In the world of Excel education, a powerful metaphor has emerged—one that mirrors countless classic stories, from myth to modern literature. A disillusioned hero leaves home to search for truth. They endure trials, follow false mentors, face dragons, and survive disasters. And in the end, after all that pain, the hero discovers that the treasure they sought was at home all along—only they couldn’t see it before.

That’s exactly the journey many Excel users are being sent on today.

The Allure of “Advanced Excel”

This morning, I watched a clip from Giles Male that prompted this reflection. The video promotes the idea that to succeed with Excel, you must chase its ever-evolving features—Power Query, Dynamic Arrays, Lambdas, Python, and beyond. That the only path to progress is to keep up. That your inadequacy stems from not learning enough of these tools. It’s a seductive message—and one that is echoed by social media influencers, online courses, and Microsoft’s own marketing teams.

They tell you Excel is advancing rapidly, and that to survive (let alone thrive), you must master every new drop that rolls out of Redmond. It’s an idea that resonates with beginners—especially those with no business context or process responsibility—because they assume that technical complexity must be the answer. They see Excel as a giant interactive piece of paper, so it’s natural to think more magical tools mean more power.

But what if that’s only half the story?

The Journey Through the Jungle

Beginners are lured into the forest by Power Query, VLOOKUPs, DAX, and more. And yes, these tools are powerful in the right hands and contexts. They serve a purpose. And just like the hero’s trials in the myth, they’re often necessary to help you grow—to push you to think in new ways, to gain scars and wisdom.

But here’s where the story gets twisted.

Many users follow this path only to find themselves deep in a swamp—up to their necks in a budgeting system that doesn’t consolidate properly, buried under orphaned spreadsheets created by consultants who have since vanished, or deploying Power Query-based solutions that can’t be modified or reused in any practical way. Eventually, they find themselves asking: Why isn’t this working? Why is my boss still unhappy?

And then, often through frustration and hard-earned failure, the penny drops.

Coming Home

After years chasing “advanced” Excel, some eventually discover a truth that’s been hiding in plain sight:

The real power of Excel isn’t in its flashiest features—it’s in understanding how it was designed to be used in an enterprise environment all along.

I’m talking about client-server spreadsheet architecture. About ADO-based integration with relational databases. About Excel acting not as a static file but as a dynamic interface to a data-driven process—one where 400 managers can submit budgets with a single click, without sending emails or merging files. This isn’t futuristic. It isn’t theoretical. It’s Excel 97 functionality. It’s what many professional consultants and enterprise modelers have quietly used for decades.

But you can’t see this until you’ve lived through the alternative. Until you’ve drowned in complexity and orphaned files. Until you’ve been that Excel hero crawling out of a pit, discovering—ironically—that the elegant solution was there at the start, hidden beneath your assumptions.

So, Do We Tell Them?

Here’s the ethical dilemma: Do we tell Excel learners at the beginning that most of what they are chasing will be discarded if they ever want to deliver robust, scalable solutions that please actual stakeholders?

Do we spoil the ending?

Would you want someone to tell you that the shiny new Power Query dashboard you’re proud of today is likely to be unusable next year? Or that dynamic arrays will not fix your consolidation problem? Or that most employers do not want flashy formulas—they want dependable, modifiable workflows that connect directly to business systems?

Would you believe it if you hadn’t suffered first?

Lessons from History (and the ’90s)

This is not the first time we’ve seen this cycle.

In the 1990s, Excel spreadsheets reached their limits. “You need an Access solution,” they said. So the market shifted. Access developers became sought after. But when the inevitable change request came—and the original developer was nowhere to be found—companies were stuck. The second developer rewrote the system. Then another did the same. Eventually, management gave up and went back to Excel.

Now, we’re doing it again. This time with Power BI, Power Query, Python, and Lambda. And in some cases, it’s even worse—because unlike Access, which is at least a database, these new tools often lack the flexibility to support evolving business processes without specialized developer intervention.

What’s old is new again.

Excel is Not a Piece of Paper

This is the shift that social media education still fails to teach: moving from paper flow to data flow. From emailing files to connecting directly to databases. From copying data to clicking a button that updates and uploads. From clever tricks to architecture.

And that’s why so many end up stuck. Not because Power Query is inherently bad—but because it’s being sold as the answer to problems it can’t solve.

Like in the Abbey and Bradley budgeting walkthrough, it’s only after trying and failing with Power Query that Abbey learns what the real problem is. And the real solution is beautifully simple, using Excel’s built-in database connectivity and a client-server approach.

That solution is beyond advanced Excel—not because it uses newer tools, but because it uses older tools properly.

Conclusion: The Purple Square and the Spray Gun

If you’ve followed my content before, you may know my analogy: the Purple Square versus the Spray Gun. Most Excel training teaches people how to color in purple squares—one at a time, very neatly. But real business processes don’t need colored squares. They need a spray gun—a system that can deliver at scale, with accuracy, agility, and traceability.

And that system already exists. It’s not new. It’s not trendy. But it’s powerful.

The tragedy is that many will never discover it. Or if they do, it will be after years of unnecessary complexity. So I ask again:

Shall we tell them?

Shall we let them go on their hero’s journey, waste time, get sacked, and crawl out the swamp to finally see the truth?

Or shall we show them the path now—and risk being ignored, ridiculed, or dismissed by the crowd that sells magic beans?

It’s a conundrum. But one worth pondering.

Inspired by experience. Backed by business. And offered to anyone brave enough to question what they’re being told.

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