What I’ve Learned From Losing on the Biggest Stages

There’s a version of me that still lives in that TV show. She’s up by more pins than she needs, walking to the line like the trophy’s already engraved, and she has no idea what’s about to happen to her.

I’ve taken a lot of losses in this sport. Enough that if you asked me to rank them, I’d need a minute. But there’s one that still sits differently than the rest: my first Queens show. I led that tournament from the very first game all the way through to the TV finals. By the time the cameras came on, I had already started celebrating in my head. I thought I had won it. And then I made every mistake in the book, live, in front of everyone, and watched it slip through my fingers frame by frame. It didn’t just cost me a title. It broke my heart.

I don’t say that lightly, and I’m not being dramatic for the sake of a good blog post. Heartbreak is the right word. Because that loss wasn’t really about bowling. It was about the story I had already written in my head about how that day was going to end, and then having to sit with the fact that it didn’t end that way at all.

What Winning Never Could Have Taught Me

Here’s the thing about winning: it confirms what you already believed about yourself. It feels incredible, but it doesn’t teach you much you didn’t already suspect. Losing, especially losing big, especially losing on TV, in front of people, after leading the whole way, teaches you something winning simply can’t.

It taught me that it is never “in the bag.” Not when you’re up ten pins. Not when you led every single game before that one. Not when everyone in the building already thinks they know how this ends. One game is one game. Anything can happen inside of it, and the moment you stop treating it that way (the moment you start coasting on what you’ve already done instead of staying present for what’s still in front of you) that’s exactly when it turns on you.

That’s a lesson winning can never give you, because winning doesn’t ask you to sit in the discomfort of being wrong about yourself. Losing does. And as much as it hurt, I wouldn’t trade what it taught me for a trophy I would have stopped thinking about years ago.

It Took Me About a Month

I wish I could tell you the lesson showed up right away, wrapped in some kind of instant clarity. It didn’t. It took about a month before I could look at that loss and see anything other than the heartbreak of it. A month of replaying it, of feeling the sting every time it crossed my mind, before I could finally set it down long enough to ask what it was actually trying to teach me.

I think that’s important to say out loud, because we live in a culture that wants the lesson immediately: the reframe, the silver lining, the “everything happens for a reason,” before the tears have even dried. That’s not how it works, not for me and probably not for you either. Grieving a big loss and learning from a big loss are two different processes, and you can’t skip to the second one just because you’re impatient with the first.

The Queens, Five Years Later

Five years after that heartbreak, I stood on that same stage again. Same tournament. Same TV cameras. Same pressure that had broken me the first time. And this time, I won.

I won’t pretend the two are unconnected, because they’re not. Every mistake I made on that first TV show became something I studied, something I drilled, something I built an entirely different relationship with pressure around. The version of me who won The Queens five years later only exists because the version of me who lost it first was willing to sit in that heartbreak long enough to learn from it.

That’s the part I actually want you to hear. The biggest loss of my life led directly to the biggest win of my life. Not a different win, not a consolation prize. The exact same tournament, the exact same stage, five years apart. If I had walked away from that first loss without doing the work, without waiting out that month, without asking what it was trying to teach me, I don’t think that second trophy exists.

If You’re Still Hurting From a Big Stage Loss

If you’re in it right now, if you’re the version of you standing at the line with the trophy already engraved in your head, and it just fell apart in front of everyone, I want you to hear this from someone who’s been exactly there.

If you let it, that loss could show you the way to your biggest win ever. I’m not saying that as a nice idea. I’m saying it because it happened to me, on the exact stage that broke my heart in the first place.

Not despite what it took from you. Because of it. The mistakes you made on that stage are the most specific, most personal curriculum you will ever get handed. Nobody else’s loss can teach you what your loss can teach you. The privilege of getting to play on the biggest stages is that when it goes wrong, it goes wrong loudly enough that you can’t ignore what it’s trying to tell you. Most people never get pushed that hard. You did. Let it change you instead of just hurting you.

