The formula you provided is using the `WorksheetFunction.Left` method to extract the leftmost 9 characters from a cell in the first column of a worksheet.

To make this formula work, you need to ensure that the `variable` variable is properly defined and that the cell reference in the formula is valid. Here's an example of how you can modify the formula to extract the leftmost 9 characters from cell A1:

1. Formula:

   Dim variable As Integer 

2. Formula:

   variable = 1 'set the variable to the row number of the cell you want to extract from 

3. Formula:

   Dim result As String 

4. Formula:

   result = Application.WorksheetFunction.Left(Cells(variable, 1), 9) 

5. Formula:

   MsgBox result 'display the result in a message box 


In this example, the `variable` variable is set to 1, which means the formula will extract the leftmost 9 characters from cell A1. If you want to extract from a different cell, simply change the value of the `variable` variable to the row number of the cell you want to extract from.

Note that if the cell you are trying to extract from contains less than 9 characters, the formula will return an error. You may want to add some error handling to your code to handle this scenario.