“Glenna would like to meet with you,” the secretary said cheerfully. “Does seven-thirty tomorrow morning work for you?”
Um.
Seven-thirty.
With Glenna Young.
I had never been summoned to the principal’s office in my life for bad behavior. Twelve years of schooling and not so much as a warning for chewing gum. My record was clean. Squeaky clean.
In fact, the only time I’d ever been called in was for something improbably wholesome. In the fifth grade, our principal, Mr. Harrison, hand-selected Goldie Peterman and me to represent Garfield Elementary School at a culinary council with other students from across Enid. We were to sample prospective cafeteria offerings and render judgment. By the people, for the people. Apparently, we were capable of evaluating tater tots with integrity.
There we sat—an earnest row of underdeveloped food critics—taking our assignment with solemnity. While others may have been summoned for mischief, I had been summoned for chicken fingers. It was, to that point, the pinnacle of my grade school career.
So when the secretary proposed an early-morning meeting with my program advisor—my clinical senior instructor for the past seventeen months, no less—my brain responded like a filing cabinet yanked open too fast.
Why does she want to meet with me?
That was the first thought. It entered briskly, wearing high-top sneakers and a tank top.
The second thought was less sensible. Am I in trouble for an offense I didn’t commit?
The mind is rarely content with the obvious. It prefers drama. It rummages. It assembles flimsy evidence. By late afternoon, I had tried and convicted myself of at least four vague academic felonies. Improper citation formatting. Suspiciously neat paperwork. An attitude problem I hadn’t yet discovered in myself.
“Sure, I can do that,” I heard myself say, as though volunteering to water someone’s ficus.
I was standing on the third floor of the Roy F. Christensen building at Idaho State University in Pocatello. February. Brisk outside. The final semester for my Associate’s degree. The air in the hallway had that institutional warmth, humming with ambition.
Glenna and I had always had a good relationship. At least, I believed we had. She was steady, exacting, generous with feedback but not reckless with praise. The sort of instructor who could say “You can do better” in a way that made you want to.
Still, seven-thirty. Early morning meetings are for serious matters.
That night, my mind did what minds do when left alone: I lay in bed and replayed the last seventeen months as though reviewing security footage. Had I frowned at the wrong moment? Submitted an assignment early one too many times? Was there a clinical evaluation floating somewhere with a red circle around my name?
At one point, I became convinced this was about leadership. I had shown too much initiative. Or not enough. Possibly both. The brain is wonderfully versatile that way.
I tossed and turned. I composed imaginary dialogues.
“Jeremiah, we’ve noticed something.”
Yes? (Steady voice. Neutral face.)
“We’re concerned.”
About what? (Calm. Cooperative. Innocent.)
In one version, she was praising me. In another, she was tearing me down. In a particularly creative stretch around one o’clock, she was informing me that I had been mistaken for another student entirely, someone reckless and clinically unsound, and that my identity would be sorted out in due time.
Sleep did not so much evade me as sit in the corner and watch.
By three o’clock, the meeting had grown mythic. Glenna was no longer simply my advisor; she was an oracle. The Roy F. Christensen building loomed in my imagination like a modest but decisive coliseum.
And yet, beneath the theatrics, there was something almost comical about the whole affair. I had done nothing—at least nothing memorable. My record remained stubbornly uneventful. If this was trouble, it was the well-mannered kind.
Eventually, toward morning, fatigue did what logic could not. The mind, having swirled itself into a respectable froth, settled. Not into certainty—never that—but into resignation. Whatever Glenna wanted, she would tell me. At seven-thirty. In the morning. Cheerfully, perhaps.
And I would walk into her office not as a defendant, not as a prodigy, but as a student who had survived his own imagination.
“Jeremiah, thank you for coming in,” Glenna smiled.
Jennifer Lame, my medical coding instructor, appeared out of nowhere and stood in the doorway. She had the composure of someone who knew exactly where every modifier belonged. Her presence added a fresh complication. My midnight rehearsal hadn’t included Jennifer. I had cast Glenna in every role—mentor, judge, benevolent executioner—but Jennifer had not made the script. And yet there she was, arms folded, observing with the mild, unreadable expression of a woman fully capable of assigning an ICD-9 code to whatever was about to happen next.
