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Taylor Swift used to be a massive fan of the VH1 show Behind the Music as a teenager growing up in Nashville. In a 2015 interview with GQ Magazine, the 34-year-old opened up about her success mantra and how a childhood television show modeled her mindset.
The 14-time Grammy winner has been creating new records with her Eras Tour and her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. Taylor Swift has touched new levels of stardom post-pandemic after her Eras Tour blew up and made her one of the richest musicians in the world. In just nine months since its inception, it grossed over $1 billion, making it the highest-grossing concert tour in history.
So, where does Taylor Swift get what it takes to be so consistent at the highest level?
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According to Taylor Swift, stories of failed bands and musical groups in Behind the Music made her realize that lack of self-awareness post-stardom is one of the key reasons for the failure of musicians even after achieving the zenith of fame at one point.
"Lack of self-awareness was always the downfall" - Taylor Swift on why many successful musicians fail in the long run
In a 2015 interview, Taylor Swift opened up about her childhood inspirations and the impact of Behind the Music on shaping her mindset.
Behind the Music is a docu-series telecasted on VH1 and now available to stream on Paramount Plus. Each episode focuses on the backstories of an iconic musician or band and discusses the hardships they faced on their way to stardom.
For teenage Taylor, Behind the Music was part of everyday life. While other kids would be engrossed in watching 'normal' shows, Taylor would make sure not to miss a single episode of the VH1 show.
“I used to watch Behind the Music every day. When other kids were watching normal shows, I’d watch Behind the Music," she revealed in the GQ Magazine interview.
However, the Gorgeous singer didn't just watch the episodes mindlessly. After every installment, she used to wonder what went wrong in the careers of several musicians that they lost relevance even after achieving peak stardom. After much soul searching, teenage Taylor Swift realized that it was the lack of self-awareness that caused the plummet in most cases.
"And I would see these bands that were doing so well, and I’d wonder what went wrong. I thought about this a lot. And what I established in my brain was that a lack of self-awareness was always the downfall. That was always the catalyst for the loss of relevance and the loss of ambition and the loss of great art," continued Taylor Swift.
Thereafter, the 14-time Grammy winner explained how she incorporated the learnings into her career. She explained that self-awareness is the most important virtue that she tries to inculcate within herself, ahead of superficials like vanity, reputation management, and strategy.
According to Taylor Swift, self-awareness is the first thing 'to go out of the door' when people achieve stardom in life.
"Self-awareness has been such a huge part of what I try to achieve on a daily basis. It’s less about reputation management and strategy and vanity than it is about trying to desperately preserve self-awareness since that seems to be the first thing to go out the door when people find success," concluded Taylor.
"No, let’s not. Let’s choose a lane" - How self-awareness helped Taylor make a crucial career choice
Taylor Swift's self-focused mindset helped her make one of the biggest transitions in her career. She started her career as a country star but switched her allegiance to pop overnight with the release of her first official pop album, 1989, in 2014.
In the interview with GQ Magazine, she recalled getting incessant warnings from Big Machine Record executives about the risks involved. They tried to persuade her to stick to the tried-and-tested country genre in every way possible. However, Taylor was hell-bent on making the switch work.
"I had so many intense conversations where my label really tried to step in," she recalled. "I could tell they’d all gotten together and decided, ‘We gotta talk some sense into her. She’s had an established, astronomically successful career in country music. To shake that up would be the biggest mistake she ever makes.’ But to me, the safest thing I could do was take the biggest risk."
However, Taylor trusted her own abilities and instincts and stuck to her decision. The Style singer knew her strengths and capitalized on them without thinking about her reputation as a country musician.
"I know how to write a song. I’m not confident about a lot of other aspects of my life, but I know how to write a song."
As a last-ditch attempt to please both groups of fans, her record label insisted on adding an undertone of country music to her song Shake It Off. Needless to say, the singer/songwriter stuck to her words.
"I was trying to make the most honest record I could possibly make, and they were kind of asking me to be a little disingenuous about it: ‘Let’s capitalize on both markets.’ No, let’s not. Let’s choose a lane," she concluded.
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1989 became one of the most celebrated albums of Taylor Swift's career. The album sold over 14 million copies worldwide and was certified nine times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Moreover, it spent a whopping eleven weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 list.
1989 won big in terms of awards and accolades that year. The album was awarded Album of the Year at the Japan Gold Disc Awards, iHeartradio Music Awards, and, finally, the Grammys.
The album also won Best Pop Vocal Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards and stamped Taylor Swift's transition from a country star to a pop icon in years to come.