I made every mental mistake there is to make on that TV show, and a lot of others since. I finally sat down and wrote them all out, the real ones, so you don’t have to learn them the same way I did: on live TV, in front of everyone, with the trophy still in your head.

It’s free. And it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever put together.

[Get “All the Mental Mistakes I’ve Made (So You Don’t Have To)” (free) guide →]

A Letter to 2026

Dear 2026,

Let’s have some fun.
Seriously.

Because YOLO.
And because I already need readers, so I am done weighing myself down with things that make life heavier than it needs to be.

Before I step into you, I want to acknowledge what 2025 taught me the hard way.

I do not have to fill every second of every day of every week of every month.
Leaving room to breathe is not laziness. It is a superpower.

I chose flourish as my word, and I did.
I built new ideas.
I impacted more lives than I expected.
I showed up stronger than I knew I could.

But somewhere along the way, flourishing started to look like doing instead of being.
And that illusion broke. Thankfully.

So I am walking into you lighter.

I am deciding, regardless of outcomes, to be light.
Effortless.
Happy.
Joyful.
Fun.

In 2026, I am done with overdoing it.
I am done hustling too hard and calling it ambition.
I am done confusing exhaustion for excellence.

My standard this year is simple.
It does not have to feel heavy to matter.

The work I am committing to is not louder. It is truer.
I will show up authentically, even when motivation disappears.
I will be present instead of productive just to say I was productive.
I will do good, and I will enjoy doing it.

Showing up in 2026 looks like laughter mixed with focus.
Presence over pressure.
Fun without guilt.

I know you will test me.
I know you might ask for more time, and that scares me, especially time away from my family.

I know resistance will show up in the tension between chasing excellence in bowling and being fully there for my kids. When that happens, I will remind myself that balance is not perfection. It is attention.

And when things feel uncomfortable, I will remember this truth.

It does not have to feel perfect.
Sometimes truth is uncomfy.

So here is my promise.
Not to the world.
Not to the highlight reel.
But to myself.

Shake it off.
Have more fun.
Feel the lightness.

When I read this letter at the end of you, I want to be able to say this with honesty and a smile.

I kept my word about finding the joy.

Let’s go.

Diandra

From Flourish to Light: My Word for 2026

Every year I choose a word.
One word to serve as my compass.
One word to come back to when life gets loud and my calendar starts filling itself.
One word that reminds me who I want to be as I move through another twelve months of becoming.

Last year, my word was Flourish.
At the time, I picked it because I wanted to grow.
I wanted expansion.
I wanted proof that I was still capable of big things.

What I did not realize was how fully that word would take root.

I flourished on the lanes.
Two 300s on tour reminded me that the competitor in me is still alive.
I almost had a third.
There was something grounding about that stretch of time.
Like reconnecting with a version of myself that never really left.

I flourished in legacy.
Walking into the Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame brought everything full circle.
Standing there with my family, I felt the weight of every early morning, every setback, every lesson that shaped me.
It was more than an honor.
It was confirmation that growth compounds quietly over time.

I flourished in impact.
Especially through the Elite Youth Tour.
I watched kids I met when they were eight step into their college years.
I watched confidence replace doubt.
I watched leadership take shape.
There is something deeply humbling about realizing that consistency, care, and belief can ripple forward in ways you may never fully see.

And alongside all of that flourishing, I had a front row seat to something else entirely.

I watched John and Alain bring Ox Bar & Hearth to life.
That was their flourishing.
Decades of experience, patience, and vision finally meeting the right moment.
My role was not to claim it, but to witness it.
To support it.
To learn from it.
To be reminded that not everything meaningful needs to belong to you to change you.

Flourish was the right word for 2025.
It pushed me.
It expanded me.
It reminded me what I am capable of.