Glenna began. “The Director of HIM position at Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg has been posted for a while.”
“Okay,” I said, buying time. Director sounded seasoned. I was not seasoned.
“We think you should apply,” Glenna added.
Apply.
For a Director’s position. I was dumbfounded.
My brain performed a small but noticeable wobble. Director of Health Information Management. That was a title with syllables. Syllables suggest experience. Experience suggests gray hair, or at least a long resume and a mortgage.
Directors led people, and I had never led anyone.
Well, that’s not entirely true. In school and in my neighborhood, I was the boss. I mean, I liked bossing classmates and friends around. Leadership, in its early stages, looks a lot like enthusiasm with volume.
Like the time I organized our group for the school talent show. We chose “Walk the Dinosaur” by Was (Not Was)—a song whose historical depth had not yet been fully appreciated by the fifth grade.
I stood before my classmates with a seriousness normally reserved for moon landings.
“Alright,” I said, clapping once. “When they say, ‘Open the door, get on the floor,’ we open wide. Dramatic. Then we get on the floor. Commitment.”
There were questions about the literalness of this instruction.
“We are not half-walking the dinosaur,” I clarified. “We are walking the dinosaur.”
We practiced the chant. “Everybody walk the dinosaur.” Again. Louder. “Everybody walk the dinosaur,” I demanded a stomp that suggested genuine prehistoric urgency. Not a polite shuffle. Not a casual saunter. A stomp that implied survival.
When the bridge arrived—“Boom boom, acka-lacka-lacka boom”—I appointed myself rhythmic director. I demonstrated what I believed to be an accurate tail swing, despite the absence of tails. I reassigned one friend to percussion via an overturned five-gallon bucket. Vision requires adaptation.
At one rehearsal, I stopped the group mid-chorus.
“No,” I said, pacing. “You’re thinking too modern. This is Jurassic. When they say, ‘Everybody kill the dinosaur,’ I need vertebrae. I need fossils-in-the-making energy.”
Were we synchronized? Not in the strictest sense of the word. But we committed. We chanted. We stomped with the confidence of boys who had never yet managed a payroll or chaired a committee but believed, fully, in their capacity to command a room with a novelty funk anthem.
So perhaps I had led before. There had been a vision. There had been coordination. There had been a clipboard. Leadership, it turns out, begins with opening the door and getting on the floor where the work takes place.
“But Glenna, I don’t have any leadership experience,” I answered back.
This, I felt, was a strong argument. Modest. Accurate. Difficult to refute.
In my mind, becoming a HIM Director was part of my five-year plan—the hypothetical version of my life in which I first broke into the industry as a coder, learned the ropes, mastered the acronyms, and acquired a slightly more authoritative wardrobe. Director was a title you earned after years of nodding thoughtfully in meetings.
Besides, I was getting ready to submit my Bachelor of Applied Technology degree plan. Thirty-six upper-division credits. Classes with names like Health Care Law, Health Care Organization Management, and Conflict Management.
Glenna didn’t blink. She had the calm of someone who had already rehearsed this conversation and decided how it would end.
“Jeremiah,” she said evenly, “leadership isn’t a job title. It’s initiative. It’s judgment. It’s how you carry yourself. It’s showing you care. We know you can do this.”
I considered how I carried myself. I was, to some, wise beyond my years.
“You already lead,” Jennifer said. “In class. In clinical. The other students look to you.”
“They do?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“They do,” Jennifer said. “You ask the questions they’re thinking. You organize. You don’t panic when something’s unclear. That matters.”
Glenna leaned forward slightly. “Madison Memorial doesn’t need someone who knows everything on day one. They need someone who can listen, who can communicate, who can take responsibility, who can problem solve.”
“I just…” I hesitated. “I always pictured starting as a coder. Getting experience first. Earning my stripes.”
“And you will earn them,” Glenna said. “But sometimes stripes are earned by stepping into the room before you feel ready.”
Jennifer nodded. “You don’t wait to feel like a director. You grow into it.”
Grow into it.
I looked from Glenna to Jennifer. Two professionals. Two instructors. Two women who had nothing to gain by inflating my ego.
“You really think I should apply?”
Glenna smiled. The decided kind.
“We wouldn’t have called you in if we didn’t.”
