A reader coming across the new book Good Ideas and Power Moves: Ten Lessons for Success from Taylor Swift might be excused for thinking it’s a bit of fluff. It seems like a cash grab by author Sinead O’Sullivan, a mash note to a pop star with some life advice tossed in.

However, Good Ideas and Power Moves actually has some substance to it, as well as some conservative values. Author O’Sullivan has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she then served as the head of the HBS Institute for Strategy. She was also an aerospace engineer at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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You don’t get to the top level of superstardom without a lot of hard work, O’Sullivan writes. “Taylor’s story isn’t one of overnight success or unattainable genius. It’s a story of deliberate choices, relentless hard work, and an unwavering belief in the power of having agency, and of believing in herself enough to use that agency. She has shown that success, no matter how outsize, is within reach for those who are willing to take risks, learn from setbacks, and stay true to their goals. And yet we’ll never truly know what’s next for Taylor Swift. That’s the magic of her career.”

That magic comes from a lot of practice. O’Sullivan reminds readers that success requires dedication, like the Beatles sounding sweaty nights playing gigs in Hamburg, Germany, before becoming famous. Swift focused herself on learning to play guitar and songwriting as a girl growing up in Reading, Pennsylvania, and enlisted her family into the project. It required hours of practice. 

“It’s not at all uncommon for people in my parents’ generation to have had only two or three different jobs throughout their career,” O’Sullivan observes. “Now, people have two or three jobs within the first few years after school. We buy clothes that we wear once before discarding them. My generation increasingly doesn’t believe in getting married. It is not unusual to date multiple people at once by swiping through the options on an app, and any outward desire for commitment is increasingly viewed as ‘obsessive’ or ‘crazy.’ Everything about modern life tells us unequivocally not to dedicate yourself to anyone or anything.” Swift acted differently. 

Swift also used potential setbacks as opportunities. Citing “chaos theory,” which holds that actors who embrace a period of chaos can come out ahead, O’Sullivan notes that during the COVID-19 lockdowns Swift produced not one but two new albums: “She doesn’t need to rely on big events, third-party collaborations, or marketing her releases in the then locked down public, because she was able to seize upon the most unique period in history, a time when there was barely any competition for new material. She was able to release two of her biggest-ever albums so quickly without any PR because people were craving increased connection to the people and things they loved, and her music filled a once-in-a-lifetime (we hope) hole in people’s lives.” 

Swift also treats her fans and employees extremely well, handing out $100,00 bonuses to truckers who haul her gear and never missing a performance. Swift’s 18-month-long Eras Tour spanned five continents, consisting of 152 shows, some in extreme weather conditions. “I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable, or stressed,” Swift once said, “That’s part of my identity as a human being now. If someone buys a ticket to my show, I’m going to play it unless we have some sort of force majeure.”

Swift, as O’Sullivan puts it, is also “antifragile.” She “never starts the fights, she merely throws a clean right hook to finish them.” Swift re-recorded her old music in order to wrestle the copyright from producers who took advantage of her when she was younger.

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More recently, in 2024 Swift became the most decorated artist ever at the MTV awards, the honor coming ten years after the 2009 MTV ceremony where Kanye West famously interrupted Swift during her acceptance speech. Some fans speculated that it was part of a ten-year plan to get back at West.

Still, Taylor was all class, reminding the audience that night was the anniversary of 9/11: “Waking up this morning in New York on September 11th, I’ve just been thinking about what happened 23 years ago. Everyone who lost a loved one and everyone that we lost and that is the most important thing today. And everything that happens tonight falls behind that.”