But growth has a way of teaching you what comes next.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I was craving lightness.
More whimsy.
More laughing.
More moments that felt playful instead of pressured.
More rest.
More being.
Less doing.

I realized that I do not want a life that is only impressive.
I want one that is joyful.

So my word for 2026 came quietly, but clearly.

My word is Light.

Light is freedom.
Light is laughter.
Light is breathing room.
Light is choosing what feels expansive instead of what feels heavy.
Light is trusting that success does not have to feel tight or serious to be meaningful.

In 2026, I want to float a little more.
I want joy to lead.
I want creativity without urgency.
I want to laugh until my stomach hurts.
I want to rest without earning it first.
I want to make room for whimsy, because when you strip it all down, that is where life actually happens.

Flourish taught me how to grow.
Light will teach me how to enjoy it.

Here is to a year that feels bright.
A year that feels free.
A year that feels light.

The 5 Frames That Shaped My Year

The older I get, the more the calendar feels less like a clock and more like a score sheet. Little boxes holding big lessons. Five frames, five moments that stitched this year together and quietly steered who I am becoming. My word of the year was Flourish, and somehow it showed up everywhere: in the lanes, in the kitchen of a new restaurant, in the weight room with my son, in the eyes of a girl figuring out who she is. Growth was steady this year. Earned. Honest.

So here are the five frames that shaped me.

Frame 1: The Quiet Validation of Two 300s

This year I bowled two 300s on tour. I almost had three. Three honor scores in two weeks still feels unreal.
But the numbers are not the part that stayed with me. It was what they revealed.

I am not bowling full-time. I am not living on the lanes the way I once did. Yet in those moments, with pressure tightening and everything narrowing down to breath and mechanics, I proved to myself that I can still repeat shots. I can still rise to the moment. I can still access that version of me.

This frame was not about perfection. It was about identity. A reminder that certain parts of who we are do not fade. They wait for us to step back into them.

Frame 2: Nebraska, Hall of Fame, and a Full-Circle Heartbeat

Walking into the Hall of Fame ceremony at Nebraska felt like stepping back into a version of myself I had not visited in a long time. Halloween night. My family beside me. Recognition alongside athletes from volleyball, football, gymnastics. Performers who carved their own legends.

It was not nostalgia. It was gratitude.
A look how far that 18-year-old kid has come moment.

College is where my competitive spine was built. That honor did not just celebrate what I did. It honored who I became because of it.

Frame 3: Ox Bar & Hearth and a Story That Has Been Marinating for Decades

Watching Ox Bar & Hearth come to life became one of my quiet joys this year. It is John and Alain’s dream, but I have loved watching its arc unfold. The kind of story that began long before the first plate ever hit a table.

In the early 2000s they were two young cooks working as externs for Grant Achatz at Trio. Working for free. Learning under pressure before Alinea even existed. That is the part most people never see. The long grind before the spotlight.

Seeing the restaurant open now reminds me that every dream has a root system. Flourishing often looks like patience, resilience, and a little bit of madness.

Frame 4: Madden and the Hunger You Cannot Teach

This year I watched Madden fall in love with the work. Not the games or the trophies. The work.

If he was not in baseball season, he was in the gym. Every day. Getting stronger and quicker and more intentional.
There is a self-motivation in him that cannot be coached, bribed, or faked. He already understands that nothing is free.

Watching his discipline lit something in me. Hunger like that is contagious. It reminds me what it looks like to own your path instead of hoping it opens for you.

Frame 5: Jersey Becoming Herself

This year I watched Jersey begin to figure out who she is. Not in dramatic declarations, but in quiet choices. Little moments when she would say, No, that is not me, even when everyone else was chasing a trend. That kind of refusal to bend is identity forming in real time.

And then there is her bowling. I saw a flicker this year. A light that said, Maybe I could really do this. The kind of spark that makes you stand a little taller.

Watching her grow feels like watching a seed crack open. Slow. Subtle. Powerful.