There was a pause. The kind of pause where a decision gathers itself.
“I’ll tell you what,” Glenna said. “If you want, I’ll reach out to the hospital. I’ll make a call. Introduce you.”
I looked at Jennifer. Jennifer gave a small nod, the kind that says, This is reasonable. Also inevitable.
“You’d… do that?” I asked.
“Yes,” Glenna said. “But only if you really want this.”
Her words straightened me in my chair.
I swallowed. “I do.”
There it was. The verdict. Not guilty.
Just… encouraged to go after my dreams early.
We talked for a few minutes more about what to emphasize if something materialized. Nothing was guaranteed. No fireworks. No confetti cannon announcing, Future Director Identified. Just a plan. Conditional. Professional.
Then I left.
A few days passed.
I returned to my routines with disciplined normalcy. Clinical hours. Part-time work at the Idaho Health Sciences Library. Coding exercises. Highlighters doing their work.
Then, one afternoon, I learned I had a date and time.
Not a possibility.
A date.
“And time,” Glenna said. “They’d like you in Rexburg next Thursday at ten.”
I stared at her.
“Next Thursday,” I repeated.
“At ten.”
“They’re looking forward to meeting you,” she added.
Looking forward.
I walked out of Glenna’s office in a different state than I had entered—not panicked, not triumphant, but aware. The hypothetical had hardened into an interview. Rexburg was now circled on the calendar.
I had agreed to let Glenna make the call.
She had made it. Madison Memorial Hospital had penciled me in as a “Director” candidate.
Rexburg is seventy-nine miles from Pocatello. I drove north that morning with both hands on the wheel, rehearsing answers out loud. Then I stopped. Then I started again.
“Yes, I believe leadership is about—”
No. Too rehearsed.
“I don’t know everything, but I’m willing to—”
Too confessional.
By mile forty-three, I had delivered three imaginary speeches and dismissed them all. By mile sixty, I had decided the best strategy was oxygen.
Madison Memorial Hospital appeared at the end of Main Street. I sat in my car for a moment. You are here, I told myself. Inside, I checked in at Administration. I was led down a hallway that felt longer than it probably was. And then I found myself seated at a conference table.
Across from me: the Chief Operating Officer. A gray-haired woman, I’m guessing, who was in her late fifties or early sixties. To my right: the Chief Financial Officer. Numbers person. His eyes were blue and quick. From my lectures, I knew him to be someone who understood budgets and data at a molecular level.
I was acutely aware of my age. Of my résumé. Of the fact that I had, until recently, considered myself a promising future coder.
The COO smiled. “Jeremiah, we’re glad you could make the drive.”
Seventy-nine miles, I thought. Every one of them now sitting with me at the table.
The CFO nodded politely.
There is a particular sensation when you realize you are no longer imagining a scenario but inhabiting it. The conference table was real. The questions would be real. The silence after each answer would be very real. This, I thought, is either wildly premature or precisely on time.
And then the first question came.
“Tell us a little about why you’re interested in this position,” the COO asked.
“I want,” I said, choosing each word carefully, “to solve problems that matter to patient care without standing at the bedside.”
The CFO nodded once. Not approvingly. Not disapprovingly. Simply acknowledging the existence of a response.
The COO asked, “How comfortable are you with leadership responsibility?”
I paused. Leadership was still a concept I was growing into.
“As you know, I haven’t led a formal department before,” I admitted. “But I do organize well. I ask questions when something doesn’t make sense. And I try to make informed decisions.”
I was suddenly aware of the strangeness of the situation. I was sitting across from hospital executives interviewing for a director-level role, and I was not even a college graduate yet.
“Do you feel prepared to step into a leadership role?” the CFO asked.
“I don’t think anyone ever feels completely prepared,” I answered. “But I’m a fast learner, listen attentively, and take responsibility.”
The CFO studied me for a long second. Then said, “What would you do in your first ninety days if you were hired?”
“I would learn the department,” I said. “Shadow the team. Understand the workflows. I wouldn’t rush to change things until I understood why they existed.”
The COO nodded.
