Here’s an adapted version of a Lin Chi ‘s (ninth century Buddhist master) tale: A young network marketing monk walks into a Starbucks. He’s out of breath, and is barely able to order a cup of oolong tea with froth and nutmeg sprinkles.

He finds an empty table, pulls his laptop out of a tattered black bag, and logs into Skype. Feverishly, he contacts his upline sponsor and says via video chat, “you’ll never believe it, I was trolling online and came across the MLM Marketing Guru, his highness, the Lead Slayer.”

His upline sponsor listens with eyebrow raised and mechanically opens a  tin can of Savinelli tobacco and stuffs his pipe. “Go on” he says, and proceeds to stuff his worn, but trusty, pipe, light and inhale.

The young monk takes a gulp of tea. He notices in the little video box that he has a white frothy mustache. “Ooops” , he mutters,.

“OK, back to my story. So, the Lead Dragon Slayer told me that creating a blog, making videos, and learning human psychology is a waste of time. He showed me his secret lead generation system. No learning required. I’ve achieved network marketing enlightenment! This is how the network marketing gurus do it. I’ve met the Lead Dragon Slayer and now I am free!”

Then, like something out of the Matrix happened.

A hand appeared on the young monks laptop screen. It slowly became more real. Then, a ball of light flashed and the hand reached out through the screen, and slapped the young monk. And as quickly as the hand appeared, it disappeared.

The upline sponsor retorted, “If you meet the the Lead Dragon Slayer on the Internet you must kill him.”

End of story.

So what does this parable tell you? That there is danger in thinking you have discovered a single answer to the puzzle of successfully making money in network marketing.

What often appears as a burning bush is often no more than a false manifestation of our desire for the quick and easy.