Why These Frames?

Because they were not just moments. They were mirrors.
Each one reflected a value that matters to me.

Mastery. Legacy. Patience. Discipline. Identity.

These were the places where I saw my word of the year come alive. Flourish did not show up all at once. It showed up in dozens of tiny ways that eventually formed a pattern.

Beyond the Lanes

Every one of these lessons translates into life.

Repetition and composure matter in any high-pressure environment.
Remembering where you came from strengthens where you are going.
Long-term dreams require long-term roots.
Success favors people who show up daily without applause.
And becoming yourself is the most courageous performance of all.

Bowling has always been my classroom. Life is where the homework appears.

If I Had to Choose One

I cannot.
And honestly, I do not want to.

Each frame holds a different piece of my heart: the competitor, the teammate, the mother, the storyteller, the woman still growing. They matter because together they make up the full game.

If this year taught me anything, it is that flourishing never comes from a single moment. It comes frame by frame.

The Hall of Fame Decision

As I prepare to step into the University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, I’m full of all the feels. Reflection has hit me hard this week. The kind of reflection that stops you mid-day, mid-thought, mid-scroll and sends you straight back to who you were before you knew who you would become.

When I chose Nebraska, I thought I understood what I was getting. A great education. A chance to compete at a high level. A team that expected excellence. I knew I would grow as an athlete. I knew I would work hard. I knew we would win — because that was the culture here.

What I didn’t know was how much this place would teach me about who I was.

I didn’t know that the coaches here weren’t just building championship teams, they were building leaders.

I didn’t know that the routines, the discipline, the “show up early, stay late” mentality would become the foundation for how I live, coach, parent, and move in the world.

I didn’t know that through the personal tests. the moments of doubt, conflict, and challenge, I would learn the most important lesson of all:
who I am when things are hard.

And I certainly didn’t know that Nebraska was quietly laying the groundwork for me to become a coach myself. I didn’t see that then. I see it now. Every athlete I’ve worked with since and every young bowler I’ve guided carries pieces of what was poured into me here. Thanks to Coach Straub and Coach Klempa who coached me in a way that didn’t sugar coat anything. It was real and raw.

Nebraska also gave me my husband. Our first kiss in the Omaha airport is one of those small, ordinary moments that life builds entire timelines from. He transferred here soon after. And without that, there is no us.
No Madden.
No Jersey.
No version of my family or my life that looks like it does today.

There’s something about college bowling that teaches you in layers. You think you’re learning about release, angles, and lane play. But really, you’re learning about patience. Responsibility. Discipline. Identity.
You are learning yourself.

And those lessons followed me:

To the world stage.
To international championships.
To standing on TV lights.
To losing in ways that stung.
To winning in ways that changed everything.

The tools were built here.
I just didn’t know I was building them at the time.

So yes, the Hall of Fame is about accomplishments. But for me, this honor is about where things began. The foundation. The shaping. The forming of the person who walked into the world ready.

To the collegiate bowlers out there right now:

You get to choose your path.

No one decides your ceiling.
No program, no coach, no ranking tells you how far you can go.

If you want to be great:
Show up early.
Stay late.
Stay curious.
Stay open.
Let the hard days teach you instead of break you.

The work you’re doing now is building a version of you that your future self will thank you for.

Everything I’ve done beyond the lanes started right here.

Even with all of this reflection and gratitude, there’s still a small whisper of imposter syndrome.
Did I do enough to deserve this?
What about the other Husker greats — the teammates who challenged me, sharpened me, pushed me?

I think that whisper exists because I respect this moment.
And I respect them.
We rise because of the people we rise with.

Maybe groundedness looks like holding both:
Gratitude for the honor,
And gratitude for the people who helped shape you into someone worthy of it.

🎥 The moment it came full circle: Watch my Student Athlete of the Year Acceptance Speech.

