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Good Ideas and Power Moves: Ten Lessons for Success From Taylor Swift
A guide to the 10 power moves that have built Taylor Swift’s superstardom and empire, from a former Strategist at Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy
Taylor Swift’s genius is not limited to her singing and as the founder of her own multi-billion dollar enterprise she has higher returns than 99.9% of hedge funds, and has built a stronger global corporation than nearly every other American conglomerate CEO. She is the only person that the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank track with precision. She has a larger impact on the economy than most economists that have ever lived, and has done more for US antitrust law than any sitting member of Congress. There is a lot to learn from Taylor Swift.
Global investment fund manager and former head of Strategy at HBS (and Swiftie!) Sinead O’Sullivan taps into the same genius that sells out stadiums and shuts down the internet to give Taylor—the CEO, the strategist—the respect she deserves. O’Sullivan sums up Swift’s business savvy into ten big, teachable lessons,
-Build a World (Not a Product): how to create value that is greater than the sum of its parts (or, how Taylor created the fan-centered Swiftverse that fosters community, belonging, and off-the-charts engagement)
-Be Anti-Fragile: how to embrace volatility, build resilience, and thrive in uncertainty--when your competitors can't (or, how Taylor gamed the chaos of Covid shutdown to own the airwaves)
-Don’t Just Play the Game, Change It: how to rewrite the rules on your own terms when your chips are down (or, how Taylor almost lost control of her music catalog to Private Equity—but re-recorded all her masters and took them back)
Taylor Swift’s genius is not limited to her singing and as the founder of her own multi-billion dollar enterprise she has higher returns than 99.9% of hedge funds, and has built a stronger global corporation than nearly every other American conglomerate CEO. She is the only person that the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank track with precision. She has a larger impact on the economy than most economists that have ever lived, and has done more for US antitrust law than any sitting member of Congress. There is a lot to learn from Taylor Swift.
Global investment fund manager and former head of Strategy at HBS (and Swiftie!) Sinead O’Sullivan taps into the same genius that sells out stadiums and shuts down the internet to give Taylor—the CEO, the strategist—the respect she deserves. O’Sullivan sums up Swift’s business savvy into ten big, teachable lessons,
-Build a World (Not a Product): how to create value that is greater than the sum of its parts (or, how Taylor created the fan-centered Swiftverse that fosters community, belonging, and off-the-charts engagement)
-Be Anti-Fragile: how to embrace volatility, build resilience, and thrive in uncertainty--when your competitors can't (or, how Taylor gamed the chaos of Covid shutdown to own the airwaves)
-Don’t Just Play the Game, Change It: how to rewrite the rules on your own terms when your chips are down (or, how Taylor almost lost control of her music catalog to Private Equity—but re-recorded all her masters and took them back)
- GenresNonfiction
336 pages, Hardcover
Published September 9, 2025
3 people are currently reading
2290 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 29, 2025
"If you're lucky enough to be different, don't ever change." Taylor Swift
This inspirational, informative book is about evaluating what Swift has done and applying it to your own audacious goals. It's about having agency, taking action, and working very hard to accomplish your goals.
What captivated me from the very beginning was Sinead O'Sullivan's personal story. At age 15, O'Sullivan traveled from her home in Northern Ireland to attend NASA's Space Camp. Space fascinated her and she met many space engineers and realized they were normal people who had pursued their dreams. So, she studied aerospace engineering in college so that one day she could work at NASA. She was hired by NASA and worked on designing space missions.
After receiving her MBA from Harvard Business School, O'Sullivan worked with top economists, CEOs, prime ministers, and financiers to evaluate and determine short-term and long-term strategies.
O'Sullivan's writing style, leadership messages, credibility, enthusiasm, and authenticity sparkles on every page. She doesn't waver on what is required to be a superstar.
Now, let's get back to Taylor Swift. All of us have enormous potential to change the world in little or large ways. Singular focus, continuous improvement, doggedness, passion, endurance, resilience, consistency, and lots of constant hard work are required to be uber-successful. You can't get it by hoping for success. You have to create a detailed master plan and stick with it and adjust it as needed.
Some memorable passages include:
* Being motivated by something inside of us is one hell of a force field.
* Do not play the lottery with your life and your business.
* Taylor Swift's level of ambition is just absolutely enormous with a capital E.
* Taylor moves her own goal posts.
* Being different from everyone else is a phenomenally good strategy.
* We are all active agents of our own trajectory.
* Taylor Swift: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
* Private equity destroys nearly everything in its path. (Great section about how private equity works.)
* Swift: There's nothing I do better than revenge.
* Don't be a dead fish by going along with the flow.
* Embrace uncertainty and volatility.
* Taylor's belief system is that everybody belongs. That everybody deserves a friend. Everybody is welcome.
Highly recommend!!
This inspirational, informative book is about evaluating what Swift has done and applying it to your own audacious goals. It's about having agency, taking action, and working very hard to accomplish your goals.
