I often get asked if there was ever a specific turning point or decision in my life that led me to where I am now. When I think of that question, my mind draws upon a very precise picture, from a very vivid moment in my life. I remember it as if it were yesterday, and there’s also a really sweet picture that captured it.

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The picture shows me hugging my sister, where you can see Nebraska on my back and she’s wearing Wichita state colors. I had just won my first collegiate national championship. I get emotional thinking about it even now, because I feel like that was definitely the moment I stepped into my identity; it’s when I truly became Diandra.   

The moment captured in this photo was so pivotal and symbolic for me, I’m so happy it was captured in a photo.

My sister is three years older than me. When we first started getting into bowling, she was more serious about it and she won everything before I did. I was five when I started but I didn’t really get serious about it until I was like twelve.  So, in between five and twelve, I would go to practice with her and I would be a part of it,  but I’d be running around playing games. Then she started winning, and I took notice. “Oh, okay. If I want to win, I need to do that.” You put in the time and the effort, and then you get rewarded by winning. She taught me that and I’m so grateful she was there to show me the way.

As I followed my sister’s lead, in the bowling world, I quickly became known as Kassy’s little sister. I really didn’t have my own identity there yet.

Then it was time for me to decide where I was going to go to college.

A part of me wanted to continue to follow her. Kassy attended Wichita State University, which is a really big bowling powerhouse. So, I think everyone assumed that I would too. I’d be a freshman and she’d be a senior and we could bowl together that year, which could be nice. But then I asked myself, did I always want to be known as Kassy’s sister?

The answer was I didn’t.

I’ll never forget the decisive moment when I approached the head coach from the University of Nebraska, Bill Straub, to discuss my options. I was a senior in high school and at one of my sister’s tournaments. I was watching her and cheering on her team when I decided to talk to Coach Straub who was there. When I approached, he already knew who I was. At least, he knew I was “Kassy’s little sister.” It was classic. To everyone who knew of me, I literally didn’t even have my own name yet

I told him I wanted information about Nebraska, that I hadn’t made a decision about universities yet, which surprised him. Like everyone else, he always assumed I would just continue to follow my sister. And all of this made me feel even more strongly that what I was about to do was the right thing. I needed my own name. I’ll admit it did feel gutsy too because I wasn’t making the easy choice. But that also really charged me up. I felt suddenly empowered. I learned then that sometimes the hard choice is the right choice.

This is just a moment in my life, but I knew this daring moment could affect so many other things going forward. For the first time, I was making a decision based on me and not someone else. And as it turned out, it became a huge turning point in my life. That is the day I began the pursuit to make a name for myself.

The easy choice would certainly have been to go and to bowl with my sister. But if you truly tap into your own intuition, and trust within yourself, even when it’s not the easy choice, you’ll get to where you’re meant to be. I often say, my intuition has guided me through so much of my life. And I feel like it is one the best gifts that I have been given in life. It’s like having a pause button to stop time for a second when I’m making decisions. I take time to ask myself, if I do this, how will that make me feel or if I don’t do this, how will that make me feel?

That’s key. How does it make me feel? And stepping out on my own made me feel empowered in ways I’d never felt before.

Checking in this way when making decisions has led me to the best moments of my life.

So I went to the University of Nebraska.

My first year of college, I did okay. I had so much to learn. So I spent that year really learning, growing in the sport and getting better. When nationals came around at the end of the year, the nationals were in Wichita. I bowled my first national championship and my sister her last, in Wichita.

And Nebraska won. That was when that picture was taken. And it holds so much meaning for me, sums up so much about one of most significant decisions I’ve ever made in my life. I was standing on my own for the first time, while being so grateful to my sister for having shown me the way before that. I finally did something that Kassy hadn’t done before.

So many of the key moments that defined my career stemmed from me getting my start as Diandra at Nebraska. It was the first year that bowling was recognized as an NCAA sport at certain colleges and Nebraska was one of them. So we were treated as athletes, just like the football players at Nebraska. I was also named Student Athlete of the Year one year, and that’s taking into consideration all sports including football and volleyball which was already such an institutional sport there. It was the first time that a bowler was recognized as the Student Athlete of the Year.

I literally am who I am because I had the courage to fully step into my identity. While it required me to be gutsy, and as tempting as I know it can be to follow the comfortable well-lit path, it is so dang rewarding making your own path. And once you fully lean into it, you’ll just know if what you are doing is right. You’ll feel it in your core. I did right away that first year.

So, how are you boldly leaning into your own identity?