The questions continued for a while—about collaboration, problem solving, and handling disagreement. I answered as honestly as I knew how, trying not to sound older than I was, or wiser than I was, or more experienced than I was. Because the truth was simple and slightly absurd: I was a young man who had been carried this far by curiosity, work ethic, and two instructors who believed I could grow into something I could not yet fully see.
At the end, the COO smiled. “We appreciate you making the drive,” she said again.
And then they told me they would be in touch.
About a week later, I received an email from the COO informing me that the Administrative team had discussed the matter and wanted to offer me the job. I submitted my application as a formality and was hired nearly three months before I graduated.
Glenna and Jennifer were right.
Not because I felt ready. I didn’t.
Not because I suddenly transformed into a fully formed Director somewhere between Pocatello and Rexburg. I did not.
They were right because readiness is often less about arrival and more about willingness.
I started the next week after graduation. One Friday, I was a student; the next Monday, I was responsible for a department. I assumed managerial duties over nine women, a few old enough to be my mother. On my first day, I was acutely aware that they had decades of life experience between them. Children. Mortgages.
That July of 2002, I passed my Registered Health Information Technician national exam—a requirement under Idaho Administrative Code—a huge relief. I needed the credential to keep working.
What I had was a fresh credential, a careful mind, and the humility to listen.
Leadership, I discovered, is less about commanding and more about absorbing. You ask. You observe. You admit when you don’t know. You make decisions anyway.
Over the past twenty-three years, I’ve led HIM departments in two different states, including a consulting stint for the State of New Mexico. I’ve navigated audits, software conversions, regulatory updates, staffing challenges, and too many acronyms to count.
And yet, when I trace it back, it still leads to that early morning meeting on ISU’s campus. Two instructors saw something in me that I did not see in myself. Glenna made a phone call. She created an opening. I drove seventy-nine miles.
That’s the part I’ve come to appreciate. The distance between self-doubt and responsibility is sometimes just a conversation—and the courage to say yes before I feel equal to the yes.
Yes, directors lead people. It turns out they also grow up in the process.
Word Count: 2,774
Here are six “writing” takeaways from this chapter:
The Beginning
1. Start with a Simple Moment, Not a Grand Theme
I didn’t open with “This is a story about leadership.”
I opened with: “Seven-thirty. With Glenna.”
That’s craft. Specific beats general. A secretary. A time. A hallway. Let the reader lean in before you tell them why it matters.
Try This: Open your memoir scene with one concrete moment—a phone call, a knock, a sentence someone said. No explanation. Just the moment. Let the meaning arrive later.
2. Use Self-Doubt as Fuel (and Humor as Solvent)
My brain “tried and convicted” you of imaginary academic crimes. That’s personality. Memoir thrives on honest interiority.
I didn’t posture. I revealed. And I made it funny.
Try This: Take a moment when you were anxious. Write the exaggerated thoughts exactly as they appeared in your head. Don’t clean them up. Don’t defend yourself. Let the reader see the swirl.
The Middle
3. Insert a Flashback That Deepens the Present
The dinosaur talent show reframes “leadership.” It gives the reader relief, humor, and texture. It also humanizes the ambition.
Good memoir braids time. It doesn’t march in a straight line.
Try This: When your story reaches tension, pause and ask: When have I felt this before? Insert a short, vivid memory that echoes the current moment. Keep it tight. Make it relevant.
4. Let Dialogue Do the Heavy Lifting
Notice how often I let Glenna and Jennifer speak. Their confidence contrasts my hesitation. The story moves because voices move it.
Dialogue creates immediacy. It also keeps you from explaining too much.
Try This: Rewrite one key scene in your memoir using mostly dialogue. Strip out exposition. Let the characters reveal meaning through what they say—and what they don’t.
The End
5. Don’t Announce the Lesson—Arrive at It
I didn’t declare, “This taught me leadership.” I arrived at:
Readiness is less about arrival and more about willingness.
Try This: After drafting your ending, ask: What did this actually change in me? Write the insight in one clean sentence. If it sounds like a motivational poster, rewrite it until it sounds like you.
6. Close the loop
I return to the early morning meeting. I return to the seventy-nine miles. I return to the yes.
Memoir feels complete when the ending echoes the beginning. That’s structure. That’s design.
Try This: Look at your first page. Is there an image, phrase, or object you can revisit in your final paragraph? Bring it back—but with new meaning.
