"If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts".
- William Deresiewicz
Thanks for continuing to be a Miscellany subscriber - it means a lot. We're taking a few weeks off for summer (the Icelandic horses are busy preparing our out of office messages). We'll be back in late August.
Tech
Excel formula bot
Excel formula bot is a free AI bot that recommends the best Excel formula for any problem. It was built by David Bressler who describes it as a project to help everyone learn Excel formulas. You type in what you are trying to do in plain language, and the bot recommends the best excel function for the job. I tried "remove the last four characters from any text label", and it returned =LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-4). Spot on.
Article
How to think: the skill you've never been taught
No skill is more valuable and harder to come by than the ability to critically think through problems. Thinking is a skill that can be learned and improved. Solitude and Leadership is a lecture by author William Deresiewicz and is worth reading in full for those who would seek to improve their thinking skills.
"Multitasking is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think. Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube."
Podcast
Building financial models
Giles & Myles spoke to Kevin Appleby from GrowCFO to talk about their experiences in the financial modelling industry. Hear what they had to say about a typical financial model build process, the most common pitfalls modellers face, and the tools and add ins you can use to help you with your modelling work.
Article
Availability bias
Keeping with the theme of improving thinking skills, this article on availability bias is useful. Availability bias refers to our tendency to make judgments based on information that is easily recalled. When some piece of information is easily brought to mind, we incorrectly assume that it’s an accurate reflection of reality. This often leads to the illusion of rational thinking and, ultimately, bad decisions.
Modeller's Miscellany Jobs
If you have a financial modelling related position you’d like us to include, please email miscellany@fullstackmodeller.com.
Featured:
Senior Associate, Financial Modelling - Grant Thornton Australia - Greater Sydney Area, Australia
Modeling Analyst - SumProduct - Sydney, Australia (Hybrid)
Junior Financial Analyst - Experian - Sofia, Bulgaria
Financial Modeller - DAZN - London, England (Hybrid)
Financial Analyst - Dunnes Store - Dublin, Ireland
Senior Financial Analyst - LHH - Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Senior Financial Modeller - Regional Finance - Remote, USA
Financial Modeller - Bayut - Dubai, UAE
And finally…
Looking for Excel based animation projects to suck up your time and leave you feeling like you should make better life choices? ExcelUnusual.com has you covered.