Dear 2025,

I see you, standing there, full of possibility. Before we dive into all the amazing things we’re going to do together, let’s take a moment to honor 2024.

My 2024 Word of the Year was: FUN. After a tough 2023, I made a promise to myself: bring joy back. Not the kind of joy that waits for the perfect moment, but the kind you create. So, I said yes to the things that made me feel alive.

There was a girls’ trip to Vegas—filled with laughter so hard and deep it made my cheeks hurt. And a snowy adventure in Wyoming, snowmobiling with my family, surrounded by landscapes that reminded me just how beautiful and fleeting life can be. Those weren’t just trips; they were deliberate choices to prioritize joy. They were a reminder that fun isn’t frivolous—it’s fuel.

2024 taught me that when you open yourself up to fun, you create space for something bigger. You create space to grow. And now, 2025, I’m ready to take it further. My word for you is Flourish.

For me, flourishing isn’t about striving for perfection or endlessly chasing the next goal. It’s about thriving right where I am while staying open to where I’m going. It’s about honoring the work I’ve already done and allowing it to bloom. Professionally, I can’t wait to see The Bowler’s Agency grow into a space where bowlers feel empowered and seen, where their stories and talents shine brighter than ever. I want Beyond the Lanes to reach even more people, bowlers and non-bowlers alike, helping them connect their passion with purpose. And with the Elite Youth Tour, I’m determined to create more opportunities for youth bowlers to succeed, both on and off the lanes.

Flourishing also means making room for myself. I love being there for my family, my clients, and my community—it’s who I am. But this year, I’m learning that self-care isn’t selfish. It’s essential. Flourishing means carving out time to take care of me, too. It’s in the small things, like quiet mornings spent journaling, and the big ones, like planning trips that inspire me. It’s exploring new creative outlets that spark curiosity and joy.

And spiritually? Flourishing feels like trusting my compass. That’s been my guiding symbol lately—a reminder to stay grounded while letting intuition lead the way. A compass doesn’t give you every detail of the journey; it simply keeps you aligned with your true North. For me, that’s living in kindness, optimism, and gratitude. It’s trusting that I don’t have to know every step—I just need to stay open to the possibilities ahead.

But let’s be real, 2025, it won’t all be smooth sailing. There will be bumps in the road—moments of doubt, setbacks, and unexpected challenges. When that happens, I’ll lean on my compass. I’ll pause, take a deep breath, and remind myself that flourishing isn’t about getting it right all the time. It’s about growing, even when it’s messy.

I’ll also lean on my people. Flourishing isn’t something you do alone. It’s in the moments when a friend lifts you up or when family reminds you of what really matters. I’ll give myself grace, knowing that progress doesn’t always look like a straight line. Some of the best growth comes from detours.

Here’s what I hope for us this year: that we laugh harder, push further, and embrace the beautiful chaos of it all. That we celebrate the wins, learn from the setbacks, and create something meaningful along the way. That we find joy in both the big milestones and the quiet moments in between.

To everyone reading this: I hope you take a moment to think about your own year ahead. What did 2024 teach you? What do you want to carry forward? And most importantly, what’s your word or symbol for 2025?

If you’re not sure where to start, here’s an idea: Write a letter to 2025. Reflect on the highs and lows of last year, the lessons you’ve learned, and the energy you want to bring into the new one. Choose a word, a mantra, or a guiding symbol—something that reminds you of who you are and where you’re going. Maybe it’s a word like flourish. Or maybe it’s something that speaks to where you are in your journey. Whatever it is, let it guide you, especially when things get hard.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to make room for fun. Joy isn’t something that magically appears—it’s something you choose. It’s in the laughter of friends, the thrill of trying something new, and even the quiet contentment of knowing you’re exactly where you need to be.

2025, I’m ready for us to flourish. Let’s laugh more, create more, and grow in ways we can’t yet imagine. I hope you, too, flourish in 2025.

Be Wildly Optimistic,
Diandra