In this closing episode of 2025, Meredith Olmsted and Danielle Fancher take a step away from typical digital marketing conversations to talk about something every professional faces sooner or later. What do we do when life goes completely sideways? From personal health challenges to unexpected moments of generosity, this conversation is a reminder that gratitude, vulnerability, and reflection shape us just as much as strategy, KPIs, and campaign results. Their stories show how adversity can strengthen connection, build resilience, and create more grounded leaders inside credit unions, community banks, and beyond.
Key Takeaways:
Redirection can be a gift even when it feels like a setback: Danielle’s diagnosis forced a reset and showed her the power of slowing down, reassessing priorities, and choosing growth over fear. Gratitude often comes from the moments we never planned.
Small acts of generosity can reshape how we show up: Meredith’s volunteer story is a reminder that those with the least often give the most. Simple acts of kindness create ripple effects and show that leadership is also about lifting others.
Vulnerability builds stronger teams and stronger humans: Being open and imperfect has strengthened connections across the FI GROW team. Letting people support you builds trust and proves that a human connection is still the core of strong collaboration.
Transcription:
Meredith Olmsted:
Hi there, I'm Meredith Olmsted, CEO and founder of FI GROW Solutions. We are a digital marketing and sales consulting agency, and we work exclusively with credit unions and community banks. I am here with Danielle Fancher. Danielle is our director of sales. Say hi, Danielle.
Danielle Fancher:
Hello.
Meredith Olmsted:
So Danielle and I, we've had some very interesting conversations over the last couple of months, not related to sales and marketing. And we decided that we were going to finish off our year of podcasting with some interesting topics around life lessons and gratitude, because that is something that we have really been learning a lot about at the end of this year, 2025 at FI GROW.
And our entire team actually have been talking a lot about it. And so we've been learning a lot about when life goes sideways, not really so much specifically at FIGROW, but in personal experiences. And what that can mean both personally and professionally really. I think it's important to sometimes sit back and reflect, and I think Danielle was saying that as well. And so we're like, "Hey, let's hit record and talk about, hey, what happens when life goes sideways, both personally and professionally?"
Obviously it can happen too, but we all have jobs, we all have personal lives. So when things go in ways or in directions we don't expect them to go, that affects us both personally, and it can affect us professionally. And what are some of the life lessons and things that we can learn from those? So I have stories about this too a little bit, but Danielle has a story as well. So Danielle, I'll let you start with what have you learned in 2025 in terms of gratitude, and what you can learn about when things go in a direction that you don't expect them to?
Danielle Fancher:
Yeah. So at the beginning of 2025, I kept saying, "This is going to be my year." I'm 33, we're all super excited about starting a brand new year. And we started getting into September and I'm like, "Man, nothing really all that great has happened this year." And then I got diagnosed with stage one breast cancer, and I thought, "Oh, my gosh."
And I sat in that for a little bit, and throughout the support of my friends, and family and my coworkers, I had a little shift in perspective and thinking how great is it that sometimes things don't go the way that we want them to go? Because we can really take it as an opportunity to sit back and reflect and think, I don't want to be a victim to this situation that's happening. What can I learn from it, and how can I grow from it?
And for me personally, it was just a stop sign. And I really felt like... I am a little bit religious, and I hear all of the time there is purpose in pain. And I've really been sitting with that. And do I have it all figured out? No, I'm still going through the process of it. But I've just been realizing that I am so grateful for unanswered prayers. I'm so grateful for redirection, and I'm really, really grateful to have an opportunity to just sit and reflect, and realize what are my priorities in life? Where have I been spending my time, and my attention and my energy, and is that where I want to be spending my time, attention and energy?
And so I spent a lot of time thinking about right now in this season of life. And moving forward, I really want to make sure that I am focusing on my mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health of not just me, but my children and the people that I'm pouring into and that pour back into me.
And so I've really taken this as an opportunity to just really sit and reflect, and realize I'm not a victim and this is not happening to me, and I have an opportunity to impact other people even as close as my friends, and family and my children, and I have an opportunity to redirect and re-shift my life in a more positive direction. And so it's been really humbling. I feel very humbled, and very, very grateful for the experiences over the last couple of months.
