As with many of her fans, Taylor Swift and her discography has long been an important part of my personal story. She even became an unexpected source of inspiration during a moment of career transition. 

I left my job as an aerospace engineer and human spaceflight designer at NASA to pursue an MBA at Harvard University, a shift that ultimately led to my current path as an economist and investor.

At Harvard, I started to think about Swift’s journey through a professional lens. I was driven by one key question: How do seemingly normal people do extraordinary things? How do they become these ultra-successful unicorns?

After reading an excellent book by legal scholar and documentarian Paul Davis, “Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing,” I began to recognize a number of characteristics that these highly successful people have in common. 

There are seven traits in particular that Swift regularly demonstrates.

1. Imagination

We’re all born with imagination, but as we get older, we often put constraints between our minds and the creative stimuli in the world around us.

Not Swift. She turns small sparks such as a phrase, a feeling, an overheard line into entire worlds. A great way to do the same is by starting to take greater notice of the fragments that catch your eye. Ask yourself why, and then record them.

Swift understands that imagination begins not with invention, but with curiosity. She’s great at paying attention to the smallest, most resonant details and building universes from them.

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2. Synthesis 

This is the ability to connect new and old ideas and thoughts through creativity. Creating synthesis requires bravery, because reimagining the world or doing things in ways that others haven’t is not easy.

Swift’s track record for synthesis speaks for itself. Her iconic song “Death by a Thousand Cuts” was actually inspired by the female protagonist’s relationship failure in the romantic comedy “Someone Great.” 

But the most famous example of Swift’s skill for synthesis is “Love Story.” She reincarnated and reinterpreted the romantic Shakespearian tragedy of “Romeo and Juliet” into a story with a vibrant, happy ending.

3. Focus

Focus is about making your goal a part of your very being. Swift has not released a makeup line or a fashion brand. You don’t see her dabbling in things that aren’t important to her. Performing and songwriting have been her top priorities since she was teenager.

And she has been entirely focused on being the best at those things.

To sharpen your focus, ask yourself: Does this move me closer to my core goal, or is it just noise? Saying no to distractions isn’t a loss; it’s a way of assigning and protecting the energy needed to go deep where it matters most.

4. Doggedness 

Doggedness is the ability to keep doing something or to keep fighting for it in the face of difficulty.

Think back to those moments on a stage when Swift was sick, exhausted, and heartbroken. The times during the Eras Tour when she was visibly crying during a song, when torrential rain made it look like she was swimming, and when she was performing the same set for the millionth time. 

Yet she still acted as if it were the best, most monumental night of her life. Even if unicorns feel like they don’t have doggedness and passion all the time, they are usually pretty good at pretending they have it, until they can get it back again.

5. Passion

Passion is having continued enthusiasm, even when you’ve been doing something for a while or after it has lost its shine. Passion and doggedness often seem to overlap in that they both require endurance and resilience.

To reignite your own passion, reconnect with the “why” behind what you’re doing. Ask yourself what first drew you in, and find small ways to rediscover that joy, whether it’s through experimentation, reinvention, or persistence.

6. Reverence 

This is the ability to be awed by and have deep respect for something. 

It’s usually difficult to remain passionate, unless the object of your passion gives you a sense of internal happiness and wonder, a feeling that there is something bigger in the world than just you and whatever is right in front of you.

Reverence fuels your purpose, which then fuels your passion, and thus allows you to give your full dedication to something.

7. Commitment 

The final trait is commitment, specifically in the context of forgoing all optionality in pursuit of this one thing over everything else. It is the commitment to recording music and touring, over going to university or any other career path for Swift. 

Real commitment often requires sacrifice. Ask yourself: What am I willing to give up so this goal can live? When something is optional, it feels safe. But greatness is built by those who are willing to bet on the thing they love most.

This commitment is evident in Swift’s ability to, always and forever, put music first.

Sinéad O’Sullivan has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she formerly served as the chief strategist of the HBS Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. She has also worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and was a professor at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Stuart School of Business. She is the author of ”Good Ideas and Power Moves: Ten Lessons for Success from Taylor Swift.”

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This is an adapted excerpt from the book ”Good Ideas and Power Moves: Ten Lessons for Success from Taylor Swift″ by Sinéad O’Sullivan. Copyright © 2025 by Sinéad O’Sullivan. Published with permission of Viking.

It can be hard to see other couples’ fancy vacations, expensive gifts for each other, and Michelin star dinner dates without feeling as though you aren’t doing enough to keep the spark alive in your own relationship. 

Yet, as both a psychologist who studies couples and as a husband, I always encourage people to inject novelty into their relationship. Thankfully, fun comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and price-points. And often, the most meaningful forms cost $0.

Here’s what the happiest, most successful couples do for fun — that most others neglect.

Not every couple has the time or budget to hop on a plane whenever they feel like shaking things up. But that doesn’t stop happy couples from finding adventure. They just do it locally.

