You may be wondering why the hell am I writing about Lady Gaga.

My knowledge of Lady Gaga doesn’t extend any further than Amy Pohler mumbling Poker Face on an episode of Parks and Recreation.  But everyday I’m bombarded with rants through my RSS feed, Tumblr follows and Tweets with the same tired argument.

Lady Gaga, when she was known as Stefani, on MTV’s Boiling Point 2005 (Courtesy of everyone)

“She’s so fake. She used to be Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, look at her on MTV’s Boiling Point 5 years ago! Know your history!”

My question is, do people really think her parents named her Lady Gaga?

And do you NOT expect a performance artist to put on a show?

We all sometimes get caught up in the minutiae of a person’s rise to success.  Lady Gaga being discovered at 19 by Def Jam Chairman L.A. Reid singing in a hallway makes her sound like the luckiest girl on Earth. But you don’t sell out shows, record albums and write music sitting on your ass waiting for luck to give you another handout.

I’m not trying to argue whether or not Lady Gaga’s songs are good, to be perfectly honest I find some of them annoying, but one can’t deny that she is talented. And talent is nothing more than hard work realized. (see video above)

I had a conversation with a few friends about blogs, particularly about making money from blogs.  Some of them couldn’t believe how some bloggers can make such easy money by just blogging.  But my question to them was, have you ever seen a blogger who makes money from their blog, who DOESN’T post any blogs?

Anyone who blogs can tell you, it takes time and work to write a post people are willing to read.  No matter how good a blog is and how much money it seems to generate, it is still work, and the moment the person in the driver’s seat slacks off people will take notice.

You can win a first class ticket to Paris and sit in your hotel room, waiting for someone to take you around. Come home only to complain about how Paris was horrible.

Or you can fly economy class by yourself. Take a walk. See the sights, experience the food and the nightlife and come out with an amazing experience.

How you get somewhere isn’t as important as what you do when you arrive.