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The “boring skill goldmine” hiding in plain sight
From corporate drone to $2M+ creator by making the boring fun
The Journey Newsletter
June 18, 2025
THE SIGNAL
The world is moving fast. There is a ton of information out there. You probably have a lot of ideas. Use this to organize everything and create powerfully without burning out.
Take your pick from five proven strategies to overcome the fears that have been holding you back from the life of your dreams. Don’t forget to make it fun!
Get it straight from the legend himself. Here is how he’d pick his niche, build trust in the market, generate leads, and start making cold hard profits.
The Toolbox
Even if you suck at design, Canva makes it stupid-simple to create eye-catching thumbnails, social graphics, and course materials.
Now with Canva Sheets, you can make visual spreadsheets & you can execute design functions at scale with one-click based on the content in the rows or columns of your spreadsheet.
The Journey
How “Miss Excel” Turned Spreadsheets Into A $2M+ Empire
If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking that your skills are too basic to be valuable….
That stuff you know like the back of your hand is too boring to build a business around…
You need to get familiar with Kat Norton (AKA Miss Excel).
In 2020, while most of us were panic-baking sourdough, Kat was dancing and memeing...
…to Excel tutorials.
Yep, the same mind-numbing spreadsheet tool that makes most people's eyes glaze over.
She went viral on TikTok within weeks of posting her first video.
Now several years later, her "Miss Excel" brand pulls in $2 million annually and has over 2 million followers across the major social platforms.
But here's what's crazy about Kat's story...
She didn't stumble into some lucky break.
She consciously looked at what most people considered painfully ordinary and saw opportunity.
"Wait, this thing people find hard, I actually find easy... what if I taught it my way?"
As a consultant, Kat already taught Excel workshops across the country.
Then when COVID hit and she found herself unhappy with her job situation, a friend suggested TikTok.
Instead of dismissing it as ridiculous by saying, “Excel? On TikTok? Please….”
She took action and posted her first 14-second video within 48 hours.
Her fourth video hit 100K views.
By her sixth, a CEO was reaching out for corporate training.
She launched her first course after five months and made more than her monthly salary.
The magic was NOT in the Excel formulas.
It was in her approach.
Kat brought her whole self to the table:
Her playful energy, her love for dance, her genuine enthusiasm.
She made the "boring" exciting. And she didn't try to be something she wasn't.
She simply found the intersection of:
• What she was good at (Excel)
• What she enjoyed (teaching + dancing)
• What others struggled with (spreadsheet skills)
And she went ALL IN.
For the first year and a half, she ran everything herself.
She created and launched new courses on a regular basis.
She didn't wait for perfection. She shipped fast and improved later.
The lesson? Stop overlooking the "basic" skills you've already mastered.
Your expertise, even in something as unsexy as spreadsheets, might be exactly what someone else is desperately searching for.
The Next Step
Take inventory of your "boring" skills this week.
What do you know that feels too basic to monetize?
Pick one and create a super simple 60-second tutorial showing people how to do it.
Post it somewhere. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn….it doesn't matter.
And don't overthink the production.
Don't wait until it's perfect.
Don't worry if others are already teaching it.
Just bring YOUR unique energy to it.
Remember:
The market doesn't reward complexity.
It rewards clear and engaging solutions for problems that people actually have.