“You Can Just Do Things”

How HBS has rewired my perspective on what’s possible. 

There’s a meme floating around lately that’s stuck with me: “You can just do things.”

It’s a simple phrase, but I think it captures something pretty meaningful. It posits that most of the “bold” actions we imagine — starting a company, cold-emailing a CEO for coffee, moving to a new country — are actually very doable. The barriers between you and your ambitious goal are mostly current inertia (the “status quo”) and perhaps the story you’ve told yourself about why it won’t work. After almost two years at HBS, this mindset shift — that you really can just do things — is one of my biggest takeaways from the MBA experience.

Search funds are a good example. The concept sounds sort of insane when you first hear it. You, a freshly minted MBA with limited to no operational experience, can go out and raise millions in capital to buy a functioning business from someone who’s spent decades running it. But as it turns out, you can just do that. HBS shows you the playbook of this working time and time again. Through case studies, alumni panels, and even current classmates who have already pulled it off, the idea shifts from “that’s crazy” to “huh, I could probably do that.” The barriers — self-doubt, inexperience, fear of failure — don’t disappear, but they do start to look a little bit more like speed bumps than brick walls.

This mindset shift isn’t limited to search funds. HBS has a way of normalizing ambition paired with bold action. Students pitch to VCs in class and end up securing funding a few months later. I recently shot off an email to the CEO of a business I was inspired by on a Monday and was on the phone by Friday. The message is consistent: the world isn’t as gated as you think. You can just reach out, ask, try, build. In other words, do things.

I don’t mean to imply that doing things is easy or risk free. Doing things is definitely hard. HBS doesn’t sugarcoat this; cases are littered with examples of mistakes and failures. However, the message is not “this will be simple;” it’s “this is doable.” That distinction has rewired how I approach challenges. Where I once saw some types of career moves and thought, “who am I to try this?", I now think, “why not?”

AI is amplifying this effect. ChatGPT and the like have lowered the bar for executing ambitious ideas. Need a business plan? AI can draft one in minutes or hours, not weeks. Want to analyze a market? You can pull data and insights faster than ever. Want to chat with your business hero? You can upload books they’ve written, interviews they’ve done, articles about them, and have a conversation with an AI version of that person. If you believe AI is dramatically changing business (which seems like a modest assumption), it’s an extremely exciting time to enter the business world young and hungry.

It’s important to acknowledge that we are very blessed. HBS gives us resources, networks, and credibility that most people don’t have. The U.S. has a culture of entrepreneurship and a system of laws that enables young people to raise capital and get put into positions of extreme responsibility. Most people around the world can’t “just do things,” not due to a lack of innate ability, but rather because of their external circumstances. As Dean Datar frequently says, “talent is more equally distributed than opportunity.” I think this reality should compel us even more towards action.

To conclude, HBS has provided me with a powerful mindset shift. You don’t need every answer or the perfect moment. Most barriers are self-made and, as the meme goes, you really can just do things.

Tim Rice (MBA ‘25) is originally from Wyoming, Ohio. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with degrees in Mathematics and Economics in 2019. Prior to HBS, Tim worked for the World Wildlife Fund in London and for BCG’s Climate and Energy Practice. Tim loves to run, hike and ski and spends lots of time nerding out on energy markets.