night and I was like, FML. And I was so embarrassed. I was mortified,

but also it's a sustainability firm. So I was like, well, I don't want to go and reprint things. That's not necessary. And I said, also, this is my mistake. And I had people that came up afterwards that were like, that was such a really interesting part of starting with your mistake. And I'm like, well, I mean, I'm a very real person. You keep it. But I think, Kat, what I love you talking about is your authentic self and these hacks and whatever that looks like in finding your voice, which may be in your own business. It may be in other aspects of your life. But if more people get up and speak about the truth and how people really feel on the good days

and bad days in your mistakes, I just think it sheds this level of just inauthenticity that just really seems to pervade a lot of organizations. So I love that you're doing this and launching the Miss Optimize platform. I'm super excited. Thank you so much for the support, ladies. I'm so excited. It's been many years in the making. I've always wanted to do this. And I think it'll be really, really helpful. Well, we can't wait to check it out. Like, follow, share. Miss Optimize.

Is it Miss Dot Optimize? Yep. Miss Dot Optimize. Yeah. I think our launch date's February 22nd for content to start coming out. So I will keep you ladies posted when there's something actually up there. Please. I know. Let us know. All right. Well, you know, we do love to end our meetings with questions and comments, Qs and Cs. So Kat, as our special guest in our all hands today, any questions or comments from you? I would say my comment is just if I could leave everybody with like one thing that really, really, really helped me with my business and just in life,

like I literally just live my life by this now, is take messy action. Take messy action. Nothing has to be perfect. And just start something. Like if you're inspired by this episode right now, and you got hyped up, like sitting here with us today, and you're like, wait, I want to create something. I want to do something. Use this energy. This is momentum. Use this as a tool and take one micro step in the direction of what you want to create here. We don't have to know steps A, B, C, D, E on like how we're going to get there. My whole business has been a game of literally just taking one step. And then the way that I'm going to do

the next step is something I couldn't have even thought of, right? But I wouldn't have seen it unless I took the first step. It doesn't have to be perfect. And the biggest gift we can give to ourselves is getting out of our own way. Mic drop. Let's go. I know. Exactly. I'm going to go resign. James Kambas is going to fire her from the podcast.

Bye, y'all. Oh, my gosh. I need to limit my Netflix time. Holy. But I got a little post-it here. I'm ready to take messy action on there and put it on my board up here. Oh my gosh. Let me get my calculator. I know. Let me get my phone to do my calculator.

But I love when you say take messy action because a lot of people are just like take action. But like the validation and the reality, like what you're bringing is this authenticity. And so the messy action. And so the messy action. Because you are so powerful. Like we are all so powerful. And that is what scares us the most, honestly. But we're so powerful in the sense that we can pivot at any time. That's why it's just so important to take any action. I love the messy action.

That is so fantastic because you can shift, change. It's okay, but just keep moving forward, right? I think a lot of those listening, there is something that you are thinking about and that's been in your mind. It may have been in your mind for the second it may pop in. It may have been there for years. And so this idea of doing something like, well, I started, I didn't start Manager Method as a business. I mean, I bought the logo six years before I did anything with the domain, like years before I did anything with it. But when I was even a general counsel, so I was in legal, I was head of legal and people, I decided to start a weekly newsletter for all the managers in my company and just started it. And this asked the CEO after the fact, and he was like, that's fine. And I was like, I would have things that have conversations

about like how to have a performance conversation, how to lead a team meeting and taking that. And also to the point we talked about earlier, Kat, with your managing director being like, wait, what's this? We should escalate this of getting support. And people would write and be like, I've never seen anything like this. Like, oh, I didn't think people thought this way. And so just taking the initiative. And so maybe you have to run it through the right channels, those listening that, you know, whatever. But what can you do that allows you to speak your voice in a way that you've been holding off on? What can you do for yourself? What can you do within your role? Like, I love this messy action. That's like my number one takeaway.

Oh, me too. I may just get a tattoo to my ass. I'll go with you. That's a random comment. That's a random comment. I'm going to have it on my hand. So as I start going to look at my phone, I'll be like, no, no, I forgot messy action. I'll add it to my tramp stamp. That's what she said. Oh my gosh. That's the worst place, Jamie, to take messy action. No, no, it is the worst place to, that's the worst place, Jamie, to put take messy action. No, no, it is the best place to put it. So I actually, I have a question, Kat.

I was curious what your favorite Excel like function is. Oh, it's like asking like what your favorite child is, but I will answer it for you. I will, you know, I have an opinion. I was going to say, I've got two favorites too. So my favorite is the X lookup function because I think it puts VLOOKUP to shame

and there's so many collection things you could do with that. I like VLOOKUP. That was going to be one of mine. Oh my gosh, what is yours? VLOOKUP in King Cantonese. VLOOKUP's a classic. In HR, V-Lookup has been my savior. Or even just pulling stuff, trying to get a census out of an HRS system

is sometimes a nightmare. So pulling several reports and then using V-Lookup to get the report you need. And Concatenate is also a good one. You may well be speaking another language. Lee's like... Sorry, I really do love Excel, guys. I'm here for it. I'm here, Jamie. I'm here. With my metrics, like my turnover spreadsheet,

my turnover spreadsheet is just beautiful. For those who may not know what XLOOKUP is, what is it? It is another lookup function that really helps you combine different things together. But the cool part, if you've heard of a VLOOKUP, that's a much more popular one, XLOOKUP's newer. And it gets around the limitation that a VLOOKUP has, where you can't look up anything to the left of your lookup column. So a lot of people do a VLOOKUP and they think they did it all right. And then it just gives you an error message and they're like, ah! And that's where I found teaching XLOOKUP is a lot more straightforward.

