Mentor Yourself With Andrina Lever, Balloon Express Part Two

Interviewee Name: Andrina Lever

Company Name: Lever Enterprises, Balloon Express

Website: http://www.balloonexpress.it

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Andrina Lever:  I was born in England but grew up in Canada and in various other countries. I started traveling when I was nine months old. I went to 17 different schools growing up in three countries. I graduated from law school in England and started out in human rights law and sold my soul to the corporate world. I went into banking and was in advertising for awhile.  I got married and my husband and I lived in various places – England, New York, Australia – then we moved back to Canada. In 1988 I started my own business Lever Enterprises.

Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Andrina Lever: They are the same, they really are. There is no division for me. When I was running Lever Enterprises full-time I was lucky that I had my husband’s support, and I supported him as well. I would often travel and he would help me with things when I was away. I’m not sure if I ever balanced my life. With Balloon Express being a family company we are all involved, so much of my life, good or bad crosses over.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Andrina Lever:

1. Life is pretty good!
2. Most people are good. Take the high road when situations happen. I still believe inherently in the goodness of people.
3. You can never be too prepared, whether it’s in business or school.
4. Sometimes taking a risk is not a bad thing but mitigate damages by being prepared.
5. I am a big believer in education, getting as much education as you can and never stop learning.

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it?

Andrina Lever: I travel a lot and I still enjoy it. My mother came to live with us over a year ago with her little doggie. I love to play with the dog because he is very cute and makes me laugh. I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. As I’m talking to you, I’m looking at one of the most famous sites in the world, and that makes me feel good. I also enjoy taking long walks with my husband through one of the loveliest cities in the world, and I love to read.

Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Andrina Lever: I don’t know if this is a conscious thing but I have pattern. I start out trying to be organized and systematic. Maybe using an outline since that was the way I was educated – outlining things and being systematic. At some point I hit a wall so I have to leave it, but it seems to me that I get most of my best ideas somewhere between 3 and 5 in the morning, especially if I just leave it and go to sleep thinking about it. Suddenly things will start to come together for me, and it’s very nerve racking because sometimes I wish they would come faster. We do a lot of brainstorming in the office and bounce ideas off each other because it’s a very creative environment that we work in. It’s a pattern that I’ve developed.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

Andrina Lever: There are a couple that I think are very funny. One is a scenario from Tom Stoppard‘s play The Real Thing where a wife was making a very stupid argument trying to convince her husband about something, and he said, “There is something frightening about stupidity made coherent,” and I love that because so often in business you will find someone is trying to bluff you out of something and you intuitively know what they say doesn’t make sense. We’ve all experienced that and I love that quotation.

There was another that I loved which was about people doing things the same way all the time, and it was “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” and I love that because it’s true. We don’t want to change, we just want to keep on doing the same thing over and over again, even though it’s not working anymore.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Andrina Lever: Being happy.

Avil Beckford: In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Andrina Lever: I think it’s being happy within yourself. I think it’s knowing that you’ve done a good job, you treated other people well, you looked after what needed to be looked after. These are all things that contribute to a calm and satisfied state of mind that leads to happiness which is a part of success.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

Andrina Lever: Hard work. Spending a lot of time learning the business. I worked a lot of long hours whether it was with Lever Enterprises or in Balloon Express. It’s long hours, hard work, and focusing on what needs to be done, having a vision to deliver it, and being open-minded enough to change what you have to change.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Andrina Lever: They have to do their homework. I think there is a lot of competition out there today no matter what you do, so it’s riskier than it was when I did it. You need to have your wits about you, understand what it is you want to do, and have a plan about how you’re going to do it, understand the market you’re going into – the competitor and what the real issues are with what you want to do. If you work hard , you can get some good rewards, don’t be afraid to ask for advice and to say I don’t know. That’s okay as long as you find the answer, talk to somebody. It’s not easy, it’s a lot of hard work, but it’s fun and if you really enjoy it you can make it fun.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Andrina Lever:

