Are You Driving on the Highway as if It’s Still a Car Park?

In my last article I drew a line between two worlds of Excel:

• The private car park — where you can drive any way you like, in circles, for fun, without consequences.
• The public highway — where you need rules, awareness, collaboration, and responsibility because you’re part of a wider system.

Most Excel learning today prepares people only for the car park. The techniques, the influencer tricks, the competitions — all encourage a view of Excel as a hobbyist’s tool, not an enterprise system.

But here’s the crucial question:

Do Excel learners actually want to drive on the public highway?

Why Many Don’t Care

From the learner’s perspective:

• Driving in the car park feels sufficient. They send and receive spreadsheets by email, they reconcile when needed, and that feels “normal.”
• They don’t feel the pile-ups, because their view of work is confined to their immediate tasks. “I’m alright, Jack.”
• They’re influenced by charismatic online trainers, who never mention enterprise realities.

From the boss’s perspective:

• They grew up in the same culture. Emailing spreadsheets back and forth is the default.
• They’re often resisting IT “solutions” that don’t feel relevant to their day-to-day.
• So they accept the status quo — flawed, inefficient, costly — simply because it’s familiar.

The result? Everyone drives as if the highway is just an extended car park. And the crashes, delays, and Excel Hell that follow are treated as inevitable.

Where the Light Comes In

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

I’ve seen it first-hand: when bosses are shown the contrast — between painting inside the box and using the spray gun, between endless manual reconciliation and instant automation — they move heaven and earth to make it happen.

Why? Because one quick demonstration reveals:

• What was — endless manual work.
• What is — the broken status quo.
• What could be — transformation, scale, and career-changing results.

This is not theory. It’s what propelled my own career. Bosses recognise the value immediately. They want it.

The Individual’s Opportunity

And here’s the leverage point: the individual is right in the thick of it.

• By learning principles, not tricks, you can apply them quickly in your own work.
• You can demonstrate the contrast to your boss.
• That demonstration influences upward — because bosses want results and rewards.

Yes, some bosses are part of the problem. But most are hungry for improvement. If you light the way, they will follow.

Why I’m Here

Neither learners nor bosses currently have the know-how or even the awareness of this transformative opportunity. That’s why I’m here:

• To shine a light.
• To demonstrate.
• To mentor.

This isn’t academic busywork. It’s a high-reward shift with massive significance for how businesses operate.

Which brings us to the choice:

👉 Are you content to keep circling the car park?
👉 Or are you ready to step onto the highway — and claim the opportunities that come with it?

The question is simple: are you in, or out?