I began my career as an undergraduate student unsure of what to do but with a desire to make the world a better place. After studying Spanish and social work and still not feeling satisfied with an ability to make big macro change, an advisor nudged me into the field of public policy – and I’ve never looked back.

I have always been passionate about understanding the world around me through a gendered lens – mostly influenced by growing up in a single-mother household after my parents divorced when I was two years old. The influence was expansive, both in terms of the roles that women play in family and work and how to live on a meager one income budget. My drive for understanding the world around me as a child led to my determination to study a PhD in applied economics with a focus on women, work, and development.

Fast forward to today, I take the theories and training of my PhD program to look critically at the world around us and the opportunities given to women to thrive. I start by deprogramming, or maybe just calling out, the ways in which the field of economics is built off the driving perspectives and lenses of men with privilege. From there, I extract the true value and expose the work of the women of our past that often goes ignored and undervalued. Using Taylor Swift as an example of what is possible when we decide not to take what is given to us but, rather, push against the grain of a society that does not understand our value or recognize our contributions in their entirety.

Read this book and you will get a new perspective, not only on Taylor Swift and economics, but on the ways in which your own thinking influences your next steps in your career and life. My goal is to get the reader to celebrate their multiple life reinventions and distinct eras, while also exercising their ability to mastermind their path to success – whatever that looks like for you.