Research shows that “micro-adventures” (think: staycations, day trips, or even discovering a new coffee shop across town) can bring just as much joy as big vacations.

They explore their city like tourists. They hit the trails, visit bookstores, museums, or check out that weird roadside attraction. The idea is to make the ordinary feel novel.

You love reading. Your partner is into video games. It might not seem like a match made in heaven — until you realize you can do them together, separately.

Psychologists call this “parallel play”: when couples do their own thing, but in the same space. Instead of forcing shared interests, you’re just creating shared presence.

As a result, couples can easily stay bonded without burning themselves out. Low-pressure, comfortable companionship supports deeper intimacy just as much as active socialization can. 

Yes, doing your own thing is important. But research shows that shared hobbies and rituals are strongly linked to relationship satisfaction.

This doesn’t mean starting a couple’s podcast or training for a marathon (unless you want to). For most couples, it’s as simple as a standing game night, a Sunday morning walk, or a favorite TV show they only watch together.

The point is consistency. These small shared rituals become something to look forward to, no matter how busy life gets.

Errands. Laundry. Dishes. Not exactly romantic. For working couples or couples with kids, it can be especially hard to find time for fun. This is why researchers agree that intentional playfulness should be a priority.

The happiest couples I know are good at “hijacking” the mundane. If they’re stuck with a boring chore or task, they’ll find a playlist or a show to put on in the background to spice it up. And if they’re out of the house running errands, they’ll turn it into an opportunity for a little game or competition.

They ensure that laughter and silliness is always on the agenda, even if it happens to overlap with their other tasks.

Remember your first date? That inside joke you used to have? That song that used to be “yours”?

So many people look back nostalgically at the early days of their relationship and think about how easy and simple it was to have fun. But happy couples know that the thrill of the honeymoon phase never has to end if they continue to honor it.

Research shows that rituals play an integral part of relationship satisfaction, quality, and intimacy. Happy couples leverage this by giving the activities that once brought them together a cherished place in their relationship.

Make it a point to talk, dream, and joke with your partner in the same playful, coy ways you did when you first met. It will keep things fun while simultaneously honoring the many ways your relationship came to be.

Mark Travers, PhD, is a psychologist who specializes in relationships. He holds degrees from Cornell University and the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the lead psychologist at Awake Therapy, a telehealth company that provides online psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching. He is also the curator of the popular mental health and wellness website, Therapytips.org.

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For two decades, Dr. Vonda Wright served as an academic surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh. There, she researched musculoskeletal aging and longevity in hopes of “dispelling the common notion that aging was an inevitable decline,” she says.

The bulk of her research, alongside her team, involved studying members of aging populations who kept active, including people who competed in the National Senior Games, a biannual event for athletes ages 50 and older.

Wright, 58, set a goal that she’s followed for over 20 years: “The mantra that I laid down in the early 2000s when I [wondered], ‘What is going to be the guiding light of my career?’ is ‘I’m going to change the way we age in this country.’”

Now, she is a practicing clinician and founder of Precision Longevity, a lifestyle program dedicated to helping people live longer. She recently released a book titled, “Unbreakable,” which offers healthy aging tips for women.

A huge component of the advice she gives her clients for longevity is related to diet. Here’s what Wright eats, and suggests to others, for a long and healthy life.

“Every single day, I focus on clean, whole-food nutrition with one gram of protein per pound,” Wright says.

“I focus on getting 130 grams of protein a day so that I can build the muscle that I need.”

Here are the main foods she prioritizes in her daily diet:

• Green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale
• Dairy
• Eggs
• Animal meat

“I eat a lot of kale, even at breakfast. I have a salad for breakfast,” she says.

Wright avoids simple carbs such as white bread which can cause spikes in blood sugar levels.

“On a day-to-day basis, I don’t eat sugar. And here’s why, I can physically feel the difference in my body. I can feel inflamed,” she says.

“I can feel the dullness in my brain when I’m eating sugar. So I focus on anti-inflammatory nutrition, which is good for my body and my brain.”

The only exception she makes for simple carbs is sourdough bread because of its other health benefits.

“I make sourdough every two weeks and then we freeze the loaves, which decreases their glycemic index. It’s wholesome and made out of fermented bacteria,” Wright says.

“Those are the really simple ways that from a nutritional standpoint, I stay healthy.”

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Over the next decade, advances in artificial intelligence will mean that humans will no longer be needed “for most things” in the world, says Bill Gates.

That’s what the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist told comedian Jimmy Fallon during an interview on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in February. At the moment, expertise remains “rare,” Gates explained, pointing to human specialists we still rely on in many fields, including “a great doctor” or “a great teacher.”

But “with AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring,” Gates said.

