Redefining Success with Elli Overton -

Episode 198: Redefining Success with Elli Overton

Elli Overton is a three-time Australian Olympic swimmer, mom, TEDx speaker and children’s book author. After a successful career in elite swimming, she experienced firsthand the challenges of transitioning away from a career that had defined her identity.

Today, she is pursuing a master’s degree in professional counseling while developing her work as a speaker. Her interests include performance, mental health, resilience, self-awareness and what she calls sustainable excellence.

Her current work brings together her professional education and the lived experience she gained as an elite athlete.

Elli Overton competed in three Olympic Games, won multiple World Championship medals and other major international titles, and built her identity around becoming the very best swimmer she could be.

In this episode, we have a candid and surprisingly relatable conversation about what happens when achievement becomes intertwined with identity. Elli shares how coming fifth at two Olympic Games affected the way she viewed herself, how her inner critic took over, and how she eventually began to understand the difference between what happened and the story we tell ourselves about what happened.

While Elli’s story begins in elite swimming, the lessons go far beyond sports.

For women over 50, there can be so many moments when the definition of success needs to change. Careers change. Children grow up. Parents age. Bodies change. Relationships evolve. Activities we once did easily may become more difficult.

So how do we decide what success means , rather than continuing to measure ourselves against who we used to be?

We discuss: