The Anthony Reeves Experience

When I graduated from college, I did not know exactly what I was going to do next, but that uncertainty did not frighten me. College itself had been the milestone. It represented four years of growth from a teenager into a young man. I had developed independence, become a leader, and completed what everyone said was the next logical step toward establishing myself. There was also an assumption attached to earning a college degree: once you graduated, the world would open up. Even if you did not have a detailed plan, you had accomplished something significant. You were on your way. Graduate school felt different. The degree was supposed to change something By the time I completed my Master of Public Health in industrial hygiene, I was not entering the professional world without experience. I had already been working in safety and health. I believed the graduate degree would enhance that experience and immediately move my career to another level. In my mind, the degree would speak for it...

Nobody ever told me how lonely it could be to begin professional life on my own. We spend years preparing people for the work. We tell them to finish school, earn the degree, complete the training, build the resume, and get the job. But we do not always prepare them for what happens when the structure that carried them through one stage of life suddenly disappears. When I began my first professional job in Tallahassee, Florida, in April 1992, I was prepared to work. What I had not prepared for was the loneliness that came with starting that chapter by myself. College Came With a Built In Community Leaving high school for college did not introduce me to that kind of loneliness. Most of the people I knew were moving into familiar groups. Some went into the military. Some entered the workforce or technical programs. Others went to college. Even when our paths were different, we understood that we were all beginning something new. During my four years at the University of Tampa, I built mo...

Years ago, as I was preparing to graduate from the University of Tampa, a young woman told me something I wasn’t expecting. She said there were students who found me annoying because they thought I was arrogant. It wasn’t the first time I had heard that characterization, but it still caught me off guard. I didn’t see myself as arrogant at all. In fact, internally, I was extremely insecure. That left me with an uncomfortable question: How could I project so much confidence when I didn’t feel particularly confident inside? Looking back now, I think I finally understand. What Other People Saw By my senior year, I had become a fixture in many parts of university life. I was a University of Tampa Diplomat. I was a resident assistant. I served on student-faculty committees. I participated in ROTC and college work-study. I was a member of a fraternity. I wasn’t deliberately trying to be everywhere. I was simply involved in things that interested me and moving through spaces that had become co...

Can you believe I was one vote away from being homecoming king in college? You might hear that and immediately think,  Man, that must have hurt. It didn't. In fact, losing by one vote gave me something far more valuable than winning ever could have. It changed the way I saw myself. I Wasn't That Guy Growing up, I had a very particular idea of the kind of person who ended up on a homecoming court. They were the popular people. The attractive people. The well-connected people. The people everybody seemed to know. And I was absolutely convinced that wasn't me. I still sometimes describe my younger self as the goofy kid from Arkansas with the Coke-bottle glasses and high-water pants. I knew the people who became homecoming kings and queens. I knew the people who seemed destined to be on homecoming courts. I just never considered myself one of them. Nothing about my high school experience had given me a reason to think otherwise. I wasn't nominated for homecoming court. I wa...

We talk a lot about getting to the “next level.” It has become one of those phrases that we use almost automatically. We want to take our careers to the next level. We want to take our businesses to the next level. We want to take our relationships, finances, education, or personal development to the next level. But I have often wondered whether we actually recognize the moment when it happens. Because sometimes the next level does not arrive with an announcement. Sometimes there is no promotion. There is no graduation ceremony. There is no award. There is no moment where somebody walks up to you and says: Congratulations. You are now a different person. Sometimes you only recognize it years later. For me, one of those moments happened during the summer of 1990 at Army ROTC Advanced Camp. I Thought I Knew What Success Looked Like When I returned to the University of Tampa in the fall of 1989, a lot of things in my life were changing. I was 20 years old. I had recently pledged the frate...