1. One is a writer, I heard her speak but I never met her, she is Oriana Fallaci. The reason I’d like to meet her is that she wrote a fabulous book a number of years ago called Interview With History and it was interviews with famous people. I would ask her, “Of all the people you interviewed, who was the most interesting?” She said in one of her books that world leaders are not smarter than other people they were just more ambitious and had bigger egos.
2. I suppose first and foremost though,  I would love to meet the Veuve Cliquot – Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin Cliquot who for all intents and purposes was the founder of the House of Cliquot Champagne.  This is a woman who witnessed the horrors of the French Revolution, was widowed at a young age, took over a fledgling family wine business, developed a new method or producing wine, ran a Russian blockade to sell her product at a premium and created a luxury brand, including a distinctive label which is still in demand wordwide almost 250 years later – what a woman!
3. Queen Victoria would have been very interesting to meet because she was a contradiction. She was a woman who was outwardly very severe but was very passionate and I would like to ask her what she believed was the biggest impact of her reign, and all these years later what an influence she would have had.
4. I would like to meet Gertrude Bell because I would ask her why she did what she did because she was so ahead of her time. She was very strong and broke out of a Victorian upbringing. She traveled and was so clever, and there were rumours that she was the mistress of the Prince of Mesopotamia. She committed suicide so I would like to know what disappointed her about her life. She actually founded the museum in Iraq (Baghdad), the one that was looted in the Iraq war. She was a remarkable woman.
5. Golda Meir who was one of the first elected women leaders of a country in the world.  She played a key role in the middle east, looked like a granny but was never afraid to make a tough decision.  I would love to have these women around a dinner table together, discussing the state of the world today, while drinking copious amounts of Madam Cliquot’s excellent product!  They were all well versed in international affairs.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

Andrina Lever: I’m sitting in my library now which has a couple of thousand books, but I love biographies. I read a lot of biographies of people who are characters, people who have overcome adversity. I don’t know if any had a profound impact but I certainly enjoyed reading a lot of them. A couple of years ago I read a book called Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia by Janet Wallach about a woman who graduated from university in the late 1800s and went off to be an explorer and advisor to Lawrence of Arabia, and ended up founding the first school in Mesopotamia which became modern Iraq. Stories like that fascinate me, they don’t have a profound impact, but I’m fascinated by what makes people do things. She is a woman I would love to have met.

Avil Beckford: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.

Andrina Lever:

1. I would like to have Earth from Above Tenth Anniversary Edition by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s a beautiful book that came out with photographs taken from all over the world in 2000 to celebrate the millenium. So if I was on a deserted island I would love to look at the rest of the world to remind me what it is like.
2. There is a big book called The Book of Birthdays by Russell Grant and it’s all about astrology and astrological signs and I could study about everybody that I know who I could remember their birthdays, what they were like and that would keep me busy for quite some time.
3. I would want books that would teach me how to survive on a deserted island, books that would teach me how to do things the easy way instead of figuring it out for myself.
4. I would take Buddhism: An Introduction and Guide by Christmas Humphreys. He was a judge who lived in the first part of the twentieth century When he was young his brother was killed in the First World War so he studied all the religions in the world trying to find out about war and why his brother died, and he settled on Buddhism because he felt it was the only religion that gave him peace, and he wrote a book about it which is a very good book.  Christmas Humphreys later became a judge.
5. I would take a book by Ken Follett who has written mysteries and some historical books (Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy).

Avil Beckford: What one music CD and movie would you like to have with you (on the deserted island) and why?

Andrina Lever: The movie would have to be an entertaining one like Wag the Dog (New Line Platinum Series) because it’s so cynical about politics and I loved it. Music would be Pachelbel Canon In D Major For Piano And Strings by Pachelbel.

WAG THE DOG – Trailer – (1997) – HQ

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Johann Pachelbel Canon in D Major fantastic version, classical music

If you cannot view the YouTube video please click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Andrina Lever: Being alive, new things, new experiences, opportunities, family.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Andrina Lever: By continually questioning things and experiencing new things, not being afraid even when I am afraid, do something, go someplace.

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

Andrina Lever: For my family to be healthy, happy and safe.

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..

Andrina Lever: I am playing with the dog, walking with my husband, having a glass of wine with friends, and knowing a job is well done.

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Video Credit: Johann Pachelbel Canon in D Major fantastic version, classical music Uploaded by schmobot on Jun 26, 2007