However, there's a caveat that since it is a newer function, it's not available yet on all versions of Excel. So you always have to kind of pick and choose. That's why I always teach both, that corporate trainings and things. I'm like, okay, it's important for all of us to understand how both of these work because they're massive time-saving hacks.

But XLOOKUP's the new one that came out. All right. Well, I have a quick comment and then also a question. So the quick comment is if you aren't a fan of Excel, if you don't know Excel or don't understand it, my advice is to find who loves it in the office. That is one of my key tips for success. I have always buddied up with the Excel master at work because it's totally necessary, right? It is totally necessary and I do my best, but I do not lean that way.

Like I said, that is so out of my comfort zone, right? And I love to focus on my strengths and maximizing my strengths versus try and get better at my development needs and areas. That's how I roll. You know what I mean? So, but so I don't know everything and I'm very open about that, but I find out who does. So that would be just my quick comment is, Hey, if you're, if you're struggling, even though you're trying, but you don't have that inclination, find a buddy that can help you through it at work. And absolutely check out Miss.Excel, obviously.

That is very important. And start taking those courses because I legit am. Because I do struggle. But my question is, let's say hypothetically, you don't like Excel. You don't understand Excel. Kat's't understand Excel. I know. Let's just say hypothetically, how can you embrace it? Like any tips, because it's just, for me personally, it terrifies me because it's not something that I'm good at, right? So then I don't want, I can't, it's hard for me to embrace it. But how, how can I get past that? I think the biggest thing is

investing a little bit of time in yourself to figure out what you need to know and do it well. So then when you open it up, you don't feel feelings of like overwhelm or anxiousness, and it actually creates feelings for you of empowerment. It's really all about the feelings behind the Excel. And then in terms of how to get there, that's when it's like, okay, where can I find a teacher that I resonate with? And finding a teacher who I'm actually going to pay attention to, and that is actually fun with learning. And then that's really why we created Miss Excel,

because I was having trouble finding that across various categories. So I was like, okay, I want to be entertained while watching something. I want to be like, I put on a show, and Kat's putting on a show for us. So that's really, I always encourage people to kind of dive in and empower themselves with the skills. Cause that will totally like, it's easier to like something that you're good at, you know? Yeah. So you're saying to lean in, stop being scared. Well, let me tell you what happened just real quick is that in fourth grade, my teacher told me that I was... Inner child, inner child stuff.

I'm bringing it back, but it is really, it's a quick story. I messed up on a math problem and I had my teacher tell me that I suck at math. And for the teachers out there, you know the impact you have, positive and negative. I'm sure mostly positive, especially if you're listening to us, right? You're great at what you do. But, you know, just that one moment, look at me at 42 freaking years old on a podcast talking about that teacher, Mrs. B, I won't finish her name. Okay. But I remember it telling me as just this innocent little thing trying my best that I suck at it and you know what ever since then I have sucked at math limiting beliefs no more now you're

gonna take messy action you're gonna jump into miss excel all reprogrammable there's so much power you recognizing that moment and then just like you know there's ways to like work through it so that it kind of opens it up and through like you taking that head on too and be like, you know what, like, I'm going to spend a few hours on this Excel and I'm going to show it to his boss and take that Miss B. Exactly. Well, I just, I should reach out to her. Look at me now. That's the messy action I want to take. I love it. You should do it after you take Kat's webinar and Kat's courses. So then you can then you can record a zoom of yourself doing it.

Yeah. And you're not going to be using a calculator anymore. Or pen and paper. That's what I was about to say. You don't have to pull out a calculator. Oh, damn. Well, we do have a hard stop. So I'm cognizant of that. I know we're back to back with meetings. But I do want to shout out the fact that we have a special webinar coming up on February 14th with Miss Excel to teach you all about, is this pivots? Pivot tables, charts, and we're going in from that HR lens there too, and other tips around that as well for the community. And I'm so excited for it. We are going to have the best time,

one hour long class. If the time slot doesn't work for you, you can always register and get the replay link. And then for anybody who comes live, we have extra bonuses and presents that we'll be sending out. We love Valentine's Day presents. So get freaky in the sheets with us.

Oh yeah. On Valentine's Day. Absolutely. We're so excited. I mean, those HRT, this is going to be super valuable. I can't wait. I've had so many people message that are like, I'm legitimately excited about this. And I'm scared of how excited I am.

Like, no, Jessie Spano, get it. I'm so excited. Because I swear, this is something that I've never got at work. No. You know what I mean? Like this sort of development and opportunity, obviously, or else I'd probably be good at Excel. Yeah. Well, you know, come to this, but come to this, come to this webinar, come see the HR Besties focused one, but also Kat, you know, I know they can find you, tell everywhere they can find you on the socials on your website, but Kat also does corporate trainings and has this, and I know they can find you, tell everywhere they can find you on the socials on your website,

but Kat also does corporate trainings and has this. I know you can buy that. So for your organization, you can be the one that offers this. But Kat, tell everybody where to find you. Yeah, absolutely. So on social media, Instagram, TikTok, we are missmiss.excel.

And then our website is miss-excel.com. And we have on-demand courses across the entire Microsoft Office suite, Google Sheets, Kids Course, AI Course. And then I also go into companies and host live interactive training sessions. And we do bulk discounts on courses as well HR besties and Miss Excel webinar, check out the show notes because we got the link to sign up there and check out Miss Excel all across the interwebs and socials, changing lives, mine included. So thank you so much, Kat. Thank you. This was so much fun. Bestie Kat. Oh, thank you so much for joining us besties on this special all hands meeting with Kat Norton, aka Miss.Excel.