Page 35 - The Business Idea Factory: A World-Class System for Creating Successful Business Ideas

Think and Rest technique

Dur ing a summer between hig h scho o l and univer sity, I lear ned that a Cisco Cer tified Inter netwo r k
Expert (CCIE) is the most prestigious IT certification in the world. My dad said, “Andrii, there are
only a few dozen CCIEs in all of the ex-USSR countries, they earn six-figure salaries and companies
fight to get them hired.” I set the goal, “I will become a CCIE no matter what.”

In 2 years, I passed the CCIE written exam and the only thing that separated me and my dream was the
CCIE lab part of the exam. To pass it you needed to configure a rack with 16 network devices
according to the scenario presented.

I asked several Internetwork Experts, “How did you manage to get access to equipment worth
$20,000 to prepare for the CCIE lab exam?” and received two types of answers: “The company I
worked at provided access to the equipment” and “I spent my own money on access to a remote rack
with equipment.”

In 3 months I realized, “Not a single company in the Ukraine wants to hire an 18-year-old part-time
for enough money to prepare for the CCIE lab.” A friend who worked for the Cisco local distributor
arranged for me to use some equipment, but after only 2 days of my practice it had been sold. I
thought, “I tried all approaches that worked for others in the past and failed. It’s a dead end.”

In my case there was no reasonable way to get access to the expensive equipment. One day I visited
the websites of all the companies that dealt with Cisco certifications, found email addresses of the
CEOs and wrote the following letter, “Hi, I am 18 years old and have already passed the written part
of the CCIE exam. If you can provide me access to the equipment necessary to prepare for the CCIE
lab part of the exam, I am ready to do any work for you in exchange. You will also be able to say in
your promotional materials that the youngest CCIE in Europe has gained the certification with the
help of your company.”

Lo o king back, I think that sending o ut that email was cr azy, unr easo nable and unpr o fessio nal. Who
knew that one company would offer me a job to help improve their testing materials in exchange for
money, and another would offer to have me write a brochure in exchange for equipment access
during the time slots that were not sold to paying customers.

At 19, I passed the lab exam in Brussels, became the youngest CCIE in Europe and received a job
offer from the Cisco office in the Ukraine. I attribute this success to an unconventional idea that
allowed me to get access to expensive equipment and I attribute this idea to the Think and Rest
technique that allowed me to generate it.

If you asked me, “Andrii, what is the most effective thinking strategy to produce high-quality
business ideas?” I would certainly say, “Of, course Think and Rest.” Think and Rest is an incredibly
effective thinking technique that will allow you to produce successful business ideas with little effort.

Firstly, think about the problem you want to solve as hard as you can for 30 minutes, 60 minutes or
several hours and write down all the ideas that come to your head, no matter how crazy. During this
initial thinking stage you not only generate ideas but also let your subconscious mind know which
ideas yo u need. If yo ur pr o blem is simple, yo u may find a g o o d so lutio n alr eady dur ing this initial
brainstorming session, but if you didn’t find an appropriate solution within the first several hours,
forget about your problem completely and get back to your everyday life.