Meredith Olmsted:
I think it's super inspiring for our team for sure, to be able to come together and support you through it. And also to share it with people all around us. And even when we went to MAC together, and we were able to share the... I loved how, not public, but how you weren't hiding it and folding in on yourself about it, but that we were able to lift you up and share on what you were going through with others, and hold you through it and make sure you knew that you were not going through it alone, which was special to me for sure.
Nowhere near the kind of situation that you were going through. But I have somebody in my life, Chuck, who is really important to me, and he is somebody that my daughter and I have been helping for about four years. Chuck is 78, almost 79. He'll be 79 next year. And he has been blind his entire life, and he is permanently disabled from a bad back surgery, so he's bent all the way over, so he's housebound. And he lives in downtown Pittsburgh in a Section 8 house, big apartment building. And we met him through a volunteer organization for people who need help getting their groceries, or going out to doctor's appointments or whatever.
And so I've been going to grocery shop for Chuck every other week now with my daughter or by myself for about four years. And a couple of months ago, I went down on my normal Saturday to go grocery shopping for him and he said, "Oh, Meredith, I don't really need any groceries today. But what I need is I need you to go to the ATM for me." And he said, "I need you to get out $200 for me." And I was like, "Chuck..." He has nothing. He's on fixed income, really has very little. I do a lot for him, I try to.
But he needed $100 for his caregiver who had bought him a couple of pairs of pants, so we wanted to pay her back. And then he wanted to send $100 to a friend of his in Los Angeles who is also blind, and has been blind her whole life, because she wanted to get her hair cut, and needed some other things like shampoo and some other things for her hair.
And I was just blown away by the fact that this is somebody who has so little, and yet finds a way to dig deep in... I said, "Chuck, do you have $100 to give to your friend out in Los Angeles?" And I know who this is, and he's been in touch with her and he met her on a chat room years ago online. "Oh yes, oh yes. I've been saving, I've been saving." And I was just blown away by the fact that somebody with so little still could find a way to give so much of their so little to someone.
And so I said, okay, I'm going to get this $100. And then I got another $100 out of my account to send to his friend out in Los Angeles. But it inspired me the same way that your experience has inspired you to try to find ways that I can just give back even the smallest little things, and find ways as I'm interacting with people on a daily basis to just tell them, in some small way, how they are impacting me even in the smallest little ways.
I've actually got all these little pins that I've started carrying around saying doing my best, or just little inspirational pins and I don't even leave the house without them anymore. And I find myself, even when I was down this past weekend visiting my daughter at school down at the University of Tennessee, giving them to her friends, and her boyfriend's friends at his fraternity, and they love them.
It's the smallest little things can make such a big difference in people's lives, just showing them that, hey, you know what? We don't all have to be at each other, or competing with each other. But we can really notice the small things in life, and build each other up and lift each other up, and really be grateful for the good things in life and what makes us humans. So I think it sets us apart, and I think sometimes in our country, there's so much divisiveness and so much that people are going at each other about we forget that we have so much in common too.
Danielle Fancher:
I agree. And I have just thought our experiences are what shape us as people, and we connect through pain. And I have realized because I've always, my whole life, wanted to come across as I have it all together, always. I always want to have it together. And I think this has shown me also it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to go through things and to let people support you and know your pain because that really is how you connect with people.
And you can make such a positive impact by just sharing a little bit about your story, because there's so many people going through similar situations that feel so alone. And I think it's just been really wonderful, especially our team coming together also, and just being vulnerable and opening up, and I feel like it's created more connection for us as well. And I know it creates connection, not just on our team, but even in our own personal lives as well.
Meredith Olmsted:
Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. Our team is all remote, so there's eight or nine of us. And yet we all are like a family. I feel like the people on our team, they're all like my family. I don't know what I would do without you guys. Well, I appreciate you sharing your story with us today, and I hope you all are having a wonderful end of your year, and finding some ways to find gratitude in all that you have in your lives. And please, let's just all get out there and make it happen.