Meet The Author: Elizabeth Beisel

When Elizabeth Beisel was in middle school, she was like many other age-group swimmers. She swam in local Rhode Island age-group meets, watched the Olympic Games from her living room, and hung posters of Michael Phelps, Natalie Coughlin, and Ryan Lochte on her bedroom walls. Yet something was different about her.

She was already one of the best in the country, having made the USA National Team at age 13.

“Total imposter syndrome is how it felt for a few years,” Beisel now reflects. “I still had these people on posters in my room, and here I am now on Team USA representing our country with them on the same level. I was like, ‘one of these things doesn’t belong, and it’s me.’”

Although she felt out of place among the other much older national team members, the experience forced her to grow up fast. When she qualified for her first Olympics two years later, Beisel felt less starstruck and more like she belonged.

This is one of the many experiences in Beisel’s 11-year tenure on the national team that she reflected on when she sat down to write her book, Silver Lining. After she retired in 2017, Beisel started doing more speaking engagements, and people would often come up to her afterward, asking if she had a book. At first, she brushed it off.

“After a year of public speaking, I was kind of like, you know what? I’m in that transitional phase in my life where I’m no longer a swimmer or an athlete, I have the means, I have the time, why don’t I just explore what this is?” Beisel said.

She opened her Macbook Pro and just started writing. She compiled a list of stories that she enjoys telling at public speaking events, stories that defined who she was as an athlete, and things that were also relatable for other sports and people in general. Starting this real and honest account of her journey forced her to reflect on not only the highs, but also the lows along the way.

“It’s interesting how we as humans tend to shut things out, and once I started writing, it was kind of like opening Pandora's box,” Beisel said. “I was reliving things that I had been like, ‘Nope, I’m never going to deal with or think about again’ because it was too emotional or there was some trauma involved.”

Reliving 2015 and 2016 was particularly hard for Beisel. It was the end of her swim career, she was injured, and, in her opinion, she had had a poor showing at the Olympic Trials and the Olympics. Knowing it was her last Olympics cut deep for her as an athlete and a human. Reflecting on that time, Beisel said she hurt badly for her past self.

“At least for me sitting here now, I can say that writing the book was a form of therapy for me,” Beisel said. “It was very cathartic. I was able to heal those wounds that hadn’t really healed themselves yet by revisiting them.”

Beisel has found that a lot of people assume that her personal life as an Olympic athlete was always great. For the most part, it was, but there are some things behind the scenes that Olympians deal with that other people don’t know about. Through Silver Lining, Beisel wants people to understand all the bad that comes with the good, and vice versa.

“I hope people find motivation and inspiration through it, but also realize regardless of whether you are an Olympic swimmer or not, there are a lot of ups and downs that everyone deals with on a daily basis that none of us are really aware of,” Beisel said. 

Silver Lining is available from Amazon. Learn more about Elizabeth Beisel here.