One paragraph from Taylor Swift explains how she's managed to avoid a catastrophic flame out in her career (thus far)

Taylor Swift has been one of the biggest pop stars in the world for half a decade now.

While many stars wilt under the pressure of fame, Swift shows no sign of slowing down.

Her most recent album, 1989, is a smash hit filled with great songs that appeal to a mainstream audience as well as music snoots.

How has she managed to keep her head on her shoulders despite being fabulously wealthy and getting pulled in all sorts of directions by people?

She explained to Chuck Klosterman for GQ:

"I used to watch Behind the Music every day," she says. (Her favorite episode was the one about the Bangles.) "When other kids were watching normal shows, I'd watch Behind the Music. 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. So 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."

In essence, she's been studying success and failure since she was young preparing for this moment. So far, she hasn't blown it.

Read the full story over at GQ, it's filled with many great insights on Swift and her career.