In other words, the world is entering a new era of what Gates called “free intelligence” in an interview last month with Harvard University professor and happiness expert Arthur Brooks. The result will be rapid advances in AI-powered technologies that are accessible and touch nearly every aspect of our lives, Gates has said, from improved medicines and diagnoses to widely available AI tutors and virtual assistants.

“It’s very profound and even a little bit scary — because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound,” Gates told Brooks.

The debate over how, exactly, most humans will fit into this AI-powered future is ongoing. Some experts say AI will help humans work more efficiently — rather than replacing them altogether — and spur economic growth that leads to more jobs being created.

Others, like Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, counter that continued technological advancements over the next several years will change what most jobs look like across nearly every industry, and have a “hugely destabilizing” impact on the workforce.

“These tools will only temporarily augment human intelligence,” Suleyman wrote in his book “The Coming Wave,” which was published in 2023. “They will make us smarter and more efficient for a time, and will unlock enormous amounts of economic growth, but they are fundamentally labor replacing.”

Gates is optimistic about the overall benefits AI can provide to humanity, like “breakthrough treatments for deadly diseases, innovative solutions for climate change, and high-quality education for everyone,” he wrote last year.

Talking to Fallon, Gates reaffirmed his belief that certain types of jobs will likely never be replaced by AI, noting that people probably don’t want to see machines playing baseball, for example.

“There will be some things we reserve for ourselves. But in terms of making things and moving things and growing food, over time those will be basically solved problems,” Gates said.

AI’s development does come with “understandable and valid” concerns, Gates wrote in a 2023 blog post. Today’s top-of-the-line AI programs are rife with errors and prone to enabling the spread of falsehoods online, for example.

But if he had to start a new business from scratch, he’d launch an “AI-centric” startup, Gates told CNBC Make It in September 2024.

“Today, somebody could raise billions of dollars for a new AI company [that’s just] a few sketch ideas,” he said, adding: “I’m encouraging young people at Microsoft, OpenAI, wherever I find them: ‘Hey, here’s the frontier.’ Because you’re taking a fresher look at this than I am, and that’s your fantastic opportunity.”

Gates saw the AI revolution coming nearly a decade ago: When asked which industry he’d focus on if he had to start over from scratch, he quickly chose AI.

“The work in artificial intelligence today is at a really profound level,” Gates said at a 2017 event at Columbia University alongside Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. He pointed to the “profound milestone” of Google’s DeepMind AI lab creating a computer program that could defeat humans at the board game Go.

At the time, the technology was years away from ChatGPT-style generative text, powered by large language models. Yet by 2023, even Gates was surprised by the speed of AI’s development. He’d challenged OpenAI to create a model that could get a top score on a high school AP Biology exam, expecting the task to take two or three years, he wrote in his blog post.

“They finished it in just a few months,” wrote Gates. He called the achievement “the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface [in 1980].”

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC and NBC, which broadcasts “The Tonight Show.”

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Running a $1.92 trillion company isn’t for the faint of heart, according to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Most of his job relies around making high-stakes decisions and solving problems other people have been unable to fix, Pichai said at a Stanford Business School speaking event in April 2022. Whenever he needs to cope with stress at work, he remembers a simple two-part mantra he learned as a graduate student, he said.

First, making any decision is better than wasting time ruminating on the options. And second, most choices aren’t permanent, and you can learn from your mistakes if you make one, said Pichai.

If someone at Google comes to him with a problem — which often happens when his team is divided between two solutions — he pushes himself to choose one of those options in an efficient manner, he said. The alternative usually involves letting the pressure get to you, which could slow down the team or, sometimes, the company as a whole, he added.

“You making that decision is the most important thing you can do [to move forward],” Pichai said at the event. “It may feel like a lot rides on [your choice], but you look later, and realize, it wasn’t that consequential,” said Pichai.

Learning how to cope with pressure at work can help you be happier and more productive at work, some experts say. If deadlines, a high-profile project or a micromanaging boss stress you out, try to view the hurdles as opportunities to rise to a challenge, rather than a threat to your career or livelihood, University of Pennsylvania burnout researcher Kandi Wiens told CNBC Make It in April 2024.

“When we’re faced with a stressor out of our control, we create stories in our head to address the unknown, which can lead to a lot of self-criticism and catastrophic thinking,” said Wiens. “But resilient, successful people challenge their assumptions, they’re able to interrupt the negative thinking loop and ask themselves: ‘What is true here, and what assumptions am I making about the situation?’” 

Pichai said he first learned how to help teams solve problems quickly from his mentor Bill Campbell — a former Intuit CEO and Apple board director — while studying material science and engineering at Stanford University, Pichai said at the Stanford Business School event.

Campbell, who coached other prominent tech leaders like Steve Jobs and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, emphasized that leaders need to know how to be an effective tiebreaker for a deadlocked team, said Pichai.

“Every week [Campbell] would see me, he would ask me, ‘What ties did you break this week?’” Pichai said, adding that it taught him to be comfortable having the final word. “It’s always stuck with me.”

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