Marianne Chance

06/10/2026

It was a skating rink in Kansas City.
Four people, total, showed up.
My team had raised money for the AIDS Walk.

Ashleigh asked if she could use it for a team skating party.

I said yes. I made the call.

And when nobody showed up, I lost my sh*t.

My goal in that follow-up conversation was simple: make sure she understood what a mess she made of things.

Well, the words of the reckless pierce like swords. In that moment, I used my power to crush, instead of empower.

The part that still hurts like a gut punch: I said yes. Really, this was 100% mine to own.
It wasn't her fault. It was mine.

And if I had been able to practice that conversation before it happened, someone would have stopped me cold. They would have said: this one starts with you, Marianne. Knock it off.

World, let me introduce you to Evie. She is my someone, and is yours too.

She is not a chatbot. She is not a script generator. She is not something someone built on a Tuesday afternoon.
She is me. I took weeks to build her, and she was tested obsessively. Her foundation is built on the principles of psychological safety, because that is the only foundation worth building on.
In roleplay, she draws on 16 personality profiles to accurately represent the real person sitting across the table from you. She escalates. She pushes back. She gets defensive because your employees do too (she can be really difficult :))
She has a toxic team member mode, for when the situation is genuinely hard, and she is explicitly designed not to retraumatize you in the process.
She will catch your feels before they catch you. She will tell you when the conversation you think you need to have isn't actually the right one. She will debrief you after, specifically, honestly, without judgment.
She is me. Without needing me in the room.

Evie is for every conversation you've been avoiding.
The feedback you keep postponing. The coworker who makes everything harder. The team member that you don't know how to confront. The boss you need to push back on. The raise you deserve but haven't asked for.
She will practice with you. Push back at you… and debrief with you honestly.

Every direction. Every conversation. No judgment.
You don't get a redo in real life. Evie is as close as it gets.

I'm sorry, Ashleigh. You deserved better. This is me doing better.
You. Me. Us. Let's go on this endeavour together.

You wanna get some great training AND try out Evie? Mark your calendars! June 29th, July 9th and July 17th. Three free Learn A Lattes. Three free weeks of Evie. More on that later.

05/26/2026

Watch this clip. I'll wait.

Below is a true story overheard on one of my many training road trips.

The manager finally, finally, finally had the conversation.

With the coolness of a cucumber, she sat down, looked her employee in the eye, and said, "We've had a few conversations in the past about your performance. I appreciate everything you've given to this role, and I wish you the best of luck in the future."

She felt like a rockstar. She was professional. Kind. Clear(ish).

The employee showed up the next morning, coffee in hand, ready to work.

Whether it's a coaching chat, performance management, or a final hard conversation before termination, every word matters. Make sure Dina knows there's no water, no bridge 😂.

Practice until the words in your head match the words that come out.

That's exactly what Evie is for. Link in bio.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

04/19/2026

♠ A Game of Chance

This week's guest is someone I get to call my boss, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Dr. Becky Achen is the Program Director for Professional Performance at the University of Kansas, a marketing consultant, a former personal trainer, and someone who has built a career by following curiosity instead of a straight line. Her story is one of the most honest and relatable ones we have had on this podcast.
We talked about what servant leadership looks like when it is not just a buzzword, why vulnerability in professional spaces builds stronger teams and classrooms than any policy ever could, how to walk into a networking event feeling like you belong there even when you do not yet, and what small business owners and solopreneurs should actually be doing with AI right now.

One thing Becky said that I keep coming back to: the goal with AI is not just to replace the work you were already doing. It is finally time to get to the list of things you never had time for.

If you have been putting off experimenting with these tools because you are not sure where to start, or because it feels like giving something up, this conversation is going to shift that for you.

04/15/2026

This week's episode of A Game of Chance is one I think a lot of you are going to feel in your chest.

