Leila Gharani

One Excel formula. It returns the name of your most expensive campaign AND your cheapest campaign. Same cell. Same function.

No helper columns. No two separate formulas. Just one.

The function is called TAKE, and most people use it to grab the first or last few rows of a table. That's useful, but it's the basic version.

In this video, I show what happens when you combine TAKE with SORTBY, FILTER, and VSTACK.

You get rolling averages that update automatically, filtered top-5 lists, and cross-table comparisons pulled from multiple sheets.

5 days ago | [YT] | 119

Leila Gharani

There's a formula in this video that finds the immediate parent of any part in a Bill of Materials hierarchy. No helper columns. No VBA. Just one line.

It uses LOOKUP in a way I've never shown on this channel before. Our engineer showed me this approach, and it honestly caught me off guard.

The video also covers how to auto-indent BOM levels, strip messy PLM exports clean, and split part numbers from descriptions.

But that LOOKUP trick is the one people keep asking about.

1 week ago | [YT] | 73

Leila Gharani

There's a setting in Excel that auto-refreshes your Pivot Table every time you open the file. Most people have never turned it on.

That's one of 3 Pivot Table mistakes I cover in this video. The others:

- Using VLOOKUP to combine tables when Excel can link them for you
- Sticking with the default layout that makes reports look amateur (one-minute fix inside)

195,000+ people have watched it. If you work with Pivot Tables weekly, it's worth 9 minutes.

Which of the three are you guilty of?

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 137

Leila Gharani

Type "1000100" into an Excel formula and it knows your days off are Monday and Friday.

No VBA. No workaround.

Just a 7-character code that tells NETWORKDAYS.INTL exactly which days to skip.


Most people don't know this version of the function exists. They use the basic NETWORKDAYS, which is hardcoded to Saturday/Sunday.

If your team works a 4-day week, or your "weekend" falls on different days, that formula gives you wrong answers every time.


I break down how the code works (and how to add company holidays on top of it).

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 149

Leila Gharani

Every Monday, you open the same messy export. Delete the blank rows. Fix the headers. Copy it into your master sheet. Again.

That whole routine? Power Query does it in about 10 seconds. You set it up once. After that, you click Refresh and it's done.


In this video, I walk through three real scenarios: cleaning messy data, combining multiple files, and turning a cross-tab report into something a Pivot Table can actually use.


If you do any kind of recurring data cleanup, this will save you hours every month.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 230

Leila Gharani

Your Excel macro works on desktop. Then the file lands in Teams... and it’s useless.

That’s where Office Scripts comes in.

In this video, I'll show how to:

- record your steps in Excel for the web
- tweak the script so it works with changing data
- run it in Teams without the usual macro headache

If you still use VBA, but your files now live online, this is the upgrade path.

1 month ago | [YT] | 116

Leila Gharani

Your Excel formula isn't advanced. It's just unreadable.

You've seen the type. Maybe you wrote it.

A formula that calculates the same thing three times because there's no way to store a result and reuse it.

So you copy the same AVERAGEIFS or FILTER block into multiple spots.

The formula grows. It gets slower. And when you need to change one piece of logic, you have to find and fix it in four places.

There's a function that lets you name a calculation once, then reference it as many times as you want inside the same formula.

Shorter. Faster. Actually possible to read six months later.

Check out the video with clear examples and download the free practice workbook so you can try it with your own data.

What's the longest formula you have in a workbook right now?

1 month ago | [YT] | 131

Leila Gharani

We just passed 3,000,000 subscribers!

10 years ago, some of my corporate friends made fun of me for starting a YouTube channel. Fair enough. Corporate people didn't really take YouTube seriously back then.

But here's what 10 years and 3 million people taught me:

#1 - Don't box yourself in.

I deliberately never named my channel "Excel." I knew I didn't want to be stuck in one lane. But even then, it took me years to actually post something outside of Excel because I was scared my audience wouldn't approve.

Then last year, I posted something completely different. A Rubik's cube tutorial. Yes. A Rubik's cube! On an Excel channel.

That video now has nearly 3,000,000 views. It's actually still our #1 most watched video. Hundreds of people have commented that they finally solved a Rubik's cube because of it.

I almost didn't post it. If you're following you know I teach tools like Excel and Power BI. But I realized, my main thing is helping people solve problems. It doesn't always have to be Excel.

After all, I left corporate because I didn't want to be boxed in. It didn't make sense to create that box in my own business.

#2 - Do things you're passionate about and stop overthinking it.

The Rubik's cube wasn't a strategy. I just loved it. Not everything has to be strategy. What's the fun in work if you can't take some time and do things you love.

#3 - Know when to switch from "growth mode" to "sustainable mode."

For years, we posted every week. Then twice a week. There was a time we posted three times. I was terrified that if I stopped, everything would collapse.
Then I started getting stressed out. I was working on videos, courses, everything. And I had a YouTuber friend whose burnout got so bad he couldn't turn the camera on anymore. Beautiful channel. But he just couldn't do it anymore.

I took a month off. I didn't want to start hating what I loved.
Nothing collapsed. The channel was fine.

Your stats do go down when you post less. But you have to decide what matters more. I love teaching, and I want to keep doing this for a while. So I found a pace I can actually sustain.

It's like losing weight. You need the calorie deficit to get there. But at some point, you have to eat in a way you can live with. And only you know when that point is.

I'm grateful for 3 million. But that's just a number. What makes me happier is reading the comments below the videos from people sharing their wins. Whether it's solving a Rubik's cube or getting a promotion because they finally learned Power Query.

A big thank you for watching my videos and reading this post.

1 month ago | [YT] | 5,477

Leila Gharani

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬. ✍️💼

Most people treat professional notes like they’re back in school—trying to capture every single word. Then two days later, your boss asks for a "next steps" summary, and you’re frantically scanning six pages of messy text. 😅

There is a better way. I use the Quadrant Method [02:35] to distill an entire 60-minute meeting into four clear "buckets" on a single page.

It forces you to identify:
✨ Questions that still need answers.
✨ Personal To-Dos with deadlines.
✨ Action Items for the rest of the team.
✨ General Insights that aren't just "transcriptions."

I also share the controversial reason why I think you should close your laptop and pick up a physical pen (or a tablet/stylus 🖋️).

Quick Question: Are you a "Write everything down" person or a "Just the highlights" person? I'm curious to see which side wins! 👇

1 month ago | [YT] | 176

Leila Gharani

Ever tried to add a second sheet to a PivotTable and realized... you can't? 🤔

Excel doesn't let you do it the obvious way.

So most people end up copy-pasting everything into one giant sheet and building from there.

That works until next month, when you have to do it all over again.

There's a better way. Two, actually. One stacks your sheets automatically.

The other connects them without merging anything. Both update with a single click when new data comes in.

I break down when to use each one.

1 month ago | [YT] | 201