What captivated me from the very beginning was Sinead O'Sullivan's personal story. At age 15, O'Sullivan traveled from her home in Northern Ireland to attend NASA's Space Camp. Space fascinated her and she met many space engineers and realized they were normal people who had pursued their dreams. So, she studied aerospace engineering in college so that one day she could work at NASA. She was hired by NASA and worked on designing space missions.
After receiving her MBA from Harvard Business School, O'Sullivan worked with top economists, CEOs, prime ministers, and financiers to evaluate and determine short-term and long-term strategies.
O'Sullivan's writing style, leadership messages, credibility, enthusiasm, and authenticity sparkles on every page. She doesn't waver on what is required to be a superstar.
Now, let's get back to Taylor Swift. All of us have enormous potential to change the world in little or large ways. Singular focus, continuous improvement, doggedness, passion, endurance, resilience, consistency, and lots of constant hard work are required to be uber-successful. You can't get it by hoping for success. You have to create a detailed master plan and stick with it and adjust it as needed.
Some memorable passages include:
* Being motivated by something inside of us is one hell of a force field.
* Do not play the lottery with your life and your business.
* Taylor Swift's level of ambition is just absolutely enormous with a capital E.
* Taylor moves her own goal posts.
* Being different from everyone else is a phenomenally good strategy.
* We are all active agents of our own trajectory.
* Taylor Swift: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
* Private equity destroys nearly everything in its path. (Great section about how private equity works.)
* Swift: There's nothing I do better than revenge.
* Don't be a dead fish by going along with the flow.
* Embrace uncertainty and volatility.
* Taylor's belief system is that everybody belongs. That everybody deserves a friend. Everybody is welcome.
Highly recommend!!
June 8, 2025
I struggled with my rating for this book because I found the book to be more about author Sinéad O'Sullivan than about Taylor Swift. Each chapter introduces a lesson in life or business that O'Sullivan has learned through her own career and life and then quickly ties it back to Taylor Swift at the end. I think the book would have been more successful if the author primarily focused on her life (she is incredibly accomplished, having worked for NASA and Michael Porter!) and the lessons she has learned instead of trying to bridge it all back to Taylor Swift.
A few of the lessons did tie back nicely, like O'Sullivan's take on how Swift may be disrupted by a smaller artist, written through the lens of Clayton Christensen's disruption theory. However, many of the connections felt generic and were not supported with concrete evidence from Swift's actions, lyrics, or interviews. There were notably very few quotes from Swift or her team in the book, which I felt could have bolstered O'Sullivan's arguments. I also found it strange that O'Sullivan noted she has "never discussed Taylor's strategy with her or anybody on her team who may be working on it. So anything [O'Sullivan] write[s] here around [Swift's] strategy is purely conjecture."
I also found it odd that O'Sullivan did not cite or use quotes for some of the business statistics she referenced. There were no footnotes or sources in my copy of the book. That said, I received an advanced copy (ARC) so it is possible these will be added in a later edition.
This book would have also benefited from a "Swiftie" editor. As a Swift fan myself, I caught a misreference to Taylor's work when O'Sullivan writes, "As Taylor says in her lyric, 'toss it out, reject it, and resist it.'" As far as I can tell from my own Swiftie knowledge and some Google searching, this is not a Taylor Swift lyric. Instead, it is a quote from Swift from her documentary, "Miss Americana."
I am hoping some of these elements, namely the sources and misattribution, can be revised before the publishing date.
Thank you to NetGalley for the Advanced Copy (ARC).
A few of the lessons did tie back nicely, like O'Sullivan's take on how Swift may be disrupted by a smaller artist, written through the lens of Clayton Christensen's disruption theory. However, many of the connections felt generic and were not supported with concrete evidence from Swift's actions, lyrics, or interviews. There were notably very few quotes from Swift or her team in the book, which I felt could have bolstered O'Sullivan's arguments. I also found it strange that O'Sullivan noted she has "never discussed Taylor's strategy with her or anybody on her team who may be working on it. So anything [O'Sullivan] write[s] here around [Swift's] strategy is purely conjecture."
I also found it odd that O'Sullivan did not cite or use quotes for some of the business statistics she referenced. There were no footnotes or sources in my copy of the book. That said, I received an advanced copy (ARC) so it is possible these will be added in a later edition.
This book would have also benefited from a "Swiftie" editor. As a Swift fan myself, I caught a misreference to Taylor's work when O'Sullivan writes, "As Taylor says in her lyric, 'toss it out, reject it, and resist it.'" As far as I can tell from my own Swiftie knowledge and some Google searching, this is not a Taylor Swift lyric. Instead, it is a quote from Swift from her documentary, "Miss Americana."
I am hoping some of these elements, namely the sources and misattribution, can be revised before the publishing date.
Thank you to NetGalley for the Advanced Copy (ARC).
October 6, 2025
I do not care about business. Honestly, I find the topic quite boring. HOWEVER, if you can translate something into Swiftese then there is a much greater chance of me being able to understand it.