Dr. Meghan Davidson joined me to talk about female friendships and why, especially in this season of life, they are not optional. We are in the middle of a loneliness epidemic, and the connections we keep putting off are the ones that quite literally affect our health, our resilience, and our sense of self.
We covered how to find new friendships if you feel like you are starting over, what gets in the way of the ones we already have, how to tell when you have outgrown a friendship versus when it just needs some attention, and why even a seven-minute phone call is worth more than you think.

This conversation reminded me that the people we love deserve more than a text we keep drafting and never send. I hope it does the same for you.

04/01/2026

New episode alert... and this one hit close to home for me.

This week I am joined by my good friend Randy Hawthorne and we are talking about the third place. The concept is simple: first place is home, second place is work, and the third place is where you choose to belong. No schedule, no agenda, just you showing up somewhere you feel comfortable.

Here is what got me, though. We do not realize how lonely we actually are. We have our friends, we have our phones, we have everything at our fingertips. And somehow we are more isolated than ever.

Randy and I talked about how to find your third place, why shared experiences matter more than we give them credit for, and what it actually looks like to set personal goals around community. We even got into AI, live theater, and why the kids are going back to the mall.

Come hang out with us! A new episode of A Game of Chance is out now.

03/26/2026

A Game of Chance just dropped a new episode and this one is a conversation worth having right now.

I sat down with my dear friend Elizabeth Buckner, pastor, theologian, and the kind of person who will tell you the honest truth with kindness and a little humor, to talk about rest. Not sleep. Not self-care as a buzzword. Actual rest.

Elizabeth introduces seven types of rest and gives real, practical examples of each: how she protects her emotional energy after hard days, why sensory rest can be as simple as turning off the overhead lights, and what social rest actually looks like when you are the person that everyone leans on.

She also shares the story of S'mores Club, which began on $11 in food stamps, a fire pit, and a Facebook post, and became a community that changed her life during one of its hardest seasons. If you listen to nothing else, listen to that part.

And for the business owners in the room: there is a moment in this episode where the two of them talk about how we reflexively try to monetize every creative thing we learn to do, and how that might be costing us the very rest we need.

It is a good one. Give it a listen and share it with someone who needs permission to slow down.

03/19/2026

Real talk: I once moved into a new apartment, didn't label a single box, and had to eat soup with a spatula for two weeks.

That is a true story. And it is exactly why I needed this conversation.

In the latest episode of A Game of Chance, I sat down with Jeannine Bryant, an 18-year veteran of helping people right-size their lives, and she gently (okay, not that gently) helped me see that the goal was never to be a minimalist. It's to find that sweet spot between too much and too little.

She calls it right-sizing. And it's less about getting rid of stuff and more about getting honest about it.

Some questions she left me sitting with:

What is your stuff actually saying to you?
Are you keeping things for the life you have or the life you think you'll have someday?
What does the stuff you're holding onto say about what you actually value?

Not all of us are ready to let go of 108 cookbooks. (I'm not saying it's me. It's me.) But we can all probably stand to ask a few better questions about what we're holding onto and why.

New episode is live, go give it a listen!

03/10/2026

Who wants to come over to my place this spring and pretend it's Thanksgiving?!? I am SO excited about this week's episode of A Game of Chance. My favorite food person, Amber Pankonin, talks all things food. Here's a delightful preview.

Thanksgiving Eggs Bene at my house. All are welcome.

Find this week's episode wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

03/05/2026

Would it be a conversation with Sarah Collins if we DIDN'T talk about Taylor Swift? Super big thank you to Sarah for your honesty, humor, and kindness.

And now it's live! My new podcast, A Game of Chance, is waiting for you to listen!

Head on over to where you stream your podcasts and give us a listen. You can't always choose the hand you're dealt, but you can choose how you play it.

03/03/2026

It's here! A Game of Chance is officially live. And we're kicking off the season with one of my most favorite humans in the world... Sarah Collins. In the inaugural episode, we fangirl over each other, talk about the privilege of seeing someone's messy home, and the power of showing up.

Find a Game of Chance on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you stream your favorite podcasts.