Keys to the Castle

“What’s your number?” -Jake Moore; “More.” -Bretton James

Electing to enroll in Harvard Business School and spend two years surrounded by the world’s best and brightest is a no-brainer. You listen to a wide array of thoughtful perspectives, you’re presented with challenging questions, and you get exposed to wildly contrasting views of the world. What better place to form your judgement on important topics than in such an intellectually rewarding environment?

The only problem is that it seems a lot of people leave HBS more lost than they were coming in two years ago. A sizable number of graduates end up switching jobs two years into their first post-MBA gig. So what’s the point of all these deep and thoughtful discussions if they don’t yield career clarity? The curse of optionality makes you feel like you can do everything, but the struggle to pick the right path, however you define “right,” can leave you stranded with no clear sense of direction. A common road most people travel down is joining a big brand name and slipping into one of a handful of post-MBA career molds. Is that really why we came here in the first place? Only to graduate and insert ourselves back into the corporate world? Surely there’s more to life than a prestigious well-paying job.

HBS pulls and pushes us in a lot of different directions. Waves and currents of all sizes and intensities carry us to many different places and allow us to see things we’ve never before witnessed—the good, the bad, and the ugly. But beneath all that motion, there’s a quieter question: what’s your true north star? What person do you want to be? What life do you want to live? What choices would you make now to ensure your satisfaction in where you end up tomorrow?

I start off this piece with a quote from the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, where Jake Moore asks Bretton James what his number is, and the latter pauses, smirks, and responds: “More.” The reason I chose this short but powerful exchange is because this specific question is brandished a lot within the halls of HBS. People want to know what your number is, and they can’t wait to tell you theres. We even had a case protagonist in our RC LEAD class that walked us through the math of building a multi-million dollar retirement nest egg by simply investing your first year banking bonus and forgetting it for 30 years. He emphasized the importance of identifying your “number” and working toward it. I refuse to run this exercise on myself not because it’s too shallow, which it very much is, but because anchoring yourself to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow can be very blinding.

Deciding where to invest your time and energy next is not an easy task. It’s not supposed to be. However, I do believe that somewhere along the long and winding road of life, almost quietly, success will begin to take shape. A title you once dreamed of. A family you hoped to build. A room that once seemed off limits. A seat at a table you yearn to join. Maybe even all of the above. 

My only ask to my peers is this: when you figure it out, when you arrive at your castle, be sure not to pull up the drawbridge behind you. The HBS classroom taught us to be inviting. Inviting novel concepts, differing opinions, and constructive criticism. Let's keep it going by inviting others onto our journeys and extending support wherever it’s needed. Keep the door open and share the spotlight. There’s plenty of room on the stage.

Mohammad Almejel (MBA ’26) was born and raised in Kuwait. He studied structural engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and earned a master’s degree in civil engineering from Columbia University. Prior to HBS, Mohammad was the Co-Founder and Director of Operations at Fiz, a quick-commerce startup based in Kuwait.