I learned a lot about what exactly happened with her rerecord situation.
I found this to be a lovely and informative book on lessons for a successful life via a medium that I am very comfortable understanding. In conclusion, yay Taylor!
I learned a lot about what exactly happened with her rerecord situation.
I found this to be a lovely and informative book on lessons for a successful life via a medium that I am very comfortable understanding. In conclusion, yay Taylor!
December 16, 2025
Couldn’t finish this one. The author writes very immaturely and doesn’t have a focused thesis. She was fan-girling a bit too hard. Pass.
January 2, 2026
As a Swiftie, I really wanted to like this book. But it only took three pages to understand that the author is delusional. In just those first three pages, she:
-Claims that being a doctor and getting sick is not a problem, but that a chef MUST come in sick (thus contaminating the food of people paying "hundreds of dollars" for it because it would be "catastrophic" if a chef took a day off
-Inflates the quality of Michelin-starred restaurants by claiming, without evidence, that "only 0.018% of the estimated 15 million restaurants in the world hold a star." This further ignores that the Michelin company, which started the star system in order to convince people to drive more and thus need to buy more Michelin tires, only awards stars in 37 out of the more than 200 countries on earth. Almost all of these 37 countries (less than 20% of the countries in the world), almost all of them are in Europe or North America. None of them are in Africa, the continent with the most countries.
-Claims, again without evidence, that Swift performs in "the most extreme weather conditions on earth" (Come on, the worst she has faced is some rain. She's not exactly performing in the Arctic, in the rural countryside without electricity or plumbing, or in deserts.)
-Claims, yet again without evidence, that out of the 36 million songs she says were released in a year, "just bear with me when I make the assumption that across these releases, Taylor comes up top."
There are no sources in this book and no "works cited" pages. She is literally making stuff up and expecting you to take her words as facts because, as she reminds you over and over again, she went to Harvard (mentioned three times in two pages of the introduction).
After the self-congratulatory 10-page introduction and the above inanities of the first three pages of chapter one, I had to put this down in disgust.
-Claims that being a doctor and getting sick is not a problem, but that a chef MUST come in sick (thus contaminating the food of people paying "hundreds of dollars" for it because it would be "catastrophic" if a chef took a day off
-Inflates the quality of Michelin-starred restaurants by claiming, without evidence, that "only 0.018% of the estimated 15 million restaurants in the world hold a star." This further ignores that the Michelin company, which started the star system in order to convince people to drive more and thus need to buy more Michelin tires, only awards stars in 37 out of the more than 200 countries on earth. Almost all of these 37 countries (less than 20% of the countries in the world), almost all of them are in Europe or North America. None of them are in Africa, the continent with the most countries.
-Claims, again without evidence, that Swift performs in "the most extreme weather conditions on earth" (Come on, the worst she has faced is some rain. She's not exactly performing in the Arctic, in the rural countryside without electricity or plumbing, or in deserts.)
-Claims, yet again without evidence, that out of the 36 million songs she says were released in a year, "just bear with me when I make the assumption that across these releases, Taylor comes up top."
There are no sources in this book and no "works cited" pages. She is literally making stuff up and expecting you to take her words as facts because, as she reminds you over and over again, she went to Harvard (mentioned three times in two pages of the introduction).
After the self-congratulatory 10-page introduction and the above inanities of the first three pages of chapter one, I had to put this down in disgust.
September 24, 2025
It was a well researched book by a very accomplished author. I appreciate the time she to explain the 10 lessons for success. I was a little disappointed that she didn’t actually speak to Taylor Swift and interview her but I agree that Taylor Swift is a savvy business woman. She has accomplished a great amount of wars and accolades, and I can see why people become Swifties. I feel like this book would be a great addition to any anybody who is interested in business. It would be a great textbook for a business class.
Thank you Viking for this ARC book.
Thank you Viking for this ARC book.
October 9, 2025
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It is very accessible and has common sense advice.
I learned things I didn't know about Taylor Swift's business model.
It is probably better for someone starting out than for someone older.
#goodreadsgiveaway #sineado'sullivan #goodideasandpowermoves #Taylorswift #Vikingbooks
I learned things I didn't know about Taylor Swift's business model.
It is probably better for someone starting out than for someone older.
#goodreadsgiveaway #sineado'sullivan #goodideasandpowermoves #Taylorswift #Vikingbooks
January 14, 2026
A great book for any Swiftie to start the year with! I found the tone a bit forced-casual at times (I assume the aim was the make the business concepts accessible, but it verged on condescending at times). However, overall I found it engaging and an interesting exploration of Taylor’s business acumen.
September 14, 2025
Excellent book, filled with usable information for a successful life and packaged in a unique story. Highly recommend!
January 15, 2026
Learned nothing about Taylor Swift that I couldn’t have found on Google. This is more of just a brag book for the author (who, as she repeatedly reminds us, went to Harvard).
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews