In my business I coach and mentor scores of people in how to use the marketing system I use to promote their MLM or network marketing businesses. That system contains a huge amount of training resources that some people, at first, find intimidating. Those resources are extensive and complete in order to deliver a good education in how to run a successful, long-term and solid Internet-based business, yet some people will actually tell me they wish we'd not provided such extensive information.

Creating a business from scratch can be simplified. But, where did we get the idea that it should be easy?

Internet marketing is an interesting industry. It's filled with people, intelligent and motivated, who lack knowledge in only two areas: the Internet and marketing. We are an industry made up almost entirely of people who hear that it's easy to make a huge income on the net in a matter of days, with no experience, no knowledge and almost no investment at all of either time or money. Many of us buy right into this myth the same way we did with the tooth fairy.

I can't tell you how many times I've received a call from one of my new trainees who will say something like this:

"Oh my God! I can't believe how much stuff is in there! Am I supposed to learn all that?"

Of course, we know what the short answer is here, but the interesting thing to me is the surprise. This tells me that the person uttering this sentence expected the process of starting a home business on the Internet to be an easy one … even though they had absolutely no experience in this kind of endeavor previously. They had obviously, somewhere along the line, bought into that myth of the "auto-pilot money machine", and expected to click here, copy and paste there, and then go on vacation as the huge checks rolled in.

That's not starting a business…that's daydreaming. It's an expectation of opportunity, without any accompanying adversity, and that is simply not how the Universe works.

To get past that stumbling block, we all must come to an understanding of the relationship between opportunity and adversity. This trainee was looking for one without the other. That's a fantasy and simply doesn't exist.

Very often, a trainee who asks the question above will follow it with something like: "That's impossible! I'll never get through it all." Then they'll fall prey to the "deer-in-the-headlights" syndrome, and simply freeze up, unable to move further. If they can't shake themselves out of this state, they'll fall by the wayside and disappear.

Interestingly enough, this is also the same trainee who will tell me about all the different businesses they've been involved in before. They'll have a million reasons why this company was no good, or that pay plan was ridiculous, or nobody wanted this other product. They had made discoveries about each opportunity they tried, one after the other, that explained to them why the opportunity was a bad one. So they left each.

Note two things here: They left without success, and the fault was never theirs.

Obviously, success can't be achieved by abandoning an opportunity prematurely. What's not so obvious, at least to the person with this mind-set, is that the fault didn't lie with the company, where they would like to put the blame. The fault was their own. They were willing to accept the opportunity, but not the adversity that naturally comes with it.

Every opportunity comes with its own adversity and vice versa. That is a natural cycle of the Universe, like the seasons. If I'm in adversity today, even if I don't do a single thing about it, things will eventually change. The adversity will cease of its own accord. The problem this trainee has with all of their past companies and opportunities, lies in how they react to adversity.

Why do some other people succeed in those same companies? This trainee will tell you it's because they were lucky, or they knew someone, or some such drivel. The reality is quite different. This person failed in those companies because they reacted to adversity in a different manner than those who succeeded in those very same opportunities.

Here's what I'm driving at … finally. If you actually want to create a home business for yourself, or create huge growth in one you already operate, you'll need to do much more than simply recognize a good opportunity. You'll also need to accept the adversity that naturally accompanies that opportunity. You'll need to recognize that you must overcome that adversity. Then you simply tuck your head down and trudge right through it to the other side.

Yes … there is a lot of work to do.

Yes … there is a lot of stuff to learn.

How can anyone expect to create something worthwhile without the adversities of work and study? It seems almost silly when you lay it out like this, and yet I run into it constantly.

Don't be deflected from your opportunity by the mere threat of adversity. Do what you need to do, and you will learn what you need to learn. Work on something today, and there will be one thing you won't have to do tomorrow.

Work and learning bring rewards.

Nobody said it would be easy, so don't demand that the Universe behave differently for you than it does to anyone else. Simply proceed down the road towards your opportunity. Welcome your adversities, knowing that the attainment of your goals will come through your own perseverance.

Don't give up.